Chomsky的《语言与自然》述评  

Review of Chomsky's Language and Nature

作　　者：吴刚[1] 

机构地区：[1]广东外语外贸大学英文学院

出　　处：《现代外语》1998年第4期89+88+90-103,共16页Modern Foreign Languages

摘　　要：本文述评Ｃｈｏｍｓｋｙ在《语言与自然》一文中论述的语言哲学思想。自然主义方式经验研究把语言看作自然客体，采用内在主义的观点和方法寻求对语言和心智问题最好的理解，并创建相关理论，以期实现语言学与主体自然科学的统一。有碍内在主义语言学研究的方法二元论和有关语言哲学观点应该得到批判和克服。This paper reviews the article Language and Nature written by Noam Chomsky published in 1995. The major arguments of the original work are related and explained, together with some personal comments tentatively made. In the article, Chomsky argues that human language should be regarded as a natural object which is the state of the cognitive system of the language faculty in the mind/brain. The naturalistic approach to linguistics seeks to construct intelligible explanatory theories. It is hoped that the study of language and mind be eventually unified with the “core' nature sciences: unification, not necessarily reduction. Language and mind is the state of the brain; however, the state of the language faculty cannot be simply reduced to that of the neural system. Chomsky maintains that the language faculty of the brain consists of two components: a cognitive system and a performance system. The former generates an infinite set of linguistic expressions including sound and meaning, while the latter makes use of the expressions produced. The computation of the human language faculty is internally determined beyond any human consciousness. The phenomenon “poverty of stimulus' is even true of the acquisition of lexical items. The meaning of words evolves the linguistic agent's perspectives on the world, and the study of meaning has to do with some other cognitive systems of the brain. The philosophical semantics has caused some confusion in the study of the meaning of natural language. There is no such a thing like the “shared public language' in the world, nor is there a reference based semantics. The “methodological dualism' resulting from various kinds of behaviorism and some trends of philosophy should not be allowed to hamper efforts to gain understanding into what kind of creatures we are. We assume that to know the definition of language given by Chomsky is fundamental to a true understanding of the Chomskyan linguistics. However, people may still have different ideas about language and differen

关 键 词：语言 自然客体 内在主义观点 自然主义方式 

分 类 号：H0[语言文字—语言学]