Logical Reasoning

PT117 · S3 · Q25 Native speakers perceive sentences of

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Native speakers perceive sentences of their own language as sequences of separate words.

Conclusion

This perception is an illusion.

rephrase: Native speakers are wrong to hear sentences of their own language as sequences of separate words (or, )

Evidence (this is shown by the fact)

Travelers who don't know a local language hear an unintelligible, uninterrupted stream of sound, not sentences with distinct words.

Evaluate

This argument boils down to this structure.

People X say Thing A. But they're wrong. This is shown by the fact that People Y say Thing A isn't true.

We sometimes nickname this a He Said / She Said argument, meaning that it's one person's word / point of view vs. another's. The author often arbitrarily sides with one view over the other without justifying their pick (or their attempt to justify favoring one side over the other is super sketchy).

When I listen to Spanish speaking radio, I have a very hard time separating the stream of sound into distinct words. Meanwhile, I'm guessing a Spanish-speaking listener does can comfortably hear the distinct words in a sentence.

So which of us has the "correct" perception?

We could say that my perception is more accurate, since I have fresh ears and am not biased by familiarity. We could say that their perception is more accurate, because they have the necessary faculty (they know Spanish) to accurately judge whether sentences are comprised of distinct words.

Goal

Look for an answer establishing a Linking idea like,

Or look for an answer stating the author's assumed preference in this He Said / She Said debate:

Or look for an answer ruling out an objection: .

25.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

It is impossible to understand
Too Strong: impossible Contradicted
This argument only cares about whether sentences are or aren't sequences of separate words vs. uninterrupted streams of sound. It doesn't care at all about whether it's possible/impossible to understand an uninterrupted stream of sound. It would be a very extreme idea for the author to have committed to the idea that it's impossible to understand an uninterrupted stream of sound (it also seems contradicted by the fact that the author thinks sentences are uninterrupted streams of sound but also believes that native speakers can understand them).
3% picked this
Those who do not know
Opposite
The author is trusting the opinion of the people who do not know the language, so this sounds like the opposite of what she's assuming. This answer would be more of a match if it said either "Those who know a language cannot hear how it actually sounds" or "Those who don't know a language can hear how it actually sounds"
14% picked this
People pay less close attention
Out of Scope
Out of Scope: pay less close attention Causal Backstory to Premise This argument only cares about whether sentences are or aren't sequences of separate words vs. uninterrupted streams of sound. It doesn't care about how close attention we are paying. It only cares about the final evaluation. If we say that people pay just as much close attention to the way their language sounds as they do to the way an unfamiliar language sounds, that wouldn't hurt the argument. This answer is doing the famous trap of trying to assume a potential causal backstory to one of the facts of the case. "Why do the natives hear sentences differently than travelers do?" One possible causal explanation is that the natives pay less close attention and the travelers pay more. But the author doesn't need to think that natives have the "wrong" impression about whether sentences are sequences of distinct words because they aren't paying close enough attention. If it's for some other reason (like they're paying so much attention they're guessing what the rest of the sentence will be and thus perceiving each upcoming word as distinct), the argument still works.
3% picked this
Accomplished non-native speakers of a
Out of Scope: accomplished speakers
The author has only told us about View 1 (native speakers) vs. View 2 (outsiders who don't know the language) and has assumed that View 2 is correct. She hasn't committed to any opinion on View 3 (outsiders who do know the language exceptionally well).
6% picked this
Correct
Native speakers’ perceptions of their
Why this is right
This has the lovable ruling-out "not" that so many correct Defender answers have. We slow down and negate it. Would it hurt the argument to say, "Yo, author -- native speakers' perceptions are more accurate than are the perceptions of these travelers who don't know the language"? Yes! That badly hurts the argument, in fact, because it takes the He Said / She Said tension and tells us that the author is trusting the wrong point of view. If the natives perception is more trustworthy, then we should be more inclined to think that sentences are sequences of separate words, and that the perception of travelers who don't speak the language (that sentences are just uninterrupted streams of sound) is an illusion.
Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
74% picked this

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