Methodological Tenets, Plausibility and Reality in Chomskyan Biolinguistics

Authors

  • Adolfo Martín García Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (UNMdP), Argentina

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.v3i3.303

Keywords:

Biolinguistics, Chomsky, Methodology, Tenets, Neurology, Plausibility, Reality

Abstract

This paper assesses the impact that the methodological tenets of Chomskyan biolinguistics have had on the theory’s neurological plausibility and relation to reality. An overview of those methodological principles is followed by a recapitulation of the two main commitments that the theory adopted –as stated by Lakoff (1991) and Author (unpublished)– and of the different aspects that render the biolinguistic perspective neurologically implausible. Finally, the methodological tenets of biolinguistics will be critically analyzed and adduced to constitute the ultimate cause of the theory’s detachment from reality.

Author Biography

  • Adolfo Martín García, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (UNMdP), Argentina

    Adolfo Martín García is a neurolinguistics scholar and a technical-scientific translator currently teaching linguistics at CAECE University (Mar del Plata, Argentina) and doing research at Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata (UNMdP). He is an active member of the Análisis Epistemológico Research Group at the latter. Also, over the past two years he has co-authored several publications and scientific posters on neuropsychology with researchers from the Langone Medical Center at New York University (NYU). His recent work, presentations and papers are mainly focused on assessing the neurological plausibility of different linguistic theories, and on constructing a bridge between neurolinguistics and translation studies.

References

Arbib, M. A., Érdi, P. and Szentágothai, J. (1998) Neural Organization: Structure, Function, and Dynamics. Cambridge and London: MIT Press.

Baayen, H., Schreuder, R., de Jong, N. and Krott, A. (2002) Dutch inflection: the rules that prove the exception. In S. Nooteboom, F. Weerman and F. Wijnen (eds) Storage and Computation in the Language Faculty 61–92.

Burnod, Y. (1990) An Adaptive Neural Network: The Cerebral Cortex. Paris: Masson, and London: Prentice Hall.

Bloomfield, L. (1933) Language. London: George Allen & Unwin Limited.

Chomsky, N. (1957) Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton.

Chomsky, N. (1965) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT.

Chomsky, N. (1975) Reflections on Language. New York: Pantheon Books.

Chomsky, N. (1980) Rules and Representations. New York: Columbia University Press.

Chomsky, N. (1986) Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin and Use. New York: Praeger.

Chomsky, N. (1995) The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Chomsky, N. (1998) Nuestro conocimiento del lenguaje humano. Santiago de Chile: Bravo Allende Editores.

Chomsky, N. (2005) Three factors in language design. Linguistic Inquiry 36(1): 1–22.

Cowie, F. (1999) What’s Within: Nativism Reconsidered. New York: Oxford University Press.

Deacon, T. (1997) The Symbolic Species. New York: Norton.

Descartes, R. (1637) Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire sa raison et chercher la vérité dans les sciences plus la dioptrique, les météores, et la géométrie, qui sont des essais de cette méthode (Discourse on the Method for Properly Conducting Reason and Searching for Truth in the Sciences, as well as the Dioptrics, the Meteors, and the Geometry, which are essays in this method). In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes 1984–91 Vol. 1. (Edited and translated by J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, D. Murdoch and A. Kenny.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Eguren, L. and Fernández Soriano, O. (2004) Introducción a una sintaxis minimista. Madrid: Gredos.

Elman, J. (1991) Incremental learning, or the importance of starting small. 13th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society 443–448.

Elman, J. (1993) Learning and development in neural networks: the importance of starting small. Cognition 48: 71–99.

Friederici, A. D. (2009) Pathways to language: fiber tracts in the human brain. Trends in Cognitive Science 13(4):175–181.

García, A. M. (unpublished) The two commitments of Chomskyan biolinguistics: issues of neurological plausibility.

Grossman, M., Koenig, P., DeVita, C., Glosser, G., Alsop, D., Detre, J., et al. (2002) Neural representation of verb meaning: an fMRI study. Human Brain Mapping 15: 124–134.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1994) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. (Second edition.) London: Edward Arnold.

Hauser, M. D., Chomsky, N. and Fitch, W. T. (2002) The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science 298: 1569–1579.

Hauser, Marc D., Chomsky, N. and Fitch Tecumseh, W. (2005) The evolution of the language faculty: clarifications and implications. Cognition 97: 179–210.

Lakoff, G. (1987) Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lakoff, G. (1991) Cognitive versus generative linguistics: how commitments influence results. Language & Communication II(I): 53–62.

Lamb, S. (1999) Pathways of the Brain: The Neurocognitive Basis of Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Lamb, S. (2001) Questions of evidence in neurocognitive linguistics. In J. Webster (ed.) Language and Reality 254–276. London: Continuum.

Lamb, S. (2006) Being realistic, being scientific. In Shin Ja Hwang, W. J. Sullivan and A. R. Lommel (eds) LACUS Forum 32: Networks 201–209.

Lytton, W. (2002) From Computer to Brain: Foundations of Computational Neuroscience. New York: Springer.

Marantz, A. (2005) Generative linguistics within the cognitive neuroscience of language. The Linguistic Review 22: 429–445.

Matthews, C. (1991) Serial processing and the ‘phonetic route’: lessons learned in the functional reorganization of deep dyslexia. Journal of Communication Disorders 24–1: 21–39.

Melrose, R. (2005) How a neurological account of language can be reconciled with a linguist’s account of language: the case of systemic-functional linguistics. Journal of Neurolinguistics 18: 401–421.

Melrose, R. (2006) Protolanguage, mirror neurons, and the ‘front-heavy’ brain: explorations in the evolution and functional organization of language. Linguistics and the Human Sciences 2(1): 89–109.

Mountcastle, V. (1998) Perceptual Neuroscience: The Cerebral Cortex. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Peirce, C.S. (1897, 1903) Logic as semiotic: the theory of signs. In J. Buchler (ed.) The Philosophical Writings of Peirce (1955) 98–119. New York: Dover Books.

Pinker, S. (1999) Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language. New York: Harper Collins.

Pinker, S. and Jackendoff, R. (2005) The faculty of language: what’s special about it? Cognition 95: 201–236.

Poeppel, D. and Embick, D. (2005) Defining the relation between linguistics and neuroscience. In A. Cutler (ed.) Twenty-First Century Psycholinguistics: Four Cornerstones.

Pulvermüller, F. (2002) The Neuroscience of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Putnam, H. (1971) The ‘innateness hypothesis’ and explanatory models in linguistics. In J. Searle (ed.) The Philosophy of Language. New York: Oxford University Press.

Schafer, R. J. and Constable, T. (2009) Modulation of functional connectivity with the syntactic and semantic demands noun phrase formation task: a possible role for the default network. Neuroimage 46: 882–890.

Thompson, G. and Collins, H. (2001) Interview with M. A. K. Halliday, Cardiff, July 1998. DELTA 17(1): 131–153.

Ullman, M. (1999) Acceptability ratings of regular and irregular past-tense forms: evidence for a dual-system model of language from word frequency and phonological neighborhood effects. Language and Cognitive Processes 14: 47–67.

Webster, J. (ed.) (2004) Language and Reality. Selected Writings of Sydney Lamb. London: Continuum.

Yang, C. (2004) Universal grammar, statistics or both? TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences 8: 10.

Published

2010-06-14

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

García, A. M. (2010). Methodological Tenets, Plausibility and Reality in Chomskyan Biolinguistics. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 3(3), 303-324. https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.v3i3.303

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > >>