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    Evolution of language

    I know there are a few people on the board who are very interested in this topic. You may want to check out Horizon tonight. Contributions from Kirby and, inevitably, Chomsky. Could be one of the rare excellent Horizon, or another disaster. Tune in to find out!

    #2
    Evolution of language

    I have visitors due tonight, but may still be able to half watch this.

    On the Chomsky theme, a poster mentioned they were due to meet him last week, then an interview with the Chom was printed in the national press this weekend just gone - are the two events by any chance related?

    Will happily edit if I'm too close to identifying someone.

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      #3
      Evolution of language

      'twas me, and no need to edit.

      He was in town to give a seminar to the joint TCD/UCD philosophy research group. It was excellent, I have to say - very helpful in terms of placing his position right at the moment against the stuff I'm trying to publish about him.

      While over, he did a host of political/media stuff as well because, like, that's just how he rolls.

      I'm not going to be able to see this on horizon, and probably won't get it on iplayer either. Buggeration.

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        #4
        Evolution of language

        eztv usually carries Horizon.

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          #5
          Evolution of language

          Brilliant, thanks.

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            #6
            Evolution of language

            Whenever I see Chomsky being talked about as appearing on a programme I always think for half a second they're talking about

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              #7
              Evolution of language

              At least Noam never had to take on Janet Street-Porter.

              Toro, I'm impressed, that's another claim to lame internet associate I have now. I nearly posted on the main name-dropping thread that my mam went to school with Chris Rea's sister, but it all seems so unnecessary now.

              Enjoyed the article too, sorry to hear about his loss of his wife.

              The point was made about how rarely he appears in the Western press, which seems to be the case. I remember quite a few years back, the Satder Guardian trailed an interview with him in the next week's "review" section that never seemed to appear. I need to get on & read David Icke's book for answers, I expect.

              And here's hoping I do get to hear him spout on about language tonight.

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                #8
                Evolution of language

                Is it OK to admit to once buying a David Icke book?
                Well I did! Several years ago in a fit of curiosity normally reserved for small children poking a dead animal at the side of the road with a stick.

                'The Biggest Secret' was the title. I believe its the one where he first starts to go on about the shape-shifting reptilians along with MK Ultra, sex slavery rings amongst the powerful and the illuminati's plot to stop Coventry City from becoming one of the major forces of English football.

                Oh, and Chris Rea's sister (or one of them) was the inspiration behind Fool If You Think Its Over. So it's not that lame a link.

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                  #9
                  Evolution of language

                  Hmmm. Not promising so far. Already a claim that baby talk is crucial to language learning, based on a sample of one (!) and not mentioning the studies of cultures which don't talk to children directly for many years.

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                    #10
                    Evolution of language

                    Well, that was extremely frustrating. It tried to cover far, far too much ground in an hour, and ended up obscuring more than it revealed. It didn't seem to know whether it was trying to elucidate language acquisition (apparently the main thrust of the programme), language evolution or something else. It had a really, really annoying tendency to illustrate an argument with a single point of evidence (as in my previous post) without even a hint at the other evidence addressing the same question. For instance, discussing what feral children can teach us with reference to Oxana Malaya, but not a word about Genie or any other case. One illustration of aphasia, with no hint that it takes many forms, some syntactical and some lexical. On the other hand, there was some really interesting stuff. Kirby's contribution was definitely worthwhile, but would have benefited from a discussion of Nicaraguan Sign Language.

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                      #11
                      Evolution of language

                      Yeah, it's paradoxical, but the fact that it tried to include so much made me aware of what it left out. Like the whole "adaptation or 'spandrel'?" debate.

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                        #12
                        Evolution of language

                        Also, the whole "nature v nurture" thing was couched in depressingly silly terms, as if language had to be one or the other, or perhaps x% one and (100 - x)% the other. The idea of humans having (to use Darwin's phrase) "an instinct to acquire an art" was absent, or at best obscured.

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                          #13
                          Evolution of language

                          Kirby's not happy (from comments to Pullum):
                          From the point of view of an insider, it was quite bizarre in some respects. The editors pulled off the frankly extraordinary feat of making it seem that everyone in the field of language evolution basically agrees. That's quite an astonishing achievement. The way they managed to do this in part was by not including any explanation of why our experiment behaves the way it does. All I appear to do is describe what happens and marvel at the wonder of it all.

                          I promise you that I didn't forget to explain carefully exactly why it happens, and the implications of this for our understanding of language. I guess this got cut because it meant telling a more complex story where we don't all agree. I can appreciate the decision to produce a different kind of narrative, and perhaps they are right to do so. Better a clear story that isn't as rich as the full picture, than a confused audience, they probably thought.

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                            #14
                            Evolution of language

                            Was it as frustrating as watching it at the same time as playing a geeky board game with three other people in the room? I only really caught snippets. Bah.

                            And George at asda, I've already confessed to buying one at a library clearance sale on this site and furthering my claimest to lamest by mentioning I work with his cousin. And any Chris Rea link in this town is very lame - let's put it like this, I could leave my house & be on Stainsby Road of "Stainsby Girls" fame in three minutes.

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