Friends-making with dry subjects

The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language by Steven Pinker

Finally got the chance to put the link of the book here. It seems Pinker is in a mission to make the dry parts of the language science, like syntax, morphology and phonology juicier in three consecutive chapters (4,5,6).

As an NNS (non-native speaker) the word "cognoscenti" has captured my attention;so has the word: "curmudgeonly". I love encountering interesting words like these. Still I wonder if the native speakers can pronounce the first one correctly? Most probably yes.

I wonder how a second language learner's brain works around the rules of morphemes and sound production. I need to find some literature on that. I am so inquisitive about it.

Mentalese

I forgot to squeeze in the two fundamental attributes of Mentalese: one is that the language it produces is arbitrary and the words in the language have no connection whatsoever to their underlying meaning. (We drive in the parkway and we park in the driveway.)

The other specification of Mentalese is that it can produce meaningful sentences containing infinite number of words.

An outsider's conclusion

Two days a go, I read this research paper called: "How can SLA researchers contribute to teacher's practice?"
by Julie Kerekes.* She had done a thorough action research during which she had observed, taught and questioned some 12 American teachers within a specific time frame.

Although initially she mentions that ESL teachers due to their extensive experience in the field, tend to be non-responsive to the SLA researchers' attempt to tell them how to teach; she finds out at the end that her action research has resulted to some if not overwhelming changes in the attitudes of teachers in her study towards SLA and subcequently their teaching.

She also mentions that ESL teachers due to their heavy workload are not able to study the new SLA researches on their own. So this coupled with the fact cited above about their unwillingness to learn through SLA researchers; makes me think of an alternative solution. If some experienced ESL teachers will be given some incentives like a raise in Salary and a reduction of the course load; then they would be able to devote their time to studying the SLA researches and match them with their experience and produce lesson plans and unit plans for teachers to use in their ESL classes. I wonder if such jobs already exist in let's say ministry of Education or Ontario College of teachers.

* From: "Research and Practice in Language Teacher Education: Voices from the field"; University of Minnesota

The language instinct 1

Wow , I had never thought I would blog about this. It is only recently that I have decided to do so. I felt I need to register my insights from my linguistics readings somewhere. I thought talking about a science should be done in the language of science; since the language itself as Pinker (1994) has prophesied is considered beginning to "submit"to this phenomenon.

Currently I am reading "The language Instinct"by Steven Pinker. I finished chapter four last night.

The feeling I get after finishing each chapter is one of astonishment and awe-struck and it is more due to the awe-inspiring topic (language) than to Mr. Pinker's style of writing. I know I am not much better.

It seems to me that in each chapter he has a brief introduction after which he starts throwing in a bunch of seemingly unrelated ideas which makes the text hard to follow. Then finally, after pages of trailing breathlessly, you stumble over the conclusion explained in a clear language.

He starts his book by sketching a not complete but fathomable picture of what Chomsky has said before, on the Universal Grammar as a system on which all the languages of the world are based. Then in chapter two he goes on, amid interesting and funny examples, to profess that language is an instinct.

In chapter three, it was interesting to me that I could come up with the same conclusion plus a question that was raised after reading his.

He had invented the term "Mentalese" as the underlying language system in the brains of all human beings. Initially I guessed the same thing as I was monitoring him. The Mentalese is a language system installed in human brain since birth. This system allows the children to produce language even if they have not been exposed to one or in case of pidgin languages, to improve them into more structured and understandable ones.

What remains as a question to me is the possibility of producing new languages by placing children in a controlled environment where they are only exposed to a certain predetermined factors. My idea is extremely raw. I know. I can't argue the moral aspects of it either. At this point it is more of an intellectual retailing of my mind that might or might not go anywhere. After all I am only beginning to develop a researcher's mind.

And finally, what amazes me in chapter four is the universal grammar, anatomized in an understandable language which makes me like syntax as a linguistics subject.

In one part he proves that the function words form their own "closed club" that makes it impossible for people to generate new ones. That's why the attempts to produce "gender-neutral" pronouns ("hesh, thon",etc) have failed. This prompts my second muse: If this is true; then considering the existence of Mentalese; it must be a sexist language system. But then what about the languages without such gender-distinct pronouns? Is our mind sexist?
Maybe children being raised in such languages environments, not hearning them at all, will dismiss this part of predetermined grammar in their minds.

To be continued...