The Recipe for Learning Language

Bekah Medford
English 1101
Hughes
2/25/2009
The Recipe for Learning Language

Thesis statement: Looking into the recipe of learning language one will find two types of ingredients: biological and cultural. Many people believe that learning language is strictly biological, while others believe language is learned culturally. In reality, the biological and cultural elements are blended together to create a unique, personal, learned language.

Quote 1: “Language is not a cultural artifact that we learn the way we learn to tell time or how the federal government works. Instead, it is a distinct piece of the biological makeup of our brains. Language is a complex, specialized skill, which develops in the child spontaneously, without conscious effort or formal instruction, is deployed without awareness of its underlying logic, is qualitatively the same in every individual, and is distinct from more several abilities to process information or behave intelligently… I prefer the term ‘instinct’.” (From “An Instinct to Acquire Art,” by Pinker)

I choose this quote because it is an example of how many people believe language is biological. Language is descriped fully biological in this quote. One main reason I choose this quote was the conclusion. Pinker calls language “instinct.” I agree that language is part instinct.

Quote 2: “Children tend to speak not mearly the language but ther dialect of their parents.” (From “The Gift of Language” by Theodore Dalryme.)

Though not as long as my first quote I pulled out this quote because I think it brings up a great point. This is an example of children getting part of language culturally. A child cannot be born is a certain dilact just because they are born in a certain place. They are trained by listening to people talk in their surrounding environment. Learning languae culturally is describe in this quote.

Quote 3: “ Its factous to expect most complex of human faculties, language, requires no special training to develop it to its highest possible power.” (From “The Gift of Language” by Theodore Dalryme.)

This quote is showing the contrasting opinon to quote 1. I thought it would be a good idea to bring this quote in to convey that diversity. I think this quote makes a lot of since. It has another comprehensible point on why language is somewhat culturally learned. A child with a higher education from a different cultural may be trained better than a child with no education. This will lead the first child to be more effiecent in talking with his language or using his language.