Points made in this week's lesson 'More on Language'

1. Drew attention to the way research goes forward in a social science like psychology;
2. Noted the number of rules the child masters at an early stage (I mentioned that Chomsky says that we must be pre-programmed with them, to which you responded that Mrs Chinai had ascribed it to 'unconscious learning': I said that I could not think of an experiment which would disinguish between the two)
3. the point about the LOSS of the capacity to recognise 'extra-cultural' phonemes (Japanese can't distinguish between 'L' and 'R') being an example of the map not being the territory although it perhaps could have been;
4. the politically sensitive matter of wide variations in vocabulary acquisition and modes of speech by a very young age; these sorts of factors occurring before entry into school having great implications for estimates of the likelihood of progress in school, and creating some of the tensions associated with politically correct ideas of universal entitlement to knowledge.
5. The child's 'Grand Insight' that 'word entities' signify 'reality entities', which gets him to the point where TOK starts (with its question 'do words adequately represent things?')

Did anything else strike you?