The 'Language Instinct' Debate

by Geoffrey Sampson

When it was first published in 1997, Geoffrey Sampson's Educating Eve was described as the definitive response to Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct and Noam Chomsky's nativism. In this revised and expanded new edition, Sampson revisits his original arguments in the light of fresh evidence that has emerged since the original publication.

Since Chomsky revolutionized the study of language in the 1960s, it has increasingly come to be accepted that language and other knowledge structures are hard-wired in our genes. According to this view, human beings are born with a rich structure of cognition already in place. But people do not realize how thin the evidence for that idea is.

The 'Language Instinct' Debate examines the various arguments for instinctive knowledge, and finds that each one rests on false premisses or embodies logical fallacies. The structures of language are shown to be purely cultural creations.

With a new chapter entitled 'How People Really Speak' which uses corpus data to analyse how language is used in spontaneous English conversation, responses to critics, extensive revisions throughout, and a new preface by Paul Postal of New York University, this new edition will be an essential purchase for students, academics, and general readers interested in the debate about the 'language instinct'.

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction, Language, Psychology, Science, Anthropology, Philosophy

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Carmen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is just pure silliness. Lacking in subtlety, straw-manning opponents, not up to date with the latest in linguistic theory, the author tries to argue against linguistic nativism. In the beginning of the book it seemed weird to me that he was taking arguments from popular linguistics books and attacking a disproportionate version of those, but at the end it became apparent why he was doing this. The author is a dualist, an anti-determinist, he believes minds are different from brains, and minds use brains. Biology has nothing to do with the ideas we produce, or the way we think and behave. He then ends the book by basically urging the readers to accept this vision on Man, since it presents a far nobler depiction of human nature. As if nature bends itself to our puny desires

To start with, I don't think the author fully understands what the nativists are actually saying. This is was I mean by straw-men and exaggerations and a complete lack of subtlety. Along with language, the author thinks the nativists are saying that we have genetically built-in knowledge about very specific things. like one specific individual language, or possibilities for scientific ideas, and therefore creativity is ruled out. I don't think one can find many modern nativists arguing that we are born with knowledge so specific such as scientific theories or how to use a washing machine. What is innate is the predisposition and ability for language, not Japanese or Italian. I don't think the author is misrepresenting the nativist case on purpose, I think he just doesn't understand it.

Then there is the dislike for the idea that biology constrains our behavior and ways of thinking. Clearly he has never spoken to a biochemist, or to a depressed person for that matter. Or is it a sign of the creativity of the *mind* that we think of suicide when we are depressed? Yet, a successful suicide end up killing the brain. Like it or not, we are heavily constrained by our biochemistry, and there is nothing we can do about it except to change the biochemistry. Culture and biology are not mutually exclusive, the different cultures we see are just as biologically-based as languages are. What would be interesting and would make his case is to see a culture that is disallowed by biology.

If you want a good laugh, read the book. Otherwise, it is really not worth the trouble

[Katja · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book tries to make a very important point: there is not enough evidence to believe in the innateness of the language faculty, despite many linguists claiming the opposite. The preface makes it clear that the attitude of very many generative linguists (most notably Chomsky) which is to say "language *is* innate, full stop. Morons are those who think otherwise" is unacceptable. Regrettably, the arguments of those who think otherwise or who point to mistakes, gaps and inconsistencies in the standard argumentations is met "like farting in a church: something best passed over in silence" (I'm quoting from Sampson). So the present book tries to achieve two goals: show that all of the nativists' argumentation is wrong and that an empiricists' account is the right one. My synopsis is that it partially succeeds with the former but definitely fails with the latter. The fact that language cannot be mastered on the native level after a certain age is hard to refute. It is not enough to say "I knew a guy whose English was better than mine in all respects but the accent and who did not speak a word of English till the age of 18" (Sampson's argument). That's nonsense. The chapter on the mind promotes a rather strict version of dualism and sounds like it was written by someone who spent the last 50 years in a cave.

[Guillermo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written, thought-provoking critique of linguistic nativism. Sampson demolishes most of the arguments nativists like Chomsky, Jackendoff, Bickerton and Pinker use for backing the thesis that we humans have an innate knowledge of linguistic rules. The case against linguistic nativism is sustained.
Nevertheless, Sampson's own thesis that children learn language working as popperian scientists is not compelling. After twenty or more years of studies on situated, distributed and embodied cognition, he should have presented more solid and empirical arguments in favour of an emergentist stance.
His political and sociological comments are, in my opinion, not well founded. The chapter on dualism and Popper is expendable, to say the least.

[Begum Sacak Sarilar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book for the simple matter of fact that somebody is finally addressing the shortcomings of the innate language theory. I cannot understand how we back the evolutionary theory and have innatist theory at the same time. In the book, we are told that innatists claim at some point in our evolutionary history that there was a sudden change and the language faculty became an innate aspect of human beings. I think we as a whole underestimate the effects of gradual progression of human evolution and Sampson tries to point it out. Having a background in linguistics, I am familiar with the academia who almost worship ideas of "innate language faculty" and it became so mainstream that we are not thinking about other possibilities. I should add that we still do not know where the language ability comes from but I think having a skeptical mind against the mainstream theory is not that bad at all. Sampson's examples help you question the mainstream theory.

[Stanley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Arrogant voice. Points well made on some discrepancies among the theories of "nativist linguists," but these do not automatically mean that the opposite is right.

It reminded me of the debates between evolutionism and creationism, or between realism and romanticism. (Mr Sampson on the latter side.)

[Cath · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Educating Eve' is a devastating critique of Steven Pinker's 'Language Instinct,' exposing the intellectual flaws in the hypothesis that there is such a thing as Universal Grammar, and that it's innate. [return][return]It's written in a style that's just as accessible as The Language Instinct - so if you've read The Language Instinct, this is for you! See also Sampson's slightly more technical book, Empirical Linguistics.

[Mark]

Well-argued. Sampson makes Chomsky's (and Pinker's) arguments for linguistic nativism seem pretty sophomoric.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Geoffrey Sampson made me feel like a gullible idealist, in a good way. He took Steven Pinker's examples of how language structure is defined/limited and presented sentences and words that break the supposedly "innate" linguistic parameters we were born with. Sampson also debunked at length the other "nativist" arguments, and asserts that young children learn language rapidly and almost miraculously mainly because the ability to communicate is perhaps the most highly motivating human reward. Sampson's skepticism of the almost mystical devotion other linguists have for the language instinct theory, was at first disappointing to my iNtuitive self, but in the end I feel more inspired by his conclusion that our minds (as distinct from the matter of our brains) are endlessly innovative, rather than limited by a basic instinct or formula. He distills his concept of individuality from the philosopher Karl Popper, by explaining that people "make original though fallible conjectures and test them against objective reality." As a process for language acquisition, it sounds mundane, but the results and the possibilities are spectacular.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have feeling that something wrong with this language nativism cult than this book is certainly for you.