Grammar genes and the

switchbox metaphor .
classification of language
unisversals
The debate around the nature of
lang. was brought back to the
fore in the 50 an 60s of the 20
cent. In an attempt to attack the
foundation of the 20 cent.
Intellectual life- the standart
social science model , accordin
to which humans is molded by
the surrounding culture .
chomsky thought otherwise. He
was convinced that the
language is part of our biological
make up,something that defines
our species specifity. Children
start using lang. without being
thought how to do this. This
simple fact led linguists to two
self-evident truths - there is
sth. In human nature that makes
language a species-specific
faculty and this sth. Is innate ,
since it develops as do the
instincts in lower animals for
building nests,flying south etc.
in other words language is an
instinct . lang. grows naturally in
a child , it is not acquired. The
argument against the
acquisition via imitation or rote
learning is the poverty of
stimulus . as babies children
usually hear motherese - a

lang. restricted in many ways

and astoundingly different from
the real lang. adults use.
Nonetheless children at the age
of 18 months are able to
comprehend and produce fullyfledged, grammatical and rather
complex utterances. They have
not previously been
systematically exposed to such
expressions and the question
arises how they achieve this feat
of logic and computation. One of
the answers that have been
suggested recently is that they
simply switch on , the switchbox
that they have been provided
with at birth. The switchbox is
located somewhere in the brain
and is definitely a constitutive
feature of the mind. At any early
age the genotype of language is
developed into phenotype a
LANGUGE. In the history of
development of ideas the
controversy of the natural or
conventional character of lang.
grew into debate between
empiricists and rationalists. John
locke claimed that the childs
mind is initially a tabula rasa, a
clean slate. It was locke who
developed the so-called
empiricist view , viz., that the
mind is passive in learning, and
that ideas gradually become

imprinted upon it, whereby it

becomes stocked with
experience. It is generally
assumed that in the
development of personality, of
behavior patterns and of
cognitive structures in higher
organisms, special. Chomsky
believes that the language
grows in the individual through
empowering the in-built
switchbox. The organ is the
initial state of the faculty of
language and its ability to
grow under the influence of
external preasure, namely
experience.the language organ
is embedded within the larger
architecture of the mind/brain.
2. There are two major systems
whose legibility conditions the
language faculty is to satisfy in
order to perform its function the
sensorymotor systems and the
conceptual systems
(MANTALESE). Attempt to locate
the language organ are made by
Brocca in 1861 and 50 years
later by Wernicke. Mentalese is
the silent medium of our
brains in which our thoughts are
couched. Language and thought
are not two sides of a coin.
Rather they are joined in
complex ways about which little
is known.