but that language isn't communication at all. — Xtrix

Educate, please. If not communication, then what?

Language is a system of thought. It's communicated very rarely, whether by sign or through speech. So it's communicative properties aren't what's essential. One can communicate with a hairstyle, bees with a waggle dance, etc. There are all kinds of ways to communicate, down through the insects. So language certainly isn't that.

It's communicated very rarely, whether by sign or through speech. — Xtrix

Do you mean thought is communicated very rarely? And very rarely, does that mean not very often or not very accurately?

After reading Chomsky, I now lean much more towards the idea that not only did language not evolve gradually as a form of communication, but that language isn't communication at all. — Xtrix

Can you direct me to his thoughts on this?

Do you mean thought is communicated very rarely? And very rarely, does that mean not very often or not very accurately? — Brett

I wouldn't say language is thought. But it does seem to be related to thinking. This is up for debate, of course, and an interesting question.

By "very rarely" I mean not very often, yes.

I wouldn't say language is thought. — Xtrix

Sure. But you’re feeling is that thought is communicated very rarely, and language is doing something else, except on those rare occasions.

Sure. But you’re feeling is that thought is communicated very rarely, and language is doing something else, except on those rare occasions. — Brett

I'm saying language is a system of thought. Not the only system. So in that sense, yes, this system of thought gets communicated very rarely.

What thoughts get expressed through the language faculty is almost always expressed to ourselves, internally. Just introspect for a while: you're constantly talking to yourself. How much of that gets communicated to others--through speech, or sign, or writing, or whatever-- is very rare indeed -- maybe 1%?

If talking to yourself isn't considered part of thinking, then I have no idea what thinking is. However, I wouldn't say language is synonymous with thought. I can imagine a scene without a verbal commentary, for example. But again, I've had friends who argue that language is thinking. Although I've never been fully convinced.

So language as a system of thought is only used rarely because it’s only required on those rare occasions when needed, and that other communication methods do what they do best? What I trying to establish is whether language as a system of thought is used rarely because it has a specific role among other systems, or it’s used rarely because it’s inadequate for communication? Or it appears to be used rarely because it’s not communication?

I’ve haven’t spent much time looking into language. Which comes first in a child, thought or language?

Language frames much of our thinking, placing thoughts in a context that allows communication of those thoughts, sometimes imperfectly, to others. If not, why does this forum exist?

I'm probably hopelessly naive.

Language is a system of thought. It's communicated very rarely, whether by sign or through speech. So it's communicative properties aren't what's essential. One can communicate with a hairstyle, bees with a waggle dance, etc. There are all kinds of ways to communicate, down through the insects. So language certainly isn't that. — Xtrix

I'll preface this by saying that this topic actually fascinates me to no end, but I'm not well read in this type of rocky terrain (mixed metaphor; what do you have to say about those? Do they "communicate"?), so I'm just tossing out a few informal thoughts for informal consideration.

What do you mean by system of thought? Are there multiple systems of thought, language being one? It looks like you're trying to distinguish between a "system of thought" and "communication". Is that correct or no?

Because I don't understand what "system of thought" is supposed to mean, I'm not clear on how it differs from communication. So, for instance, when you say "Language is a system of thought. It's communicated very rarely..." is "it's" referring to language, or to a system of thought? If language, then to say that language is communicated very rarely sounds like a non sequitur; language communicates various meanings with success all the time: "I'm replying to your post here on TPF because I find it interesting". Is that not a sufficient communicational use of language? Did you receive no communication from me when you read that sentence? Or, if "it's" refers to "system of thought" then I can't really imagine what you would be trying to say there.

Language is a sign of intelligence... Literally....

Evolutionary endowed language capacities evolved very slowly. (Chomsky can offer no real insights there...)...

Languages themselves (accumulated and shared sets of signs) evolve less slowly, and can in fact emerge relatively rapidly (in the order of a single generation; see: creoles and twin-speak).

Language capacity and use in an individual is what develops rapidly... Like snowballs gathering more snow, more language lets you accumulate more language more quickly, and there is a very lengthy learning curve before useful returns start to diminish.

I'm not sure what Chomsky meant, but I'm sure he didn't mean that ancestral hominids suddenly started using their words.

Humans share many basic attribute of spoken language with other animals. The difference is we possess ALL where other animals only possess certain aspects.

It helps to make a distinction between ‘worded language’ and ‘language’ (ie. a bee’s waggle-dance). There is a focused use of the term ‘language’ (regarding syntax and grammar) and the broader use of ‘language’ (body language and unconscious ‘signals’). We don’t need the former to think, but the former appears to be extremely beneficial for both communicating thoughts, passing on knowledge and long term planning.

I'm basically of the opinion that if you take everything Chomsky said about language, and then held the diametrically opposite view to anything he ever wrote on language ever, you'd be roughly on the right track. Like, you couldn't ask for a better, more exemplary, utterly wrong way to look at language than from a Chomskian POV.

That’s probably the worst piece of advice I’ve ever heard.

Humans share many basic attribute of spoken language with other animals — I like sushi

What sort of things?

We don’t need the former to think — I like sushi

But it feels like that. How can that be proven?
Can I think of something that I don't have a word for?

Like I said, I'm not well read on this topic, and I hold a provisional view of Chomsky at best, so I'd be curious to hear a specific argument from you about why you find him so "diametrically opposite" to what you seem to think is reality? This is an honest question and I welcome any ideas.

One example is how song bird babies ‘babble’, like humans. When it come to syntax and grammar, that is generally considered to be the main difference between humans and other animals.

Here and here [both pdfs] are some easy reading if you're interested in some rather straightforward critiques of the Chomskian paradigm. The long and short of it for me is that Chomsky's approach to language is evolutionary nonsense. Not only does Chomksy and his ilk almost entirely divorce language from function, but so too does he universalize utterly contingent aspects of language while at the same time making those aspects 'innate'. It's a Platonism of language that is, for me, indistinguishable from a theism. No one who takes evolution seriously can take Chomsky seriously.

Edit: A popular article by Vyvyan Evans, a summary of his book on the utter and complete waste of time that is Chomskian linguistics, can be found here, if you'd prefer some lighter reading: https://aeon.co/essays/the-evidence-is-in-there-is-no-language-instinct

Cool, much appreciated. :up:

Isn’t part of that argument basically saying a humans ability to walk is cultural? If we’re going to say we have no capacity for language - via some innate functionality - then surely we must also argue that we have no capacity for walking - via some innate functionality.

If we look at new borns in the wild they walk almost as soon as they drop. Humans are effectively born ‘prematurely’ in comparison to many other animals.

Aphasia is also another point here. Various different form of aphasia are quite specific to certain ‘grammatical’ features. This is probably the hardest evidence there is to back up the idea of universal grammar. Keep in mind Chomsky original put forward the position in opposition to some tabla rasa view of brain development that was persisting (through behaviorism).

Today most sensible people understand that the distinction between ‘nature and nurture’ is merely a convenient (yet essentially fuzzy) boundary between two equally applicable approaches. The reductionist approach toward genetics in this area has been a dead end for the most part as the ‘mechanisms’ of evolution are more complex than this - but huge immediate jumps can be made within one generation due to previous little tweaks being turned on (ironically in a Lamarcian way).

When citing Chomsky we need to distiguish between what he called 'surface structure' which is parochial and contextual, and 'deep structure' which he considered to be a human universal. If he was correct, the latter seems to be linked with the development of specific brain areas, unique to humans, like Broca's and Wernicke's area. It is clear too that much of what we call 'language' is common to other species like, bodily gestures, but because human language consists of complex combinations of units, it can give rise to creative expression beyond the abilities of other species.

Now it may be that what we call 'thought' is highly dependent on the surface structure of human language (the Sapir Whorf hypothesis) including concepts like 'self', but on the other hand, cognitive deflationists (Behaviourists) would argue that there is nothing special about 'languaging' which amounts to no more than a complex behaviour which enhances social co-ordination.

Over and above such discussions of species comparison there is still the problem that such discussion is inevitably constrained by its very subject matter, 'language' itself. That observation has implications for religions, which tend to put 'Man' and 'The Word' on a pedestal, and even for what we call 'philosophy', which might amount to no more than a form of 'social dancing'. Indeed, attempts by would be philosophers to escape to a linguistic vantage point has often given rise to the proliferation of neologisms.

It is clear too that much of what we call 'language' is common to other species like, bodily gestures, — fresco

But their “language” would not be connected to thought but to behavioural instincts. So to me it’s not so common. Is that a fair statement?

There were years when I was convinced that our capacity for language must have evolved gradually as a complex form of communication, in accordance with the widely-held belief in evolutionary biology that organisms change slowly and incrementally via natural selection (with some exceptions, Steve Gould being an obvious example). — Xtrix

Both are true genetically. It has to be taken into account that several non-phenotypical iterations of the genetic code over generations can then become highly affective in phenotypical presentations due to one singular mutation - consider the so-called ‘junk DNA’ which is basically sitting there doing nothing. If another gene changes somewhere else in the sequence this can then create proteins that unlock previously ‘junk’ items that have a domino effect on other protein synthesis.

It helps to view the inner workings of any organism as an ‘environment’. This is why sensible people are loath to make a delineation between ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ in any real sense.

We have legs to walk and language to speak. The question is do you view ‘walking’ as a ‘cultural development’ or as a genetic predisposition? If no, then what exactly is different in terms of a capacity for language acquisition? The argument is basically held around the misrepresentation/disagreement around what is being proposed. The hardliners against this or that idea are usually at the poles of the argument or misrepresenting the argument.

As for Everett arguement against this ‘walk’ and ‘crawl’ idea ... feral children walking on all fours due to being brought up by wolves. Then there is ‘The Man with no Language’ who learn language from scratch at 27 years of age (that contradicts the argument in the article link posted above). Everett does make some good points though. The main argument over ‘recursion’ is another term people cannot agree over. It seems people misunderstand something then rile against it, then when told ‘I didn’t mean that!’ they refuse to say ‘okay’, instead claiming the term to mean what they thought it meant in opposition to the original proposition put forward.

Chomsky brought linguistics into a more scientific realm of analysis - regardless of whether you agree with all his ideas he as/is an extremely important contributor to modern linguistic theory.

It depends on how broad the term ‘language’ is in your usage. A great many linguistics are quite happy to talk about ‘language’ in terms of a bee’s waggle-dance (I can cite from prominent university text books if you wish?).

The Piraha is the most controversial language. There is FAR too much to go into there, but it is looked at as being the main component in the disagreements around Chomsky’s theories/ideas.

There were years when I was convinced that our capacity for language must have evolved gradually as a complex form of communication, in accordance with the widely-held belief in evolutionary biology that organisms change slowly and incrementally via natural selection (with some exceptions, Steve Gould being an obvious example).

After reading Chomsky, I now lean much more towards the idea that not only did language not evolve gradually as a form of communication, but that language isn't communication at all.

I'm interested to hear if others, who have specialized in the evolution of language or are well versed in its literature, have considered Chomsky's ideas on this matter. I haven't seen much in this forum so far, although I am new to it. — Xtrix

One thing is for sure, we, all "higher" animals in fact, have specialized and dedicated organs for sound, our ears and that too as a pair. To the contrary, vocalization is always associated with the one mouth animals possess which has the primary function of eating. Our vocalization apparatus is just a secondary ability acquired through modifications of organs such as the trachea and esophagus as if it was a part-time job and not like a steady job one expects it to be if it was a priority.

That means hearing is more important and that can only be because there is vital information travelling in sound waves - prey/predator/water/shelter/etc. Doesn't this show that sound-based communication was critical to survival?

if so then language would initially have to complement the function of the ear i.e. it would be communication-oriented to capture prey and escape predators. Thinking would come later, much much later I believe.

Isn’t part of that argument basically saying a humans ability to walk is cultural? — I like sushi

I don't know what 'that' in 'that argument' refers to. In any case, there's little to no use in simply pitting terms like 'nature' and 'nuture', 'culture' and 'innateness' against one another. They are too general and unspecific to do any interesting or useful conceptual work. One of the few bright spots of the Chomskian program is at least to (try) and give specific content to what constitutes 'innateness', which is cashed out specifically as 'universal grammar'. Except that what exactly that supposed to be has been so muddled and diluted that the only thing that seemed to be able to count as 'universal' is 'recursion'. Except it turns out that not only is recursion not universal (famously though not-uncontroversially lacking in the Piraha language), it even occurs in other animal communication (see Evans's book for more on this). And this to say nothing about the generality of recursion as something that supposed to be so 'specific' to language - it's two steps away form saying 'Ah ha, turns out words are really the key to language'.

There's lots of details that could be gone into, but the basic point is that if you leave the conversation at the level of 'nature and nurture', 'innate or culture', then you may as well be talking into the wind. They are useless terms unless cashed out in particular and specific ways. And it turns out that when they are, nothing of use there can be said either.

As for the neurological evidence, I'll simply quote Evans' article: "In his book The Language Instinct (1994), Steven Pinker examined various suggestive language pathologies in order to make the case for just such a dissociation. For example, some children suffer from what is known as Specific Language Impairment (SLI) – their general intellect seems normal but they struggle with particular verbal tasks, stumbling on certain grammar rules and so on. That seems like a convincing smoking gun – or it would, if it hadn’t turned out that SLI is really just an inability to process fine auditory details. It is a consequence of a motor deficit, in other words, rather than a specifically linguistic one. Similar stories can be told about each of Pinker’s other alleged dissociations: the verbal problems always turn out to be rooted in something other than language." More detail in Evans book, where aphasia is similarly dealt with.

Finally, exactly how all of this is even meant to be evolutionarily substantiated is similarly so thinly cashed out as to be effectively indistinguishable from pseudo-science. On the evolutionary front, it basically boils down to: "Well, evolution sometimes happens quite fast, so [something something promissory note] language probably happened that way too". As for exactly what underwent evolution, and more importantly how this mysterious X contributed to language and the deep structure that Chomsky supposed isolates - well, that goes entirely left unsaid. Were we talking about literally any other biological function, the very idea that 'something happened at some point in the past that made us do X good' ought to be taken seriously as a thesis would be laughed out of the room so fast as to leave any actual scientist censured from the discipline for the rest of their life. The entire Chomskian program is unscientific bunkum. Quick quote from Coolidge on this front:

"First, Chomsky’s contention has little or no genetic support. One gene does not suddenly cause hierarchically structured language. But that is one of their clever and slippery arguments: It is possible that some genetic mutation altered FLB at that time, but these authors rarely, if ever, invoke anyone else’s cognitive theory (e.g., working memory, a predominant cognitive model for over the past 4 decades). Further, because Chomsky has pronounced that language did not evolve, then it logically follows that it could not have been subject to natural selection. Note well that Chomsky has not elaborated upon why language was not subject to natural selection, and further, he proffers the cryptic argument it did not evolve for communication purposes. Chomsky and his colleagues do propose that it might have developed for spatial navigation but with little or no elaboration." (source).

If one good thing comes out of the new decade, it might hopefully be the wholesale forgetting of anything Chomsky wrote about language, ever.

I wasn’t discussing Pinker - who no doubt has amended his ideas since 1994 to some degree.

From Evans:

And In 2005, the US linguist-anthropologist Daniel Everett has claimed that Pirahã – a language indigenous to the Amazonian rainforest – does not use recursion at all.

Claimed being the key word. I’ve already pointed out that people are not exactly in agreement over what does or doesn’t constitute ‘recursion’ - and even less likely to adhere to another’s definition.

More from Evans (a hidden contradiction):

But we now have several well-documented cases of so-called ‘feral’ children – children who are not exposed to language, either by accident or design, as in the appalling story of Genie, a girl in the US whose father kept her in a locked room until she was discovered in 1970, at the age of 13. The general lesson from these unfortunate individuals is that, without exposure to a normal human milieu, a child just won’t pick up a language at all. Spiders don’t need exposure to webs in order to spin them, but human infants need to hear a lot of language before they can speak. However you cut it, language is not an instinct in the way that spiderweb-spinning most definitely is.

Yet just as there is an argument against comparing ‘walking’ with ‘language’ it is here deemed perfectly okay to use the same technique to cover up items like a 27 year old deaf man acquiring language. The capacity was already there it was just awoken at a much later date due to deafness - basically either the argument for ‘walking’ and ‘language’ is valid as this argument is, or both are pointless? Which is it?

Plus, do we assume that all our ancestors could ‘walk’ and that only at a later date did this become non-instinctual?

My main gripe is your rather blasé dismissal of Chomsky’s views as being completely wrong in every way shape and form regarding linguistic theory. Such a statement is clearly coming from some extreme bias of opinion - maybe based on his political views perhaps? Any interest in linguistics that ignores Chomsky is plain silly, just as it would be daft to ignore/dismiss Skinner or Saussure because they’ve been shown to be wrong in some areas of their thinking. Again, Lamarck was dismissed, yet today his general idea has more weight and it turns out he was partially right in his assumptions - same goes for Mc... what’s her name who was laughed at for her conclusions about genetics ‘leaping’ (McClintock).

Were we talking about literally any other biological function, the very idea that 'something happened at some point in the past that made us speak language good' ought to be taken seriously as a thesis would be laughed out of the room so fast as to leave anyone with sympathies to it perennially embarrassed. It's unscientific bunkum. — StreetlightX

If you’re living in the past, yeah. Today, absolutely not. There is nothing to say that evolution in terms of genetics is a ‘gradual’ process when it comes to considerable ‘leaps’ in function. As I’ve laid out already we know that many tiny incremental alterations in the genetic structure can lie untapped before another minute change in the genetic codes literally ‘turns on’ several other previously dormant genes. The mistake, is again, to assume one polar idea is 100% true over the other. Evolution is both a gradual and immediate process - in terms of translation (a more Lamarcian view).

I’m unsure what you’re opinion would be regarding the neuroscience of memory, social ability or spatiotemporal perception in terms of physiology. This doesn’t mean I am suggesting we’re born with the ‘innate ability to fashion clothing’ though. The problem, as I see it, is distinguishing what we each mean and weighing up the limitations of theories not the outright dismissal of theories we either don’t like the sound of, or that we lack a large body of evidence for. We don’t throw away Newtonian mechanics simply because Einstein refined our view of ‘physical motion’.

I find it strange to hold such a string opinion in complete opposition to anyone who has helped develop the field. Perhaps many dislike what he says as it is too analytic/theoretical?

I'm interested to hear if others, who have specialized in the evolution of language or are well versed in its literature, have considered Chomsky's ideas on this matter. I haven't seen much in this forum so far, although I am new to it. — Xtrix

Have you tried the advanced search tool?

After reading Chomsky, I now lean much more towards the idea that not only did language not evolve gradually as a form of communication, but that language isn't communication at all. — Xtrix

I am unfamiliar with Chomsky, and my interest in language is from a psychological, rather than biological, level of abstraction. So, in terms of semiotics, information theory, and information philosophy:
1) Language is a code (specific and structured data) consisting of a set of symbols having paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations, hence; semantic content.
2) Communication is data encoding, messaging, and decoding.

Obviously, I agree that language is not communication.
Language encoding and decoding are syntactic mental actions which are part of verbal communication. Thoughts and affect may also be communicated non-verbally.

It's important to recognise a distinction between nonverbal communication using vocalisations (signals) and verbal communication using language. A vocalisation is not necessarily a phoneme (speech sound, or symbol).

Based on anthropological evidence of skull capacity (probable brain volume), semiotician Thomas Sebeok thinks that language developed as a mute (unable to encode speech) mental modelling system (an evolutionary adaptation) in Homo habilis, and that speech derived from language (an evolutionary exaptation) in Homo sapiens.

When it comes to questions of phylogeny, I have always contended that the emergence of life on earth, some 3.5 billion years ago, was tantamount to the advent of semiosis. The life sciences and the sign science thus mutually imply one another. I have also argued that the derivation of language out of any animal communication system is an exercise in total futility, because language did not evolve to subserve humanity's communicative exigencies. It evolved, as we shall see in the next chapter, as an exceedingly sophisticated modelling device, in the sense of von Uexkiill's Umweltlehre, as presented, for example, in 1982 (see also Lotman 1977), surely present - that is, language-as-a-modelling-system, not speech-as-a-communicative-tool - in Homo habilis. — Sebeok, Thomas Albert. 2001. Signs: An Introduction To Semiotics. Canada: University of Toronto Press. p.136.

Perhaps many dislike what he says as it is too analytic/theoretical? — I like sushi

Maybe leave your armchair psychoanalysing in the bin by the door where it belongs? No, my animus against Chomsky is simply that he's set the field of linguistics backwards by an order of literal decades, and we're only just beginning to emerge from the choking haze from which he conjured. I see no reason to pussyfoot around with niceties when more than 30 years of misdirected research has lead to utter intellectual disaster. We would not have left the Chomskian paradigm behind early enough if we started from tomorrow. As for politics, I have nothing but sheer admiration for him on that score, so you can bin your ruminations on that front too.

I have nothing to say about the continual comparison between walking and talking that you keep bringing up insofar as it bears precisely on nothing of importance here; again, the question is not about innateness or not, but over the mechanisms by which 'innateness' is cashed out. If you're incapable of having a discussion at that level, then we've nothing to discuss. And the analogizing to Larmack and so on are not worth engaging either; the issues involved are empirical and technical, and have nothing to do with superficial comparisons over personalities. And anyone who thinks that the sheer fact of punctuated equilibrium offers any licence at all to the otherwise utterly evidence-lacking idea that language just popped-out whole cloth from a misty period of anthropogenic history has forfeit their right to speak about the evolution of anything whatsoever.

So language as a system of thought is only used rarely because it’s only required on those rare occasions when needed — Brett

Language, as a system of thought, is used all the time. We're always talking to ourselves, as I mentioned.

What I trying to establish is whether language as a system of thought is used rarely because it has a specific role among other systems, or it’s used rarely because it’s inadequate for communication? Or it appears to be used rarely because it’s not communication? — Brett

When did I say it's "used rarely"? Communication is used rarely, yes. In my view, language and communication are not the same thing.