New Article Challenges Static Bio Model of Language
Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 9:58 am
A new article available through PubMed, Universal Grammar and Biological Variation: An EvoDevo Agenda for Comparative Biolinguistics by BenÃtez-Burraco & Boeckx C, asserts that the current Chomskian paradigm of Universal Grammar and, by implication, a relatively static and fixed neurological underpinning of language, has been undermined by recent discoveries relating to the a much more plastic and cross modal structure of language faculties in the brain.
They assert "In a real sense it is the complex and changing interaction between the organism and its environment that shapes the final cognitive architecture of the brain [particularly in relationship to language]." To my mind anyway, if this is true it suggests a relationship of neuro-biology to language that is much more consistent with the kind of rapid and environmentally driven changes Jaynes suggests happened in humans than a Chomskian Universal Grammar understanding would support.
The article can be found at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4052002/
They assert "In a real sense it is the complex and changing interaction between the organism and its environment that shapes the final cognitive architecture of the brain [particularly in relationship to language]." To my mind anyway, if this is true it suggests a relationship of neuro-biology to language that is much more consistent with the kind of rapid and environmentally driven changes Jaynes suggests happened in humans than a Chomskian Universal Grammar understanding would support.
The article can be found at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4052002/