where is language located? (wrt: cladistic linguistics discussion)

[Steven Schaufele]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
A few days ago, Dr. Ghiselin raised the following question:
 
> One point that I still would like clarified is the relationship between
> the speaker of the language and the language itself.  The speaker is
> part of a language community and the vocabulary, grammar etc. are parts
> of the language.  The speakers may be said to know, understand, speak,
> participate in, etc. the language.  But we usually do not call them
> parts of the language.  There are a whole range of related problems
> with respect to culture in general.
 
This (very valid) question brings up, to my mind, a paradox that i
routinely inflict on my sophomores in my introductory-survey course in
general linguistics: In one sense, a given language can be regarded as
residing in, and a property of, an individual human brain.  After all,
it's within our own brains that we store (in some form or other) the
vocabulary items and grammatical patterns that we use when we speak,
write, or interpret what someone else has said or written.  But in
another sense, a given language resides in and is the property of a
social community, since the language exists by virtue of and is defined
by the consensus of the community that uses it.
 
To be specific: I am a native/fluent speaker of English.  This means,
among other things, that i have inside my brain (somehow) adequate
knowledge of a few tens of thousands of English words and of a fairly
complete range of English grammatical patterns, ready to be used at the
drop of a hat; i rarely need to refer to anything outside my own brain
to use the English language, and in that sense the English language is
fully alive and contained inside my brain.
 
On the other hand, the English language that lives inside my brain is
almost fully defined by the consensus of the English-speaking community
to which i belong.  Yes, i've got a few idiosyncracies (mostly involving
a handful of lexical and orthographic preferences), but i'm justified in
calling myself an English-speaker -- in identifying the language i'm
using right now as `English' -- by the potential ability of appealing to
a large community that agrees to assign that label to this particular
set of vocabulary items and grammatical patterns.
 
In other words (as i point out to my students), we can look at the
phenomenon of human language from (at least) two different perspectives:
as a psychological phenomenon, whereby a language can be said to reside
in and be the property of each individual human brain; and as a
sociological phenomenon, whereby a language can be said to be defined by
the consensus of a community.  And both perspectives are valuable,
though they can occasionally be incompatible.  I'm a big believer in the
scientific value of paradox and dialectics.
 
Which brings us back to the original issue raised by Dr. Ghiselin: Is it
preferable to regard languages as historically organized in terms of
(cladistic) glossogenetic descent, in which each language is identified
as being derived from some single (in principle) identifiable earlier
language (which in turn is of course similarly derivable), or in some
other fashion?  My short answer would be: Yes, within reason.  Meaning,
Yes, most languages (leaving aside for the moment pidgins, creoles, and
other examples of `Mischsprachen' mentioned by Larry Trask in his
excellent posting of a month ago) can fruitfully be viewed in terms of a
cladistic or quasi-cladistic lineage leading back from any given
language to a single ancestor at at particular point in time.  But
*certain* alternative perspectives are also valuable, most notably not
only the kinds of perspectives that have been developed in pidgin &
creole studies but the concepts developed by Weinreich, Masica, etc. in
linguistic convergence and areal studies.
 
Responsible linguistic research needs to make use of all of these
perspectives more or less in tandem, just as it needs to recognize that
any given language is simultaneously a psychological and a sociological
phenomenon.  I suspect a good biological analogy might be the dichotomy
(and fruitful interaction) of evolutionary and ecological perspectives
on living creatures.
 
Best,
Steven
--
Steven Schaufele, Ph.D., Asst. Prof. of Linguistics, English Department
 
Soochow University, Waishuanghsi Campus, Taipei 11102, Taiwan, ROC
 
(886)(02)2881-9471 ext. 6504     fcosw5 at mbm1.scu.edu.tw
 
http://www.prairienet.org/~fcosws/homepage.html
 
 
 
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