Steven Pinker explains how Noam Chomsky doesn't believe language is for communication

10 thoughts on “Steven Pinker explains how Noam Chomsky doesn't believe language is for communication”

1. It does explain a lot — about how little Pinker understands really-existing evolution, as opposed to the Dawkins-like caricature he hews to for some reason.

   It's clear that everything organic evolved. It's not at all clear that that must lead to some airtight explanation of how it evolved. In fact, one may never be able to recover that pathway — because of the actual nature of evolution. Interested people may read Richard Lewontin's classic article, The Evolution of Cognition: Questions We Will Never Answer.

   Furthermore, not sure when this was filmed, but Chomsky has recently published at least two articles, jointly with other scientists, on what can actually be said with some degree of confidence about the evolution of language capacity.

   What Pinker doesn't like about it, presumably, is that it's not some fantasy of adaptation via natural selection, which is far from the only recognized mode of evolutionary change. He's just absolutely wrong about that.

   One should keep clear the distinction between the origin of a trait and its subsequent development, too; one may be nonadaptive and the other adaptive — the whole well-accepted notion of exaptation, for one.

   Now, the whole for-communication thing falls apart — becomes unnecessary — once one admits that not every friggin' thing in an organic system is solely the result of adaptation via natural selection. He's also presuming the language faculty is complex. In fact, it's probably very, very simple — that's Chomsky's whole point: a very simple set of computational rules that gives rise to a kind of bounded infinity of possible statements.

   Chomsky considers the language faculty/organ itself to be thought, period, an internal thing that later gets externalized, and not just via the mouth (sign language is possible, etc.). In fact, it seems that computational efficiency always takes precedence over externalization's requirements, which is why there's often ambiguity in language (externalized version).

   Moreover, language seems so recent (as far as we know) that there literally may not have been enough generational turnover since it arose for natural selection to operate. In any event, if there has been selectional advanatage to language-as-communication, which isn't hard to imagine, that's after the fact of its origin. Coopting of non-adaptive traits via NS happens all the time.

   So, Pinker either doesn't understand Chomsky's point — and the beauty comment is literally false; I presume a rhetorical act — or simply cannot accept it because he's wedded to evolution = adaptation via natural selection, period.

2. The past 60 years of empirical research on the nature of phonological and morphosyntactic structure confirms that language is far from "designed" for communication, although it can indeed be used for "communication"–both the inform and to deceive. Steven Pinker is truly great cognitive scientist, but he shares a certain "Psych Dept" blindness when it comes to this point.

3. "Language evolved for beauty, not for use and in fact is unusable." Can you please provide the reference for this quote, because I have never read, or heard Chomsky say that. Chomsky's argument that language's primary role was for thought is far more persuasive than this fellow.

4. I hope Steven Pinker is grilled on this statement.  Either a misreading or a deliberate attack on either Chomsky or the "idea"  of it used for internal thought.

5. Here's a quote from a 2014 paper co-authored by Chomsky that seems compatible with part of what Pinker says about him:

   "The language faculty is often equated with “communication”—a trait that is shared by all animal species and possibly also by plants. In our view, for the purposes of scientific understanding, language should be understood as a particular computational cognitive system, implemented neurally, that cannot be equated with an excessively expansive notion of “language as communication” [1]. Externalized language may be used for communication, but that particular function is largely irrelevant in this context. Thus, the origin of the language faculty does not generally seem to be informed by considerations of the evolution of communication. This viewpoint does not preclude the possibility that communicative considerations can play a role in accounting for the maintenance of language once it has appeared or for the historical language change that has clearly occurred within the human species, with all individuals sharing a common language faculty, as some mathematical models indicate [1]–[3]"

   Johan J. Bolhuis, Ian Tattersall, Noam Chomsky, Robert C. Berwick. "How Could Language Have Evolved?" PLOS Biology, August 26, 2014.

6. I don't think its a stretch to wonder if language developed as much for the facilitation of introspection as it did for communication, even if the initial need and survival benefit of better external communication were the spark. I don't believe it makes you anti-evolutionist to speculate that language development might not have necessarily emanated via natural selection to facilitate survival, since its hard to comprehend why such a complex system would be more advantageous than a syntactically streamlined language. Anyone who knows languages well knows that it is highly inefficient.

7. PINKER CHOMSKY DEBATE NOW!

8. Clearly, Pat Metheny – I beg your pardon, I mean Steven Pinker – is clueless about both language and evolution. Re Dawkins-like caricature, even Dawkins has seen the light. I quote from a recent review by Johan Bolhuis of 'Why Only Us', by Berwick & Chomsky: "Interestingly, in the latest instalment of his autobiography, Dawkins (2015), one of the champions of slow incremental evolution by natural selection, agrees. On pp. 380–384 of his book, he discusses the idea of a single mutation at the origin of language. He calls this a “macro-mutation”, that is, “a mutation of large effect” (p. 380). Dawkins then discusses (“the genius”) Chomsky’s theory of hierarchical syntactic structure and the “recursive subroutine” involved. He suggests that Chomsky may well be spot on with his suggestions regarding the recent and sudden emergence of language." As for language and 'communication': the fact that Pinker doesn't get it sort of proves Chomsky's point…..

9. People keep confusing performance with communication and communicative competence.

10. “Language isn’t for communication, it’s a system for thought”— Noam Chomsky
    The Martian term “Grok,” for example.

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