[Corpora-List] FW: Gender differences in language

[Dr DJ Hatch]

We seem to be coming quite close to a discussing of stuff like (so-called)
Neuro Linguistic Programming ­ left brain/right brain, etc distinction­
which no  neurologist I have find takes seriously. In fact several pointed
out/argued that for lefthanders all bets are off.

Isn't also the case that in some some instances of severe brain injuries
unaffected parts of the brain take over the performance of various
functions? (If that's the right word.)

It also seems to me that you don't have to be in the academic world for long
to find 'minds' that work in a variety of ways ­ eg what kind of things are
remembered. And this does ­ in my experience ­ seem to apply across the
board. These comments are not offered as 'hard science', whatever that may
be. But I would take bets that many of my friends and colleahues who were
allowed to do graduate work in UK/US unis would never have made ir to
graduation in some European unis (those, eg, where rote-learning has been/is
required and forms the parameters. of examinations.

Ie it is very easy to look at questions such as gender differences in such a
way as to produce stereotypical statements (as sc. Findings). Sociologists
have been doing it for years. (Yes, it's be kind to psychologists week.)

Of course I cannot prove that becoming competent in a language has a social
basis, without which.... But I'm often quite shocked at how very smart and
well educated people (partic. Those who have 'brought up' children) ignore
the amount of learning involved ­ for many years. (This comment was not
aimed at any specific person). Just an instance of this the fact that a
child is not considered (whatever is the current PC term) if he/she cannot
walk within, say 11 months. Over the last few weeks I've been watching my
grandchild learning basic eye-hand(-brain) coordination.

Also, most evenings I point up to the stars and ask her to show me on which
one(s) her language is spoken. But she is pretty reticent so far, even
though she has signed the standard white rat contract. (and, incidentally,
her handwriting is atrocious even without a PhD.)

Finally, I was rather puzzled by Albretch's mention of Marxism. Does this
come from some education system based on a really extreme version of
anti-behaviourist psychology?

No apologies for the bad jokes, because:
1 It's Saturday night here
2 I was taught that even bad jokes give a lift to academic life.


On 29/3/08 16:32, "Albretch Mueller" <lbrtchx at gmail.com> wrote:

> // __ Dr DJ Hatch wrote:
>  "The best argument still seems to be that language competence comes
> along with a host of physical, mental and (especially) social skills
> we learn in our infancy and childhood, though for which we may well
> have a biologically based capacity ­ eg, we have a larynx and we
> obsessively find almost every feature of our world (potentially)
> meaningful, etc, etc"
> ~
>  I would entirely subscribe to this basic idea (even though I was
> taught it is "Marxism" ;-)) I would like to point out however that
> "social" should be understood in more of a semiotic way (contrary to
> the OP's "our infancy and childhood"). Ants "talk" and are "social"
> too, in fact they "socially" find very intelligent and practically
> optimal "solutions" to NP-hard graph problems, so-called "Ant
> algorithms"
> ~
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveling_salesman_problem
> ~
>  http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20001111/bob10.asp
> ~
> // __ Terry wrote:
>  "The fact that other motor skills (like the co-ordination of the
> different fingers) are localized to specific areas of the brain might
> lead the researcher to conjecture that different aspects of language
> (the unfortunately named gender, plus number, tense and case) might
> also be localized. All of these are lacking, for example, in certain
> cases of developmental dysphasia. There is also some evidence that
> certain kinds of language dysfunctions are actually genetically
> inherited."
> ~
>  I can not back my statements with citations and undeniably clear
> facts, but "motor skills" and the -capacity- to talk may be localized,
> but I don't think there are specially constructed, pre-built neuron
> paths for, say, gender, adjectives and past tense in our brains
> (Chinese born naturals from some rural area where Swahili has never
> even been heard can learn it if exposed to the proper environment and
> a Swahili baby can certainly learn Navajo ...).
> ~
>  I do find interesting that as part of some pathologies people may
> lose the -capacity- to talk in either their first or adquired
> languages, which suggests some kind of partitioning by the brain, so
> that our brains have the -general capacity to learn- languages and
> also the capacity to compartmentalize the -exercise- of languages to
> certain areas. This could be actually proved with the new brain
> imaging technologies available
> ~
>  lbrtchx
> 
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