Bezhani, Q1 BM, Language is an Instinct

I’ve always been interested in the cognition. Language, the method of expressing thought, is a particular area that strikes me as very interesting. For instance, the subconscious manner of a human mind processing language has always brought forth a question in me: Is language instinctive within people, or has it been constructed through evolution?

According to the Department of Brain and Cognitive Science at MIT, the art of speech holds a person’s instinctive self-expression. Thus it should not be used as a liability to dissemble one’s subconscious intuition of language.

Instinct is simply an automatic and effortless manner of response. From an evolutionary standpoint, language is an instinct, meant to be naturally expressed.  Consequently, people can never be improper of grammar in their speech. This is because of diversity. People have their mind wound up differently. In respect to a human population, when people speak, what they say, how they say it-- grammatically, as well as their cadence-- is all a part of what makes the person unique. One can only conform to society's standards of speaking "correctly" with the consequence of losing one’s idiosyncratic articulation. Language is a bare ability that gradually becomes a concealed ability.

If society upholds a system in which individuals are hidden from their own originality, inevitably obscurity is created in those people’s lives. When society evokes a cognitive-stereotype (how a person should talk) that person, if submissive, is no longer human, but robotic. To be human is to be instinctive of the signals that the body sends out, whether it is conscious or not.  Once a person is structuring her instincts, she is fabricating her character.

Writing, another form of expression, is an optional accessory for a person. It comes as a result of oral expression. It is taught through directions of shape, size, and visualization. Writing is expressive as much as speech is, however it is not instinctive. Ultimately the only form of expression that can never be incorrect, is speaking. Writing is a constructed form of expression and without an eloquent mechanism of expression like speech, there is no beginning, middle and end.

As humans to grow they become more and more conscious of society, and when their mind is set on changing, they change. People change their humanity and that influences their initial and natural ability to speak. Children are self-accepting, on the other hand. They are not impacted by the need to change a natural instinct; therefore children are more accomplished speakers than adults are.

The genesis of language was described in 1871 by Charles Darwin in a book called The Descent of Man. Darwin described language to be “an instinctive tendency to acquire art”. He began the entire idea of language being identified as an instinctive. William James, a supporter of Darwin cognitive work, also suggested that a human being is physiologically instinctive. Hence a person should not act like a “fatal automaton” when they have the opportunity to act human. Throughout his arguments and recognitions of the world, James concluded that humans and animals share the same instincts, and that language was one of them.

Studies have shown that language is crucial in a person’s life. When there is no other human to talk to, humans turn to themselves, plants, and animals. But it is not until a person becomes fully grown that they lose the natural ability of comprehension. Children have a natural ability to develop and grasp dense grammatical structures, without any set of directions.