'LANGUAGE INSTINCT' DEBATE

From the publisher. Sampson offers an enlarged and updated version of a text originally published in 1997, in which he challenges Noam Chomsky's theory of an innate, biologically determined system specific to human beings which provides a normal child with a vast body of a priori knowledge about the nature of any human language. The author draws on recent discoveries about the sequencing of the human genome and other scientific findings, and the increasing accessibility of quantities of concrete data on how people use language in real life, to further his argument. The second edition includes new passages, new chapter-sections, and a full new chapter discussing the relevance of recent research and responding to objections raised by critics of the first edition.