[xmca] FW: Language and Culture

a colleague reports:

Dear Colleagues,
 
I recommend to you a recent article in The New Yorker about peoples living
in the Amazon whose language seems to defy Chomsky's ideas that all
languages follow certain structural features (universal grammar). A
linguist Dan Everett who has lived with the Piraha off and on for many years
writes that their language which is described as sounding like "a profusion
of exotic birds, a melodic chattering scarcely discernible, to the
uninitiated, as human speech" does not follow Chomsky's universal grammar.
The article is very engaging and might be useful in stimulating student
discussion of the relationship between language and culture.
 
Look for "The Interpreter" by John Colapinto in the April 16th New Yorker
magazine.
 

-- 
Professor Michelle Commeyras
Department of Language and Literacy Education
University of Georgia
706-542-2718
pulane@uga.edu (currently being forwarded to pulane@gmail.com)
http://www.coe.uga.edu/lle/clinic/ 
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