rationalskepticism.org

Mr.Samsa wrote:

katja z wrote:Mr. Samsa, what you say about the critical period for the chimpanzee is intriguing. I wonder how developped is the chimp brain at birth compared to the human brain, and if any differences there are could be related to how much language they can pick up. As far as phonology is concerned, I've read how in babies the brain not just programmes but "hardwires" itself somewhat differently depending on the language they hear around them, not developing new neural connections but pruning the existing ones to retain only those needed for the recognition of phonemes of the language of their environment (that's why it can be so damn hard to learn to correctly pronounce a foreign language as an adult). I'm wondering if something like this happens for other aspects of language during the critical period, so that linguistic environment is instrumental in putting the final touches to brain development? (Maybe a silly question, but I don't know much about brain other than that I have one. )

Yeah phonemes are very interesting, but I haven't read up on other aspects of language in this respect. It's an interesting question though and I wonder if there are sort of "grammar-like phonemes" where it's easier to pick up the grammar of what you grow up with and it's harder to understand other grammar structures. I imagine this would be more flexible though as grammars are a bit more widespread aren't they? As in, similar languages from related backgrounds will probably share a lot of the main grammatical aspects right?

I suppose that by »grammar-like phonemes« you mean basic structural features? Grammar had been my first thought as well, probably because we've been discussing it quite a lot lately, but I what I had in mind when I wrote this had more to do with concept formation. This is the basis really, you don't need a means to organise symbols if you don't have symbols in the first place. I don't mean that one way of cutting reality up into conceptual chunks gets »wired in« (in the strong sense of »the limits of my language are the limits of my world«). Languages do do that in very different ways and that certainly shapes to some extent how reality is perceived – although we can readily step over those boundaries, either when learning a new language or when extending the conceptual map available in our own culture. I mean that you need some way of chunking reality and slapping labels on the chunks to form symbols you can then manipulate and play around with, if you're to have a functional human brain, able to interact with the culture around it. And the question was, is there anything that has to happen to the brain hardware in order for you to be able to do that, something that requires linguistic input from the environment (like it happens with the tuning of the sensory apparatus to pick up the relevant bits of auditory input). (I'm probably making a mess of explaining myself. Sorry.)

Of course, this question is only relevant if the critical period hypothesis does, indeed, hold. But as far as I'm aware this is based on feral children's problems with language acquisition, and I don't think in these cases you can separate the effects of language deprivation from the overall effects of the lack of interaction with other humans on general cognitive development.

Anyway, to answer your question on grammar – although this has to do with second-language acquisition (which means that you already know one, and are therefore adept at using symbols and structuring them in elaborate patterns in some way) –, of course it is easier to pick up the grammar of a language closely related to your own, OR to another language you already know. But I would say this is simply because you don't have to start from scratch - transferring what you already know to the new language, maybe tweaking it slightly, takes a lot less time than learning new regularities. Funnily enough, although so much has been made of grammar, in my experience – warning: you're entering anecdotal territory – it can be more difficult to grasp differences in conceptualisation than those in structure (of course, the two often overlap: for example, how temporal relations between actions are conceptualised is directly linked to their grammatical expression). But even once people are fluent in every other aspect of a foreign language, they usually retain a foreign accent, producing some phonemes incorrectly and/or missing the correct intonation patterns. The grammar of a particular language, in short, is a relatively easy trick to master in comparison to all the other things you need to learn in order to use it correctly, including speech genres and social conventions and so on.

I imagine that the McGurk effect would have something to do with what we learn during this time too.

Can you explain? I don't understand and my telepathy module seems to be broken