In the video clips, Professor Neil Smith tried to demonstrate UG with studies of a savant, Christopher who learned tens of languages. I still doubt the existence of UG. In class, I mentioned the wolf-child, who was abandoned in the forest and raised by a wolf, failed to acquire the language. If he had been born with UG, he should have learned the language. I think it’s more like ‘input’, rather than ‘UG’ in terms of the determiner of the first language.
Some argue that the wolf-child had no chance to utilize UG since he was surrounded by only animals in the forest for years. With the strong existence of UG, wolf-child should have learned the language after he moved to the ‘ordinary’ place where people lived and he started to take language lessons. However, he failed it again.
Considering the fact that he already passed the critical period, UG might sound more plausible, but still, I am not 100% positive that people are born with UG. I don’t think there is such thing as ‘Universal Grammar’ shared by all the people from all around the world. Rather, I think that people tend to have languages that happen to have similar features in common.
When we take a look at languages, they are not that different. People say that English and Korean are such two different languages, however, this is because people cannot see the big picture of the languages. Korean and English are almost identical in that two languages have ‘MATCHING’ grammar and vocabulary. I think UG might be called the same rules that all languages have in common, not all people have in common. Focusing too much attention to different features in languages such as pronunciation or word order, they overlook the similarities. For example, from the last reading article, Schachter mentioned RCF, “one of the biggest different features among languages”. Of course, the order of the relative clause IS different but what I was surprised by is that all of the languages DO have the relative clauses formation.
It might not be UG that enables people to learn the language and it might be not UG parameters that multilingual people utilize. I think it is input that enables people to learn the language and it is the same features in all languages that facilitate multilingual people acquire languages.
Some argue that the wolf-child had no chance to utilize UG since he was surrounded by only animals in the forest for years. With the strong existence of UG, wolf-child should have learned the language after he moved to the ‘ordinary’ place where people lived and he started to take language lessons. However, he failed it again.
Considering the fact that he already passed the critical period, UG might sound more plausible, but still, I am not 100% positive that people are born with UG. I don’t think there is such thing as ‘Universal Grammar’ shared by all the people from all around the world. Rather, I think that people tend to have languages that happen to have similar features in common.
When we take a look at languages, they are not that different. People say that English and Korean are such two different languages, however, this is because people cannot see the big picture of the languages. Korean and English are almost identical in that two languages have ‘MATCHING’ grammar and vocabulary. I think UG might be called the same rules that all languages have in common, not all people have in common. Focusing too much attention to different features in languages such as pronunciation or word order, they overlook the similarities. For example, from the last reading article, Schachter mentioned RCF, “one of the biggest different features among languages”. Of course, the order of the relative clause IS different but what I was surprised by is that all of the languages DO have the relative clauses formation.
It might not be UG that enables people to learn the language and it might be not UG parameters that multilingual people utilize. I think it is input that enables people to learn the language and it is the same features in all languages that facilitate multilingual people acquire languages.
You are not alone, Yookyoung. Many people share your views....hence, the debate between "nature" vs. "nurture" . ..
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