 Because there is considerable variety here in the underlying conceptions of languages, Chomsky’s criticisms can seem sweeping, but the underlying thought is that, because E-languages are less “real” than I-languages, “the concept [of an E-language] appears to play no role in the theory of language” (1986: 26). The argument for this negative conclusion is not so different from the positive argument for an I-language perspective outlined in  3.1.1.  Linguistic behaviour is the product of both the language faculty on the one hand and external influences—performance systems in the mind/brain of the individual and social factors—on the other. At issue is not whether anything at all can ever be said, usefully, about these “downstream” effects, but whether the notion of an E-language has any pivotal explanatory role to play in saying it (save as a useful shorthand). Nothing much is added to the account of language learning in  3.1.1,  for example, by describing it as development towards the learning of an externalistically specified social language, as opposed to some specific mature state, SM, of an individual.