Comments on: Without language http://charbonniers.org/2010/07/23/without-language/ A blog on consciousness by Janet Kwasniak Wed, 23 May 2012 06:12:22 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 By: Joe martin http://charbonniers.org/2010/07/23/without-language/#comment-50115 Joe martin Fri, 25 Nov 2011 17:12:42 +0000 http://charbonniers.org/2010/07/23/without-language/#comment-50115 Thank you for this. My entire time in Grad school was basically wasted trying to get linguists to acknowledge the truth of your first sentence. In launching generative grammar, Chomsky famously asked "what do we know when we know a language?" and proceeded to speculate based on the "fact" that all humans have language. The obvious answer to his question is to compare people with it to those without it. That this has never been done stands as an indictment to the field of linguistics. Thank you for this. My entire time in Grad school was basically wasted trying to get linguists to acknowledge the truth of your first sentence.

In launching generative grammar, Chomsky famously asked “what do we know when we know a language?” and proceeded to speculate based on the “fact” that all humans have language.

The obvious answer to his question is to compare people with it to those without it. That this has never been done stands as an indictment to the field of linguistics.

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