Steven Pinker, author of “Language as an Adaption to the Cognitive Niche” argues that language is a “complex biological” adaption that was developed by natural selection through evolution in order for humans to effectively and efficiently communicate with one another. He defines adaption specifically as, “a trait whose genetic basis was shaped by natural selection, as opposed to the everyday sense of a trait that is useful to the individual,” because its evolved effects on language have reshaped livelihood for all. This resultantly prolonged the average lifespan and made life easier with time, specifically with language’s utilization of “bidirectional” sounds to convey certain ideas to each other (Pinker, 2003, pg. 17). The “cognitive niche”…show more content… 17). He discusses the abstractness of language structures that dictate the way a sentence conveying an idea should be structured, which he calls a “combinational system,” which include grammar, syntax, morphology, and phonology. These man made language rules must interact with other cognitive aspects like perception, articulation, conceptual knowledge, and social knowledge, in order to successfully produce language to be practiced within the social world. He argues that these three other systems of the mind do not solely and specifically function solely for language, but also states that these concepts may have evolved from out earliest ancestors to more specifically serve for communicational purposes. He argues in support for language as an ‘instinct’ by stating that it universally occurs in all cultures, and even those from the poorest societies still maintain a language, although its rules and structures may differ from the standard. Pinker also reasons that language conforms to a similar design that is replicated across cultures because they all contain their own grammatical
