Genie 2

1. What was so significant about Chomsky's argument?

It made linguists realize that there was more to the development of language than just vocabulary, making language an even more interesting concept.

2. What do you make of Chomsky's bird argument on p. 36?

I believe Chomsky is using this argument to suggest that language is something we are designed to know how to do and it is not necessarily learned, just as a person is designed to know how to walk as their means of transportation and cannot learn how to fly because that is a bird’s means of transportation not a human’s.

3. Do you agree with Chomsky's claim about the island at the end of Chapter 7? Please explain your answer.

I do agree with Chomsky’s claim about the island because it seems to be true that when people are taken out of a modern environment and left to their own they resort back to a primal state, like when people are not told about time and they always end up resorting back to a 15 hour day, which was normal for humans hundreds of years ago when they did not have clocks, so if humans are put on an island away from the modern world they would be forced to resort back to this state and because people who were in this state hundreds of years ago were able to develop language after a period of time it seems logical that the people on the island would do the same.

4. In Chapter 10, why were Genie's observers pleased to see her hitting other children?

They were pleased because she was learning to outwardly express her anger at it catalyst instead of holding it inside and inflicting pain on herself, showing that Genie was developing a sense of self.

5. Describe how Genie's language was developing.

It developed because Genie became interested in her surroundings and always wanted to know the names of things within it.

6. After reading Chapter 11, what are the primary differences between the reading and the film?

The reading presented more information about the cruel methods Jean Marc Gaspard Itard used to test Victor’s abilities.

7. How did the film, Wild Child impact the symposium members? What is meant by: "all of us saw in the movie what we were prepared to see to confirm to our own biases."?

The members were very moved by the film. This means that the movie showed what they had hoped it would show, what Genie could best reveal to science and what, in the course of that revealing, science could ethically ask of Genie.

8. What do you think of Dr. Elkind's quote on p. 59? How do you feel about Dr. Freedman's suggestion on p. 59-61

I think Dr. Elkind was trying to say that Genie needs the right amount of love and acceptance no matter how far her speech progresses because her recovery of the traumatic events of her life are the real priority, not how much she can learn. Dr. Freeman’s suggestions about helping Genie to become more self-aware and more aware of other humans seems to be a good idea because Genie will always have a hard time being accepted by others if she cannot first accept them and herself and care for them and herself.

9. Why was it important for Itard to teach Victor to "imagine the needs of others (p. 73)"? Does CAS do this? Why or why not?

This was important because it taught Victor to become more involved in his surrounding by caring for the people in them. CAS does this as well because it causes us to become more involved our community and we begin to care more for its well being.

10. After reading Chapter 14, do you agree that Truffaut's film ending was too optimistic?

I do not think the film ended too optimistically, though I would have wanted it to include an illustrated narrative of what had happened to the characters, because I believe the ending was meant to give people, particularly scientists, hope for what may accomplished with children who have similar stories to Victor, like Genie, in the future, so that we may continue trying to improve their conditions and build a better understanding of their world for them.