Slobin’s key observation is that the components of stories that people write down – and therefore, those that they infer on the fly – differs between cultures and languages. The two hypothesized explanations are the accessibility of different means of expression and cultural practices which reinforce certain linguistic norms; linguistic features include the manner and path of motion described by words. Indeed, Slobin refines the original classification of motion-event languages into verb-framed, satellite, and equipollently-framed languages.
Two questions stem from this hypothesis. First, it is not clear to me that the accessibility of means of expression is not itself a consequence of cultural practices; that is to say, happenstance, plus perhaps social circumstances (ex. an environment where verbs needed to vary drastically, perhaps because of climatic variation or a pluarality of nature features), determine the way languages end up being structured culturally, which in turn is refined and passed down by further cultural practice.
Second, this argument – especially when Slobin uses charts to demonstrate the difference in storytelling habits between V- and S-verb languages – seems to refute the Carnie argument from last week that language or grammar is ingrained. If it truly were the case that all people were innately enshrined with some sort of universal syntax, while people might have different words, the structure of the language – and the syntactical components that different cultures prioritized – should not change dramatically. Yet the examples presented here suggest that language is less an innate construct and more a device of convenience that reflects our culture’s needs and desires.
Indeed, Haspelmath’s description of how compounds diverge across languages in terms of compound trees’ design only reinforces the notion that the very construct of language is culturally – not intrinsically – defined. The compounds themselves again do follow a set of rough orders and patterns. But the use of coordinative compounds to speed understanding of groups, for example, strikes me as a particularly clear example of where languages simplified barriers to understanding basic commonalities (ex. “horses and cattle” as one compound word in Korean). That multiple languages now do this seems less an intrinsic factor than a general cultural need to put certain people and things into grouped sets.
I disagree with your point about Carnie and how languages can't be innate if they can differ. I think the concept that the fundamentals of language are innate can still hold, even if cultural differences arise. Our cognitive processes in the development of Language are shared across the world's languages. For example, a child learning Chinese approaches that acquisition process in the same way that a child learns English. Carnie is just arguing that there is something innate in human minds that allow us to have a Universal Grammar. He also doesn't argue that all parts of Language must be innate. I don't think he would discount the fact that languages can have different forms depending on cultural habits. Rather, syntax in general must be innate.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding of the Carnie reading is closer to Sophia's. I thought the theory of a Universal Grammar suggested that there is some innate facility that all humans have and employ to acquire and use language. In other words, I took the theory to posit that all humans are born with a mechanism for acquiring and using language rather than the idea that all humans are born with some innate sense of syntax. If the notion of a Universal Grammar is closer to the conception of a Universal Grammar as I understood it, there doesn't seem to be the conflict you were running into. I think you could believe in a Universal Grammar and grant that syntax is dependent on the specific language and culture into which one is born.
ReplyDeleteI think I agree with Sophia and Andrew that there can still be variation between languages while maintaining an innate human ability to understand Language, yet Harry does have a point about linguistic divergences correlating with culture and therefore creating different measures of learning and thinking. I remember reading an article that theorized that math was easier for native Chinese speakers to process because of the way the language was structured around numbers, and while I don't entirely know if that theory has been debunked or is long since out of date it is worth considering whether the ability to process Language is fluid and functions slightly differently depending on the language one learns. If, as Sophia says, all parts of Language are not innate, then I wonder what parts shift and contribute to different methods of thinking and processing information.
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