Eric Heinz Lenneberg (1921 - 1975) was a
linguist and neurologist who pioneered ideas on
language acquisition and
cognitive psychology, particularly in terms of the concept of innateness. He was born in
Düsseldorf, Germany. An ethnic
Jew, he left
Nazi Germany because of rising
Nazi persecution. He initially fled to Brazil with his family and then to the United States where he attended the
University of Chicago and
Harvard University. A professor of
psychology and neurobiology, he taught at the Harvard Medical School, the
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and
Cornell University and Medical School.
Lenneberg's 1964 paper "The Capacity of Language Acquisition," originally published in 1960, sets forth seminal arguments about the human-specific biological capacity for language, which were then being developed in his research and discussions with George A. Miller, Noam Chomsky, and others at Harvard and MIT, and popularized by Steven Pinker in his book, The Language Instinct. He presents four arguments for biological innateness of psychological capacities, parallel to arguments in biology for the innateness of physical traits
In his publication Biological Foundations of Language he advanced the hypothesis of a critical period for language development; a topic which remains controversial and the subject of debate. Lenneberg's biological approach to language was related to developments such as the motor theory of speech perception developed by Alvin Liberman and colleagues at Haskins Laboratories and also provided historical antecedents to issues now emerging in embodied philosophy and embodied cognition.
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