In the introduction to his book The Language Instinct, psychologist Steven Pinker stresses the idea that language, as complex and specialized as it is, “develops in the child spontaneously, without conscious effort or formal instruction.” Language is the product of an instinct, Pinker argues; it is “no more a cultural invention than is upright posture.”
Clearly this “instinct” produces, first and foremost, spoken language. Writing, which Pinker characterizes as “an optional accessory,” requires some kind of formal instruction.
I’m wondering whether the idea of spoken language as instinct could mean anything for writing pedagogy. Can writing skills be improved by focusing on effective speech? How closely is writing—a cultural invention(?)—related to the instinct to acquire spoken language? Is anyone aware of some current research on this?
Apparently Pinker is not a father. Mary (mostly) and I worked with our children to encourage their progress in the spoken language. There may have been some spontaneity, but my rememberance is that it was subsumed by concious effort and formal instruction.
Writing as “an optional accessory” may have merit as a characteristic of societies with deep oral traditions, but the claim is pure bunk in today’s world.
I presume that Pinker would recommend that resources be applied to somthing other than CAC.
I hypothesize that reading, writing, and speaking are very closely linked. Somewhere, sometime i heard that if you want to learn to write well, read good writers. I also note the habit of reading aloud what one has written before releaing it to the masses.
I am, of course, not arguing this point from anything other than an experiential point of view which, for most of us most of the time, is not a bad starting point.
Interesting question, Anthony. My sense is that the compositionists who espouse some of the more poipular theories of composing would steer clear of any notion of language as somehow innate and would probably deem Pinker a throwback. There has been some work done on spontaneity and writing that addresses your question pretty well. I don’t know too much about it but I’ll see what I can track down.
I think language is culture dependent and it is a result of a specific culture from a particular society. Language acquisition is something we achieve and improve in time, it is not an instinct or some sort of innate talent we are endowed with. As James said, this process needs some sort of guidance, “formal instruction” and some acknowledged creative work from the part of the person who wants to learn a certain language. For example, if we take a child, we see that he needs time to start talking and create logical sentences.
Maybe language can be considered “upright posture” in the sense that people should always preserve themselves in a vertical position, speak honestly and be morally good (impeccable manners in all the circumstances)
All in all, language is something we create, we “invent” (we can create an infinity of sentences with a minimum number of words) because we feel the need to express ourselves somehow and make our thoughts and intentions known.