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5 - On obfuscation, obscurantism, and opacity: evolving conceptions of the faculty of language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Marc D. Hauser
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Harvard University
Richard K. Larson
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Stony Brook
Viviane Déprez
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, New Jersey
Hiroko Yamakido
Affiliation:
Lawrence University, Wisconsin
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Summary

Let me start out with an experience that I assume is relatively familiar. You have just landed in a foreign country, speak only the most minimalist version of the local language, and try to get by, generating telegraphic utterances about toilets, banks, and places to eat. Largely, you feel deeply misunderstood and frustrated, but occasionally enjoy the novelty of your experiences, including the people you meet along the way and the attention you sometimes receive. The response to my paper on the evolution of the language faculty with Chomsky and Fitch (2002) has left me in a similar state. Sometimes I think, based on the confusion surrounding our paper, that we must have been speaking an utterly foreign language. At other times, paraphrasing one of my favorite Dawkins-isms, I think there is a wanton eagerness to misunderstand, misconstrue, or fabricate. Sometimes I yield to a more charitable view and assume that we failed to make our position clear because of a telegraphic attempt to articulate a complicated set of arguments and proposals for both the prior history of work on this topic as well as potentially fruitful directions for the future. And sometimes I think that the state of play in the study of language evolution is doomed to endless obfuscation, obscurantism, and opacity!

Type
Chapter
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The Evolution of Human Language
Biolinguistic Perspectives
, pp. 91 - 100
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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