This volume, a revised version of Sampson's (1997) Educating Eve, is an empiricist response to linguistic nativism. Accordingly, the volumes's primary objective is to challenge the view that there is an innate component specifically responsible for the human linguistic capacity. This new edition presents insights from corpus linguistics, which are used to refute the original poverty-of-the-stimulus arguments. The introductory chapter gives a historical overview of the nativist doctrine by distinguishing between the original writings of Chomsky and present-day nativists such as Bickerton and Pinker. In this chapter, Sampson also introduces his view of language acquisition as a hypothesis-testing interplay between the learner and the environment, ideas that he attributes to Popper.
In chapter 2, Sampson reviews seven original arguments for linguistic nativism, such as the remarkable speed with which children acquire their first language (L1), the notion of a critical period for language, and convergence among grammars despite differences in intelligence, exposure to input, or both. Sampson then skillfully refutes each argument by citing counterexamples, inherent contradictions, and factual inconsistencies. His response to the notion of a critical period for language learning briefly mentions SLA, which he ultimately dismisses as being “neither here nor there as far as the nativist issue is concerned” (p. 40), given that second language (L2) learners exploit mastery of their L1 (which is, by definition, acquired before the end of the critical period). The chapter concludes with a discussion of overly simplified assumptions in nativist argumentation, such as the instantaneous nature of language acquisition and the notion of an ideal speaker-hearer.
Chapter 3 presents data from the British National Corpus to counter two linguistic properties frequently cited as evidence for the poverty-of-the-stimulus argument: auxiliary sequences and structure-dependent question formation. An interesting component of this chapter is the discussion of negative evidence, the lack of which constitutes the logical problem of language acquisition in nativist terms. Sampson argues that negative evidence is not necessary for any realm of scientific discovery, including language acquisition. Chapter 4 examines more recent nativist arguments, specifically the work of Bickerton, Jackendoff, and Pinker. Here, the notion of critical period and SLA is brought to the forefront. Sampson acknowledges that all types of learning deteriorate with age, but he attributes adults' difficulties with L2s solely to a lack of integrative motivation—that is, the desire to adopt the target culture.
Chapter 5 examines language universals, focusing primarily on tree structuring in grammar, island constraints, and X-bar structure. In this chapter, Sampson draws a crucial parallel between language and complex organisms created by evolutionary processes, both of which have tree structuring as a matter of necessity. The volume concludes with an abstract discussion of philosophical questions, such as the creativity of the human mind (vs. the kind of creativity postulated by Chomsky), the duality of mind and matter, and the concept of emergence.
In general, Sampson's volume is well argued and skillfully written. It succeeds in making a convincing case against linguistic nativism but does not go into great detail about the alternative approach—that is, an empiricist model of language learning. This is, understandably, not the immediate goal of the volume, especially because such models have been outlined in detail by researchers such as MacWhinney (1998, 2004) and, most recently, O'Grady (2005).
With respect to SLA, Sampson repeatedly argues against the notion of a biological critical period, given that less-than-successful acquisition of a L2 is often seen as evidence for the nativist position. However, one can reject nativism without denying the evidence in this area, which has shown robust age effects for various language areas (cf. DeKeyser, 2000). Empiricist models are perfectly compatible with the idea that L2 learning is susceptible to age-related effects. In the connectionist view, for example, L2 learners' difficulties are a logical consequence of the fine-tuning of activation weights that occurs during L1 learning. The more mature (and entrenched) the L1 system becomes, the more difficult it is to perceive and produce new linguistic contrasts.
In his conclusion, Sampson speculates on the extraordinary success of linguistic nativism despite the paucity of evidence to support it. He suggests that nativism is the more inherently attractive position, whereas the alternative view leaves “far less for researchers to study” (p. 192). For language acquisition researchers, this is not necessarily the case. Once innate constraints are set aside, we are left with the enormous task of explaining how languages, in all of their complexity and diversity, are actually learned.
