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Language as a phenomenon of the third kind
Cognitive Linguistics ( IF 1.8 ) Pub Date : 2020-06-25 , DOI: 10.1515/cog-2019-0029
Ewa Dąbrowska 1, 2
Affiliation  

Abstract While many linguists view language as either a cognitive or a social phenomenon, it is clearly both: a language can live only in individual minds, but it is learned from examples of utterances produced by speakers engaged in communicative interaction. In other words, language is what (Keller 1994. On language change: The invisible hand in language. London: Taylor & Francis) calls a “phenomenon of the third kind”, emerging from the interaction of a micro-level and a macro-level. Such a dual perspective helps us understand some otherwise puzzling phenomena, including “non-psychological” generalizations, or situations where a pattern which is arguably present in a language is not explicitly represented in most speakers’ minds. This paper discusses two very different examples of such generalizations, genitive marking on masculine nouns in Polish and some restrictions on questions with long-distance dependencies in English. It is argued that such situations are possible because speakers may represent “the same” knowledge at different levels of abstraction: while a few may have extracted an abstract generalization, others approximate their behaviour by relying on memorised exemplars or lexically specific patterns. Thus, a cognitively realistic usage-based construction grammar needs to distinguish between patterns in the usage of a particular speech community (a social phenomenon) and patterns in speakers’ minds (a cognitive phenomenon).

中文翻译:

语言是第三种现象

摘要虽然许多语言学家将语言视为一种认知现象或一种社会现象,但显然两者都存在:一种语言只能存在于个人的思想中,但是它是从从事交流互动的说话者所发话语的例子中学到的。换句话说,语言就是什么(凯勒,1994年,《语言的改变:语言的无形之手》,伦敦:泰勒和弗朗西斯)称为“第三类现象”,源于微观层次与宏观层次之间的相互作用。等级。这种双重视角有助于我们理解一些其他令人费解的现象,包括“非心理学”概括,或者在大多数说话者的脑海中没有明确表示出一种可以说存在于某种语言中的模式的情况。本文讨论了这种概括的两个非常不同的示例,波兰语中男性名词的遗传标记以及英语中对具有长距离依赖性的问题的一些限制。有人认为这样的情况是可能的,因为说话者可能在不同的抽象层次上代表“相同”的知识:虽然少数人可能提取了抽象概括,但其他人则依靠记忆的样本或词汇特定的模式来近似其行为。因此,基于认知现实使用的构造语法需要区分特定语音社区的使用模式(一种社会现象)和说话者头脑中的模式(一种认知现象)。有人认为这样的情况是可能的,因为说话者可能在不同的抽象层次上代表“相同”的知识:虽然少数人可能提取了抽象概括,但其他人则依靠记忆的样本或词汇特定的模式来近似其行为。因此,基于认知现实使用的构造语法需要区分特定语音社区的使用模式(一种社会现象)和说话者头脑中的模式(一种认知现象)。有人认为这样的情况是可能的,因为说话者可能在不同的抽象层次上代表“相同”的知识:虽然少数人可能提取了抽象概括,但其他人则依靠记忆的样本或词汇特定的模式来近似其行为。因此,基于认知现实使用的构造语法需要区分特定语音社区的使用模式(一种社会现象)和说话者头脑中的模式(一种认知现象)。
更新日期:2020-06-25
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