Is using language a special field then?

Linguistics nowadays can shed a lot of light on how we use language when communicating. Linguistics has always been in the center of many scientific inquiries dealing with human beings. It is concerned with shedding light on the essence of human nature, the work of the brain, the laws of human society, the process of cognition; on the acquisition of knowledge, its accumulation and transition; on the mystery of ethnic diversity of the humanity, cultural heritage and political conflicts, and a lot of other things proper to human beings.

There are several reasons why language has been and will be of particular significance for the study of human nature. “One is that language appears to be a true species property, unique to the human species in its essentials and a common part of our shared biological endowment, with little variation among humans... Furthermore, language enters in a crucial way into thought, action, and social relations. Finally, language is relatively accessible to study” (N. Chomsky, p. 2).

Language penetrates into different spheres of human activity as well as the “activity” of language itself, and linguistics is related to other sciences and human activities where it shows itself to be a very practical study.

To begin with, let us draw a line between our knowledge of language as our common endowment, on the one hand, and the scientific modelling of language as an object of study. To make this distinction clear, I will borrow a comparison with facts from our everyday life.

Every user knows how to handle a TV-set. We know that TV-sets may be different in qualities, capabilities and prices. But not all people understand how a TV-set works, nor do they understand the structure of a TV-set. That is, few can build or repair one. These few are acquainted with the principles of modelling and not just the principles of using. Likewise, every human being knows some language and uses it without doubts about its nature and functions, but only few know its general principles, laws and structure. These few are linguists, and they understand how to build and interpret linguistic models. This example accentuates the significance of the scientific approach to different phenomena, including language, and later we will see how true this is.

The basic notion that explains any scientific approach to phenomena is “model” (from Latin modulus – small measure). Model is a copy, image, structural design, miniature representation of an object, a pattern of something to be made, a system of postulates, data and inferences as a description of an entity or state of affairs, archtype. The process of modelling, then, consists in planning, construction of a model or an archtype, imitation. It follows, therefore, that acquisition of any scientific knowledge differs essentially from that of common-sense knowledge. These two perspectives may be called empirical and theoretical ones respectively. Scholars in their inquiries aim to discover the inner (deep) structure and nature of their object, to comprehend, model and interpret the hidden and the unobservable. The process of scientific cognition unlike common-sense observation includes analysis, synthesis, generalisations and inferences leading to conceptual foundations of science.This distinction explains the difference between a person who speaks a language and a linguist concerned with the representations of language laws, i.e., models of language.

Models of language are of different types depending on the particular goal of their creators. There are static and dynamic models, structural and cognitive models, generative, functional and communicative models, each providing a picture of this or that facet of language. Thus, the arrangement and configuration of language units, their system and hierarchy are presented in structural models; functions of these units are described by functional models; the way language works when placed in a certain external environment, like society, ethnicity, context, etc., is central to various communicative or anthropological models. Many of them draw on each other to make our understanding of linguistic mechanism more penetrating.

Let us remember the model most currently referred to in the process of language teaching. This model is structural and functional at the same time, and it originates from the folowing considerations and inferences.

When approaching language, a scholar faces a number of questions. The first, classical one is: What is language? There are many definitions of language, and searching for a “true” one would be a wild goose chase because a definition always depends on the point of view of the scholar. Therefore, let us rather ask ourselves: What is language used for? Probably, most people with some education will answer that language is necessary for communication. This answer relates to the well known definition of language as a means of communication. People are used to communicating, and normally they do not realize what a difference it would make if we were deprived of this possibility.

Language organizes human activity, it functions in order to format our behavior. And with this functioning, language itself should be formatted or structured so that it can fulfill its role within human community. It should operate on certain units, like phonemes, words, morphemes, sentences. These units in their turn should be arranged in systems, coherent and appropriate to cope with their functions.

Consequently, we may conclude that language structure (model) depends on its function. If we destroy this structure, language will cease to function and serve us. Actually, it happens when someone speaks a language he/she does not know well enough, and when communication is impossible.

But when we speak about the structure of language, we mean an ideal, generalized model, devised by scholars for the convenience of language study. Every component of this model is endowed with a certain function, subordinated to the “global” function of language – to organize social and interpersonal activity. Compare this notion of language structure with that of any complex appliance like a computer, or a TV-set. Each detail in them is functional, and, we cannot remove or damage these basic units of our appliance without affecting the function of the entire machine. The same is true about language structure and its component parts: due to their properties, numbers, relations and inner laws they ensure the process of communication.

This approach to language structure, considering language and its units from the point of view of their configuration and functions, is known as functionalism. It is amply represented in linguistics by British, American and native scholars, followers of F. de Saussure, the famous Swiss linguist, the founder of structuralism and related models of language in modern science.

Students of foreign languages encounter the notion of structural-functional models of language in the course of theoretical linguistics, including phonetics, grammar and lexicology. These disciplines systemically discuss the properties and laws of respective units in language mechanism as an ideal generalized functional model devised on the basis of close study of different languages.

Certainly, this model is not the only one in linguistics, though it has been the most reputed and developed during the 20^th century. At this point we need to remind outselves that communication occurs whenever one person assigns significance or meaning to the behaviour of another person. But equally at this point we might ask, “So what? Will knowing what has been said enable me to understand or establish better and more satisfying relationships with my friends, my parents, my teachers, my employer, my spouse, my children? Will it help B from the above fragment to get into the habit of talking?” The answer is YES!

If you understand the importance of modelling you will comprehend the role and constitutive parts of the so-called communicative model much better. And the latter will help you to see the forces that can impede or forster any kind of effective communication.

V. Further Reading

From: N. Chomsky. Language and the Problems of Knowledge. New Yourk: Praeger, 1986, p.2-8.

Leading figures in the study of language and thought understood philosophical grammar (or general grammar, or universal grammar) to be a deductive science concerned with the “immutable and general principles of spoken or written language”, principles that form a part of common human nature and that are “the same as those that direct human reason in its intellectual operations.”

A person who speaks a language has developed a certain system of knowledge, represented somehow in the mind and, ultimately, in the brain in some physical configuration. In pursuing an inquiry into these topics, then, we face a series of questions, among them:

l. What is the system of knowledge? What is in the mind/brain of thespeaker of English or Spanish?

2. How does this system of knowledge arise in the mind/brain?

3. How is this knowledge put to use in speech?

4. What are the physical mechanisms that serve as the material basis for this system of knowledge and for the use of this knowledge?

When we speak of the mind, we are speaking at some level of abstraction of yet unknown physical mechanisms of the brain, much as those who spoke of the valence of oxygen or the benzene ring were speaking at some level of abstraction about physical mechanisms, then unknown. Just as the discoveries of the chemist set the stage for further inquiry into underlying mechanisms, so today the discoveries of the linguist set the stage for further inquiry into brain mechanisms...

We may ask whether the linguist’s constructions are correct or whether they should be modified or replaced. But there are few meaningful questions about the “reality” of these constructions... just as there are few meaningful questions about the physical reality of the chemist’s constructions, though it is always possible to question their accuracy. At every stage of inquiry we try to construct theories that enable us to gain insight into the nature of the world, focusing our attention on those phenomena of the world that provide enlightening evidence for these theoretical endeavors. In the study of language we proceed abstractly, and we also hope to be able to gain understanding of how the entities constructed at this abstract level and their properties and the principles that govern them can be accounted for in terms of properties of the brain…These may well remain the appropriate concepts for explanation and prediction now fortified by an understanding of their relation to more fundamental physical entities – or further inquiry may show that they should be replaced by other abstract conceptions, better suited to the task of explanation and prediction.

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