Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / January 2006

otf: thank you for your reply Peter. I still can't get why CA has been
loathed/dismissed to such an extent

otf: Because:
1._ as I said I am not a linguist myself, so it is hard to me to know
where/how to ask a question
2._ it is defintiely better than multiposting, and
3._ as the English saying goes: "it -is- where you find it" :-)
.
otf

Presumably because the poster's 'native' tribe coulden't provide him with
information.

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Perhaps the signal issue stems from Chomsky, and this idea of a universal
grammar. Recently in this newsgroup [word usage] no one has been able to
state their knoweldge of words actually used, rather than of words known,
neither for themselves or for others.

A contention is that there are significant groupings of people who have
discrete /needs/ in language use, and these needs are contained by a
relatively small amount of words - and further, that this group of words
used is a universal factor, not only across any contemporaneous group of
users, but that it is a constant historically.

Examples might be that in terms of /use/, beyond common but necessarily
differentiated adjectives, such as the names of colours, and essential
aspects of simple numeracy [the names of quantities] much usage is to
collectivise an expression, so that adjectively there is massive use of such
terms as 'big and 'little', and these are applied to almost any topic, with
only a few variants. eg little/small big/huge [dude!]

The interesting aspect of comparison is the amount of words electively used
for (a) general self expression, compared with (b) any special words needed
for work, which are required words and not elective ones voluntarily used
outside of work.

The contention is that (a) is a universal across cultures, nations, time,
class, wealth, and age.

It is an interesting study, especially since Eco has predicted an emerging
caste basis for English, depositing almost all speakers of English language
into the 'use-only' group of mannerists, and making isolani of such literats
as might read this message in any of the newsgroups to which it is posted.

To wit: that although people may disagree with these ideas, or wish to have
them substantiated or elaqboriated, they are able to understand the
contention. Eco says this will become a rarity. The implications of such a
rarity are - well, alarmist, true! - yet to take it seriously, we will
express on this level, and also use a pidgin-form as is already becoming the
the case on television.

A summary of these contentions may be that language acquisition has, at a
certain threshold of the subject's need to acquire it, for most people only
a limited and, indeed, theoretical application beyond the base number. And
that number of words may be as little as 1,000.

Phil Innes