Language is an instinct. Or so it would seem from the title of Steven Pinker’s book, The Language Instinct. Michael Tomasello argues strongly against the content of Pinker’s book in his paper Language is Not an Instinct. He states firstly exactly what the title of the paper is, that language is absolutely NOT an instinct. Using his knowledge of animal instincts, he tries to show that language does not fit the criteria for what we would consider an innate instinct. He states that, “An instinct is a behavioral competency or set of behavioral competencies that… would appear in ontogeny even if an individual were raised in isolation from its species-typical set of experiences” (Tomasello, 132). He goes on to explain that language does not fit this criterion at all, and that humans can only acquire language over a period of many years, and with particular linguistic exposure. However, over the course of this essay I am going to argue that Pinker is not making the point that language is an instinct at all. Pinker is arguing that humans have an instinct to acquire language, not an instinct for language itself, which seems to be the point Tomasello is attempting to argue against in his paper.
On page two of his paper, Tomasello writes that Pinker “proceeds to report a dizzying melange of research that has led linguists to the “discovery” that language is an instinct. But language is not an instinct.” (Tomasello, 132). However, never once does Pinker argue that people raised in isolation will still develop language. One of the prime examples that Pinker gives for his argument is that of deaf children in Nicaragua (Pinker, 24-25). These children were isolated from other deaf people (and therefore people who had motivation to try to communicate outside of verbal forms) and did not develop a language. However, when they got together with others like them at an older age, they began to form a pidgin-like language lacking much grammar. When younger children were later introduced into the community, they seemed to naturally just add missing grammatical components to make the language more fluid and easy to use. What Pinker is arguing here is essentially that we have this instinct or this innate drive to acquire language when it is necessary– even if the language doesn’t fully exist already. This was the case with the both the older and younger Nicaraguan children. When they were older, they felt a drive to create some means of communicating when they were taken out of isolation. When they were younger, they essentially created a grammar for the language because they seemingly had some internal drive to do so. Pinker is not saying that in isolation the language just appears, which is what Tomasello is arguing against. He is saying given the circumstance if a human is not in a situation where they are exposed to language in a normal manner, they will create a language and make a set grammar for it in a way that would not be possible if language acquisition were not a special, innate function. We have an instinct to acquire language, not simply an innate ability to speak (or sign as the case may be) language.
If this argument was not enough to prove that Pinker does not think language itself is innate, let us consider the fact that he explicitly says that language is not innate. He turns once again to deaf individuals who are raised in linguistic isolation whether due to a lack of a deaf community or the pressure of educators to integrate them into oral linguistic societies through lip reading. These people often seek out sign language-speaking communities when they are older, and manage to learn some of the established language, but never acquire it fully as someone who was raised with it would (Pinker, 26). Here, Pinker is arguing the same thing that Tomasello is arguing. He is saying explicitly if someone were raised completely in isolation, they would NOT develop language. Even when they are exposed to language later in life, they cannot just play catch up and learn it as someone who had been exposed to the language their whole life would. If an instinct is an animal behavior that the animal carries out even in isolation, this point that Pinker makes clearly demonstrates that he does not think that language itself is an instinct.
Tomasello’s first argument in his paper Language is Not an Instinct seems compelling, but in actuality it does not address Pinker’s point from his book The Language Instinct at all. In focusing on the innateness of language itself, it seems appears that Tomasello is overlooking the fact that Pinker never argues that language itself is an instinct, merely that the acquisition of language is. Upon taking a closer look at Pinker’s writings, we can see that in fact him and Tomasello are on the same page when it comes to the innateness of language itself.
References
Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct the New Science of Language and Mind. Penguin Books, 2015.
Tomasello, Michael. “Language is Not an Instinct.” Cognitive Development, vol. 10, no. 1, Jan, 1995, pp. 131-156.