Introduction: Learning Language: Biological or Cultural?

Jennifer Conley
Ms. Hughes
Paper Introduction
2 October 2009

Have you ever wondered where language comes from or how we obtain it? After many studies have been conducted about language the evidence supported by Steven Pinker and Theodore Dalrymple's theories appears more logical than others. As a well respected Harvard Professor of Psychology, Steven Pinker believes that language is a human instinct, wired into to our brains biologically. Contradicting Pinker's theory, Theodore Dalrymple believes that language is learner through our culture that surrounds us every day. While both theories have very compelling arguments and sufficient evidence to back them up some people would still disagree that just one of their theories is right. Language is biological in that the brain already has the capacity to learn language, but culture effects the way one actually speaks language.