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From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: What's innate?
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References: <1995Feb22.033435.26696@oracorp.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 01:25:49 GMT
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In article <1995Feb22.033435.26696@oracorp.com>,
Daryl McCullough <daryl@oracorp.com> wrote:
>Having said that, I realize that little kids actually have language to
>help them learn language. Once they learn a core language, that core
>language can be used to "bootstrap" them to the full language. For
>example, they can be *told* "No, not `Me want bannana', `*I* want a
>bannana.'"  However, I don't know whether this kind of correction is
>necessary for children. 

Such correction seems to be unnecessary, and indeed is often ignored.
Pinker describes some of the relevant evidence; also see Jean Aitchison,
_The Articulate Mammal_.  Both give examples of children blithely ignoring
explicit grammatical corrections.  Pinker (p. 280) cites a study which
found that the feedback parents offer their children is almost always
about the truth of the child's utterance, not its grammaticality.

Parents often do "echo" their children's utterances in a more grammatically
correct form.  (Example: "Dog barking."  "Yes, the dog is barking.") One 
might expect that this provides powerful feedback for learning grammar.  
However, Aitchison cites research which rather suggests the opposite: 
children seem to go faster in language learning when the parents provide, 
not grammatical echoes, but new ideas or questions (e.g: "Dog barking."
"Yes, but he won't hurt you.", or "Do you think he's angry?").

>Very young children of immigrants seem to be
>able to pick up English just by watching TV, where there is no such
>correction.

According to Pinker, this is not true of say children of Deaf parents, 
and based on my experience working with Hispanic children, I doubt it's
true of them either.  The latter are more likely to pick up English at school.

The rest of your posting had very many good points.
