generative grammar and acquisition

[Susan Foster-Cohen]

Dear all:

I have just been reading Ray Jackendoff's excellent essay "Reintegrating Generative Grammar" which forms chapter 2 of his new book "Language, consciousness, culture: Essays on mental structure". May I recommend it to you all in the context of the current discussion. While there is not a vast amount in it directly on acquisition it is extremely articulate about the relationship between generative linguistics and psycholinguistics and, now, neurolinguistics/cognitive science. It is a gracious acknowledgement of the importance of Chomsky's work while at the same time articulating why so many in cognitive science and acquisition have been/are so frustrated. As always with Ray's work, it is thoughtful, articulate, a pleasure to read, and accessible. I am anticipating that the rest of the book is going to be equally relevant to our concerns.

Cheers,

Susan Foster-Cohen




-----Original Message-----
From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Matthew Saxton
Sent: Fri 10/12/2007 8:09 PM
To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org
Subject: [SPAM: 3.000] Antiques Roadshow
 
>From an InfoCHILDES correspondent of Susanna Bartsch:

"my principal business these days is antiques. If you happen to have any
acquaintances who might be interested in purchasing, say, vintage
costume jewelry ...... I would be very appreciative if you would put us
in touch with each other."

 

I wonder, is this somehow connected with the discussion of Chomsky? On
which subject, I've been adding lots to my stock of learning on the
academic culture and history of child language research this past couple
of days.

 

In general, I find the discussion about Chomsky's putative obsolescence
quite depressing. Internecine struggles that have lasted for decades
(including, for example, book-length treatments of the "Language War")
are depressing. But more depressing is the relative lack of empirical
maturity in the field of child language. In this, I agree with what
Brian MacWhinney has to say (and, of course, applaud the efforts of
CHILDES as a step in the right direction). Many studies on child
language still have sample sizes that look derisory compared with other
branches of the human sciences (mea culpa maxima).

 

It is an easy matter to demonstrate that language is fundamental to the
human experience. It is also relatively straightforward to demonstrate
that research on language development is vitally important. To pluck
just two examples from the air: (1) at least 7% of children have serious
difficulty with first language acquisition (Tomblin et al., 1997); and
(2) 2nd language learning is a multi-billion dollar global industry. And
so on. Why, therefore, are politicians and businesses not throwing huge
amounts of money at us to do both basic and applied research on language
acquisition? I think there is a connection between the culture of open
warfare and relative lack of funding. We betray ourselves to the wider
world as members of an academic discipline that is unhealthily
polarised, relatively immature in its empirical base and academically
peripheral (not quite linguistics, not quite psychology, not quite....).
And this is the case several decades after Chomsky (and Roger Brown) got
people interested.

 

But how did we get on to this? Oh yes: Robin Campbell diverted us from
my original question about the competence-performance distinction. On
which, I've had some very helpful and interesting replies and will, of
course, post a summary.

 

Now, how does one get into the antiques business...........?

 

Regards,

 

Matthew.

 

 

*********************************************************************

Matthew Saxton MA, MSc, DPhil

School of Psychology and Human Development,

Institute of Education,

25 Woburn Square,

London,

WC1H 0AA.

U.K.

 

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6509

Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6304

 

http://ioewebserver.ioe.ac.uk/ioe/cms/get.asp?cid=4578&4578_0=10248

www.ioe.ac.uk <http://www.ioe.ac.uk>