Well, I almost don’t know what to think about this article. It was certainly very interesting. Since it was written for The New Yorker it was short on some of the linguistic detail I would like to see to understand this issue better. I might have to look up his paper to see for myself. On the face of it though, I think it is too extreme to say this finding, even if it is completely accurate, disproves UG. It may mean that exactly what components are included in UG and what components are part of general human cognitive abilities will have to be reevaluated, but that’s hardly the same as throwing out UG altogether in favor of a sort of neo-Whorfian analysis. That Chomsky doesn’t care much about the relationship between culture and language is well known, and yet sociolinguistics as a field still exists. What exactly constitutes UG and what other, possible environmental, factors do effect language is something many linguists, psychologists, and anthropologists will continue to research.
I agree with Kara’s comments about disproving UG altogether based on one case. Everett mentions “translation fallacy” as the source of his earlier confusion when he thought he had figured out certain features about the language but now he is taking a cultural approach to interpreting the language. Keren his ex-wife also mentions the importance on focusing on the person and their singing performance because this language uses prosody and is not as simple as just writing or capturing data to understand it. I believe more research needs to be done with this tribe. Fitch’s experiments didn’t seem all that reliable.
What an interesting article! I could relate to Everett’s questioning Chomsky’s linguistic principle that infant could learn language because of the “language organ” that is pre-installed in the brain. I found that Everett’s assertion that culture plays a greater role interesting. I have always believed that there is an innate ability specific to humans, in this case, to acquire language. And that is even before I knew about UG and Chomsky. However, I began to question my own belief after a conversation with my Special Education professor who rejects Chomsky and is a firm believer of Behaviorism, which is Skinner’s theory of human and animal learning that only focuses on objectively observable behaviors and disregards the mind. Different environmental stimulants shape human behaviours. Therefore, language is just a set of behaviors that can be acquired by conditioning. Behaviourism does work in education, special ed in particular, and this puzzles me even more. As much as I want to embrace UG completely, I also want to see myself if it is really the truth. What does UG really constitute? How much role do culture and environment play? I agree with Kara that this is something scholars will continue to research. (It is certainly one of the reasons why I am taking this class in the first place).
While it’s generally accepted that language is an element of a group’s culture, there is clearly a dispute as to whether it is a product of culture. Based on Everett’s experience with PirahÄ, it would seem this is his point. The PirahÄ conceptions of time and space, according to Everett, are so evident in the grammar of the language that they must have helped to form the language. In one article, Everett “hypothesized that the tribe embodies a living-in-the-present ethos so powerful that it has affected every aspect of the people’s lives.†Everett brings up another cultural point when he comments on a PirahÄ man’s reaction to Fitch’s experiment, nothing that “the cognitive issue here is the cultural impediment to doing new things. He doesn’t know there’s a pattern to recognize.â€
I wonder if the conclusions Everett has drawn say more about how the language is used rather than how it developed, or originated Like Cindy, I wonder what role culture and environment play, along with UG. Which element, if either one, is more powerful in determining how language is acquired? And where it originates from?
I found the article to be very interesting.What interested me most was â€prosodyâ€, a method that the Pirahã use to teach their children how to speak. In the article, Keren Everett noted that she was able to better understand aspects of Pirahã grammar through listening to and watching individuals “singâ€. As a young school child, I remember listening to songs and chants for learning times tables, state capitals and countries of the world, which I found to be very helpful. When teaching German as L2, I often incorporate similar exercises into the lesson to help teach letters, numbers and verb conjugation. I find that the students learn the information more quickly when it is delivered using this method.
I thought Everett’s experience and comments about the Piraha were interesting, especially the part when he talks about the Piraha having no creation myths and only 1 to 2 generations worth of tribal heritage. However, to compensate for this lack, he describes immersing himself in community tribal events, like farming and fishing, to pick up cultural habits and to grasp the language. Thus, even though a certain language may lack history to support itself, active involvement in a language community can keep an entire language and culture alive.
Everett claims the Pirahã language is created by the culture. The NPR article, “Pirahã Exceptionality: a Reassessmentâ€, states Everett proposes the Immediacy of Experience Principle (IEP) Communication is restricted to the immediate experience of the interlocutors. Everett believes Pirahã does not have complement clauses because the Pirahã only focus on the present time. NPR argues that Piraha has embedded clauses. For example, the morpheme –sai could be nonfinite verb marker on embedded clauses. According to Everett, Pirahã also does not have recursion in pronominal possessors because “Every Pirahã knows every other Pirahã, and they add the knowledge of newborns very quickly. Therefore one level of possessor is all that is ever needed.” However, as the NPR article states, German does not have recursion in pronominal possessors. Every German does not know every other German, and Germans do not always add the knowledge of newborns quickly. Therefore, German culture does not have the same affect on recursion in pronominal possessors. However, the New Yorker article was not clear on the extent to which Everett believes culture shapes language for other peoples besides the Piraha. If Everett believes Piraha is the only language shaped by culture, I would like to know his thoughts on how that could have happened.
This article definitely presents some interesting ideas on Universal Grammar and about the Pirahã language. However, the tone of the article often frustrated me. Everett’s views towards the Pirahã felt on occasion condescending and belittling. This was most salient when Everett said, of the Pirahã: “Just because we’re sitting in the same room doesn’t mean we’re sitting in the same century.” Though Pirahã culture is clearly very distinct and is vastly different from American culture, there could have been better ways of studying their ways, traditions, and language with more respect and without condescension.
I found this article to offer some potential valuable insight in teaching language. The intense cultural connection to language suggested by the nature of the Pirahã tribe and their struggle with numbers and value systems was interesting to me. How could you potentially teach math to an L2 student coming from a background like this? (Not that there are any other backgrounds quite like this.) I also thought it was interesting how even seemingly universal and simple things like imitating an animal, in this instance a mosquito, can be loaded with cultural bias. I think this is a very important notion to keep present in one’s mind while teaching L2 students. If a students native culture can be better incorporated into teaching and subject matter it would seem there would be a increased likelihood of understanding and incorporating new knowledge. A potential way for accomplishing this would be a dialogic approach to teaching, where students might offer their insight and understanding of the subject matter in the context of his or her experience, much in the way that Everett explained to Sheldon that the Pirahã had difficulty interpreting his description of mosquito repellent because their culture saw no need for such a thing as they accepted bugs as part of existence. I am under the impression that the average classroom students are given little opportunity to search for and give these sort of explanations for their interpretation of subject matter.
I found this article very interesting. As the article mentions, the Pirahã language is an extremely unique language that has been studied by very few scholars. Everett claims that the language violates Chomsky’s theory of UG, which is an extremely bold claim to make. Though Everett has spent years with the tribe, many aspects of the article allude to the likelihood that he does not have a thorough understanding of this rare language. This could possibly be because his original goal of preaching the Christian ways to the tribe may have affected his relationship with them and his research, or he could just need more time immersing himself with the Pirahã.
One interesting thing the article points out, though not entirely related to linguistic knowledge, is how fiercely the notion of recursion and other such markers that adhere to Universal Grammar are to defining what a language is. It’s not as if there aren’t other theories, such as statistical learning, that are also viable. That Everett was such a devoted follower of Chomsykan linguistics at one point indicates that there’s always room to expand and change theories. Anyway, from a linguistics standpoint, it is very interesting how these anomalies appear in Piraha and how much the language does seem to be influenced by their culture. Not to mention how they were able to stay and continue to be isolated for so long!
Well, I almost don’t know what to think about this article. It was certainly very interesting. Since it was written for The New Yorker it was short on some of the linguistic detail I would like to see to understand this issue better. I might have to look up his paper to see for myself. On the face of it though, I think it is too extreme to say this finding, even if it is completely accurate, disproves UG. It may mean that exactly what components are included in UG and what components are part of general human cognitive abilities will have to be reevaluated, but that’s hardly the same as throwing out UG altogether in favor of a sort of neo-Whorfian analysis. That Chomsky doesn’t care much about the relationship between culture and language is well known, and yet sociolinguistics as a field still exists. What exactly constitutes UG and what other, possible environmental, factors do effect language is something many linguists, psychologists, and anthropologists will continue to research.
I agree with Kara’s comments about disproving UG altogether based on one case. Everett mentions “translation fallacy” as the source of his earlier confusion when he thought he had figured out certain features about the language but now he is taking a cultural approach to interpreting the language. Keren his ex-wife also mentions the importance on focusing on the person and their singing performance because this language uses prosody and is not as simple as just writing or capturing data to understand it. I believe more research needs to be done with this tribe. Fitch’s experiments didn’t seem all that reliable.
What an interesting article! I could relate to Everett’s questioning Chomsky’s linguistic principle that infant could learn language because of the “language organ” that is pre-installed in the brain. I found that Everett’s assertion that culture plays a greater role interesting. I have always believed that there is an innate ability specific to humans, in this case, to acquire language. And that is even before I knew about UG and Chomsky. However, I began to question my own belief after a conversation with my Special Education professor who rejects Chomsky and is a firm believer of Behaviorism, which is Skinner’s theory of human and animal learning that only focuses on objectively observable behaviors and disregards the mind. Different environmental stimulants shape human behaviours. Therefore, language is just a set of behaviors that can be acquired by conditioning. Behaviourism does work in education, special ed in particular, and this puzzles me even more. As much as I want to embrace UG completely, I also want to see myself if it is really the truth. What does UG really constitute? How much role do culture and environment play? I agree with Kara that this is something scholars will continue to research. (It is certainly one of the reasons why I am taking this class in the first place).
While it’s generally accepted that language is an element of a group’s culture, there is clearly a dispute as to whether it is a product of culture. Based on Everett’s experience with PirahÄ, it would seem this is his point. The PirahÄ conceptions of time and space, according to Everett, are so evident in the grammar of the language that they must have helped to form the language. In one article, Everett “hypothesized that the tribe embodies a living-in-the-present ethos so powerful that it has affected every aspect of the people’s lives.†Everett brings up another cultural point when he comments on a PirahÄ man’s reaction to Fitch’s experiment, nothing that “the cognitive issue here is the cultural impediment to doing new things. He doesn’t know there’s a pattern to recognize.â€
I wonder if the conclusions Everett has drawn say more about how the language is used rather than how it developed, or originated Like Cindy, I wonder what role culture and environment play, along with UG. Which element, if either one, is more powerful in determining how language is acquired? And where it originates from?
I found the article to be very interesting.What interested me most was â€prosodyâ€, a method that the Pirahã use to teach their children how to speak. In the article, Keren Everett noted that she was able to better understand aspects of Pirahã grammar through listening to and watching individuals “singâ€. As a young school child, I remember listening to songs and chants for learning times tables, state capitals and countries of the world, which I found to be very helpful. When teaching German as L2, I often incorporate similar exercises into the lesson to help teach letters, numbers and verb conjugation. I find that the students learn the information more quickly when it is delivered using this method.
I thought Everett’s experience and comments about the Piraha were interesting, especially the part when he talks about the Piraha having no creation myths and only 1 to 2 generations worth of tribal heritage. However, to compensate for this lack, he describes immersing himself in community tribal events, like farming and fishing, to pick up cultural habits and to grasp the language. Thus, even though a certain language may lack history to support itself, active involvement in a language community can keep an entire language and culture alive.
Everett claims the Pirahã language is created by the culture. The NPR article, “Pirahã Exceptionality: a Reassessmentâ€, states Everett proposes the Immediacy of Experience Principle (IEP) Communication is restricted to the immediate experience of the interlocutors. Everett believes Pirahã does not have complement clauses because the Pirahã only focus on the present time. NPR argues that Piraha has embedded clauses. For example, the morpheme –sai could be nonfinite verb marker on embedded clauses. According to Everett, Pirahã also does not have recursion in pronominal possessors because “Every Pirahã knows every other Pirahã, and they add the knowledge of newborns very quickly. Therefore one level of possessor is all that is ever needed.” However, as the NPR article states, German does not have recursion in pronominal possessors. Every German does not know every other German, and Germans do not always add the knowledge of newborns quickly. Therefore, German culture does not have the same affect on recursion in pronominal possessors. However, the New Yorker article was not clear on the extent to which Everett believes culture shapes language for other peoples besides the Piraha. If Everett believes Piraha is the only language shaped by culture, I would like to know his thoughts on how that could have happened.
This article definitely presents some interesting ideas on Universal Grammar and about the Pirahã language. However, the tone of the article often frustrated me. Everett’s views towards the Pirahã felt on occasion condescending and belittling. This was most salient when Everett said, of the Pirahã: “Just because we’re sitting in the same room doesn’t mean we’re sitting in the same century.” Though Pirahã culture is clearly very distinct and is vastly different from American culture, there could have been better ways of studying their ways, traditions, and language with more respect and without condescension.
I found this article to offer some potential valuable insight in teaching language. The intense cultural connection to language suggested by the nature of the Pirahã tribe and their struggle with numbers and value systems was interesting to me. How could you potentially teach math to an L2 student coming from a background like this? (Not that there are any other backgrounds quite like this.) I also thought it was interesting how even seemingly universal and simple things like imitating an animal, in this instance a mosquito, can be loaded with cultural bias. I think this is a very important notion to keep present in one’s mind while teaching L2 students. If a students native culture can be better incorporated into teaching and subject matter it would seem there would be a increased likelihood of understanding and incorporating new knowledge. A potential way for accomplishing this would be a dialogic approach to teaching, where students might offer their insight and understanding of the subject matter in the context of his or her experience, much in the way that Everett explained to Sheldon that the Pirahã had difficulty interpreting his description of mosquito repellent because their culture saw no need for such a thing as they accepted bugs as part of existence. I am under the impression that the average classroom students are given little opportunity to search for and give these sort of explanations for their interpretation of subject matter.
I found this article very interesting. As the article mentions, the Pirahã language is an extremely unique language that has been studied by very few scholars. Everett claims that the language violates Chomsky’s theory of UG, which is an extremely bold claim to make. Though Everett has spent years with the tribe, many aspects of the article allude to the likelihood that he does not have a thorough understanding of this rare language. This could possibly be because his original goal of preaching the Christian ways to the tribe may have affected his relationship with them and his research, or he could just need more time immersing himself with the Pirahã.
One interesting thing the article points out, though not entirely related to linguistic knowledge, is how fiercely the notion of recursion and other such markers that adhere to Universal Grammar are to defining what a language is. It’s not as if there aren’t other theories, such as statistical learning, that are also viable. That Everett was such a devoted follower of Chomsykan linguistics at one point indicates that there’s always room to expand and change theories. Anyway, from a linguistics standpoint, it is very interesting how these anomalies appear in Piraha and how much the language does seem to be influenced by their culture. Not to mention how they were able to stay and continue to be isolated for so long!