From: Gerry Reinhart-Waller
Message: 930
Date: 2000-01-15
>Gerry here: Below I have included a post we received today on
> >Marc writes: IMO we have what you could call templates for language in
> general, but not for a specific language. IOW Russians have the same
> templates as Bushmen, though perhaps there are small differences. If a
> second language is more difficult, it's because it's learnt at a later age I
> think.
>
> >Gerry here: The reason I used 1 yr. as the age at which an infant could
> begin to learn a second language was because I thought that was presented as
> the beginning of "language learning" by some folks on the list. How about 6
> months? Would the native infant still have the advantage? These edges
> certainly become fuzzy, don't they?
>
> >I think that as we us the term "instincts" to describe the aggregate of
> behavioral unconditioned reflexes we may us term "culture" to describe the
> aggregate of behavioral conditioned reflexes in human societies. Language is
> an element of it. Alexander
>
> >Marc: I generally agree with you. We have a lot of instincts, not less than
> other mammals. What we tend to learn is the result of what we're confronted
> with (our family, school, society...) & of what our brain can learn. IOW we
> can't learn anything. There are "empty places" in our brain that can be
> filled in, but not everything can placed there. There are grades of
> learning. Imprinting is very limited in what can be filled in, eg, in young
> animals their mother's face or voice, the nestplace, their father's &
> neighbours' song (in birds), the smell of their siblings, etc., or later in
> life the features of the partner (in monogamous species) or of the children.
> In humans the association areas in the neocortex are enormously expanded, so
> that humans can learn a lot more than most if not all nonhuman animals.
>
> >Gerry here: Marc, I agree with you in general and disagree with you about
> specifics. That all of us possess a "template" for language in general I
> thought was an accepted fact. I would go beyond that point and claim that
> the template for the Russian language is a bit more complex than that for
> Swahili.
>
> I think all humans have +- the same basic equipment where the specific
> language can be filled in --Swahili or Russian or Khoisan or whatever
> language.
>
> >I like Alexander's separation of instinct (unconditioned reflexes) and
> culture (behavioral instincts). I'm curious about what you mean by "empty
> areas in the brain". Are these areas present in all brains or just a few?
> Can these areas be filled or do most of them remain empty? Gerry
>
> All brains (animal & human) that can learn have these places to be filled
> in. Brains that can learn are designed to learn specific things, eg, the
> smell of the river where you were born if you were a salmon. This place can
> not remain empty, of course. In the same way (but a lot more complicated)
> humans have in their brains places where specific phonemes must be filled
> in, probably at a very early age, perhaps less than 1 years old (cf.
> babbling period?), etc.
>
> Marc
>
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