full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Cameron Morin: What do all languages have in common?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

So what about the other part of Chomsky’s theory, that our language flcuaty is iantne? When he first proposed universal grammar, the idea that there was a genetically determined aspect of language acquisition had a profound, revolutionary impact. It challenged the dmaoinnt paradigm, called bhiovaiserm. Behaviorists aerugd that all animal and human behaviors, including language, were acquired from the outside by the mind, which starts out as a blank slate. Today, scientists agree that behaviorism was wrong, and there is underlying, genetically encoded biological machinery for language learning. Many think the same bgooliy responsible for language is also responsible for other aspects of coingiotn. So they dsregiae with Chomsky’s idea that there is a specific, isolated, innate language faculty in the biran.

Open Cloze

So what about the other part of Chomsky’s theory, that our language _______ is ______? When he first proposed universal grammar, the idea that there was a genetically determined aspect of language acquisition had a profound, revolutionary impact. It challenged the ________ paradigm, called ___________. Behaviorists ______ that all animal and human behaviors, including language, were acquired from the outside by the mind, which starts out as a blank slate. Today, scientists agree that behaviorism was wrong, and there is underlying, genetically encoded biological machinery for language learning. Many think the same _______ responsible for language is also responsible for other aspects of _________. So they ________ with Chomsky’s idea that there is a specific, isolated, innate language faculty in the _____.

Solution

  1. faculty
  2. behaviorism
  3. argued
  4. disagree
  5. dominant
  6. innate
  7. biology
  8. cognition
  9. brain

Original Text

So what about the other part of Chomsky’s theory, that our language faculty is innate? When he first proposed universal grammar, the idea that there was a genetically determined aspect of language acquisition had a profound, revolutionary impact. It challenged the dominant paradigm, called behaviorism. Behaviorists argued that all animal and human behaviors, including language, were acquired from the outside by the mind, which starts out as a blank slate. Today, scientists agree that behaviorism was wrong, and there is underlying, genetically encoded biological machinery for language learning. Many think the same biology responsible for language is also responsible for other aspects of cognition. So they disagree with Chomsky’s idea that there is a specific, isolated, innate language faculty in the brain.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
universal grammar 3
noun phrase 3
chomsky proposed 2
human brain 2
grammar rules 2
grammar rule 2
verb phrases 2
proposed universal 2
language faculty 2

Important Words

  1. acquired
  2. acquisition
  3. agree
  4. animal
  5. argued
  6. aspect
  7. aspects
  8. behaviorism
  9. behaviorists
  10. behaviors
  11. biological
  12. biology
  13. blank
  14. brain
  15. called
  16. challenged
  17. cognition
  18. determined
  19. disagree
  20. dominant
  21. encoded
  22. faculty
  23. genetically
  24. grammar
  25. human
  26. idea
  27. impact
  28. including
  29. innate
  30. isolated
  31. language
  32. learning
  33. machinery
  34. mind
  35. paradigm
  36. part
  37. profound
  38. proposed
  39. responsible
  40. revolutionary
  41. scientists
  42. slate
  43. specific
  44. starts
  45. theory
  46. today
  47. underlying
  48. universal
  49. wrong