Environment is the Deal Breaker
“Language in a New Key,” written by Paul Ibbotson focuses on a crucial characteristic of modern human nature that separates us as a species from the rest of nature. The purpose of his essay is to summarize historical developments regarding theories that potentially explain how humans have the unique capacity to acquire the use of language. Ibbotson generates a classic tension between old school and new school science that drives the narrative of the essay to an extent. It seems unclear whether or not Ibbotson is acting as a neutral party in the middle of this tension, but either way he does hint at recent discoveries/experiments being a critical turning point in how this topic will be addressed going forward.
Ibbotson begins the essay by establishing Noam Chomsky’s theory from the 1960’s which proposed the idea that human cognitive systems inherit a predetermined grammatical formula resulting from long term evolution which gives us the privilege to use language. Apparently, Chomsky’s proposition has been held as generally credible until a recent usage-based learning theory has taken its place. It explains that instead of having a programmed set of grammatical rules/functions, children acquire language essentially by reacting to what they hear in their surrounding environment.
It appears that Ibbotson has glossed over some important details when recounting Chomsky’s theory. If not, it comes as a genuine surprise to me that the Chomsky theory was ever taken seriously in the first place, let alone for decades.
According to Ibbotson, the inherited universal grammar in Chomsky’s theory is made possible as a result of “the brain’s innate sentence-diagramming machine”. It is difficult to believe that Chomsky did not provide much greater detail in regards to this particular aspect of his argument. One idea that cannot be disputed is that language is made possible entirely through processes that occur in the human brain, which are extraordinarily complex and are yet to be understood. What “machine” is being referred to here? It must be in reference to a specific part of the brain. This is never explained by Ibbotson but is significant when trying to fully grasp Chomsky’s universal grammar theory. Considering our cognitive system’s complexity and undeniable correlation with language acquisition, a hypothesis such as Chomsky’s poses as nothing more than a random guess without further background information on which particular parts/functions of the brain allow universal grammar to be possible.
On top of that, Ibbotson is unclear when articulating Chomsky’s original, unedited argument. He describes the supposed inherited human ability as one that interprets and produces “units” of language, such as a noun phrase, in a “neat schema” or “neatly packaged” way. Again, Ibbotson’s terminology is blatantly uninformative and vague. He then proceeds to document how this theory was proven incorrect without even further defining what this “neat package” even is. Consequently, the reader is left without significant details and a limited potential to comprehend the Chomsky argument regarding units of language.
On the contrary, Ibbotson makes two key observations throughout the essay which effectively diffuse Chomsky’s main point. First, it may be an impossibility to come up with a syntactic rule/set of rules that apply to all global languages considering the amount of global languages. For example, Chomsky’s original theory established the presence of a subject in every proper sentence of every language. It seems at first that this would be difficult to dispute, but Ibbotson’s “family resemblance” observation proves it false. “About 30 different grammatical features de?ne the characteristics of a subject. Any one language will have only a subset of these features—and the sub-sets often do not overlap with those of other languages.”
Secondly and more importantly is Ibbotson’s point regarding the role pragmatics plays in this dilemma. He only discusses this idea for a brief period within the essay, but the level of importance cannot be overstressed. Pragmatics is concerned with the contextual use of a language. For example, when you are asked the question: “Can you hold the door?,” you understand that you are being asked for a favor rather than whether or not you are actually capable of completing the task. That meaning is understood only within the particular context. According to Ibbotson, Chomsky accounted for pragmatics in his theory but only because he had no other choice. In reality, “he (Chomsky) appeared to treat the role of pragmatics as peripheral when compared to the main job of grammar.” Pragmatics is a screaming flaw within the foundation of Chomsky’s main argument. If his theories were to be true, then he would not be able to account for the change in dialect or language in general from generation to generation because all human brains inherit identical universal grammar policies. Language would never change.
The role of pragmatics has been inexplicably ignored as this seemingly never ending debate continues to unfold. As Chomsky’s theory is becoming outdated, the usage-based argument has become more and more relevant. Because usage-based learning theorizes the acquisition of a language through gradual connections/analogies made by a child as a reaction to his/her surroundings, the role of pragmatics sees no bounds. Both usage-based learning and pragmatics are primarily concerned with context and environment rather than an inherited language script.