Theoretical/Experimental Linguistic Cognition
Advanced Studies
Seeking the origins of language, students learn to blend an American flair
for theory with French experimental design
University of California, Los Angeles, and
École Normale Supérieure
2009 laureate
“Taking advantage of each other’s comparative advantages” is how Professor
Dominique Sportiche of the University of California, Los Angeles linguistics department
describes this joint study/research collaboration. Historically, Americans and the French
have brought different strengths to the study of language. American linguists excel
particularly at the theoretical side while the French possess a special expertise in
experimental work, the testing and measuring of hypotheses. The comparative
advantages don’t end there however.
Linguistics is the scientific study of how language works. Humans are unique in the
animal kingdom in possessing elaborate ways of expressing subtle or complex thoughts
about the past or the future, about imaginary worlds, about other people’s feelings,
intentions, or thoughts – a whole host of expressive possibilities. Everyone speaking a
native tongue, any native tongue, has in his or her head a set of rules for building
sentences and communicating in that language. Grammar refers to these rules
governing the use of a language for common understanding among the members of a
group. Much of this knowledge is acquired in infancy and early childhood, well before
the onset of any formal, conscious effort to acquire these skills.
Linguists look particularly at grammatical constructions in native tongues of the
world, be they spoken or signed. For example, they study syntax to determine how
sentences are formed, can be formed or could not be formed. How does agreement
between subjects and verbs work? Why do certain languages have agreement between
objects and verbs but English does not? How do different word placements affect
intended meaning? Linguistic researchers are always looking for both the generalities
and varieties within particular languages and among all languages.
Such analysis has fascinated mankind for centuries. Examples of early linguistic
activity can be traced back to India in the 4th Century B.C. and the work of Panini, a
Sanskrit scholar, who developed a comprehensive grammar describing the many
different features and rules of the language. But it was not until the mid-20th Century,
due in great part to the work of Noam Chomsky at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, that it was understood that a lot of language structure is coded in how the
human brain is wired and is not just a function of culture and society. This new
emphasis changed the study of linguistics forever.
Bring in the neuroscientists, experimental psychologists, education specialists,
biostatisticians, and even doctors, ethologists and philosophers, and you have a team of
cognitive scientists focused on how the brain perceives stimuli or inputs and proceeds
to process them into outputs such as language. A cognitive scientist might ask: How
does the brain process grammatical rules of which people are seemingly unconscious?
How is subject-verb agreement actually achieved in speech? How many memory
resources does it use? How are linguistic inputs analyzed to give rise to meanings so
quickly and accurately? What exactly goes wrong in people experiencing language
deficits? And what is different between the brains of people and animals?
The advantages of adding the multidisciplinary approach of cognitive studies to
linguistic exploration are many. There is a constant and productive interplay between
formulating theoretical hypotheses about linguistic structures and studying how these
structures are used in real time as we speak or understand or how they are acquired
and used by babies and small children. New techniques of brain imaging allows one to
pinpoint which parts of the brain are activated during speech, or which ones appear
damaged in some patients, and with what linguistic structures these patients are
struggling. The development of different levels of inquiry, of new research tools,
systems of measurement and types of experimentation are bridging the humanities and
the experimental sciences and bringing about substantial breakthroughs. The last 10
years, according to Sportiche, have been “transformational.”
Today’s UCLA/ENS graduate students are among the first cohorts to be crosstrained in both the development of language theory and ways to test those hypotheses
through experimental design, execution and measurement. The extent to which this is
being done is a relatively new phenomenon in the field of linguistics, and Sportiche
emphasizes the importance of having two first-rate institutions committed to building this
collaborative approach. As he explains, just as languages have a lot of commonalities
and differences, so do scientific cultures. It is absolutely critical that students, and
especially their teachers and mentors, engage in new ways of thinking and appreciate
the value in different approaches. Sportiche says it is hard work. “We’re not just trying to
change ideas. We’re trying to change people,” he explains. “This is how progress is
made.”
American Team
Leader: Professor Dominique Sportiche, Dominique.Sportiche@ucla.edu, (310)
825-0634
French Team
Leader: Emmanuel Dupoux, Senior Research Scientist,
Emmanuel.Dupoux@ens.fr,
011 33 (0)1 44 32 26 17