The Language Instinct Reactionary

Rebeca R. Hill

This books has many layers so I focused on different aspects that were interesting to me.
As educational standards decline and pop culture disseminates the inarticulate ravings and unintelligible patois of surfers, jocks, and valley girls, we are turning into a nation of functional illiterates (Pinker, !!"#

This is the most profound statement in the book in my opinion. I often tell my students that the $nglish language is being ra%aged and decimated e%ery time it is spoken in the society we li%e in. Today, my students use words such as &wicked' to mean something &good' so a sentence such as &That was totally wicked(' (meaning something was %ery good# is completely ner%e wracking to a foreign e)change student who is trying to learn the $nglish language. *nother phrase, &That was the bom.com(' again to mean something was %ery good or pleasing has absolutely no meaning whatsoe%er in the &proper' $nglish language. I belie%e that Pinker e)plains it %ery well when he states on page +,+
The contradiction begins in the fact that the words rule, grammatical, and ungrammatical, has very different meanings to a scientist and to a layperson. The rules people learn or, more likely, fail to learn! in school are called prescriptive rules, prescribing how one ought to talk. "cientists studying

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language propose descriptive rules, describing how people do talk. They are completely different things, and there is a good reason that scientist focus on descriptive rules.

People say lots of words and /ust because you can utter many words that does not mean you are able to speak. I like the term &word salad' found on page +," of Pinker0s book because it seals the meaning perfectly. Like a salad, there are many different components that go into it but unless you get the right ingredients, you will ne%er be able to eat it because it will not be fit to ingest. *s a language teacher, therein lies the first obstacle in teaching 1panish grammar to $nglish speakers. In a study done by Harriet 2ood 3owden, 4ristina 1ans and 4atherine *. 1tafford called, &Indi%idual 5ifferences6 *ge, 1e), 2orking 7emory and Prior 8nowledge,' these indi%iduals had this to say about L. ac9uisition6
#hile incomplete ac$uisition of a first language %&! is rare and related to cases of severe language deprivation and concomitant problems in cognitive development, achieving nativelike proficiency in a second language l'! seems to be the e(ception rather than the norm. )ifferent e(planations have been proposed for this significant difference between %& and %' ac$uisition and include type and fre$uency of input, access to *niversal +rammar or lack thereof!, and differential use of general cognitive capacities. #hatever the reason for the difference, there is general agreement that individuals differences

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,)s! seem to have a grater effect on the ac$u-siton of an %' than the %&.

(1an:, .;;<#. =ne of those differences in the nati%e language is the fact that students are coming out of school not knowing &knowing' from mowing. 1o as you can see, our task may seem insurmountable but there is hope. Pinker suggests that &*nlike the mental grammar, the mental dictionary has no cachet. (p. !#. I interpret this to mean that words are

/ust words without some link to latch on to. In the nati%e language, the child learns from obser%ation, repetition and the en%ironment that surrounds him>her. *s adults, all of these play a huge factor but somehow, the link to the L has to be established in order for the L. to be understood. 2ords in conte)t are the icing to the cake or they remind me of the dark color of the chocolate. It doesn0t function without those connections. They are %ital.
.or not only are people as infinitely creative with words as they are with phrases and sentences, but memori/ing individual words demands its own special virtuosity. (Pinker, .;#.

I feel that part of my /ob is to show my students that what we call &words' are really a result of 0orphological rules, and which are unsplittable by syntactic rules. (Pinker, ".#. To this end, memori:ing

Page -" words in conte)t or in &chucks' helps students to make those connections that will enable them to store them in their long term memory. ?rank 3oers and 1eth Lindstomberg wrote a book entitled, &=ptimi:ing a Le)ical *pproach to Instructed 1econd Language *c9uistion' in which they state the following about the way children and adults learn new words or information6
According to #ray '11'!, the fact that pre2literate children do not discern word boundaries is an advantage for them precisely because it leads them to process formulaic se$uences holistically. This helps them build a very large repertoire of chunks from a young age. According to #ray3s '11'! model of first language ac$uisition!, the benefits of holistic chunk ac$uisition are much less accessible for teenagers and adults trying to learn a second language. This is because, as children become literate, they adopt a more analytical mode in processing the language that they are e(posed to and so become increasingly inclined to process chunks as se$uences of single words rather than as multiword! units. This development is believed to hamper to storage of chunks in metal le(icon as prefabricated wholes #ray, '11'4 '152&1!. (p. ."#.

Pinker state that it is absolutely true that people are able to identify many words than perhaps they use in &some fi(ed period of time or space.' (p. "+#. This is a critical aspect of language that teachers need to be aware of. The earlier a child is e)posed to languages, the better he>she will be able to reach nati%e@like fluency in them.

Page -< *s a 1panish teacher, I ha%e to think about how this may look in my classroom. *ttached to this file, I ha%e included an in depth word study (it is in 1panish# when introducing new %ocabulary that students are going to be using. This study guide is for a literature lesson in a +;; le%el class. *lso, attached is a graphic organi:er that touches on how to present new words so that students are able to make that &link.' I also en/oy using pictures and story books as a means of presenting new words>topics (attached#. It has surprised me to find that ,th graders still en/oy sitting down and being read to. 2ho would ha%e thoughtA It totally depends on the class and the atmosphere I must point out. 2ith some classes, this might not work. Howe%er, it all goes back to knowing who your students are and how they learn best. 7aking connections with words, pictures, signs, etcBenable the L. learner to conte)tually those &salad' type words into words that ha%e roots deeply embedded and are able to be recycled at the appropriate time.

Page -C References Pinker, 1te%en. !!". The %anguage ,nstinct. Dew Eork6 Harper4ollins Publishers.

1an:, 4ristina. .;;<. 0ind 6 7onte(t in Adult "econd %anguage Ac$uisition. 2ashington, 5.4.6 Feorgetown Gni%ersity Press.

3oers, ?rank, H Lindstromberg, 1eth. .;;!. 8ptimi/ing a %e(ical Approach to ,nstructed "econd %anguage Ac$uistion. London6 1affron House.