I want to know what formal Linguists are thinking these days about uniform linguistic competence (in healthy individuals who acquire L1 under normal circumstances). Is this notion debated? What I really want is a good reference. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it. Thanks
Dear Polly,
Indubitably, formal linguistics led by Chomsky has opened up new venues that would have been otherwise impossible ! However, debates set against the uniform competence have run parallel with theories in formal linguistics. Concerned philosophers and linguists have been offering a different story for language. Austine, Searle, Halliday among others have proposed a variable competence rooted in contexts of situation and culture. Both views are worthy of speculation; however, one cannot be understood without the other, because despite differences, the complement each other. The book "On language and Linguistics" by Halliday can be a good starting point.
Best regards,
R. Biria
Research on cognitive linguistics focuses only on form and the development of grammatical structures in L1 and L2 acquisition, some important theories are Clahsen (1984), and Pienemenn (1997), and studies by Nippold M. (1997) (2007). They all assume that all speakers cognitively acquire and develop sentence structure in the same order. Halliday (2005), on the other hand, wrote about 'Functional Grammar' focusing on how form/ structure is a consequence of the interaction in specific context such as modality (written & oral), and genre (narrative, argumentative, conversational). Key words for functional grammar research can be 'interaction', 'function', 'Text' vs 'Discourse'.
Best wishes
Dear Polly
Yours is a very interesting question; basically it asks normal human beings vary in their capacity to learn language. I don't think any one has studied it nor does any one know how to study it. Any prospective study will take years and there is also the question of which language to teach, in addition to other question regarding what is normal competence.
As regards present concept I think that Chomsky's concept of Universal Grammar (UG) coupled with Lennerbergs concept of Biological Foundation of Language led to the concept of 'Faculty of Language' of human beings; ie there is a part of the human brain exclusively dedicated to language, absent in all other animals. This is the foundation of the science of Biolinguistics. You may view the FL as a virtual mental organ which should be studied using techniques of Biology! This theory assumes that this organ is same in all humans; ie all normal healthy humans have same innate competence for Language.
Now theory is very well, but I don't think any one really knows how to do this and also whether this organ is really same in all.
You can look up references on Biolinguistics for more expanded versions
I have proposed a new technique and suggested Language/People for evaluating this. My paper is available in Researchgate.
I also welcome criticisma and suggestions on the suggestions
Hi Polly, Take a look on this biolinguistics for example...
Article On the Nature of Syntax
Thanks Velina. I read the paper you mentioned. A good one, but it is tough for me, a Biologist-turned-Linguist ( :D). I had read a paper relating Fibonacci and Linguistics. It is more Biologically oriented I think. It is available online. The paper is:
Still a bridge too far? Biolinguistic questions for grounding language on brains
Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Juan Uriagereka. Physics of Life Reviews 5 (2008) 207–224
Narayanan
Thank you, Narayanan, for your interest about Fibonacci... We did exactly that! I attach here a ppt that shows our reasoning. We had after that experimental support, they are available on my profile and on Alona's one. Alona is not active on RG for a while, but she will appear soon. Hope she will also provide some important reasoning in this direction. One has to run the PPT on the machine as it contains animation.
Conference Paper A Fibonacci-tree model of cognitive processes underlying lan...
Hello. There is not such thing as "uniform linguistic competence". And there never has been. To begin with "competence" is the knowledge of language (i.e. what a speakers knows when she knows a language). By definition, it varies from one individual to another, and it can compress more than one linguistics system (even as L1). Competence is NOT the same than "ideal linguistic community", which is a methodological abstraction (of the sort physicists do when they abstract away friction to calculate acceleration). Competence is a real object in the speaker´s mind, which changes with time and other variables. Competence is not the same than Universal Grammar, which is, in any case, the Initial State of the competence. UG, ie the innate principles which allow language acquisition, is uniform, health problems aside, in the same way the liver is uniform across newborns, health issues aside.
I quite agree with Miguel: Health (and genetic problems like FoxP2 genelinked) aside, all humans have about same Linguistic competence, ie at birth, the ‘mental organ’ od ‘Faculty of Language’ has same competency just as their physical organs, say the Liver, as Miguel suggested.
But, after being born, also during intrauterine period, factors, like nutrition and exercise (continuous use; if not there is hypoplasia of the organs involved; greater use promotes hyperplasia) drastically affect further development of physical organs.
Therefore, the question that should be asked should be: could there be a similar effect in the case of the Faculty of Language too. It should be so if it is considered as an organ. If so what are the ‘nutritional’ and ‘usage’ factors here? Can it be language itself?
Here comes the question of individual language and the question: Does any particular language confer greater competence to the learner? That is, could one language be ‘more nutritious’ than another? At present, the belief, I think, is that all languages are equal; so the question is could one language be more ‘more equal’? And how does one identify such a language?
It has been reported that adults differ in their ability to acquire a second language (Why don’?t L2 learners end up with uniform and perfect linguistic competence? Ping Li; this is a criticism of another paper. There are many other papers on this subject. But among the solutions, what has not been suggested is whether it could be the effect of first language: ie Could one language be sufficiently ‘nutritious’ than others as to make acquisition of a second language easier? Here, of course, it will be more pertinent to frame a study with L1 and L2 belonging to different Language families.
I have proposed another method, given in my paper available in Researchgate.
Hi, Nikolaus graf zu castell-castell do you, please, have the possibility to send also in English, maybe an abstract, I am sorry, by German is very bad.
Velina
Dear Velina.
Yes, I know this situation. Nobody reads GERMAN written texts. :(((
But very honestly,
Chomsky was not important enough FOR ME, to translate (and additionally let corrigate) my small statement about him.
I will change my habitude and knowledge from now on !!!! Yes, really, I will....
Nikolaus
Dear Nicolaus, a lot of people who are not German read German, but I am, unfortunately, not one of them... Well, there is however something that is positive in the story - when you start translating, in the future, you can miss the numbers at least! :)
Best!
Velina