The Linguistic Development of Genie

Abstract

This paper discusses the linguistic development of Genie, an adolescent girl who for most of her life underwent a degree of social isolation and experiential deprivation unparalleled in the reports of scientific investigation. This case touches on questions of profound interest to psychologists, philosophers, and linguists, including the relationship between cognition and language, the interdependence or autonomy of linguistic competence and performance, the mental abilities underlying language, proposed universal stages in language learning, the critical age for language acquisition, and the biological foundations of language.* Interest in cases of children reared in environments of extreme social isolation can be traced back at least to the 18th century. At that time the interest was stimulated by the debates concerning the theory of innate ideas and the struggle between the 'geneticists' and the 'environmentalists'. In 1758, Carl Linnaeus first included Homo ferus as a subdivision of Homo sapiens. One of the defining characteristics of Homo ferus, according to Linnaeus, was his lack of speech or overt language. All the cases in the literature attest to the correctness of this observation. The most dramatic cases of children reared under severe conditions of social isolation and stimulus deprivation are those described as 'wild' or 'feral' children, children who have reportedly been reared with wild animals or have lived alone in the wilderness. Two such children, Amala and Kamala, found in 1920, were supposedly reared by wolves. Information on the prior history of these children is