Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп. Сетевой архив.

Журнал научных разысканий о биографии, теоретическом наследии и эпохе М. М. Бахтина

ISSN 0136-0132

Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп. → 2001 → 2

«Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп», 2001, №2
0 95
«Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope», 2001, №2

Michal Legierski

Language, Thinking and Cognition

For more than three decades the theories of Noam Chomsky have been dominant in linguistics. These theories focus on language as a regular, logical and perfect means of communication between an ideal speaker-listener, free from memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and speech errors¹. Such a model may be applicable to the exchange of information between computers, but not to communication between human beings.

Cognitive linguists nowadays admit oral interlocution to be idiomatic, irregular and imprecise, affected by lapses of memory and by slips of the tongue. Consequently, verbal interaction is as excellent and as imperfect as the human mind. In other words, language has become more human in the linguistics of today.

An utterance is often understood despite its «grammatical incorrectness». The rules here are not absolute, given or ready-made; they are immanent to speech. They work as inherent steering mechanisms making conversation serve its purpose, which is comprehension between the speakers, despite all irregularities, inaccuracies and misunderstandings in communication.

Let us pose a few questions: is thinking (entirely) verbal or partly nonverbal? Is an idea possible without being in one way or another formulated? To what extent do the structures of language shape our thoughts? Are verbal expressions modified by our inner world or is our inner world adapted to our acquired forms of expression?

It is not, however, a question of either or. Language units and thought entities are interrelated; it is impossible to delimit them. In human cognitive endeavours, the patterns of language and the modes of description are being modified and adjusted to the surrounding reality, which is diverse and bombarding us with impulses.

Cognitive linguists have rejected the structuralist view of one-

ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ
Michal Legierski
Language, Thinking and Cognition

«Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп», 2001, №2
96 97
«Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope», 2001, №2

way communication from the sender to the perceiver, as well as encoding and decoding information in an utterance as being too simplistic. Yet, the cognitivists do not often refer to, or even mention, the language philosopher who expressed such criticism long before. Mikhail Bakhtin's works from the 1930s discussed an interactive and social nature of language.

Communication is not (only) law-abiding; norms and paradigms also emerge, but solely in order to facilitate comprehension in conversation. In verbal interlocution understanding can be to a certain degree a misunderstanding — as Wilhelm von Humboldt maintained. This margin of misapprehension constitutes the flexibility and the fringe of creativity in language.

The flow of conversation is an exchange of cues; the medium of our interaction imposes collocations, ready-made phrases, prefabricated chunks (prefabs), and clichйs on us. In the act of speech, a number of entities in the slots and prefabs are being retrieved from human memory, verbally activated and conjoined with other, more elaborate and personal forms of expression. This is a result of choosing and strenuously adapting words to outer reality, as well as to the emotions and thoughts to be articulated. To attain a satisfactory expression involves a great effort, unlike the act of just attaching a vocal label on something.

Lingual activity gravitates in two directions at the same time: to create new or modified ways of expression and to copy or duplicate already existing patterns and tags. The cohesion of an utterance is attained by adjusting words to what is to be more or less conveyed. Dissimilar to free verbal interaction, writing is the shaping and drawing up of an idea, in which a number of language patterns and formations can take place and substitute each other. Such patterns and formations can in turn produce other words and structures.

The Tradition of Chomsky

N.Chomsky's view on language originates in rational
philosophy, which was initiated mainly by Renй Descartes (1596—1650). In the spirit of this philosophy the Port-Royal school conceived of language as an expression of somewhat concluded units of human thought, equivalent to forms of communication. According to the main representatives of the Port-Royal school, the awareness and ability of applying rules was indispensable for the proper and correct deployment of words in a verbal utterance. The ambition and approach to language of general grammars of this school was quite similar to that of Chomsky's generative grammar. Logique et principes de grammaire (1769) by C.Ch.Dumarsais aimed at encompassing a universal or perfect language. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was even more radical in the Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain (completed in 1704, printed in 1765). In this treatise, graphic signs of language equate to mathematical symbols so that verbal thinking and speech are similar to doing sums, parallel to arithmetic operations or algebraic rules.

The Missing Links

For most reviews of historical linguistics, the diametrically different conceiving of language started with the German Romantic philosophy. However, the role of Abbot Йtienne Bonnot de Condillac (1715—1780) and John Locke (1632—1704) in this context escaped notice. One can speak here of the missing link, which is empiricism leading to Romanticism and Mikhail Bakhtin.

As a man of the Enlightenment, Condillac acclaimed human rationality, though not without reservation. He maintained that neither thinking, nor speaking is reducible to any kind of universal or general language, demonstrable as a mathematical model, artificial and constructed. Thought is inconceivable without ideas, but thinking, as a human activity, is primary to ideas. Yet thought becomes whole only by being articulated and communicated through ideas to others. Language is the medium here, being as excellent and as imperfect as the human mind and human interaction. Communication progresses according to a set of laws, which are being modified

ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ
Michal Legierski
Language, Thinking and Cognition

«Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп», 2001, №2
98 99
«Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope», 2001, №2

by verbal interaction and gradual perfecting of the means of articulated speech.

Even more against the current views of the time was Condillac's opinion that we learn grammar by talking. It is through action, or one could say interaction, that recurring verbal regularities form rules. Thus, they are of a habitual, not general or universal, nature. Communication is primary to laws of grammar — intrinsic to discourse in order to facilitate understanding.

The Premises

The premise of Condillac's philosophy is to be found in John Locke's empiricism. Locke, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), undertook an analysis of knowledge. The object of his philosophical consideration was not so much being and reality itself, but rather human cognition of being and reality with the help of notions and conceptions. Locke confined his gnoseology as follows: as nothing can be said about the essence, since it is inaccessible to human experience, let us concentrate on that which is really explorable. As an axiom, he took Aristotle's maxim, which Thomas Aquinas translated from Greek into Latin: Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu (nothing is in the mind, which has not been experienced before).

According to Condillac, there is no knowledge without experience of sensations, but it is our activity that entails sensations. What we actually can know are our impressions of things, not the things as such or an essence. Cognition is possible by means of signs. Learning and scholarship have come into being from verbal expression; thinking and speaking are bound up with each other. Without a tongue, practical knowledge is conceivable, but the awareness of it as knowledge is not. Human beings have created language, which in its turn influences humans. Devoid of signs we would not be able to analyse our thoughts and what is happening in our minds.

Condillac, one of the subtlest minds of his time, a harbinger
of Romanticism, influenced Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767—1835), a famous German philosopher of language². In the works of Condillac one finds not only precepts of 20th century linguistics, as R.H.Robins writes³, but also the beginnings of phenomenology, H.Bergson's intuitivism and semiotics (which deals with all kind of signs, verbal signs included). Condillac was considered the teacher of Destutt de Tracy (1754—1836), the founder of the so-called ideology school (ideo-logy, the discipline examinining ideas), which leads to Mikhail Bakhtin's understanding of language.

Language — Dialogue

For Mikhail Bakhtin human consciousness is possible due to speech and verbal communication, which has a dialogical and social nature. In a colloquy words of an opinion expressing individual strategies, goals, and emotions only in the cultural context of a given society in a certain period of history are given meaning. A person can convey most subjective ideas only by loan words, borrowed from earlier users and endowed with semantic values by others.

An utterance can encompass parody or polemic, words with various stylistic tints or values, taken from dialects, sociolects, literary works and periods. The heteroglossia, in other words diversity of speech types, is the natural state of language that intersects different registers in a particular context. A speech act is a part of an interlocution; it always answers or requires a response from the other. Moreover, cultures are dialogical: they interact with one another, influence one another and borrow from one another.

Speech is primary to grammatical rules that are not given and ready-made; they emerge as regularities out of human communication in order to facilitate understanding. Feelings or ideas can be uttered verbally, but when speaking to one another we do not pay attention to any formulae, we concentrate on and hear what is true or false, good or bad, important or unimportant, pleasant or unpleasant, says Bakhtin⁴. To summarise, semantics should be the

ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ
Michal Legierski
Language, Thinking and Cognition

«Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп», 2001, №2
100
«Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope», 2001, №2

superior authority in linguistics, not the mechanical set of grammar rules.

¹ Chomsky N. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1965, p. 1.

² The author of Ьber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaus und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts (1836—1840).

³ Robins R.H. Condillac et l'origine du langage // Condillac et les problemes du langage. Textes recueillis par Jean Sgard. Ed.Slatkine. Geneve—Paris, 1982, p.100.

⁴ Bakhtin M. Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. Transl. by L.Matejka and I.R.Titunik. Ann Arbor, New York and London 1973, p.70. In Russian: Voloshinov V. Marksizm i filosofia jazyka. 2nd ed. Leningrad, 1930, p.71.

Uppsala

ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ
Michal Legierski
Language, Thinking and Cognition

		Журнал научных разысканий о биографии, теоретическом наследии и эпохе М. М. Бахтина ISSN 0136-0132



		Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп. → 2001 → 2 «Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп», 2001, №2 0 95 «Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope», 2001, №2 Michal Legierski Language, Thinking and Cognition For more than three decades the theories of Noam Chomsky have been dominant in linguistics. These theories focus on language as a regular, logical and perfect means of communication between an ideal speaker-listener, free from memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and speech errors¹. Such a model may be applicable to the exchange of information between computers, but not to communication between human beings. Cognitive linguists nowadays admit oral interlocution to be idiomatic, irregular and imprecise, affected by lapses of memory and by slips of the tongue. Consequently, verbal interaction is as excellent and as imperfect as the human mind. In other words, language has become more human in the linguistics of today. An utterance is often understood despite its «grammatical incorrectness». The rules here are not absolute, given or ready-made; they are immanent to speech. They work as inherent steering mechanisms making conversation serve its purpose, which is comprehension between the speakers, despite all irregularities, inaccuracies and misunderstandings in communication. Let us pose a few questions: is thinking (entirely) verbal or partly nonverbal? Is an idea possible without being in one way or another formulated? To what extent do the structures of language shape our thoughts? Are verbal expressions modified by our inner world or is our inner world adapted to our acquired forms of expression? It is not, however, a question of either or. Language units and thought entities are interrelated; it is impossible to delimit them. In human cognitive endeavours, the patterns of language and the modes of description are being modified and adjusted to the surrounding reality, which is diverse and bombarding us with impulses. Cognitive linguists have rejected the structuralist view of one- ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ Michal Legierski Language, Thinking and Cognition «Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп», 2001, №2 96 97 «Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope», 2001, №2 way communication from the sender to the perceiver, as well as encoding and decoding information in an utterance as being too simplistic. Yet, the cognitivists do not often refer to, or even mention, the language philosopher who expressed such criticism long before. Mikhail Bakhtin's works from the 1930s discussed an interactive and social nature of language. Communication is not (only) law-abiding; norms and paradigms also emerge, but solely in order to facilitate comprehension in conversation. In verbal interlocution understanding can be to a certain degree a misunderstanding — as Wilhelm von Humboldt maintained. This margin of misapprehension constitutes the flexibility and the fringe of creativity in language. The flow of conversation is an exchange of cues; the medium of our interaction imposes collocations, ready-made phrases, prefabricated chunks (prefabs), and clichйs on us. In the act of speech, a number of entities in the slots and prefabs are being retrieved from human memory, verbally activated and conjoined with other, more elaborate and personal forms of expression. This is a result of choosing and strenuously adapting words to outer reality, as well as to the emotions and thoughts to be articulated. To attain a satisfactory expression involves a great effort, unlike the act of just attaching a vocal label on something. Lingual activity gravitates in two directions at the same time: to create new or modified ways of expression and to copy or duplicate already existing patterns and tags. The cohesion of an utterance is attained by adjusting words to what is to be more or less conveyed. Dissimilar to free verbal interaction, writing is the shaping and drawing up of an idea, in which a number of language patterns and formations can take place and substitute each other. Such patterns and formations can in turn produce other words and structures. *The Tradition of Chomsky* N.Chomsky's view on language originates in rational philosophy, which was initiated mainly by Renй Descartes (1596—1650). In the spirit of this philosophy the Port-Royal school conceived of language as an expression of somewhat concluded units of human thought, equivalent to forms of communication. According to the main representatives of the Port-Royal school, the awareness and ability of applying rules was indispensable for the proper and correct deployment of words in a verbal utterance. The ambition and approach to language of general grammars of this school was quite similar to that of Chomsky's generative grammar. Logique et principes de grammaire (1769) by C.Ch.Dumarsais aimed at encompassing a universal or perfect language. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was even more radical in the Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain (completed in 1704, printed in 1765). In this treatise, graphic signs of language equate to mathematical symbols so that verbal thinking and speech are similar to doing sums, parallel to arithmetic operations or algebraic rules. *The Missing Links* For most reviews of historical linguistics, the diametrically different conceiving of language started with the German Romantic philosophy. However, the role of Abbot Йtienne Bonnot de Condillac (1715—1780) and John Locke (1632—1704) in this context escaped notice. One can speak here of the missing link, which is empiricism leading to Romanticism and Mikhail Bakhtin. As a man of the Enlightenment, Condillac acclaimed human rationality, though not without reservation. He maintained that neither thinking, nor speaking is reducible to any kind of universal or general language, demonstrable as a mathematical model, artificial and constructed. Thought is inconceivable without ideas, but thinking, as a human activity, is primary to ideas. Yet thought becomes whole only by being articulated and communicated through ideas to others. Language is the medium here, being as excellent and as imperfect as the human mind and human interaction. Communication progresses according to a set of laws, which are being modified ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ Michal Legierski Language, Thinking and Cognition «Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп», 2001, №2 98 99 «Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope», 2001, №2 by verbal interaction and gradual perfecting of the means of articulated speech. Even more against the current views of the time was Condillac's opinion that we learn grammar by talking. It is through action, or one could say interaction, that recurring verbal regularities form rules. Thus, they are of a habitual, not general or universal, nature. Communication is primary to laws of grammar — intrinsic to discourse in order to facilitate understanding. *The Premises* The premise of Condillac's philosophy is to be found in John Locke's empiricism. Locke, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), undertook an analysis of knowledge. The object of his philosophical consideration was not so much being and reality itself, but rather human cognition of being and reality with the help of notions and conceptions. Locke confined his gnoseology as follows: as nothing can be said about the essence, since it is inaccessible to human experience, let us concentrate on that which is really explorable. As an axiom, he took Aristotle's maxim, which Thomas Aquinas translated from Greek into Latin: Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu (nothing is in the mind, which has not been experienced before). According to Condillac, there is no knowledge without experience of sensations, but it is our activity that entails sensations. What we actually can know are our impressions of things, not the things as such or an essence. Cognition is possible by means of signs. Learning and scholarship have come into being from verbal expression; thinking and speaking are bound up with each other. Without a tongue, practical knowledge is conceivable, but the awareness of it as knowledge is not. Human beings have created language, which in its turn influences humans. Devoid of signs we would not be able to analyse our thoughts and what is happening in our minds. Condillac, one of the subtlest minds of his time, a harbinger of Romanticism, influenced Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767—1835), a famous German philosopher of language². In the works of Condillac one finds not only precepts of 20th century linguistics, as R.H.Robins writes³, but also the beginnings of phenomenology, H.Bergson's intuitivism and semiotics (which deals with all kind of signs, verbal signs included). Condillac was considered the teacher of Destutt de Tracy (1754—1836), the founder of the so-called ideology school (ideo-logy, the discipline examinining ideas), which leads to Mikhail Bakhtin's understanding of language. *Language — Dialogue* For Mikhail Bakhtin human consciousness is possible due to speech and verbal communication, which has a dialogical and social nature. In a colloquy words of an opinion expressing individual strategies, goals, and emotions only in the cultural context of a given society in a certain period of history are given meaning. A person can convey most subjective ideas only by loan words, borrowed from earlier users and endowed with semantic values by others. An utterance can encompass parody or polemic, words with various stylistic tints or values, taken from dialects, sociolects, literary works and periods. The heteroglossia, in other words diversity of speech types, is the natural state of language that intersects different registers in a particular context. A speech act is a part of an interlocution; it always answers or requires a response from the other. Moreover, cultures are dialogical: they interact with one another, influence one another and borrow from one another. Speech is primary to grammatical rules that are not given and ready-made; they emerge as regularities out of human communication in order to facilitate understanding. Feelings or ideas can be uttered verbally, but when speaking to one another we do not pay attention to any formulae, we concentrate on and hear what is true or false, good or bad, important or unimportant, pleasant or unpleasant, says Bakhtin⁴. To summarise, semantics should be the ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ Michal Legierski Language, Thinking and Cognition «Диалог. Карнавал. Хронотоп», 2001, №2 100 «Dialogue. Carnival. Chronotope», 2001, №2 superior authority in linguistics, not the mechanical set of grammar rules. ¹ Chomsky N. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1965, p. 1. ² The author of Ьber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaus und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts (1836—1840). ³ Robins R.H. Condillac et l'origine du langage // Condillac et les problemes du langage. Textes recueillis par Jean Sgard. Ed.Slatkine. Geneve—Paris, 1982, p.100. ⁴ Bakhtin M. Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. Transl. by L.Matejka and I.R.Titunik. Ann Arbor, New York and London 1973, p.70. In Russian: Voloshinov V. Marksizm i filosofia jazyka. 2nd ed. Leningrad, 1930, p.71. Uppsala ТЕОРЕТИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ Michal Legierski Language, Thinking and Cognition