Language is an instinct

I believe that language is primarily instinctual and will always be used in some form by humans for communication. I do not believe that it is possible to teach a human being every single word, meaning or grammatical structure found in a language. After initially being exposed to a language, a child should be capable of expressing themselves and understanding others through a natural instinct.

Steven Pinker wrote “Language is a complex, specialized skill, which develops in the child spontaneously without conscious effort or formal instruction […]”p42. I strongly agree with Steven Pinker’s hypothesis because I have seen evidence of this in my own life. My first language is English which I speak and listen to everyday. This language comes so naturally to me that I no longer have to focus on its structure. I form grammatical sentences on a regular basis with little difficulty. However, I’ve been taking French in school since Kindergarten, and even though I started at an early age, it does not come quite as easily as English does because I do not speak it in my everyday life. If someone speaks really fast in French it takes me an extra second to process the language, and I have to concentrate hard whenever I speak.

In my French courses there has often been a stronger emphasis on grammar, than in any of my English classes. I have often had difficulty with French written grammar, but I’ve realized through reading sentences in Pinker’s work, such as “Larry inverts subjects and auxiliaries in negative main clauses”p49, that English grammar is as complicated as French grammar. It is because English is my instinctual language that the grammar comes so easily to me. I do not particularly understand the quotation above, but I know when an English sentence sounds right, which proves that language is for me, a biological instinct.

Works Cited
-Pinker, Steven. “Chatterboxes”. Sévigny, Alexandre p49.
Pinker, Steven. “An Instinct to Acquire an Art” p42
Introduction to Communications. Kendalll/Hunt Publishing Company, 2006