From Carnie’s reading, the most
interesting concept in my opinion was the difference between knowledge learned and acquired,
which is the basis of the justification for language as infinite while
practical. I can think about many other forms of acquired knowledge, such as
the intuition that goes into kicking a soccer ball or fingerpicking a guitar,
tasks that like language are founded on precision. The way you orient your foot
as you kick a soccer ball is the biggest determinant in whether your pass will
be successful, and how your fingers move in relation to one another forms a successful
fingerpicking rhythm. But when we try to reason and unravel our intuition as we
perform subconscious tasks such as these, our ability to perform these innately
understood tasks starts to fail.
Within the reading, Carnie states
that “there are very good reasons to believe, however, that a human facility
for Language (perhaps in the form of a “Language organ” in the brain) is
innate”, which is termed as Universal Grammar. While I agree with the sentiment
that humans have a facility for language, at least as opposed to other species
of animals, I find the thought of a separate “Language organ” conflicting.
Wouldn’t that imply that I also have a “Guitar organ” or a “Soccer organ”,
activities contrived by humans but not essential to our nature? Thus, isn’t
language also contrived in a sense, founded on our intelligence but developed
as a supplementary human skill over the course of our evolution?
We can draw a comparison to what was stated by Gussenhoven previously about voice. Gussenhoven tells us that spoken language is a byproduct of organs originally intended for critical body functioning, primarily in our respiratory and digestive systems. Isn’t language then also a skill proceeding from a secondary usage of other organs?
If one reasons that grammar language is a secondary process, I suspect there is an easy explanation for its existence, which is the same one given for many of the intricacies of spoken language- society. As we learned from Johnson, people perform spoken language to a large extent. What if we also perform spoken language as a whole?
If tomorrow everyone ceases to “Language”, would we retain all the rules and regulations Carnie painstakingly defines because “Language” is in our nature? I’m more inclined to think of them as societal constructs that we maintain because they allow us to communicate most effectively with other people, which is important. "Language" lives through humans more than actually within us.
We can draw a comparison to what was stated by Gussenhoven previously about voice. Gussenhoven tells us that spoken language is a byproduct of organs originally intended for critical body functioning, primarily in our respiratory and digestive systems. Isn’t language then also a skill proceeding from a secondary usage of other organs?
If one reasons that grammar language is a secondary process, I suspect there is an easy explanation for its existence, which is the same one given for many of the intricacies of spoken language- society. As we learned from Johnson, people perform spoken language to a large extent. What if we also perform spoken language as a whole?
If tomorrow everyone ceases to “Language”, would we retain all the rules and regulations Carnie painstakingly defines because “Language” is in our nature? I’m more inclined to think of them as societal constructs that we maintain because they allow us to communicate most effectively with other people, which is important. "Language" lives through humans more than actually within us.
What I will take from Carnie
is the separation between acquiring and learning- I believe we need to keep
them separate and allow our intuition the freedom from scrutiny it needs for us
to thrive, in “Language” and other innate abilities.
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