Genie

After your class has written the in-class essay, please read Chapters 1, 2, 4 and 5 of Genie. I apologize for the disturbing content, but the material is essential for our future discussion of Language. Once you have read these chapters, please answer the following questions and post them to your blog. The answers are due March 4.

1. What was Psamtik's experiment? What did he hope to learn? Did he?
2. Rymer claims on pg. 5 that "while his experiment was flawed in fulfilling its declared intention...it embodied both the theological questions and the practical quandaries that still bedevil the discipline." Where did Abel hint at this same concept?
3. Why do Linguistics and Astronomy "constitute an unlikely sisterhood"?
4. Why was the Social Worker concerned about the young girl that came to her Welfare Office with her mother?
5. Consider the history of Linguistics outlined in Chapter 5. Please explain how the study of language grew from the religious to the biological and finally to the psychological.