Theories of language Jan

Since Antiquity, a central concern of theories of language has been the question whether language is predominantly a matter of “nature” or of “nurture.” One version of this dilemma is whether language is primarily a socio-cultural reality or a biological phenomenon. British Empiricism and German Romantic ideas, interacting in complicated ways, set the stage for much of 19th century linguistic thinking, which culminated in the various structuralist schools of the first half of the 20th century. Often, this tradition emphasized culture, nurture and diversity. In the second half of the 20th century, influenced by Chomsky, nativism and the idea of Universal Grammar made a powerful come-back. This culminated in the “biolinguistic” idea that language has a core that can be compared to an organ, or rather, to a computational system of the kind found in mammalian vision. Instead of embarking upon the impossible task of giving an overview of all current theories of language, I will give a historical sketch of how the Chomskyan-style linguistics fared with respect to the perennial tension between culture and biology in the study of language and how this tension can be resolved with current neurobiology. It is my hope that this story suggests some morals about other theories of language as well.