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Subject:

Re: newsub/self-indulgent ( Colin)

From:

Colin dewar <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Tue, 8 Apr 2003 18:46:53 +0100

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (230 lines)

Thanks, Arthur. I was aware of Chomsky's work but not in this detail and it
is a great pleasure to be made more aware of these points. Interestingly
there may be a great many other "modules" or special aptitudes activated by
experience (e.g. how to read facial expression, how to manipulate people
etc), not instinctive but so easily picked up that there must be a readiness
to learn them in advance of any particular experience of the world. I wrote
a poem about this once, not a good one but a poem nonetheless, and append it
for interest and not as a general sub- it's flaws are too obvious even for
me and I do not need to waste people's time by asking them to point them
out. It follows. Anyway when it comes to picking up language there are all
the points of Chomsky et al that you mentioned and then there are the
specific language experiences of a specific poet, early and late. You will
have had your own. When I looked back on my first poems I realised that I
knew what I knew about their patterns from singing classes at school, I'm
slightly embarrassed to say. I knew dozens of them by heart by the time I
was twelve, unintentional rote learning.

Haggling at the market





No one taught me. So why is it easy

To bargain back and forth,

Estimating from sound of word and glance of eye

Where I stand, calculating figures like a machine,



Feigning disdain and moving on with my plans and my tools

Taken from a drawer in my brain?

They did not come from dreams or books

Or from a previous life,



Or developed from what I knew,

But came to light at this market

When I reached it for the first time.

Lying, bribing, blackmailing. Other skills I never use



Wait in the unopened drawer in the kitchen;

Knives I do not take, though they are there,

Ready to be honed with practice.

Leopard skin, butterfly wing, human brain



Operate as they must, but seem

God given with their faultless force,

Exist because many did not:

Could not blend, dazzle or trick



Sufficiently well.

For all that is useful or lovely in life

Were many incapable, unlovely, and rough

Who sweated, unfairly suffered and died.









_____________________________________________


BTW, a belief that something may have been the case in the past says nothing
about my political views, if I have any, in the present. When I see a swift
cheetah I picture a million slow and dead cheetahs behind it, but this
doesn't mean I'm pleased about it, just a recognition that it wouldn't have
evolved without the pressure that killed them.

I'm bad at haggling, but it suited the poem to make the protagonist good at
it. In any real haggling competition I would get eliminated.

BW

Colin



----- Original Message -----
From: "arthur seeley" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2003 8:24 PM
Subject: Re: newsub/self-indulgent ( Colin)


Chomsky promulgates the theory of:
The Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
· From the LAD develops a formal grammar with a finite set of rules shared
by all speakers of the language. Most of these rules were acquired by 5
years of age.
· From the formal grammar an infinite number of sentences can be generated.
· Proponents of the Linguistic Induction theory support this view by noting
the lack of an observable direct link between language input and out put, or
a relationship between teaching (corrections) and performance.
· In addition, the similarity of patterns of grammatical development between
cultures suggests to them a major role for genetic factor.
· Children simply understand more about language than can be accounted for
by the sum of their limited language experiences.
He suggests that LAD is innate and much early communication is via the
mother in the earlier stages who, much in the way that a mother might chew
food to make it digestible to the baby will also simplify language to make
it more accessible to the baby/infant.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Colin dewar" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2003 6:55 PM
Subject: Re: newsub/self-indulgent


> Bob,
>
> Human aptitude for language (general aptitude and not mine in particular)
is
> amazing. It is easy to pick up all kinds of speech structures and then
find
> out afterwards what they are. So how did the brain know if it didn't know?
>
> Colin
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2003 11:08 AM
> Subject: Re: newsub/self-indulgent
>
>
> > Hi Colin,
> > Like all of what's here. The poem and the comments. Softly hits a soft
> bit,
> > I guess...
> > And ain't the way children grasp and use their new skills at language
> > amazing! Poets every one with how words combine for them, flow from
them,
> > the music of so much of what they say!
> > Bob
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > >From: Colin dewar <[log in to unmask]>
> > >Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
> > >To: [log in to unmask]
> > >Subject: newsub/self-indulgent
> > >Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 20:51:36 +0100
> > >
> > >New Born Child
> > >
> > >"Self-indulgent as a baby,"
> > >the phrase that comes to mind
> > >with my daughter's head
> > >cradled on my palm,
> > >loving not my hand,
> > >only the heat it gives
> > >after feeding and sleeping.
> > >
> > >Two days old-
> > >little id- I love her still
> > >as I might love an unfledged bird
> > >that will become beautiful one day
> > >and fly away from me.
> > >
> > >____________________________________
> > >
> > >
> > >That wee kid is making up little poems of her own now:
> > >
> > >I'm five years old and I make no fuss
> > >and my brother does all the things he's told.
> > >
> > >-
> > >
> > >I have little brother
> > >and he is a little bother.
> > >
> > >-
> > >
> > >The birds on the trees are happy as can be,
> > >twittering like thunder and shining like the sun.
> > >
> > >-
> > >
> > >I'm not boisterous
> > >I'm girlstrous
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >  She'll overtake the old man in no time.
> >
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Use MSN Messenger to send music and pics to your friends
> > http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger
> >
> >

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