Language: Distinct in Culture, Similar in Acquisition

           While there is no question that humans have the ability to use language, there is much debate over where this capacity comes from. Pinker believes the ability to use language is innate and “develops in the child spontaneously, without conscious effort or formal instruction…is qualitatively the same in every individual, and is distinct from more general abilities” (Pinker 4-5). This domain-specific view of language aligns with Chomsky as well, arguing that individuals are born with a language-specific device and language is derived from the same universal grammar for all people (Cook & Newson 79). While Tomasello agrees that individuals are born with a biologically determined cognitive device, he believes this device is not specific to language, but rather domain-general and is instead influenced by culture. According to Tomasello, “languages are cultural artifacts that differ radically among different cultures”, refuting the notion of language as an ‘instinct’ (Tomasello 152). This paper serves to argue in favor of Tomasello’s view that language acquisition is domain-general, as opposed to a domain-specific instinct, due to the learning parallels in other domains as well as its ability to be shaped by culture.

The domain-specific argument is derived from the idea that the process of learning a language is distinct from the process of learning in other domains (McMullen & Saffran 290). However, research into the relationship between language and music has indicated that a shared mechanism may be responsible for learning both musical and linguistic skills (289). A shared mechanism indicates learning a language is not necessarily its own unique progression, but rather a more generalized process that can lead to acquisition in other domains as well. Investigation of early neural processing demonstrated similar responses with musical and linguistic syntax, such as neural response to off-key chords and syntactically inappropriate words (298). Research into syntactic processing of words and musical events also examined P600 waves, positive brain potential occurring 600 milliseconds after syntactical violations or anomalies. P600 waves were recorded after an unexpected musical event, a chord played in a distant key, as well as a violation of linguistic syntax, a word insertion that is problematic in a given target sentence, and illustrated very comparable waveforms (297-298). The ability of the brain to respond similarly to comparable aspects of music and linguistic syntactic processing indicates the presence of a shared underlying processing mechanism. While this evidence is not all encompassing, the proposed similarities suggest that language-learning phenomena may be present in other learning domains, indicating that language is not an inherently domain-specific phenomenon.

In addition to cross-domain similarities, language also varies among different cultures, indicating the domain-general nature of language as well as a relationship between language and culture. Pinker argues for a universality of language, claiming that language would vary more across populations if it were tied to culture (14). The alleged innateness of language reduces the need for outside input, also indicating that cultural variation should not alter language anyway. However, Tomasello argues that input is essential for language acquisition and while the flexibility and creativity of language demonstrates that imitation is not the root of acquisition, the varying input a child receives from its surrounding culture will ultimately influence the way children acquire as well as express language (150). For example, Japanese infants initially perceive the speech sounds /r/ and /l/ differently, similar to Americans, but dissimilar to Japanese adults. However, research has shown by the time infants are about one year old, their consonant perception adjusts to reflect that of their native language; leading to a shift from being able to distinguish /r/ from /l/ to no longer being able to perceive the difference (292). The fact that Japanese infants are initially able to distinguish these speech sounds, but following a year of various input and cultural exposures shift to be attuned to the norm of their Japanese culture indicates that culture leads to language variation. Additionally, Pinker illustrates his notion of language universality among cultures through language aspects he claims to be uniform in all languages regardless of culture. However, many of the so-called language universals have been debunked and are not present in all languages, such as an absence of the grammatical relation between subject and object in languages such as Acehnese and Tagalog (Tomasello 139). Whether in speech perception or grammatical format, differences in language appear among cultures, ultimately refuting the notion of language as an innate universal.

Ultimately, language differences on a cultural level as well as similarities in other processing domains indicate that our biologically determined cognitive device is not necessarily language-specific. While it is possible for this cognitive device to evolve and become modularized over time, due to input and cultural exposures, the human ability to use language can be described as a result of a domain-general device. In addition, language parallels among culture is not enough evidence alone to insinuate that language is innate or the result of a domain-specific function. Most, if not all humans have language, just as most, if not all humans eat with their hands; however this relationship does not indicate that either of these phenomena are encoded in a specific human gene (Tomasello 137). Bates’ popularized analogy demonstrates that just because humans are born with an ability to learn and use language does not mean that language is an innate, domain-specific ability.

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Works Cited

Cook, V.J. and Mark Newson. “General Concepts of Language Acquisition.” Chomsky’s Universal Grammar: an introduction, 2^nd ed., Blackwell, 1996, p.75-132.

McMullen, Erin and Jenny R. Saffran. “Music and Language: A Developmental Comparison.” Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 21, no. 3, 2004, p. 289–311.

Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct: How The Mind Creates Language. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2007.

Tomasello, Michael. “Language is Not an Instinct.” Review of The Language Instinct: How The Mind Creates Language, by Steven Pinker. Cognitive Development, vol. 10, no. 1, 1995, p.131-156.