Criticizing Linguistics (2)

Sat Sep 29 07:49:47 UTC 2007

Dear Steve,
just a few words (keeping in mind that we discuss this issue on Funknet, 
but not on CogLing, we shouldn't go into all the details):
> 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.>>
>
> (...)
>
> 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.
There's no doubt about the existence of individual cognitions, all of 
them instantiations of the same biological dispositions, so to say. The 
same holds for many, if not most other biology-grounded patterns of 
human behavior (in the widest sense of the word), such as breathing or 
(am I allowed to say) sex. The main point is that such behavioral types 
(I include cognition) share a number of basic features that seem to 
represent the necessary condition for individual mental and bodily 
activities (both substrate and functions). Personally, I refer to 
cognition as the continuum of those neuron-based and perception-guided 
processes that guarantee the individual's 'orientation' in the Outer 
World. I do not see any over-reduction here. On the other hand I fear 
that 'over-individualization' deprives us from any means to reflect 
common behavioral properties of human beings. This reminds me of the 
dictum "chaque mot a son histoire" (Jules Gillieron, formulated as such 
by Karl Jaberg). This dictum went against the Neo-grammarian assumption 
of systematic sound (and, less obviously, semantic) changes in the 
lexicon. I admit that some approaches in Radical Constructivism are 
slightly liable to this kind of solipsism - but this problem can be 
'solved' if we assume that a human being normally is unconscious about 
those factors that reflect the biological grounding of its behavioral 
patterns. 
> 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."
Sure, no doubt! But I wouldn't say that "Cognitions become communal", 
rather I would formulate: "The output of cognitions becomes communal" 
(communal in the sense that the output must always be porcessed by other 
cognitions - else it is 'nothing': A text written down only is (by 
itself) a more or less chaotic ensemble of strokes or the like. It 
always needs a cognition to be 'unerstood' (consstrued) as a text.  
And:  It goes without saying that most of what we describe as language 
structures does not reflect a constant, synchronic appeal to cognitive 
mechanisms, but rather learned and entrenched patterns that nevertheless 
are grounded in the architecture of cognition and that cannot go beyond 
the boundaries of this architecture (this is why I call 'language' an 
'anachronistic knowledge system').  
> 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.
This model reminds me a bit of the Multiple Instruction Multiple Data 
architecture of super-computers. Maybe that such a network of shared 
cognitions had a evolutionary survival value. But this type of network 
presupposes that all its members are marked for the same basic 
properties that enable the functioning of the network.
> In this view, language would have arisen as an answer to the disadvantage of 
> individual information gathering and storage -- individual cognition, if you 
> prefer.
Well, this would be the 'standard' model, I think. Accordingly, language 
would have emerged from processes within the network, but not from 
processes within its 'components'. But my point is that many (if not 
most) properties of language can be (in)directly related to the 
architecture of the components that establish this network, that is to 
those basic properties of cognition that are universally present in any 
cognition (such as structuring via perception/experience, symbolization 
routines, (re)presentational strategies, metaphorical potential and so on).
> 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.
One the one hand, your examples remind me of the old dictum: "To 
describe a rose means to BE a rose'. In fact, the diversity of 
linguistic traditions nicely illustrates that for the time being, a 
fully holistic approach to language is an utopia. On the other hand, 
your American football example suggests that 'language' as a 'higher 
order' entails some kind of 'plan' or implemented rules.  Personally, I 
cannot see the like in language. Moreover, your hypothesis according to 
which "[l]anguage would be a higher order and different entity than 
simple cognition" looks like a version of von Ehrenfels' (in fact 
Aristotelian) formula: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts" 
(changed by Max Wertheimer to: "The whole is not more than, but 
different from the sum of its parts") [but also recall the opposite 
option, e.g. Zanforlin, M, G. Vallortigara, and A. Agostini (1991): The 
whole may be less than the sum of its parts. In: /Gestalt Theory/, Vol. 
13 (1991), pp.243-249]. In order to account for your formulation, we 
should refer to the version "a melody [= language] is more than [or: 
different from?] the sum of its tones [= cognitions]".  Whichever 
version you prefer: A 'whole' would never function without its 'parts' - 
that is: Language is not an autonomous higher order entity in terms of a 
social or communicative system (in Luhmann's sense, as I have said 
earlier). It may be construed as such and people may behave according to 
this construction, no doubt, But ultimately, language is fully dependent 
(un système où tout dépend - turning around the famous dictum by Meillet 
(only taken up by Saussure(!)): "chaque langue forme un système où tout 
se tient).... 
> 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?
Well, it is a well-known empirical fact that many people use to speak 
regardless whether their utterances are interpreted as communication by 
others. This type of "expressive speaking" represnets - in my eyes - the 
substrate of what *can* be construed as communication. But this is a 
minor point. Much evidence stems from language itself. I have given an 
example for this in an article entitled "Communication or Memory 
Mismatch? Towards a Cognitive Typology of Questions" (in: Radden, 
Günter, Klaus-Michael Köpcke, Thomas Berg and Peter Siemund (eds.) 2007. 
Aspects of Meaning Construction, 247--264. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: 
Benjamins).
> And if it is correct, doesn't it represent an unfortunate blind spot in 
> current linguistic thinking?  
>
Maybe...., but the qualification of a theoretical approach as an 
'unfortunate blind spot' does not prove that it is wrong...

Very best wishes,
Wolfgang
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*Prof. Dr. Wolfgang 
Schulze                                                                   
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