You remark:
>I suppose I'm missing something here, perhaps from previous postings, but
>I've never heard of anyone not acquiring native language rules (except for
>those that had no exposure to language). And in the innatist camp, there's
>disagreement over whether second language learners still have access to a
>universal grammar.
I think I differ from you on naturalness of some of the assumptions I see
underlying your comments. (Correct me if I am overinterpreting.) When you
say that you have never heard of people not acquiring native language rules
and that there is disagreement over whether second language learners have
access to a universal grammar you are assuming that rules --and a
structural grammar-- are unquestionably what support the readily observable
fact that almost everyone speaks grammatically. [in this limited linguistic
sense]
Those taking their inspiration from Chomsky (and generations of grammar
teachers I might add) believe that a rule system _is_ the basis of
linguistic competence. For innatists that rule system is built in, not
acquired in experience. The famous Language Acquisition Device (LAD) is an
innate rule box that unfolds during development. Since one of the major
"proofs" offered by advocates of this position is the analysis that there
is not enough environmental regularity available in the limited time
infants have to acquire language for the rules to be arrived at inductively
it seems that the rule-based rationale in its present form is committed to
innatism. This is also why there has been an expectation that there will be
one universal human grammar--it would make little sense for there to be two
innate systems.
I find a lot of this reasoning pretty convincing. But only if you start
with the assumption that language is generated by rules. (It is a different
thesis to say it can be _described_ by rules.)
Connectionists and the larger group of those who also turn to a dynamic
style of analysis would disagree with this premise and claim that the
patterns we describe as rules are an emergent regularity of a
self-organizing system. This is where the past tense debate came in. The
two groups had different explanations of why children go through a period
using past tense competently in their limited vocabulary but then seem to
loose that competence as their vocabulary expands. Rules vs. experience was
at the heart of the differing explanations.
You also ask:
>John, could you expand on how this implication that "some folks just lack
>quality" is derived from an innatist position, that is, with respect to
>language acquisition?
Actually, with respect to Chomskyian style language acquisition my
statement is too strong. My understanding is that almost all innatists of
the stripe we are discussing here would say that virtually all people
(hence "universal" grammar) come language-ready and achieve linguistic
competence. So people are roughly equal in regards to language acquisition
in this view. Still, any innatist position, even with a universal caveat,
implies that folks are limited by their native endowment--in this case of
rules--and that differences in the quality of their competence could be
attributed to differences in that native endowment. All that protects
against this conclusion is the assumption of essentially equal endowments.
Does anyone know if this assumption is being questioned? I know that I
have read that some in the area are pretty frustrated by the difficulty of
capturing a universal grammer.
Thanks, John
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
John St. Julien (stjulien who-is-at udel.edu)
Department of Educational Development
University of Delaware