The Concept Of Language 1989 by Noah Chomsky
[00:00.000 ⇒ 00:04.000] The following program is a UWTV Classic. [00:09.000 ⇒ 00:17.000] From the University of Washington in Seattle upon Reflection with Al Page. [00:17.000 ⇒ 00:22.000] Our guest is Professor Noam Chomsky from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [00:22.000 ⇒ 00:27.000] and a guest lecturer at the University of Washington. [00:27.000 ⇒ 00:30.000] What determines how language in a particular country evolves? [00:30.000 ⇒ 00:33.000] Why is French, for example, so different from German? [00:33.000 ⇒ 00:37.000] Well, first of all, you’re assuming that French is different from German. [00:37.000 ⇒ 00:39.000] The French would probably say so. [00:39.000 ⇒ 00:43.000] There’s no simple measure of how different languages are from one another. [00:43.000 ⇒ 00:47.000] In fact, if you look at the languages structurally, the way a linguist would look at them, [00:47.000 ⇒ 00:52.000] French is different from the other Romance languages in a variety of ways, [00:52.000 ⇒ 00:57.000] which make it more similar to German and other Germanic languages. [00:57.000 ⇒ 01:01.000] There are a number of features of French which are sort of Germanic in character. [01:01.000 ⇒ 01:03.000] Give us some of those features. [01:03.000 ⇒ 01:10.000] Well, just to take a simple one, in all the Romance languages, except for French, [01:10.000 ⇒ 01:13.000] you can delete the subject of a sentence. [01:13.000 ⇒ 01:18.000] You can say the equivalent of walks to the store, meaning he walks to the store. [01:18.000 ⇒ 01:21.000] We can’t do that in English, but you can do it in Italian or Spanish. [01:21.000 ⇒ 01:24.000] In fact, it’s common Romance, because right back to Latin, [01:24.000 ⇒ 01:27.000] French is the only Romance language in which you can’t do that. [01:27.000 ⇒ 01:31.000] It’s like a Germanic language pretty much in that respect. [01:35.000 ⇒ 01:40.000] They have what they call clitics, small pronouns that you attach to verbs. [01:40.000 ⇒ 01:45.000] You say the equivalent of I him saw. That’s common Romance. [01:45.000 ⇒ 01:50.000] But in the other Romance languages, you can do things like I him want to see. [01:50.000 ⇒ 01:54.000] You can do that in all meaning, I want to see him, but not in French, [01:54.000 ⇒ 01:58.000] for a variety of constructions. [01:58.000 ⇒ 02:02.000] Actually, there are quite a number of respects in which French is different [02:02.000 ⇒ 02:03.000] from the other Romance languages. [02:03.000 ⇒ 02:07.000] Incidentally, old French, middle French, French in the medieval period was not. [02:07.000 ⇒ 02:09.000] It was like the other Romance languages. [02:09.000 ⇒ 02:13.000] So something happened to it that made it less like the Romance languages [02:13.000 ⇒ 02:15.000] and more like the Germanic languages. [02:15.000 ⇒ 02:17.000] How does language change over time? [02:17.000 ⇒ 02:22.000] How did 18th century French change compared to 12th century French? [02:22.000 ⇒ 02:25.000] When we talk about language change, that’s very misleading. [02:25.000 ⇒ 02:28.000] There is no such thing as a language in France. [02:28.000 ⇒ 02:33.000] Up until the turn of the century, you could find people in nearby villages in France [02:33.000 ⇒ 02:36.000] who couldn’t understand one, virtually could not understand one another. [02:36.000 ⇒ 02:40.000] The idea of a national language is a pretty modern phenomenon. [02:40.000 ⇒ 02:43.000] It has to do with the rise of nationalism and communication and so on, [02:43.000 ⇒ 02:47.000] or take, say, Italy today or Germany today. [02:47.000 ⇒ 02:52.000] I mean, the differences among the things that we call German are enormous, [02:52.000 ⇒ 02:55.000] so enormous as to lead to non-mutual intelligibility. [02:55.000 ⇒ 02:58.000] You have to learn the national language when you go to school. [02:58.000 ⇒ 03:01.000] It’s a different language than the one you spoke at home. [03:01.000 ⇒ 03:06.000] And when we talk about language changing, what’s actually happening is that there’s some, [03:06.000 ⇒ 03:07.000] it’s kind of like species changing. [03:07.000 ⇒ 03:14.000] There’s a mixture of all sorts of dialects, and the mix changes over time, [03:14.000 ⇒ 03:20.000] either because of conquest or some political change or boundaries are drawn in a different place [03:20.000 ⇒ 03:23.000] or some kind of commercial interchange or whatever. [03:23.000 ⇒ 03:28.000] The mixture of these things changes over time, and you take a look at it a few centuries apart, [03:28.000 ⇒ 03:30.000] it looks like there’s a different language. [03:30.000 ⇒ 03:34.000] But what’s happened is, what happens is that between generations, [03:34.000 ⇒ 03:40.000] there are usually small changes having to do with other influences from the outside and so on, [03:40.000 ⇒ 03:42.000] and these things are cumulative. [03:42.000 ⇒ 03:44.000] Sometimes they lead to pretty dramatic changes. [03:44.000 ⇒ 03:48.000] I mean, within a couple of generations, the language can have a, [03:48.000 ⇒ 03:51.000] can change structurally in quite dramatic ways. [03:51.000 ⇒ 03:54.000] And of course, in, say, lexicon, you know, the words of the language, [03:54.000 ⇒ 03:56.000] well, that’s a different matter altogether. [03:56.000 ⇒ 04:00.000] So when technology develops, you get a whole new vocabulary. [04:00.000 ⇒ 04:05.000] But if you were in France in the 12th century and you understood all the nuances of language, [04:05.000 ⇒ 04:10.000] could you have predicted how these various languages would have evolved over time? [04:10.000 ⇒ 04:12.000] No, it’s totally impossible. [04:12.000 ⇒ 04:14.000] But is it partially random? [04:14.000 ⇒ 04:16.000] It’s not so much that it’s random. [04:16.000 ⇒ 04:17.000] It’s not actually random. [04:17.000 ⇒ 04:19.000] For all we know, it might be completely deterministic. [04:19.000 ⇒ 04:21.000] There’s just too many factors involved. [04:21.000 ⇒ 04:23.000] It’s like predicting the weather. [04:23.000 ⇒ 04:25.000] There’s just too many things going on. [04:25.000 ⇒ 04:28.000] The human life is a pretty complicated affair. [04:28.000 ⇒ 04:31.000] And now culture, our culture is, [04:31.000 ⇒ 04:34.000] speakers of English can be misled by this. [04:34.000 ⇒ 04:37.000] English is relatively homogeneous. [04:37.000 ⇒ 04:39.000] You can go a long way in the United States. [04:39.000 ⇒ 04:41.000] You know, I mean, I just came from Boston, [04:41.000 ⇒ 04:45.000] and I understand everybody in Portland and Seattle and so on. [04:45.000 ⇒ 04:47.000] But that’s not true of most of the world. [04:47.000 ⇒ 04:51.000] Most of the world, language areas, language, [04:51.000 ⇒ 04:54.000] you can get very different languages pretty close by. [04:54.000 ⇒ 04:57.000] And much of the world is what we would call multilingual. [04:57.000 ⇒ 05:00.000] The closer I get to the border between France and Germany, [05:00.000 ⇒ 05:02.000] the closer the language has become. [05:02.000 ⇒ 05:05.000] Yeah, well, in particular, if you go from, say, Paris to Rome, [05:05.000 ⇒ 05:07.000] as you go toward the Italian border, [05:07.000 ⇒ 05:10.000] it starts to sound more like Italian. [05:10.000 ⇒ 05:13.000] And at some point, it becomes Italian. [05:13.000 ⇒ 05:16.000] And there isn’t, in fact, I mean, by now, [05:16.000 ⇒ 05:19.000] there’s enough national unity and so on [05:19.000 ⇒ 05:20.000] so you can really find the border. [05:20.000 ⇒ 05:22.000] But if you go back a little ways, there was no border. [05:22.000 ⇒ 05:25.000] There was just, I wouldn’t say continuum. [05:25.000 ⇒ 05:28.000] There were just constant changes and fluctuations and variations. [05:28.000 ⇒ 05:32.000] And you started speaking one thing in one place, [05:32.000 ⇒ 05:33.000] another thing in another place, [05:33.000 ⇒ 05:35.000] and they’re not mutually intelligible often. [05:35.000 ⇒ 05:37.000] But along the way, there are just all sorts of changes. [05:37.000 ⇒ 05:40.000] Now, with the rise of national states, [05:40.000 ⇒ 05:42.000] and especially national communications [05:42.000 ⇒ 05:45.000] and national education systems and all of these things, [05:45.000 ⇒ 05:47.000] which is a pretty modern phenomenon, [05:47.000 ⇒ 05:50.000] then you get what we call national languages. [05:50.000 ⇒ 05:53.000] Now, as I say, English is unusual. [05:53.000 ⇒ 05:56.000] The reason, if you go to pre-colonial times, [05:56.000 ⇒ 05:59.000] there were just hundreds of thousands probably [05:59.000 ⇒ 06:03.000] of different languages spoken in what’s now called the United States. [06:03.000 ⇒ 06:07.000] Well, through the destruction of the indigenous population, [06:07.000 ⇒ 06:11.000] and it was real destruction, kind of genocidal, [06:11.000 ⇒ 06:16.000] and the conquest by speakers of basically one group, [06:16.000 ⇒ 06:19.000] you ended up having a large homogeneous language. [06:19.000 ⇒ 06:21.000] But how could anybody have predicted that? [06:21.000 ⇒ 06:23.000] I mean, it had to do with the invention of guns [06:23.000 ⇒ 06:26.000] and, you know, political conquest and all sorts of things. [06:26.000 ⇒ 06:28.000] And that’s pretty much what human history is. [06:28.000 ⇒ 06:30.000] There are some French theorists, for example, [06:30.000 ⇒ 06:32.000] who argue that they must work very hard [06:32.000 ⇒ 06:34.000] to keep the French language pure. [06:34.000 ⇒ 06:35.000] What does that mean? [06:35.000 ⇒ 06:37.000] It doesn’t mean anything. [06:37.000 ⇒ 06:39.000] I mean, there’s an old… [06:39.000 ⇒ 06:41.000] I mean, virtually every national language, [06:41.000 ⇒ 06:43.000] every national culture, [06:43.000 ⇒ 06:45.000] or at least the European ones, maybe others, [06:45.000 ⇒ 06:50.000] has a mythology that that’s the only real pure language [06:50.000 ⇒ 06:52.000] and all the others are corrupt. [06:52.000 ⇒ 06:56.000] In France, this position is kind of extreme. [06:56.000 ⇒ 06:58.000] In fact, if you go back to its origins, [06:58.000 ⇒ 07:00.000] it’s even a little bit comical. [07:00.000 ⇒ 07:02.000] I don’t know if anybody’s actually studied it. [07:02.000 ⇒ 07:04.000] But if you go back to, say, the 18th century [07:04.000 ⇒ 07:06.000] and you read, say, Diderot, [07:06.000 ⇒ 07:10.000] he explains Diderot very, you know, seriously, [07:10.000 ⇒ 07:12.000] that he says… [07:12.000 ⇒ 07:14.000] Here’s a prediction for you. [07:14.000 ⇒ 07:17.000] He says, France is going to be the language of science, [07:17.000 ⇒ 07:21.000] and German and English will be the languages of literature. [07:21.000 ⇒ 07:25.000] And the reason for this is that French is very clear. [07:25.000 ⇒ 07:28.000] In France, the words follow the order of the thoughts, [07:28.000 ⇒ 07:31.000] whereas if you listen to German and English, [07:31.000 ⇒ 07:33.000] the words don’t quite follow the words of the thought. [07:33.000 ⇒ 07:35.000] So France is good for telling… [07:35.000 ⇒ 07:37.000] French is good for telling the truth [07:37.000 ⇒ 07:39.000] because of its, what later came to be called, [07:39.000 ⇒ 07:41.000] its Gallic lucidity and clarity, [07:41.000 ⇒ 07:43.000] whereas German and… [07:43.000 ⇒ 07:45.000] I think his examples were German and English, [07:45.000 ⇒ 07:47.000] maybe Italian. [07:47.000 ⇒ 07:51.000] They’re good languages for telling fantasies and falsehoods, [07:51.000 ⇒ 07:53.000] so they’ll be the languages of literature. [07:53.000 ⇒ 07:55.000] Now, it’s a sort of naive point of view, [07:55.000 ⇒ 07:57.000] but you can see what was going on in his head. [07:57.000 ⇒ 07:59.000] I mean, for him, the words in French [07:59.000 ⇒ 08:01.000] followed the order of thoughts. [08:01.000 ⇒ 08:03.000] When you hear German, it seems all confused. [08:03.000 ⇒ 08:05.000] I mean, thinking in some other way. [08:05.000 ⇒ 08:08.000] The speaker of German looks the opposite, of course. [08:08.000 ⇒ 08:12.000] And I suspect that the mythology [08:12.000 ⇒ 08:17.000] of the purity and lucidity and clarity of French [08:17.000 ⇒ 08:20.000] goes back to ideas of that kind. [08:20.000 ⇒ 08:23.000] After all, French culture had a certain dominance [08:23.000 ⇒ 08:25.000] and appeal for a long time, [08:25.000 ⇒ 08:27.000] so these attitudes get established. [08:27.000 ⇒ 08:29.000] But what does it mean for the language to be pure? [08:29.000 ⇒ 08:31.000] Or when people say they want English to be pure, [08:31.000 ⇒ 08:33.000] what are they talking about? [08:33.000 ⇒ 08:35.000] Was Shakespeare pure? [08:35.000 ⇒ 08:38.000] In fact, every stage of history, languages are… [08:38.000 ⇒ 08:40.000] First of all, there is no such thing as a language. [08:40.000 ⇒ 08:42.000] There are just lots of different ways of speaking [08:42.000 ⇒ 08:44.000] that different people have, [08:44.000 ⇒ 08:46.000] which are more or less similar to one another, [08:46.000 ⇒ 08:50.000] and some of them may have prestige associated with them. [08:50.000 ⇒ 08:53.000] For example, some of them may be the speech [08:53.000 ⇒ 08:55.000] of a conquering group or a wealthy group [08:55.000 ⇒ 08:59.000] or a priestly caste or one thing or another, [08:59.000 ⇒ 09:02.000] and we may decide, okay, those are the good ones, [09:02.000 ⇒ 09:04.000] and some other one is the bad one. [09:04.000 ⇒ 09:07.000] But if social and political relations reversed, [09:07.000 ⇒ 09:09.000] we’d make the opposite conclusions. [09:09.000 ⇒ 09:11.000] Let’s say, take black English today. [09:11.000 ⇒ 09:15.000] Black English is considered not quite proper English. [09:15.000 ⇒ 09:18.000] On the other hand, if blacks happen to have all the power [09:18.000 ⇒ 09:20.000] and own all the corporations [09:20.000 ⇒ 09:22.000] and whites were working for them, [09:22.000 ⇒ 09:24.000] it would be the other way around. [09:24.000 ⇒ 09:26.000] Black English would be the language of culture and science [09:26.000 ⇒ 09:28.000] and so on, and the stuff that you and I speak [09:28.000 ⇒ 09:30.000] would be considered a degenerate dialect, [09:30.000 ⇒ 09:32.000] which you have to get people out of [09:32.000 ⇒ 09:34.000] so that they’ll be able to think. [09:34.000 ⇒ 09:36.000] But that raises an interesting question. [09:36.000 ⇒ 09:38.000] Why does language have rules? [09:38.000 ⇒ 09:40.000] Why is bad grammar bad grammar? [09:40.000 ⇒ 09:43.000] Well, when you’re taught rules of your own language [09:43.000 ⇒ 09:46.000] in grade school, the chances are very strong [09:46.000 ⇒ 09:48.000] that what you’re being taught is false. [09:48.000 ⇒ 09:50.000] Otherwise, you wouldn’t have to be taught it. [09:50.000 ⇒ 09:52.000] But I can see every grade school teacher [09:52.000 ⇒ 09:54.000] about to throw an orange at you on the screen. [09:54.000 ⇒ 09:58.000] Well, we have to be a little more nuanced. [09:58.000 ⇒ 10:00.000] One of the things you learn in grade school [10:00.000 ⇒ 10:02.000] is the literary language. [10:02.000 ⇒ 10:04.000] Now, in English, the literary standard [10:04.000 ⇒ 10:06.000] is not so radically different [10:06.000 ⇒ 10:08.000] from what, say, you and I grew up with, [10:08.000 ⇒ 10:10.000] but it’s somewhat different. [10:10.000 ⇒ 10:12.000] The literary standard is not [10:12.000 ⇒ 10:14.000] what I learned in the streets. [10:14.000 ⇒ 10:16.000] It’s not very different, but it’s a little different. [10:16.000 ⇒ 10:18.000] And when I went to school, [10:18.000 ⇒ 10:20.000] I was taught the literary standard. [10:20.000 ⇒ 10:22.000] Now, the literary standard has [10:22.000 ⇒ 10:24.000] some principles associated with it, [10:24.000 ⇒ 10:26.000] some of which are those of a real language, [10:26.000 ⇒ 10:28.000] some of which are completely artificial. [10:28.000 ⇒ 10:30.000] They were made up by people [10:30.000 ⇒ 10:32.000] who had crazy ideas about language. [10:32.000 ⇒ 10:34.000] And they’re all given names you’d never heard of before. [10:34.000 ⇒ 10:36.000] The reason you have to teach them [10:36.000 ⇒ 10:38.000] is because they are not the person’s language. [10:38.000 ⇒ 10:40.000] Your actual language, nobody teaches you. [10:40.000 ⇒ 10:42.000] I mean, your language just grows in your head. [10:42.000 ⇒ 10:44.000] You know, you can’t… [10:44.000 ⇒ 10:46.000] You stick a young child in an environment [10:46.000 ⇒ 10:48.000] where people are speaking language, [10:48.000 ⇒ 10:50.000] and that child can no more [10:50.000 ⇒ 10:52.000] help knowing that language [10:52.000 ⇒ 10:54.000] than the child can help growing. [10:54.000 ⇒ 10:56.000] It’s just part of human growth [10:56.000 ⇒ 10:58.000] is for some component of the brain [10:58.000 ⇒ 11:00.000] to pick up the language. [11:00.000 ⇒ 11:02.000] You can’t learn it, and you don’t learn it [11:02.000 ⇒ 11:04.000] until you learn to see. [11:04.000 ⇒ 11:06.000] Now, the fact is that the system [11:06.000 ⇒ 11:08.000] that grows in the brain [11:08.000 ⇒ 11:10.000] is sometimes different [11:10.000 ⇒ 11:12.000] from a system which is [11:12.000 ⇒ 11:14.000] regarded, for whatever reason, [11:14.000 ⇒ 11:16.000] as necessary or appropriate [11:16.000 ⇒ 11:18.000] or approved [11:18.000 ⇒ 11:20.000] or something. [11:20.000 ⇒ 11:22.000] There’s some prestige dialect, [11:22.000 ⇒ 11:24.000] and it may be different from what grew in your brain. [11:24.000 ⇒ 11:26.000] It typically is. [11:26.000 ⇒ 11:28.000] Or it may be a way of trying to get us to have a common bond through language. [11:28.000 ⇒ 11:30.000] Well, it’s possible. [11:30.000 ⇒ 11:32.000] I mean, I think that’s a problem [11:32.000 ⇒ 11:34.000] in places like, say, Italy. [11:34.000 ⇒ 11:36.000] In Italy, when you… [11:36.000 ⇒ 11:38.000] If somebody grows up in the Piedmont area [11:38.000 ⇒ 11:40.000] and somebody else grows up in the [11:40.000 ⇒ 11:42.000] Naples area, [11:42.000 ⇒ 11:44.000] they speak totally different languages. [11:44.000 ⇒ 11:46.000] Neither can understand a word the other’s saying. [11:46.000 ⇒ 11:48.000] So there, [11:48.000 ⇒ 11:50.000] when you teach what they call [11:50.000 ⇒ 11:52.000] Italian, which is the language roughly [11:52.000 ⇒ 11:54.000] of the area of Florence, of Tuscany, [11:54.000 ⇒ 11:56.000] you’re teaching people what amounts to a second language. [11:56.000 ⇒ 11:58.000] And it’s the national language. [11:58.000 ⇒ 12:00.000] The same is true in Germany and… [12:00.000 ⇒ 12:02.000] China. [12:02.000 ⇒ 12:04.000] Well, China is even worse, because what we call Chinese [12:04.000 ⇒ 12:06.000] is a set of languages which are as different [12:06.000 ⇒ 12:08.000] from one another as the different [12:08.000 ⇒ 12:10.000] Romance languages. They just happen to be all yellow [12:10.000 ⇒ 12:12.000] on the map or something, and they happen to be [12:12.000 ⇒ 12:14.000] a unified political area. [12:14.000 ⇒ 12:16.000] But there’s no sense in which they’re the same language. [12:16.000 ⇒ 12:18.000] We call them Chinese dialects. [12:18.000 ⇒ 12:20.000] But that would be like calling [12:20.000 ⇒ 12:22.000] French and Romanian two different dialects [12:22.000 ⇒ 12:24.000] of the same language, Latin or something. [12:24.000 ⇒ 12:26.000] I mean, these terms have no [12:26.000 ⇒ 12:28.000] linguistic meaning. They have only [12:28.000 ⇒ 12:30.000] sociopolitical meaning of a very [12:30.000 ⇒ 12:32.000] complex sort. [12:32.000 ⇒ 12:34.000] And the way in which they interact [12:34.000 ⇒ 12:36.000] with authority structures is crucial. [12:36.000 ⇒ 12:38.000] So what we call good English [12:38.000 ⇒ 12:40.000] is a system which is [12:40.000 ⇒ 12:42.000] partly artificial, I should say, [12:42.000 ⇒ 12:44.000] which is taught to people [12:44.000 ⇒ 12:46.000] because it was legislated to be good English. [12:46.000 ⇒ 12:48.000] Now some of what it’s taught [12:48.000 ⇒ 12:50.000] breaks the rules of any [12:50.000 ⇒ 12:52.000] conceivable human language. That’s why it has to be [12:52.000 ⇒ 12:54.000] taught over and over again. So I don’t [12:54.000 ⇒ 12:56.000] know if people still do it in school, but when I was [12:56.000 ⇒ 12:58.000] in school, you had to learn all sorts [12:58.000 ⇒ 13:00.000] of complicated nonsense about shall [13:00.000 ⇒ 13:02.000] and will, which nobody could ever remember. [13:02.000 ⇒ 13:04.000] I mean, I forget what it worked. I shall, [13:04.000 ⇒ 13:06.000] you will, or some strange thing. [13:06.000 ⇒ 13:08.000] That violates… [13:08.000 ⇒ 13:10.000] There are certain principles [13:10.000 ⇒ 13:12.000] of human biology which determine [13:12.000 ⇒ 13:14.000] what a language can be, and no language can be [13:14.000 ⇒ 13:16.000] like that. So that had to be… [13:16.000 ⇒ 13:18.000] In fact, you can trace that back and you can find out [13:18.000 ⇒ 13:20.000] who invented it. You know, some bishop in the 17th [13:20.000 ⇒ 13:22.000] century or something invented it and decided that’s [13:22.000 ⇒ 13:24.000] the way it’s supposed to be. Now that kind of thing, of course, [13:24.000 ⇒ 13:26.000] has to be taught because it’s totally artificial. [13:26.000 ⇒ 13:28.000] Or you have to teach people how to say [13:30.000 ⇒ 13:32.000] he and I instead of [13:32.000 ⇒ 13:34.000] him and me. Well, English sort of works [13:34.000 ⇒ 13:36.000] the other way. I mean, if nobody was bothering you [13:36.000 ⇒ 13:38.000] in English, you’d probably say him and me [13:38.000 ⇒ 13:40.000] or here or something like that. But you’re [13:40.000 ⇒ 13:42.000] taught in the standard language not to do [13:42.000 ⇒ 13:44.000] that. There’s some other invented [13:44.000 ⇒ 13:46.000] language which is called the literary standard in which [13:46.000 ⇒ 13:48.000] you don’t do it. And you ask the question [13:48.000 ⇒ 13:50.000] why do you have to teach people? [13:50.000 ⇒ 13:52.000] Well, you have to teach them because it’s artificial. It’s not [13:52.000 ⇒ 13:54.000] their language. And often it’s not just [13:54.000 ⇒ 13:56.000] not their language. Sometimes it’s not [13:56.000 ⇒ 13:58.000] even any possible language. Why is pronunciation [13:58.000 ⇒ 14:00.000] and intonation so important to language? [14:00.000 ⇒ 14:02.000] Why aren’t words themselves [14:02.000 ⇒ 14:04.000] sufficient to convey meaning? [14:04.000 ⇒ 14:06.000] Well, you have to understand somebody else’s words. [14:06.000 ⇒ 14:08.000] I mean, if you go to central London and somebody [14:08.000 ⇒ 14:10.000] is pronounced speaking Cockney and [14:10.000 ⇒ 14:12.000] the words happen to [14:12.000 ⇒ 14:14.000] match ours at some abstract level, [14:14.000 ⇒ 14:16.000] you still may not understand them. [14:16.000 ⇒ 14:18.000] The pronunciation may be different enough so that [14:18.000 ⇒ 14:20.000] part of your knowledge of language [14:20.000 ⇒ 14:22.000] is a way of decoding [14:22.000 ⇒ 14:24.000] noises that you hear and converting [14:24.000 ⇒ 14:26.000] them into a system that matches [14:26.000 ⇒ 14:28.000] your own representations. [14:28.000 ⇒ 14:30.000] Sometimes, no matter if that decoding system [14:30.000 ⇒ 14:32.000] to work, the systems have to be [14:32.000 ⇒ 14:34.000] close enough. You and I can do it. [14:34.000 ⇒ 14:36.000] Actually, if you listen to us closely, [14:36.000 ⇒ 14:38.000] we’re speaking different languages. [14:38.000 ⇒ 14:40.000] But they’re close enough so that we don’t have any [14:40.000 ⇒ 14:42.000] problem decoding you and you don’t have a problem [14:42.000 ⇒ 14:44.000] decoding me. But again, [14:44.000 ⇒ 14:46.000] that’s a little artificial. That’s because of the [14:46.000 ⇒ 14:48.000] artificial unity of the [14:48.000 ⇒ 14:50.000] English language spoken [14:50.000 ⇒ 14:52.000] in the United States. [14:52.000 ⇒ 14:54.000] I happened to be in England last week and I [14:54.000 ⇒ 14:56.000] confined myself in places in England where I don’t [14:56.000 ⇒ 14:58.000] understand what they’re saying. [14:58.000 ⇒ 15:00.000] If I listen to them for a while, [15:00.000 ⇒ 15:02.000] we can establish communication. [15:02.000 ⇒ 15:04.000] But you have to kind of [15:04.000 ⇒ 15:06.000] retune your system in some [15:06.000 ⇒ 15:08.000] manner that’s not understood so that you can begin [15:08.000 ⇒ 15:10.000] to decode what you’re hearing. [15:10.000 ⇒ 15:12.000] What role does slang have in a language? [15:12.000 ⇒ 15:14.000] Why does slang exist? [15:14.000 ⇒ 15:16.000] Why, I don’t know. But the fact is, [15:16.000 ⇒ 15:18.000] people are very innovative and they like to do things [15:18.000 ⇒ 15:20.000] differently, and especially teenage [15:20.000 ⇒ 15:22.000] cultures. Why do teenagers wear different [15:22.000 ⇒ 15:24.000] clothes? Well, you know, whatever [15:24.000 ⇒ 15:26.000] the reason is, they want to be different, they like [15:26.000 ⇒ 15:28.000] to be innovative, they’re creative. [15:28.000 ⇒ 15:30.000] So there’s fads in fashions and language? [15:30.000 ⇒ 15:32.000] Oh, sure. And in fact, there are [15:32.000 ⇒ 15:34.000] styles of different groups. [15:34.000 ⇒ 15:36.000] Some of them change very rapidly. [15:36.000 ⇒ 15:38.000] The words that are in [15:38.000 ⇒ 15:40.000] one era are [15:40.000 ⇒ 15:42.000] archaic and in another, the era [15:42.000 ⇒ 15:44.000] can be three years or something like that. [15:44.000 ⇒ 15:46.000] And people are playing with their languages often. [15:46.000 ⇒ 15:48.000] Again, this is not too common [15:48.000 ⇒ 15:50.000] in our societies. Our societies, [15:50.000 ⇒ 15:52.000] remember, are basically technological societies. [15:52.000 ⇒ 15:54.000] Our intelligence [15:54.000 ⇒ 15:56.000] and creativity [15:56.000 ⇒ 15:58.000] and so on goes into other things. [15:58.000 ⇒ 16:00.000] But if you go to, say, Central Australia, [16:00.000 ⇒ 16:02.000] where you’re finding [16:02.000 ⇒ 16:04.000] basically Stone Age tribes, [16:04.000 ⇒ 16:06.000] there’s a lot of innovation in [16:06.000 ⇒ 16:08.000] language. A lot of the cultural wealth [16:08.000 ⇒ 16:10.000] has to do with playing games with languages [16:10.000 ⇒ 16:12.000] and constructing elaborate kinship systems [16:12.000 ⇒ 16:14.000] and things which probably have no [16:14.000 ⇒ 16:16.000] or little functional utility. [16:16.000 ⇒ 16:18.000] It’s just the creative mind that work. [16:18.000 ⇒ 16:20.000] So you get [16:20.000 ⇒ 16:22.000] very complex language games, [16:22.000 ⇒ 16:24.000] a special language system taught [16:24.000 ⇒ 16:26.000] as a puberty rite and only a particular [16:26.000 ⇒ 16:28.000] group of people speak it and nobody else understands it. [16:28.000 ⇒ 16:30.000] How does language differ in the way that it’s [16:30.000 ⇒ 16:32.000] used in the arts? First of all, [16:32.000 ⇒ 16:34.000] there’s a variety of conventions, [16:34.000 ⇒ 16:36.000] of formal [16:36.000 ⇒ 16:38.000] conventions that are humanly [16:38.000 ⇒ 16:40.000] created but undoubtedly reflect [16:40.000 ⇒ 16:42.000] our aesthetic capacities [16:42.000 ⇒ 16:44.000] that set a framework [16:44.000 ⇒ 16:46.000] within which, they set a framework of [16:46.000 ⇒ 16:48.000] rule, humanly imposed rule [16:48.000 ⇒ 16:50.000] within which people create. [16:50.000 ⇒ 16:52.000] So in an extreme case, [16:52.000 ⇒ 16:54.000] if you write a sonnet, you have to come [16:54.000 ⇒ 16:56.000] pretty close to a fixed frame. [16:56.000 ⇒ 16:58.000] And while that’s an [16:58.000 ⇒ 17:00.000] extreme case, the same is true of other literary [17:00.000 ⇒ 17:02.000] conventions. I mean, part of [17:02.000 ⇒ 17:04.000] human creative intervention [17:04.000 ⇒ 17:06.000] has been to create forms, aesthetic [17:06.000 ⇒ 17:08.000] forms, which are somehow [17:08.000 ⇒ 17:10.000] either appealing to us or [17:10.000 ⇒ 17:12.000] challenge our intelligence [17:12.000 ⇒ 17:14.000] or whatever. And [17:14.000 ⇒ 17:16.000] you work within them. [17:16.000 ⇒ 17:18.000] After all, painting [17:18.000 ⇒ 17:20.000] on a piece of canvas [17:20.000 ⇒ 17:22.000] that has a boundary, [17:22.000 ⇒ 17:24.000] that’s pretty recent in human history [17:24.000 ⇒ 17:26.000] and that itself imposes [17:26.000 ⇒ 17:28.000] a framework which determines the kind [17:28.000 ⇒ 17:30.000] of art that you can produce. [17:30.000 ⇒ 17:32.000] And the [17:32.000 ⇒ 17:34.000] literary use of language is just [17:34.000 ⇒ 17:36.000] everything from the structure [17:36.000 ⇒ 17:38.000] of a novel to the [17:38.000 ⇒ 17:40.000] metric [17:40.000 ⇒ 17:42.000] character of a poetic [17:42.000 ⇒ 17:44.000] form is one or another [17:44.000 ⇒ 17:46.000] human invention. [17:46.000 ⇒ 17:48.000] Do you respond to poetry? [17:48.000 ⇒ 17:50.000] Do I? Sure. I have time to read it. [17:50.000 ⇒ 17:52.000] Does it make you [17:52.000 ⇒ 17:54.000] think differently? What goes on [17:54.000 ⇒ 17:56.000] in your thought process? [17:56.000 ⇒ 17:58.000] Well, you know, [17:58.000 ⇒ 18:00.000] I don’t feel competent to say, [18:00.000 ⇒ 18:02.000] but it’s a topic that has been discussed [18:02.000 ⇒ 18:04.000] quite intelligently. So, for example, [18:04.000 ⇒ 18:06.000] if you read, say, not by me, [18:06.000 ⇒ 18:08.000] I have nothing to say about it, no one [18:08.000 ⇒ 18:10.000] to pretend to. But if you read, say, [18:10.000 ⇒ 18:12.000] William Empson’s Seven Types of [18:12.000 ⇒ 18:14.000] Ambiguity, you get an intriguing [18:14.000 ⇒ 18:16.000] account of why poetry [18:16.000 ⇒ 18:18.000] makes you think, [18:18.000 ⇒ 18:20.000] in part because it’s so compressed [18:20.000 ⇒ 18:22.000] and you only get hints, [18:22.000 ⇒ 18:24.000] so the reader has to impose [18:24.000 ⇒ 18:26.000] a lot of structure. You have to put your own [18:26.000 ⇒ 18:28.000] self into it. And in part because [18:28.000 ⇒ 18:30.000] the formal structure itself [18:30.000 ⇒ 18:32.000] imposes a challenge [18:32.000 ⇒ 18:34.000] to the intelligence. [18:34.000 ⇒ 18:36.000] If you’re just throwing paints around [18:36.000 ⇒ 18:38.000] randomly, it’s not a work of art. [18:38.000 ⇒ 18:40.000] But when it’s done [18:40.000 ⇒ 18:42.000] within the framework of a [18:42.000 ⇒ 18:44.000] humanly constructed system of [18:44.000 ⇒ 18:46.000] rule, [18:46.000 ⇒ 18:48.000] at least you’ve got the prerequisites [18:48.000 ⇒ 18:50.000] for a work of art, it still may not be. [18:50.000 ⇒ 18:52.000] Whatever it takes, [18:52.000 ⇒ 18:54.000] whatever creativity is, and that’s not understood, [18:54.000 ⇒ 18:56.000] that has to be there too. [18:56.000 ⇒ 18:58.000] But I, [18:58.000 ⇒ 19:00.000] certainly I have nothing to say about these topics, [19:00.000 ⇒ 19:02.000] I wouldn’t pretend to. We bring up another [19:02.000 ⇒ 19:04.000] area you can claim you have no expertise in, [19:04.000 ⇒ 19:06.000] and that’s the use of humor. [19:06.000 ⇒ 19:08.000] We respond to people who use [19:08.000 ⇒ 19:10.000] humor in communication, yet it’s [19:10.000 ⇒ 19:12.000] not taught in grade school. [19:12.000 ⇒ 19:14.000] We’re not taught how to be comedians, [19:14.000 ⇒ 19:16.000] but we respond to it, and that seems to be [19:16.000 ⇒ 19:18.000] the case in almost every language. [19:18.000 ⇒ 19:20.000] Well, see, I don’t think that has [19:20.000 ⇒ 19:22.000] too much to do with language. We can be humorous [19:22.000 ⇒ 19:24.000] in other ways too. A clown [19:24.000 ⇒ 19:26.000] can be humorous without using [19:26.000 ⇒ 19:28.000] language, and nobody teaches a child [19:28.000 ⇒ 19:30.000] how to laugh at a clown. [19:30.000 ⇒ 19:32.000] Now, I think [19:32.000 ⇒ 19:34.000] we’re going here to interesting topics, [19:34.000 ⇒ 19:36.000] but topics where nothing is understood. [19:36.000 ⇒ 19:38.000] There’s no doubt in my mind [19:38.000 ⇒ 19:40.000] that there’s something about human nature, [19:40.000 ⇒ 19:42.000] the basic structure [19:42.000 ⇒ 19:44.000] of the human [19:44.000 ⇒ 19:46.000] mind-brain, [19:46.000 ⇒ 19:48.000] which makes certain things [19:48.000 ⇒ 19:50.000] comical, and other things not, [19:50.000 ⇒ 19:52.000] just as there’s certain things about the human [19:52.000 ⇒ 19:54.000] brain that make some things come out to be [19:54.000 ⇒ 19:56.000] human language and others not, although they could [19:56.000 ⇒ 19:58.000] be a Martian language or something. [19:58.000 ⇒ 20:00.000] And at its root, [20:00.000 ⇒ 20:02.000] it’s, I don’t think, fundamentally different [20:02.000 ⇒ 20:04.000] from the fact that we grow arms and not wings. [20:04.000 ⇒ 20:06.000] Now, we don’t know why we grow arms and not wings, [20:06.000 ⇒ 20:08.000] but you assume that it’s got something [20:08.000 ⇒ 20:10.000] to do with the human genetic endowment, [20:10.000 ⇒ 20:12.000] and I think the comparable [20:12.000 ⇒ 20:14.000] assumption is true in all these cases. [20:14.000 ⇒ 20:16.000] One of the, part of the fascination [20:16.000 ⇒ 20:18.000] of the study of language is that [20:18.000 ⇒ 20:20.000] it’s one of the few examples [20:20.000 ⇒ 20:22.000] where you can really get some insight [20:22.000 ⇒ 20:24.000] into how it works. [20:24.000 ⇒ 20:26.000] These other topics that you’re mentioning, say humor, [20:26.000 ⇒ 20:28.000] should be subjected [20:28.000 ⇒ 20:30.000] to the same kind of study, [20:30.000 ⇒ 20:32.000] but so far it hasn’t been clear how to do it. [20:34.000 ⇒ 20:36.000] Words are endlessly fascinating, [20:36.000 ⇒ 20:38.000] I think, because it’s amazing how [20:38.000 ⇒ 20:40.000] somebody can walk in a room, [20:40.000 ⇒ 20:42.000] hear a few words, and walk out crying, [20:42.000 ⇒ 20:44.000] or angry, [20:44.000 ⇒ 20:46.000] or this whole series of emotions [20:46.000 ⇒ 20:48.000] simply with a few words. [20:48.000 ⇒ 20:50.000] Doesn’t that constantly amaze you? [20:50.000 ⇒ 20:52.000] It’s not just words, again. [20:52.000 ⇒ 20:54.000] It could be a fleeting picture. [20:54.000 ⇒ 20:56.000] Take, say, a caricature. [20:56.000 ⇒ 20:58.000] You see a few lines, you know, [20:58.000 ⇒ 21:00.000] and it brings to your mind [21:00.000 ⇒ 21:02.000] a person in a situation, [21:02.000 ⇒ 21:04.000] maybe a tragic situation, [21:04.000 ⇒ 21:06.000] or a comical situation, or whatever. [21:06.000 ⇒ 21:08.000] I mean, the human mind is a [21:08.000 ⇒ 21:10.000] very marvelous thing. [21:10.000 ⇒ 21:12.000] It’s got an extremely [21:12.000 ⇒ 21:14.000] intricate and complex structure, [21:14.000 ⇒ 21:16.000] which, at least at a scientific level, [21:16.000 ⇒ 21:18.000] we understand very little about. [21:18.000 ⇒ 21:20.000] But what you’re pointing to [21:20.000 ⇒ 21:22.000] is a central part of it. [21:22.000 ⇒ 21:24.000] Little hints here and there [21:24.000 ⇒ 21:26.000] succeed in evoking in us [21:26.000 ⇒ 21:28.000] a very rich experience [21:28.000 ⇒ 21:30.000] and interpretation. [21:30.000 ⇒ 21:32.000] And what’s more, it’s done surprisingly [21:32.000 ⇒ 21:34.000] uniformly for different people. [21:34.000 ⇒ 21:36.000] And it’s, of course, done without any [21:36.000 ⇒ 21:38.000] training, or very minimal training, [21:38.000 ⇒ 21:40.000] that we would know how to train people to do this. [21:40.000 ⇒ 21:42.000] So it somehow must be [21:42.000 ⇒ 21:44.000] the only logical possibility [21:44.000 ⇒ 21:46.000] aside from angels [21:46.000 ⇒ 21:48.000] or acts of God, is it something [21:48.000 ⇒ 21:50.000] rooted in our nature? [21:50.000 ⇒ 21:52.000] I mean, qualitatively speaking, these phenomena [21:52.000 ⇒ 21:54.000] are very much like physical growth. [21:54.000 ⇒ 21:56.000] The nutrition that’s given to [21:56.000 ⇒ 21:58.000] an organism, to an embryo, [21:58.000 ⇒ 22:00.000] is not what determines [22:00.000 ⇒ 22:02.000] that it’s going to be a human or a bird. [22:02.000 ⇒ 22:04.000] What determines that it’s going to be [22:04.000 ⇒ 22:06.000] a human or a bird is something about [22:06.000 ⇒ 22:08.000] its internal structure. [22:08.000 ⇒ 22:10.000] And what determines that we are going to be [22:10.000 ⇒ 22:12.000] the kind of creature that can speak [22:12.000 ⇒ 22:18.000] and interpret a sign [22:18.000 ⇒ 22:20.000] or a couple of lines [22:20.000 ⇒ 22:22.000] or something as evoking [22:22.000 ⇒ 22:24.000] an emotional experience or whatever. [22:24.000 ⇒ 22:26.000] That’s something in our nature, [22:26.000 ⇒ 22:28.000] but it’s so far beyond what we know how to study [22:28.000 ⇒ 22:30.000] that you can only [22:30.000 ⇒ 22:32.000] wave your hands at it at the moment. [22:32.000 ⇒ 22:34.000] How should parents react with respect [22:34.000 ⇒ 22:36.000] to exposing their children to language? [22:36.000 ⇒ 22:38.000] Should they expose them to all aspects [22:38.000 ⇒ 22:40.000] of language, or should they simply let them [22:40.000 ⇒ 22:42.000] develop any way they develop? [22:42.000 ⇒ 22:44.000] I suspect there’s very little that [22:44.000 ⇒ 22:46.000] parents can do to change the course of [22:46.000 ⇒ 22:48.000] language development. [22:48.000 ⇒ 22:50.000] I mean, you can, we know from experience. [22:50.000 ⇒ 22:52.000] Again, let me say I am not [22:52.000 ⇒ 22:54.000] speaking about this from any expertise. [22:54.000 ⇒ 22:56.000] I don’t have any more expertise than [22:56.000 ⇒ 22:58.000] personal experience. There’s nothing in [22:58.000 ⇒ 23:00.000] linguistic theory that gives answers to this question. [23:00.000 ⇒ 23:02.000] But experience suffices to indicate [23:02.000 ⇒ 23:04.000] that in no cases [23:04.000 ⇒ 23:06.000] that you can [23:06.000 ⇒ 23:08.000] create an environment in which a [23:08.000 ⇒ 23:10.000] five-year-old will sound like a college professor [23:10.000 ⇒ 23:12.000] and it’s kind of comical, but they’ll use big words [23:12.000 ⇒ 23:14.000] and, you know, complicated sentences [23:14.000 ⇒ 23:16.000] and so on. I suspect you’re probably harming the [23:16.000 ⇒ 23:18.000] five-year-old, but it’s possible to do that. [23:18.000 ⇒ 23:20.000] Children can be molded. [23:20.000 ⇒ 23:22.000] On the other hand, if you just leave them alone, [23:22.000 ⇒ 23:24.000] they’re going to pick up the language [23:24.000 ⇒ 23:26.000] of their culture. [23:26.000 ⇒ 23:28.000] Typically they’ll pick up the language of their [23:28.000 ⇒ 23:30.000] peers. Quite typically, [23:30.000 ⇒ 23:32.000] there are exceptions, but typically [23:32.000 ⇒ 23:34.000] children will learn the language they [23:34.000 ⇒ 23:36.000] heard in the streets. So take me. [23:36.000 ⇒ 23:38.000] My father spoke with a Ukrainian [23:38.000 ⇒ 23:40.000] accent and my mother spoke [23:40.000 ⇒ 23:42.000] with a mixed New York-Lithuanian [23:42.000 ⇒ 23:44.000] accent, and I spoke urban [23:44.000 ⇒ 23:46.000] Philadelphia, because that’s what the kids were talking in the [23:46.000 ⇒ 23:48.000] streets. And [23:48.000 ⇒ 23:50.000] undoubtedly, if you really took my [23:50.000 ⇒ 23:52.000] speech patterns and so on aside, [23:52.000 ⇒ 23:54.000] you’d find influences from [23:54.000 ⇒ 23:56.000] the parents and the uncles and so on. [23:56.000 ⇒ 23:58.000] But overwhelmingly, you pick [23:58.000 ⇒ 24:00.000] up the pure culture. Why this happens, nobody [24:00.000 ⇒ 24:02.000] knows. But there’s [24:02.000 ⇒ 24:04.000] something about humans, [24:04.000 ⇒ 24:06.000] children, that gets them [24:06.000 ⇒ 24:08.000] to grow the language that’s [24:08.000 ⇒ 24:10.000] roughly that of their peers. [24:10.000 ⇒ 24:12.000] And it’s a very [24:12.000 ⇒ 24:14.000] rich system. It’s an extremely rich [24:14.000 ⇒ 24:16.000] system. They don’t try. They can’t [24:16.000 ⇒ 24:18.000] prevent themselves from doing it. [24:18.000 ⇒ 24:20.000] They can’t make it happen. [24:20.000 ⇒ 24:22.000] The parents can enrich the… [24:22.000 ⇒ 24:24.000] Anyone who has a two-year-old [24:24.000 ⇒ 24:26.000] knows that the kid is running [24:26.000 ⇒ 24:28.000] around all over the place trying to find out what the name [24:28.000 ⇒ 24:30.000] of everything is. [24:30.000 ⇒ 24:32.000] What’s that? What’s that? What’s that? And you can [24:32.000 ⇒ 24:34.000] help them and you can [24:34.000 ⇒ 24:36.000] read the children and show them pictures [24:36.000 ⇒ 24:38.000] and they’re all fascinated with it. [24:38.000 ⇒ 24:40.000] They’re periods of very rapid [24:40.000 ⇒ 24:42.000] language growth where you just can’t [24:42.000 ⇒ 24:44.000] satiate the curiosity fast enough. [24:44.000 ⇒ 24:46.000] Amazingly so. It’s unbelievable [24:46.000 ⇒ 24:48.000] in fact. What actually happens is [24:48.000 ⇒ 24:50.000] really astonishing. I mean, there have been [24:50.000 ⇒ 24:52.000] for example, at the peak periods of [24:52.000 ⇒ 24:54.000] forget the structure of language, which is [24:54.000 ⇒ 24:56.000] complicated enough, but just take vocabulary [24:56.000 ⇒ 24:58.000] acquisition, the simplest part. [24:58.000 ⇒ 25:00.000] At peak periods of [25:00.000 ⇒ 25:02.000] acquisition of vocabulary, learning new [25:02.000 ⇒ 25:04.000] words, children are picking [25:04.000 ⇒ 25:06.000] them up at maybe a rate of one an hour [25:06.000 ⇒ 25:08.000] or something, which means that they’re [25:08.000 ⇒ 25:10.000] essentially learning a word on one exposure. [25:10.000 ⇒ 25:12.000] And the adults go into adult education [25:12.000 ⇒ 25:14.000] and die trying to learn a new language. [25:14.000 ⇒ 25:16.000] Oh, yeah. But you know, if you think [25:16.000 ⇒ 25:18.000] what it means to learn a word on one [25:18.000 ⇒ 25:20.000] exposure, the way to understand [25:20.000 ⇒ 25:22.000] how amazing an achievement this [25:22.000 ⇒ 25:24.000] is, is to try to define a word. [25:24.000 ⇒ 25:26.000] Suppose you had an organism [25:26.000 ⇒ 25:28.000] that wasn’t equipped to learn [25:28.000 ⇒ 25:30.000] the words of human language, and you [25:30.000 ⇒ 25:32.000] really had to teach it those words [25:32.000 ⇒ 25:34.000] by training. Well, you’d first have [25:34.000 ⇒ 25:36.000] to define a word. What is the meaning [25:36.000 ⇒ 25:38.000] of table, for instance? Nobody can do that. [25:38.000 ⇒ 25:40.000] You have to define the definition you’re [25:40.000 ⇒ 25:42.000] using to define the word. But you see, [25:42.000 ⇒ 25:44.000] what we call definitions are not [25:44.000 ⇒ 25:46.000] definitions. They’re just hints. [25:46.000 ⇒ 25:48.000] If you take the Oxford English Dictionary, [25:48.000 ⇒ 25:50.000] you know, the one you read with a magnifying glass, [25:50.000 ⇒ 25:52.000] and they give you a long, [25:52.000 ⇒ 25:54.000] detailed thing, which they call the definition of a [25:54.000 ⇒ 25:56.000] word. In fact, it’s very far from the definition of [25:56.000 ⇒ 25:58.000] a word. It’s a few hints that a person [25:58.000 ⇒ 26:00.000] who already knows the concept [26:00.000 ⇒ 26:02.000] can use to understand what’s going on. [26:02.000 ⇒ 26:04.000] But remember, the child is picking [26:04.000 ⇒ 26:06.000] that up not from the Oxford English Dictionary [26:06.000 ⇒ 26:08.000] with its whole array of hints. The child’s [26:08.000 ⇒ 26:10.000] picking it up from seeing it used [26:10.000 ⇒ 26:12.000] once or twice. Now, that can [26:12.000 ⇒ 26:14.000] only mean one thing. It can only [26:14.000 ⇒ 26:16.000] mean that the concept itself, [26:16.000 ⇒ 26:18.000] in all of its richness and complexity, [26:18.000 ⇒ 26:20.000] is somehow sitting there, [26:20.000 ⇒ 26:22.000] waiting to have a sound associated with it. [26:22.000 ⇒ 26:24.000] Now, that can’t be quite true, [26:24.000 ⇒ 26:26.000] but something very much like that [26:26.000 ⇒ 26:28.000] is probably true. That’s why [26:28.000 ⇒ 26:30.000] you and I will have essentially [26:30.000 ⇒ 26:32.000] the same concept of table [26:32.000 ⇒ 26:34.000] and the same concept of person [26:34.000 ⇒ 26:36.000] and of, you know, [26:36.000 ⇒ 26:38.000] nation or all sorts of [26:38.000 ⇒ 26:40.000] things, and not complicated [26:40.000 ⇒ 26:42.000] things. I mean really simple things like [26:42.000 ⇒ 26:44.000] person, for instance, or thing. [26:44.000 ⇒ 26:46.000] We’ll have that even though we all have [26:46.000 ⇒ 26:48.000] very limited experience because basically [26:48.000 ⇒ 26:50.000] we started with those concepts. [26:50.000 ⇒ 26:52.000] We’re getting down to the end of the show. [26:52.000 ⇒ 26:54.000] Have you ever seen a time when the study of [26:54.000 ⇒ 26:56.000] language and linguistics will not [26:56.000 ⇒ 26:58.000] fascinate you? Well, I suppose [26:58.000 ⇒ 27:00.000] there must come some time when your mind [27:00.000 ⇒ 27:02.000] deteriorates to the point where you can’t [27:02.000 ⇒ 27:04.000] deal with hard questions. I guess that’ll happen. [27:04.000 ⇒ 27:06.000] Professor Noam Chomsky from the [27:06.000 ⇒ 27:08.000] Massachusetts Institute of Technology [27:08.000 ⇒ 27:10.000] and a guest lecturer at [27:10.000 ⇒ 27:12.000] the University of Washington, [27:12.000 ⇒ 27:14.000] Upon Reflection. [27:22.000 ⇒ 27:24.000] To see more [27:24.000 ⇒ 27:26.000] UWTV [27:26.000 ⇒ 27:28.000] Classics, visit [27:28.000 ⇒ 27:30.000] uwtv.org [27:30.000 ⇒ 27:32.000] slash classics.