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Emily Ash

FL 663

Reactionnaire

Language is an instinct; without reading Pinkers (2007) novel, The language instinct, I

already agreed with his opinion that language is not a cultural artifact that we learn the way we

learn to tell time (p. 4). Unlike when learning other academic subjects, one does not have to be

coerced through engaging themes and extrinsic rewards to develop, as a child, the ability to

speak. Honestly, I was surprised that Pinker (2007) was able to write 450 plus pages on such a

straight forward, seemingly logical concept. However, amidst the plethora of sentence diagrams

and witty examples several key concepts stuck out to me as an individual and as a teacher.

Like many others, I am not a fanatic of reading about grammar. Pinker (2007) claims

however, that grasping grammatical theory provides an intellectual pleasure that is rare in the

social sciences (p. 96). This claim struck me as curious because I have rarely thought to

question or analyze the grammar of my first language, English. It holds absolutely true however

when I think about my second language skills; grasping and accurately producing a new

grammatical concept in Spanish is exciting and fulfilling. Even though, in previous years,

students, when learning new grammatical structures, have often failed to ever experience the

intellectual pleasure mentioned by Pinker (2007) through the use of the same or similar witty

examples of ambiguous sentences and analogies of grammar as computer software used in his

chapter on how language works I, hopefully, can inspire deeper interest in the complexity of

language and grammar production.


Grammar production is not, of course, the only or most important aspect of language

learning. Vocabulary is essential. Vocabulary is so essential in fact that I have encountered a

much higher number of strategies and resources for teaching and learning vocabulary than any

other language related concept. Although Pinker (2007) does not offer any vocabulary teaching

techniques I enjoyed reading his emphatic appreciation of the simple act of learning a word. I

was also intrigued by the similarities of vocabulary acquisition between hearing and non-hearing

children (Pinker, 2007, p. 147). The idea that gestures and images, due to the fact they can be

interpreted in a multitude of ways, are simply linguistic symbols that may be of little use in

learning is new to me. I often tell students to use visual representations of vocabulary to aid in

memorization but it may be more difficult than I previously realized for students to correctly

interpret images and symbols I use when presenting new vocabulary.

It is only through the combination of grammar and vocabulary however that we become

capable of the alternating displays of behavior by sensitive, scheming, second-guessing, social

animals (Pinker, 2007, p. 230) called human communication. Now, with a few years of

teaching experience, I frequently find myself noticing how difficult it could be for a non-native

speaker of English to sort out the covert layers of meaning behind seemingly simple sentences.

Therefore, although language may be an instinct and an evolutionary, biological inheritance

(Pinker 2007) I am not certain that it can be entirely separated from the culture in which it is

acquired. Many instructional techniques focus on the benefits of learning language through

culture and while Pinker (2007) doesnt explicitly touch on the idea, his reoccurring comparison

of human and computer linguistic capabilities throughout The language instinct confirms the

necessity of understanding cultural context when communicating with others.


A particularly interesting example of this concept is related to ambiguity, another

reoccurring theme in The language instinct (Pinker 2007). The example, found on page 208,

shows how a computer found five different possible interpretations of the sentence Time flies like

an arrow. Obviously the different interpretations were all possible they were not a sensible

analysis of the sentence. Pinker (2007) surmises then that the human brain is capable of two

different processes that allows us to quickly and accurately arrive at a single, logical

interpretation: breadth-first and depth-first searches. Knowing that students will use the former

when looking at individual words while relying on depth-first when dealing with longer phrases

and sentences can aide in teaching strategy. I can even see myself using these as titles for

reading comprehension activities in the classroom.

Better understanding language, its complexity and its instinctual nature, has potential to

influence my teaching techniques. Unfortunately, other than the few interesting insights

mentioned above I found it difficult to find many second language acquisition applications for in

the information found in The language instinct (Pinker, 2007). The concepts of instinctual and

universality are not of much help when explaining the pluscuamperfecto del subjuntivo to your

level three high school Spanish students. Nor do I see many students engaged in sentence tree

diagrams that articulate the possible interpretations of ambiguous sentences. And, despite the

curiosity it sparked (how does a researcher electrically stimulate different sites in a conscious,

exposed brain? (Pinker, 2007, p. 322)) identifying the part(s) of the brain that produces language

or the gene responsible for grammar production is another topic of this novel that is doubtful to

show up in the World Language curriculum any time in the foreseeable future.

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Reference

Pinker, S. (2007). The language instinct. New York: HarperCollins.

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