[From Bill Powers (930519.1900 MDT)]
Bruce Nevin (930517), Tom Bourbon (930518), Rick Marken
(930518)--
Bruce, I think you're getting your approach to linguistics more
and more organized. It takes a long time to get the pieces to fit
together properly, but I see a lot of orderliness emerging.
Tom Bourbon's and Rick Marken's comments do bring up a question
that still needs to be addressed. Their point is that the basic
question about adoption of reference levels is not where the
experiences come from that are later used as reference
conditions, but why a higher order system would select those
experiences to use, and what it is accomplishing by that
selection.
By pointing to the social origins of the language customs that
children learn, you emphasize the raw materials that are
available. I am glad you don't consider them causative; if we
have a firm agreement on that, we have put many arguments (real
or spurious) behind us. Once we agree that the pre-existing
language forms do get picked up by language learners, the
question then becomes why that happens. This question can't be
answered simply by indicating the experiences that the learners
have.
Just to be clear about this: it has been said that a given child
learns English because English is the only language that child
hears spoken. That, however, is a spurious "because." What we
know is that English is spoken around and to the child, and that
the child comes to speak English, too. What is missing is
precisely the "because." Why does the child learn to speak at
all? To focus on the experiences of the child as an explanation
is to take for granted that these experiences will shape behavior
all by themselves. What we need to focus on is the reason for
which the child learns to manipulate sounds, gestures,
expressions, and language forms and specifically chooses to
imitate what is heard and seen. What does this imitation
accomplish for the child?
Any answer has to be cast in a form that treats the acquisition
of language not as an end, but as a means. An analogous question
would be why people drive their cars on roads instead of in other
places. The answer is not that roads exist, but that by driving
their cars on roads people can get to places where they want to
go. Driving cars without roads is far more difficult, and the
cars won't serve their purpose nearly as well. What matters is
the end, not the means. If there were no roads there would be no
cars, but people would still manage to get where they want to go.
If you understand that people like to go anywhere they can
imagine going, the invention of SOME means of getting there
becomes quite predictable. Also, when such inventions do take
place, they become completely understandable if you understand
what they are meant to accomplish.
I don't want to drift too far off the main point. It is that
language has evolved not simply because language already exists,
but as a means of accomplishing something other than simply
languaging. When a child learns language, the reason is not that
everyone else is using language, but that language permits doing
things with other people that can't be done without it. Once we
identify the goals that drive the learning of language, we can
explain the particular things a child learns by pointing to the
experiences with language that are available to the child. To
make language work, the child must learn how others use it, just
as in learning to drive a car, the adolescent has to learn how
other people designed the controls of the car. But the point of
learning language, like the point of learning how to drive a car,
is not what is learned. It is what that learning allows to be
done at a higher level.
ยทยทยท
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Best,
Bill P.