New Words

1) Plusing- Verb/adjective. To make something expand or bigger




2) Workabilty-Adjective/noun- A place where one's work can be completed with little distractions

Pinker Summary #2 Summary

Continuing my reading of Steven Pinker’s Language Instinct I have read some interesting observations and analyses. In chapter 3 “Mentalese”, Pinker debunked the theory of linguistic determinism. This theory is the belief that language shapes and determines thought. He used examples from Benjamin Whorf’s research of linguistic determinism that his results were misguided. For example, Pinker took Whorf’s research on studying the Hopi language. Whorf claimed the Hopi language didn’t contain any words or grammatical constructions that represented time, including past, present and future. However, when translated from Hopi to English, it was evident that the Hopi language did contain awareness of time.

I was enlightened when I learned that language and thought could be intertwined. I never thought of these two forces being factors to each other, but when I read Whorf’s claim and Pinker’s argument I felt a new awareness of how truly deep language can go.

I am still wondering if Pinker will shine light on the environment and how it nurtures’ our language. I think Pinker is going to cover what happens between the time am infant is born and he/she learns to speak psychologically.

Hi My Name is....

My name is Mike. To pronounce it start by sounding out a bilabial [m]. Next for the "i", to pronounce this you have to move your tongue from a position of [a] to an [ɪ], this produces a diphthong because it combines two vowel sounds. Finally, to say the "k" in Mike, it begins with the velar [k]. The "e" in mike is silent so, but what we pronounced together and it spells..maɪk

Pinker Summary #1

I’m reading Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct. In this book Pinker makes the claim that language is an innate ability that we have as a species. He continues this claim by saying it is an specialized skill that develops spontaneously in children at an young age. He argues that language is not a cultural tool, or is something that is nurtured by our environment. To drive that language is an instinct, he proclaims that language evolves from each generation of children of reinventing it. According to Pinker, at times, when two or more groups of people interact with each other that cannot understand each other’s language, they create a choppy string of words used to communicate to each other. This is called a pidgin. How this pidgin develops is based how the next generation contributes to the pidgin. When children are exposed to this at a young age they internalize this language and spontaneously add their own grammatical complexity to the pidgin. This results in a complex language structure known as a creole. Creolization is the concept that claims children reinvent language, not taught by their parents or educators, but by themselves.

Reading this, I came up with a few questions about Pinker’s claim: How can something like language be developed, but still be spontaneous? Since we interact with humans at such an early age how can you distinguish if the child is reinventing language or putting together scraps and pieces from its surroundings?

I believe Steven Pinker is going to drive his claim further that language is an innate process. I Think he will also go more in depth with how we string words together.

The Book I Chose....

The book I chose was Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language. Steven Pinker is the director of the center for cognitive neuroscience at MIT and a well-known cognitive scientist and professor. This book: The Language Instinct was released in 1995. The book was influenced by similar linguistics such as MIT professor, Noam Chomsky, and his theory of Universal Grammar.
The Language Instinct is about explaining how language evolved, how children acquired and developed language skills and why the English language is more logical that what several critics have argued. Pinker goes in claiming humans have language hard-wired into their brains. This means that language is determined by genes. Also, he shines awareness that culture, including the environment, plays a role in shaping and developing our language. This deterministic perspective is believed to be similar to instinctive behaviors like in animals such as, bears hibernating and web spinning of spiders.
I selected this book for several reasons. First, reading the description on Amazon I knew it would give me a deeper insight on mainstream psychology. Currently, mainstream psychology is cognitive, what Steven Pinker specializes in. Also, I am familiar with Noam Chomsky and I read that he is an influence to this book. Secondly, I do not have a clear stance on how I believe language develops and evolves. I am unsure whether it is hard-wired, like Pinker claims or is nurtured through the environment, or both. I believe reading this book can help me determine where I stand on the development of language.
http://www.amazon.com/Language-Instinct-Mind-Creates-P-S/dp/0061336467/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300087206&sr=1-1

Chapters 1 & 2 Study Questions

Chapter 1
1.It is difficult to agree with Psammetichus that Phrygian must have been the original human language because it speculated the language the newborn spoke could of contributed to other outside voices like goats.

2.The basic idea behind the bow-wow theory is that language originated from onomatopoeic noises.

3.Interjections such as Ouch are considered to be unlikely sources of human speech sounds because production of speech is produced on exhaled breath, while saying ouch is produced on intakes of breath.

4.The pharynx is located above the vocal folds and it’s function is to act as an resonator for increased range and clarity of the sounds produced by the larynx.

5.I believe young deaf children who become fluent in sign language would be cited to support innateness hypothesis because it shows that humans have an innate capacity to develop language.

6.The tool-making source

Chapter 2
1.Reflexivity is considered to be a special property of human language because it allows us to reflect on our own language and improve.

2.To support the idea that language is culturally transmitted, researchers used evidence of the studies of birds when they begin to produce songs. They concluded that id birds are kept isolated from hearing birds their speech will be abnormal versus a bird hearing songs other birds called.

3.The difference between a communication system with productivity and fixed reference is communication system of productivity is language that can be produced to describe new experiences. A fixed reference is communication that cannot be manipulated to describe new stimuli.

4.To show Washoe wasn’t just repeating signs made by humans the Gardner's argued that the experiments was conducted in the absence of a human.

5.Sarah has arbitrary properties.

6.The key element that encouraged Kanzi’s learning a new language was being exposed and observing a kind of language at a young age and not taught.

Learning through Language

My name is Michael Rifino. I was born in Queens, New York and grew up in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania. After I earned my high school diploma, I moved back to New York with my mom to get reacquainted and pursue a higher education in New York. I am a second generation immigrant. My mother was born in Dominican Republic and my father is from Italy. They both moved to New York when they were young adults. Being brought up biracial has broadened my perspective on language, culture and its significance.
Growing up in Pennsylvania by Dominican and Italian parents, I was exposed to different languages at a young age. I think my parents wanted me to learn English first, because that was the dominant language in my neighborhood. It was also English, which dominated in our household. However, my mom will usually speak Spanish to my older sister and me whenever we did something to make her mad, so Spanish was spoken here a lot too! Although this is true, as of now I can understand Spanish pretty well. During high school, I took two Spanish courses that helped improve my writing and reading skills. So as of now I can understand Spanish and I am able to read and write it moderately. Working in retail, and living in New York has also helped to improve these skills. Taking literature courses was the main tool I used to use English.
I learned English and Spanish mostly from my classes throughout my educational career. Going through elementary and middle school, English grammar, was focused the most throughout the school program. So we as students received a concrete foundation of the English language. As for Spanish, I learned the majority of what I know from my family.
My hypothesis of how language is developed begins when a unique structure of symbols is used to put into action and is embraced by a large population. This means when certain text, pictures, and/or symbols are used in a structure to message others, this becomes communication. When this specific structure of text, pictures, and/or symbols become developed, builds awareness and is embraced by a vast majority of a population than it is considered language.
A question I have about language is what if everybody spoke the same language in the world? One unified language; I wonder how our county and others’ foreign affairs would change.
Deutscher’s article in the New York Times was about how language shapes our mind and perception. This article has challenged me with a lot of new information. I never thought of how language could actually shape our ways of thinking and perceiving. It’s true when they say words are powerful. When discussing about what shapes our minds I always think about our culture, social status and childhood experiences, but I never considered language to be part of the influence. What interested me the most about this article was the examples of the feminine and masculine objects in Spanish, German and French and how that dictated the perception of that object. The question that I am left with is, how is the language we speak influence our self identity and how does it affect our perception of the world?