How much of human knowledge of language is innate?
Trying to compose an answer to the essay’s title question exposes two areas of ambiguity. On the one hand, there is considerable debate in the literature over just how much of our proficiency in using language involves actual conscious knowledge of something versus simply implicit unconscious capability. And on the other hand, there is considerable debate in the literature over just how “innate” is to be interpreted. As a result, a spectrum of answers can be found in the literature, going all the way from “None!” to “All!”.
At the “None!” end of the spectrum can be found the answers provided by the “Standard Social Science Model”. According to this alleged paradigm, the mind is a general-purpose cognitive device shaped almost entirely by culture. In this paradigm, the human mind is a blank slate programmed by culture, and biology is relatively unimportant in understanding human behavior. So aside from the innate nature of the brain as a general purpose computing device, there is nothing specifically innate to our knowledge of language. According to Pinker, there are a number of scientists and philosophers who support this paradigm. Including, notably, B.F.Skinner. Pinker argues persuasively that the Behaviorism of Skinner is based on this paradigm. According to the “None!” paradigm, language is learned behavior, with the conventions of semantics and syntax being acquired on the basis of standard modes of deductive, inductive, abductive, and statistical (pattern identification) reasoning from the evidence available within the learning environment.
At the other end of the spectrum we can find the answers provided by Pinker’s “Language Instinct” and Chomsky’s “Language Organ”. Chomsky famously argued against Skinner, that there was simply not enough information available in the learning environment to support the premise that the acquisition of language was learned. The “poverty of stimulus” argument was used to promote the idea that our brains come pre-equipped by nature and evolution with specific language rules (called “Universal Grammer”). Over the years since Chomsky introduced this notion in 1959, the “All!” paradigm has been modified by several contributors to deal with various objections that have been raised. The most popular current model involves the notion that the “language organ” (or the “Universal Grammer”) has evolved a set of “parameter switches” that learning can flip either way — thus explaining the wide variation in actual languages.
The debate between the two ends of the spectrum has generated a wide range of empirical investigations into the nature of actual language syntax, and the manner of actual childhood language learning. Almost all of this empirical evidence supports the idea that there is definitely something innate in how humans master language – so the “None!” paradigm at the far end of the spectrum is almost certainly wrong. But the evidence accumulated is not entirely persuasive that the “All!’ end of the spectrum is the only answer. The evolutionary story for a particular “language organ” is not persuasive. Michael Tomasello in his 1995 book review of Pinker’s Language Instinct, and Scholz and Pullum in their 2006 article in Stainton’s Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science lay out the evidence offered for the innateness of language, and offer some rebuttal of the full blown “All!” position.
As a result there has been a growth of intermediate positions. These do not deny that there is something innate beneath our mastery of language. They merely do not accept Chomsky’s suggestion of a dedicated language “organ” as the necessary innateness. Here is where the ambiguity of the word “innate” surfaces. If the word is read to apply only to language-specific genetic endowment of an “organ” (of some sort), then theories in the middle of the spectrum would not count as thinking that language knowledge is innate. But if the word is read to include any capability of the brain provided by genetic endowment, then because they make use of more general-use capabilities of the brain, these theories would count as thinking that language knowledge is innate.
A lot of impetus for these intermediate approaches has come from investigations into the pattern recognition and statistical analysis capability of a “massively parallel connectionist architecture”. And from the neurobiological study of the actual connections and modularity of the brain. If the brain does not have a specifically evolved “language organ”, then it may achieve it’s remarkable abilities at acquiring language by making use of a set of more general purpose “thinking” devices. There is no end of alternative theories along the spectrum. Where they might fall along that spectrum will be determined by just how “language specific” the theory posits the innate architectures to be.
Once one gives up a principled commitment to either end of this spectrum (both the “None!” and the “All!” answers), the resolution of the essay’s title question becomes a matter of empirical investigation. The debate has ceased to be dominated by philosophy, and become a matter for scientific investigation. Just what will end up constituting “knowledge of language” and “innateness” will be determined by those empirical results. From the evidence so far in hand, it is clear that our mastery of language is to some extent the result of our innate abilities. The jury is still out on which particular theory is the more likely. I don’t think that there is enough empirical evidence available to suggest that any one theory is better than the others.
