The 'Language Instinct' Debate

I approached this book with some enthusiasm as it had promised to disprove nativist theories. However, from the first page it was obvious that the author is quite uninformed and had not delved deep enough into the nativist literature to postulate a reasonable argument. (Come'on, do you actually think you can write off the CPH in 3 pages...?) The tone of the entire book is extremely sophomoric reflecting an emotionally driven stance and lack of theoretical foundation. It is no wonder Chomsky and Pinker have written this author off as a buffoon. The poor scholarship in this book is not deserving of their attention.

If nativism is to be disproved one must go about such an enterprise with some guile and intelligence. This book was written too disingenuously to be of any merit or threat to the theory. If you are a linguist you will find this book quite comical, but it's not worth the money to actually buy it. My suggestion is to check it out from the local library if your curiosity gets the best of you.

Geoffrey Sampson's critical approach to Pinker's best-selling "The Language Instinct" makes some good points against the nativist position on language acquisition. Mostly, advocating for a return to empiricism, and using the science philosophy of K. Popper, Sampson tries to debunk the basic tenets of Chomsky's (and Pinker's) theory of language acquisition.

Some arguments are clearly backed by evidence. For instance, the idea that "language mutants" with an specific genetic disorder that affects the use of suffixes has been not well research by Pinker, since further evidence shows that the gene involved in the problem is NOT only relevant for linguistic forms, but to more general learning processes.

However, the philosophical and logical arguments against Chomsky's classic proofs such as "poverty of stimulus" and the like are not as clear. Maybe Sampson keeps his arguments at a logical level (which makes it harder to fallow the argumentation, very dense at moments), instead on relying on more empirical evidence.

In sum, it is an interesting book, but the style and the dense argumentation (as well as some subtle clear dislike for Chomsky and his role in the world of ideas) doesn't make it a candidate to be THE definite critical voice in the linguistic innateness debate.

This book certainly brought a different perspective to the empiricist/ nativist debate. It shed reasonable doubt upon the idea that we are born with innate semantic structure. Mr. Sampson does a good job of showing the empirical evidence does not always indicate the universals the nativists claim are substantial. After reading this book, I am certainly more confident in the creativity of human intelligence.

However, I have my qualms with Mr. Sampson. I am not a linguist, but most of the arguments were not out of my grasp. At times the author was repetitive, ambiguous and he often went on tangents, particularly in the last few chapters in which it seems he is struggling to respond to all of the critics of his first edition. Particularly I note how he struggled to convince the reader that Karl Popper would advocate his position. I am not very familiar with this philosopher, but Mr. Sampson is forced to combine quotes to manipulate his words. It seems that he just wants people to be on his side. All this, after he argued against the atrocities of hegemony! Aside from his prose, the biggest annoyance I had with this book was that he waits until the end to reveal his true stance. This is the spoiler: he believes that the mind is literally infinitely creative. This seems to contradict his statement earlier in the book that he believes Stephen Pinker's The Blank Slate to be of great value despite the fact that this conclusion can only come from complete denial of everything this book stands for. Mr. Sampson calls upon the ghost in the machine, Descarte's dualism, as the source of human creativity. This view was not integrated into the book but simply pops out at the end, at least from my perspective. Regardless of whether it is true or not, as he admits, it is not a scientific argument.

It is a shame that Steven Pinker did not write this book, as it would have been more eloquent, and without the unnecessary supernatural conclusion. This book is at least a good start, hopefully someone will build off of it

Chomsky and his followers tried very hard to persuade us that we were born with certain language abilities programmed into our DNA. Others believe that our ability to learn, and even to create, languages is a function of our overall ability to learn things at very high levels.
If you want to believe that human beings are run by their DNA, the way birds and fishes are, then Chomsky is for you. But if you believe that human intelligence is an "open" system that allows complete flexibility in navigating the unpredictabilities of the world, then you might want to make use of the valuable information in this book.

Even if I do not agree with the idea that there is no innateness that we are born with, but the strong argument against Noam Chomsky is very helpful to have better understanding of child language acquisition. If you do not overcome Chomsky's theory, then you better try this book.