Criticizing Linguistics (2)

[Salinas17 at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/28/07 6:33:40 AM, W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de writes:
<< But it seems likewise uncontroversial to assume that a language output 
would never come into existence without a cognition producing this output (as 
we're used to say: 'language happens in the brain')... language cannot be without 
cognition.... cognition is a biological apparatus to guarantee the 
interaction of an individual with its environment.>>

Wolfgang -  Thank you for the reply.

I think it might be useful to apply a bit of that "self-criticism" to the 
statements above -- which I believe fairly well reflect the opinions of most 
linguists who are involved in this area.

When we speak of cognition as a universal, I think we are getting away with 
an over-reduction of the actual phenomena.   There's actually no such thing as 
one unified "cognition".   

"Cognition" appears in fact to reflect many different processes and many 
different states -- and perhaps most importantly -- these occur in many different 
individuals simultaneously and constantly.  

Viewing it this way, what we call "cognition" -- or more properly cognitions 
-- are very private, individual and somewhat ephemeral events.  

Language, in this sense, is antithetical to cognitions.  When spoken, written 
or signed, language is a public event.  Cognitions become communal.  In fact, 
the information stored in the English I am using in this post reflects 
centuries of cognitions -- not just my individual  "interactions with the 
environment."

Looking at it from this point of view -- yes, cognition gave and gives rise 
to language.  But not as an added bonus.  Rather, language was and is a 
solution to a PROBLEM of the private nature of individual cognition.  As a matter of 
evolutionary survival value, SHARED cognitions -- and information about their 
consequences -- supply the individual with much more useful information than 
the much smaller set of cognitions he might have on his own.

In this view, language would have arisen as an answer to the disadvantage of 
individual information gathering and storage -- individual cognition, if you 
prefer.  

Ontologically speaking, therefore, it would therefore be improper to attempt 
to reduce language to the "cognition" of a single individual.  Language would 
be a higher order and different entity than simple cognition.  It would be 
like trying to describe what a left tackle does without any reference to what a 
game of American football is about.  Or it would like describing a rose only in 
terms of the nutrients in the dirt that rose grew in.  

Now, without saying that the above position is correct or incorrect, let's 
apply the methodology of "self-criticism" to it.  How does one defend saying 
that communication is merely an "epiphenomena of language" in the event this kind 
of analysis is correct?  How does one prove it wrong?

And if it is correct, doesn't it represent an unfortunate blind spot in 
current linguistic thinking?  

Regards,
Steve Long




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