Answers on the Language Instinct by Pinker

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(1) What does Pinker mean by language being an instinct? What concepts of language does he reject by claiming that language is an instinct? Pinker thinks that the ability of mastering languages comes from instinct that we can learn language through the special biological mechanism installed in the certain area of our brain without being taught by others. And each individual is born with knowledge of the basic grammatical relations and categories, which develops in the child spontaneously, without conscious effort or formal instruction. Pinker doesn’t agree with the saying that the language ability is one of most important features that separate human beings from animals. He also argues the concept that language acquisition can be explained as a kind of imitation and the sophisticated grammar are all obtained in schools. He rejects making ranks for each language and each grammar. (2) Pick any four of the following language users Pinker identifies on page 53 and explain what they demonstrate about the nature of language as an instinct. Mr. Ford: Though Mr. Ford suffers from stroke and has to struggle to get speech out, most of his handicaps centered on grammar itself. For example, he continuously makes grammatical errors and can’t structure complete sentences. However, he doesn’t lose the other abilities which are not closely related to language and he does as well as normal people in nonverbal areas. Therefore, it can be demonstrated that language is an instinct in that in a certain part of our brain, there are some genes and neurons that control the language ability. Even if this part is destroyed, the other part can still in normal operation. The K’s: The K’s case is in some degree similar to Mr. Ford’s case. While the difference is that what happens to K’s is a kind of inheritable impairment since they are in childhood. But it does not impair their
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