Overcoming language barriers: Interfaces between disciplines

Abstract

This commentary highlights the advantages of examining the interactions between domains of language, the language environment, and the individual. The findings of these articles address questions of current interest in both linguistics and cognitive science but may find a broader audience if the value of innateness, modularity, and assumptions about the role of frequency and the input are more carefully questioned. The strengths of working at the interface between linguistic subsystems include precise specification of the problem space, consideration of task effects, and extra-linguistic factors that might influence the results observed. The relative contribution of the input according to the different authors is considered and measures for incorporating input into studies are discussed. Implicit definitions of innateness and modularity assumed by the articles are highlighted.