- Email: [email protected]
Linguistics as a science
Reviews
Twaddell, 1935
W. Freeman On Defining
the Phoneme,
Language
Monograph
247
16.
Yngve, Victor H. “The Struggle for a Theory of Native Speaker,” in A Festschrlji for 1981 Native Speaker, pp. 29-49, Florian Coulman (ed.), Janua Linguarum Series Maior, 97, The Hague: Mouton. “Bloomfield’s Fundamental Assumption of Linguistics,” in The Ninth 1983 LACUS Forum 1982, pp. 137-45, John Morreall (ed.), Columbia, South Carolina: Hornbeam Press. 1986 Linguistics as a Science, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
LINGUISTICS AS A SCIENCE. By Victor H. Yngve. Bloomington Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986, vii i- 120~~.
Reviewed California
and
by Alan S. Kaye State University
The totality of this work questions the foundations of all (present as well as past) linguistic theories and the methods and analytic framework of linguistics. Yngve asserts that in order for linguistics to be a true science, it cannot be disciplined by grammar but must concentrate onpeople as the primary objects of study (it sounds like a plug for sociolinguistics but really plugs what the author calls human linguistics - more on this later). The author believes that linguistics could benefit from being governed by the scientific method as, for instance, in the field of physics.1 However, it must be noted that one can always debate the true meaning of science and scientific method. There should always be room for relativity in all definitions of this type. In Chapter 1, “Questions and Clues” (pp. 1a), Yngve points out: “One cannot have a science when no two major theoreticians can agree on the proper shape of theory” (p. 2). He gives as an example the “incompatibility of semiotic theory and grammatical theory” (p. 2). Therefore, with so much disagreement in the theoretical realm, the results obtained from data are to be suspected. He thus calls on all linguists to look at their own discipline for a minute, as outsiders looking in and to question the basic assumptions and foundations of their field.
248
Language Sciences,Volume
11, Number
2 (1989)
Chapter 2, “Language and Linguistics” (pp. 5- 13), states that linguistics cannot be associated with any one theory or methodology and thus is quite apt to experience changes. This chapter also looks at modern science in the broad sense in which “the data from observations by the senses are given first place over theory” (p. 7). Yngve points out the danger of apriori assumptions and theories which may be based on them, some of which have become “tradition” and are thus much more difficult to deal with. Yngve goes on to say that linguistics should follow the guidelines of modern science, with the foundation of accepted assumptions supported by observation by the senses and with the rejection of non-verifiable data. After presenting the viewpoints of various influential linguists such as Schleicher, Whitney, de Saussure, Sapir, Bloomfield and Chomsky (pp. 10-l I), Yngve discusses the distinction which tends to emerge between language and people (which is exactly the title of the sub-chapter heading). He asserts that we must “carefully distinguish between the conceptual domain of language and the conceptual domain of people, sometimes distinguished in the literature but often curiously confused” (p. 12). I am not sure we can separate language from “the communicative aspects of people” to the extent Yngve wishes to do this, unless we are talking strictly about paralanguage and kinesics alone as distinct from language. However, paralanguage and kinesics go hand in hand with language to make up the communication process. Chapters 3 and 4 deal with “Analysis: The Domain of Language” (pp. 14-24) and “Analysis: The Domain of People” (pp. 25-31), respectively. Yngve describes language as “a sign relation between sound and meaning given by grammar and lexicon” (p. 14). This is exactly the framework posited by Chafe in a number of writings (particularly Chafe 1970). It is strange indeed not to find any of Chafe’s writings cited in the bibliography. In looking at the status of language in linguistics, Yngve points to Bloomfield who “says the linguist deals only with the speech signal” (p. 16). It is Yngve’s point of view that this assumption underlies traditional linguistics. He further sees problems with this position for which he believes Bloomfield provided no justification whatsoever. But Yngve does not tell the reader exactly what he means by “justification”. Besides, does everything require a justification? The remainder of this chapter is devoted to the basic standpoints of the following views which have been popular at different times during the long history of linguistics: process going back to the Crafyfus by Plato, semiotic having its roots in Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, text-based, normative and hypothetical construct views. For each viewpoint, Yngve discusses its inherent lack of scientific justification (see my earlier remarks), concluding that a “careful search has not turned up a scientific justification for an assumption creating the objects of language”(p. 23). He continues: “There is no hope of having a linguistics of language that is scientific.
Reviews
249
The two goals of linguistics, that it study language and that it be a science, are incompatible” (pp. 23-24). Y ngve has not convinced me of his major dictum (expressed above). Although he repeats himself many times (cf. p. 24, for example), he offers no substantive evidence that linguistics is not and cannot be scientific. I certainly agree with him when he writes that “linguists see their discipline as a science” (p. 6). Chapter 4, as mentioned above, treats the possibility of people as objects of analysis. Yngve points to the more recent work of Labov and Gumperz, who look to psychological and social realities to understand observed data and quotes Sapir who emphasized the necessity of focus on “anthropological, sociological and psychological problems which invade the field of language”(p. 27). He also refers to the work of people like Hymes, who have studied people’s use of language for communication purposes, i.e. an enthnography of speaking or communication. Chomsky, on the other hand, “has reiterated his position of idealizing away from people and social groups” (p. 27), a position with which Yngve strongly disagrees. Yngve insists that, in spite of recent efforts to concentrate on people, “essentially all linguistic thought directed toward the domain of people has actually been put forth in terms of language and grammar” (p. 28). He further looks at some of what he deems are the false assumptions which have arisen as a result of this, which have subsequently yielded suspect results. This chapter concludes with the statement that “. . . the fact that the goal of linguistics to study language, which is incompatible with its goal to be a science, is also incompatible with its goal to seek explanations in terms of people” (p. 31), but again, offers no evidence to back up his claims, although he does offer as argument that it is difficult to explore language, culture and people because of a conceptual problem. To use Yngve’s exact words: using language to talk about language is really “. . , the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in action” (p. 30). But this problem can be circular. In Chapter 5, “Implications” (pp.32-44), Yngve reiterates his assertion that there are two alternative approaches: (I) a linguistics based on grammar, which therefore is not scientific; and (2) a scientific linguistics which studies people. Since Yngve, of course, favors the latter, he provides some insight into what must be involved for this approach to be possible. He states: “We can use the data obtained from people to understand people not indirectly through language but directly from the point of view of how they communicate” (p.38), although this seems to be contradicted by his concluding statement on p.31, discussed above. Next, Yngve considers and refutes some of the possible objections to this type of study which he terms “human linguistics” (p. 38).2 The last small section of the chapter again merely repeats the need to give up traditional concepts which do not support a linguistics which is scientific.
250
Language
Chapter
Sciences,
6 presents
Volume
11, Number
“A Scientific
2 (1989)
Foundation
for Linguistics”
emphasizing
that “all theoretical
statements
must
be supported
the senses
or on the basis of valid
reasoning
from
the results
describes
the task
senses”
(p. 45). Yngve
once more
of human
(pp. 45-54),
again
by evidence
from
of evidence linguistics
from the as “the
scientific study of how people communicate”(p. 46). While people are the objects of study, other factors to be considered are sound waves, “light and other forms of energy” (p. 46), since kinesic information is transmitted providing there is enough light for one to see and the physical aspects of the human condition (e.g. objects and environment). Yngve introduces the terms which he has chosen to use in his outline of human linguistics and discusses the exact function of each. These include: communicating individuals, linkages, participants, channels, props, settings, boundaries, inputs, outputs, etc. Yngve then brings all of these together into his “law of componential partitioning” (p. 52), which he perceives as “the most general law of communicative behavior [which] underlies the whole of human linguistics . . .“. However, his law is so vague and unclear that I believe most readers will be mystified. The law states that “the communicative aspects of a person.. . can be represented as a communicating individual . . .“. My semantic component has been shut off trying to understand. Yngve fails to get his message across. This is but one typical example of the author’s confusing prose. In Chapter 7, “Laws of Communicative Behavior” (pp. 55-65), Yngve sets down the supposed foundational laws on which the science of linguistics can be built. First, the concept of “dynamic causal state theories of people” (p. 55) is presented and Yngve arrives “at a characterization of an individual or a linkage in terms of a very large list of the possible transitions of the system and a list of the associated time delays” (p. 57). Yngve points to the need for generalizations to be formed regarding these transitions which could then be used predictively. Next, the“law of small changes’* is based on the assumption that “only a few properties are changed during each transition” (p.58). Following this, Yngve describes the “principle of continuity of component properties” (p. 59): “A component property will remain the same unless caused to change from time to time by transitions occurring at those times”. In relation to restricted causation, Yngve points out that the number of properties involved in specific changes is actually small. Yngve’s next section, on the “representation of causal laws”, uses both logical and non-logical notation to formulate expressions of the laws discussed above. It is doubtful that readers without a background in such formulations would want to wade through these two pages. The final pages of the chapter (pp. 64-65) deal with foundational properties, which are contrasted with the informational properties (conditional, categorial and procedural). Yngve denies that language is rulegoverned (p. 65), calling it “lawful” instead. However, it remains unclear if this
Reviews change
is merely
terminological.
I do not
perceive
any
substantive
251
difference
between these two designations. Chapter 8, “The Linguistic Structure of Properties of People” (pp. 66-77), uses complex, theoretical formulations. Yngve focuses on “multivalued categories”, “the hierarchy of categories and conditions”, “the use of feedback” and various types of procedures. At the end of the chapter, in discussing possible individual histories, Yngve states: “A component property or group of properties represents in a compact fashion any one of all those different possible histories or different sets of relevant past events that would influence current communicative behavior in a certain way” (p. 77). A footnote (p. 1 IO) explains that his notation used here and its justification are still unpublished. The formulae became impossible to follow and/ or to appreciate as a direct result of their to-beexplained nature in a future publication, In Chapter 9, “The Linguistic Structure of Communities” (pp. 78-87), Yngve it embodies structure describes community as “more than a set of individuals; reflecting the communicative interactions between the individuals in the community” (p. 78). This chapter is mainly about “linkages”, which Yngve has already defined as “a linguistic model or theory of a group of real people, large or small, along with the communicatively relevant aspects of their environment*’ (p. 47). Yngve also introduces various types of “coupling” (types of linkage interaction). He then adds such terms as “simple linkage vs compound linkage”, “compound participant” and “compound part”. His terminology is certainly unique, yet I do not see that anything new emerges about the nature of human communication with these new terms. Hasn’t linguistics been plagued by different terminology for the same thing? Witness moneme and morpheme, stop and plosive, vowel and vocoid, anaptyxis and epenthesis, prothesis and prosthesis, etc! The final chapter (Chapter lo), “Tests of Theory against Observation” (pp. 88-107), compares the treatment of certain types of observational evidence within human linguistics vs within “business as usual” (Yngve’s term for traditional therefore, non-scientific linguistics). For instance, in human linguistics, variations, “rather than being ignored in the core theory, are actually taken as observational partitioning . . .” (p. 91). Yngve evidence supporting . . . the law of componential also points to “intuitions and the correction of mistakes*’ (p. 92) (he includes the well-known dictum that “field linguists are also well aware that what people report that they would or would not say often does not correspond with what they do in are actually different fact habitually say . . .” (p. 92). He believes that such intuitions stereotypes which individuals project on themselves and others. In examining the dynamic nature of communication, Yngve points out that the rules of grammar are not in the physical domain. For this reason, he chooses to describe communication in terms of procedures rather than rules. Also discussed in this chapter is ambiguity
Language
252
Sciences,
Volume
11, Number
2 (1989)
in reference, along with aspects of discourse phenomena and pragmatic phenomena (Yngve sees human linguistics as “pragmatics freed from any ties to signs, language and grammar” (p. 101)). Additionally, metaphor and figurative language are accounted for within human linguistics. Yngve’s final two sections deal with “the social implications of communicative behavior” (p. 104) and “writing and the advancement of knowledge” (p. 105). I must admit that at the outset, I thought the book could be used as a suitable textbook for an introductory course (they say never judge a book by its title). But as I started to read this essay (Yngve’s word, p. vii), I became more convinced than ever that the book is addressed to the professional theoretical linguist (only?) who disagrees with the Chomskyan position that language is spoken by an ideal speaker-hearer who knows his language perfectly (in terms of his competence). Yngve tries to make a case that “one cannot obtain scientific evidence about competence” (p. 93), but has not succeeded in convincing this reviewer that this is so. The book is very difficult to follow in many places (some reasons have already been given for this) and is quite repetitive, Even specialists will have severe difficulty with the style of presentation of the material and especially with the formal formulae and notations (note, however, that Yngve is Professor of Information Science, Linguistics, and Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago). Thus I cannot agree with the book-cover promotion that it will “provide greater relevance and sociologists will have even to adjacent disciplines.. .” Surely anthropologists more difficulty than linguists in trying to read this. Also, I believe the practitioners of other disciplines would expect more linguistic data to be used (there was precious little), i.e. they would probably leave this book “hungry” saying: “Where was the beef?”
NOTES 1.
2.
I do not know whether all linguists would agree with Yngve when he states (p. 3) that most major physicists agree on theory in contradistinction to most major linguists who rarely agree (on anything?). I remain totally confused by Yngve’s footnote (p. 110) that “human linguistics” studies how people communicate but not through language and grammar. Don’t people communicate via language? The term seems to have been coined by Yngve in 1971. It is used in many of his publications and occurs dozens of times in the present work. I do not find the term particularly useful, in all frankness.
Reviews
253
REFERENCE Chafe, Wallace L. 1970 Meaning Chicago
and the Press.
Structure
of Language,
Chicago:
University
of
LANGUAGE, THOUGHT, AND OTHER BIOLOGICAL CATEGORIES: NEW FOUNDATIONS FOR REALISM. By Ruth Garrett Millikan. The MIT Press, 1984, x + 355pp.
Reviewed California
Millikan’s work demonstrates such seemingly varied disciplines sophy of language, lay the foundations man’s capacity
the interrelated connections which exist between as linguistics (especially semantic theory), philo-
particularly epistemology for a non-foundationalist
to gain knowledge
by Alan S. Kaye State University
through
and ontology. Her basic purpose is to view of realism, which is based upon evolution.
The implicit
assumptions
are
that language and the conceptual structures related to it and symbolized by it (i.e. cognitive capacity) have evolved with man along with his other biological endowments and, therefore, should be regarded as parts of the natural, human condition much the same as respiration, digestion and other human functions. Millikan adopts Aristotelianism promoting a naturalist’s point of view of realism while rejecting the Cartesian mind-matter dichotomy. The Neo-Platonic view of Descartes defined thinking as the essence of mind and dimension as the essence of matter. Mind and matter were the components of the nature of being yielding the dictum that man’s potential for knowledge, then, is a priori. However, for Aristotle, truth can only be found in the existing world, through human senses and experiences, which, by definition, are defined through logos (i.e. la langue or, perhaps, le langage). Homo sapiens sapiens is endowed with the ability to reason and this is how he comprehends the structure of the world (his
Twaddell, 1935
W. Freeman On Defining
the Phoneme,
Language
Monograph
247
16.
Yngve, Victor H. “The Struggle for a Theory of Native Speaker,” in A Festschrlji for 1981 Native Speaker, pp. 29-49, Florian Coulman (ed.), Janua Linguarum Series Maior, 97, The Hague: Mouton. “Bloomfield’s Fundamental Assumption of Linguistics,” in The Ninth 1983 LACUS Forum 1982, pp. 137-45, John Morreall (ed.), Columbia, South Carolina: Hornbeam Press. 1986 Linguistics as a Science, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
LINGUISTICS AS A SCIENCE. By Victor H. Yngve. Bloomington Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1986, vii i- 120~~.
Reviewed California
and
by Alan S. Kaye State University
The totality of this work questions the foundations of all (present as well as past) linguistic theories and the methods and analytic framework of linguistics. Yngve asserts that in order for linguistics to be a true science, it cannot be disciplined by grammar but must concentrate onpeople as the primary objects of study (it sounds like a plug for sociolinguistics but really plugs what the author calls human linguistics - more on this later). The author believes that linguistics could benefit from being governed by the scientific method as, for instance, in the field of physics.1 However, it must be noted that one can always debate the true meaning of science and scientific method. There should always be room for relativity in all definitions of this type. In Chapter 1, “Questions and Clues” (pp. 1a), Yngve points out: “One cannot have a science when no two major theoreticians can agree on the proper shape of theory” (p. 2). He gives as an example the “incompatibility of semiotic theory and grammatical theory” (p. 2). Therefore, with so much disagreement in the theoretical realm, the results obtained from data are to be suspected. He thus calls on all linguists to look at their own discipline for a minute, as outsiders looking in and to question the basic assumptions and foundations of their field.
248
Language Sciences,Volume
11, Number
2 (1989)
Chapter 2, “Language and Linguistics” (pp. 5- 13), states that linguistics cannot be associated with any one theory or methodology and thus is quite apt to experience changes. This chapter also looks at modern science in the broad sense in which “the data from observations by the senses are given first place over theory” (p. 7). Yngve points out the danger of apriori assumptions and theories which may be based on them, some of which have become “tradition” and are thus much more difficult to deal with. Yngve goes on to say that linguistics should follow the guidelines of modern science, with the foundation of accepted assumptions supported by observation by the senses and with the rejection of non-verifiable data. After presenting the viewpoints of various influential linguists such as Schleicher, Whitney, de Saussure, Sapir, Bloomfield and Chomsky (pp. 10-l I), Yngve discusses the distinction which tends to emerge between language and people (which is exactly the title of the sub-chapter heading). He asserts that we must “carefully distinguish between the conceptual domain of language and the conceptual domain of people, sometimes distinguished in the literature but often curiously confused” (p. 12). I am not sure we can separate language from “the communicative aspects of people” to the extent Yngve wishes to do this, unless we are talking strictly about paralanguage and kinesics alone as distinct from language. However, paralanguage and kinesics go hand in hand with language to make up the communication process. Chapters 3 and 4 deal with “Analysis: The Domain of Language” (pp. 14-24) and “Analysis: The Domain of People” (pp. 25-31), respectively. Yngve describes language as “a sign relation between sound and meaning given by grammar and lexicon” (p. 14). This is exactly the framework posited by Chafe in a number of writings (particularly Chafe 1970). It is strange indeed not to find any of Chafe’s writings cited in the bibliography. In looking at the status of language in linguistics, Yngve points to Bloomfield who “says the linguist deals only with the speech signal” (p. 16). It is Yngve’s point of view that this assumption underlies traditional linguistics. He further sees problems with this position for which he believes Bloomfield provided no justification whatsoever. But Yngve does not tell the reader exactly what he means by “justification”. Besides, does everything require a justification? The remainder of this chapter is devoted to the basic standpoints of the following views which have been popular at different times during the long history of linguistics: process going back to the Crafyfus by Plato, semiotic having its roots in Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, text-based, normative and hypothetical construct views. For each viewpoint, Yngve discusses its inherent lack of scientific justification (see my earlier remarks), concluding that a “careful search has not turned up a scientific justification for an assumption creating the objects of language”(p. 23). He continues: “There is no hope of having a linguistics of language that is scientific.
Reviews
249
The two goals of linguistics, that it study language and that it be a science, are incompatible” (pp. 23-24). Y ngve has not convinced me of his major dictum (expressed above). Although he repeats himself many times (cf. p. 24, for example), he offers no substantive evidence that linguistics is not and cannot be scientific. I certainly agree with him when he writes that “linguists see their discipline as a science” (p. 6). Chapter 4, as mentioned above, treats the possibility of people as objects of analysis. Yngve points to the more recent work of Labov and Gumperz, who look to psychological and social realities to understand observed data and quotes Sapir who emphasized the necessity of focus on “anthropological, sociological and psychological problems which invade the field of language”(p. 27). He also refers to the work of people like Hymes, who have studied people’s use of language for communication purposes, i.e. an enthnography of speaking or communication. Chomsky, on the other hand, “has reiterated his position of idealizing away from people and social groups” (p. 27), a position with which Yngve strongly disagrees. Yngve insists that, in spite of recent efforts to concentrate on people, “essentially all linguistic thought directed toward the domain of people has actually been put forth in terms of language and grammar” (p. 28). He further looks at some of what he deems are the false assumptions which have arisen as a result of this, which have subsequently yielded suspect results. This chapter concludes with the statement that “. . . the fact that the goal of linguistics to study language, which is incompatible with its goal to be a science, is also incompatible with its goal to seek explanations in terms of people” (p. 31), but again, offers no evidence to back up his claims, although he does offer as argument that it is difficult to explore language, culture and people because of a conceptual problem. To use Yngve’s exact words: using language to talk about language is really “. . , the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in action” (p. 30). But this problem can be circular. In Chapter 5, “Implications” (pp.32-44), Yngve reiterates his assertion that there are two alternative approaches: (I) a linguistics based on grammar, which therefore is not scientific; and (2) a scientific linguistics which studies people. Since Yngve, of course, favors the latter, he provides some insight into what must be involved for this approach to be possible. He states: “We can use the data obtained from people to understand people not indirectly through language but directly from the point of view of how they communicate” (p.38), although this seems to be contradicted by his concluding statement on p.31, discussed above. Next, Yngve considers and refutes some of the possible objections to this type of study which he terms “human linguistics” (p. 38).2 The last small section of the chapter again merely repeats the need to give up traditional concepts which do not support a linguistics which is scientific.
250
Language
Chapter
Sciences,
6 presents
Volume
11, Number
“A Scientific
2 (1989)
Foundation
for Linguistics”
emphasizing
that “all theoretical
statements
must
be supported
the senses
or on the basis of valid
reasoning
from
the results
describes
the task
senses”
(p. 45). Yngve
once more
of human
(pp. 45-54),
again
by evidence
from
of evidence linguistics
from the as “the
scientific study of how people communicate”(p. 46). While people are the objects of study, other factors to be considered are sound waves, “light and other forms of energy” (p. 46), since kinesic information is transmitted providing there is enough light for one to see and the physical aspects of the human condition (e.g. objects and environment). Yngve introduces the terms which he has chosen to use in his outline of human linguistics and discusses the exact function of each. These include: communicating individuals, linkages, participants, channels, props, settings, boundaries, inputs, outputs, etc. Yngve then brings all of these together into his “law of componential partitioning” (p. 52), which he perceives as “the most general law of communicative behavior [which] underlies the whole of human linguistics . . .“. However, his law is so vague and unclear that I believe most readers will be mystified. The law states that “the communicative aspects of a person.. . can be represented as a communicating individual . . .“. My semantic component has been shut off trying to understand. Yngve fails to get his message across. This is but one typical example of the author’s confusing prose. In Chapter 7, “Laws of Communicative Behavior” (pp. 55-65), Yngve sets down the supposed foundational laws on which the science of linguistics can be built. First, the concept of “dynamic causal state theories of people” (p. 55) is presented and Yngve arrives “at a characterization of an individual or a linkage in terms of a very large list of the possible transitions of the system and a list of the associated time delays” (p. 57). Yngve points to the need for generalizations to be formed regarding these transitions which could then be used predictively. Next, the“law of small changes’* is based on the assumption that “only a few properties are changed during each transition” (p.58). Following this, Yngve describes the “principle of continuity of component properties” (p. 59): “A component property will remain the same unless caused to change from time to time by transitions occurring at those times”. In relation to restricted causation, Yngve points out that the number of properties involved in specific changes is actually small. Yngve’s next section, on the “representation of causal laws”, uses both logical and non-logical notation to formulate expressions of the laws discussed above. It is doubtful that readers without a background in such formulations would want to wade through these two pages. The final pages of the chapter (pp. 64-65) deal with foundational properties, which are contrasted with the informational properties (conditional, categorial and procedural). Yngve denies that language is rulegoverned (p. 65), calling it “lawful” instead. However, it remains unclear if this
Reviews change
is merely
terminological.
I do not
perceive
any
substantive
251
difference
between these two designations. Chapter 8, “The Linguistic Structure of Properties of People” (pp. 66-77), uses complex, theoretical formulations. Yngve focuses on “multivalued categories”, “the hierarchy of categories and conditions”, “the use of feedback” and various types of procedures. At the end of the chapter, in discussing possible individual histories, Yngve states: “A component property or group of properties represents in a compact fashion any one of all those different possible histories or different sets of relevant past events that would influence current communicative behavior in a certain way” (p. 77). A footnote (p. 1 IO) explains that his notation used here and its justification are still unpublished. The formulae became impossible to follow and/ or to appreciate as a direct result of their to-beexplained nature in a future publication, In Chapter 9, “The Linguistic Structure of Communities” (pp. 78-87), Yngve it embodies structure describes community as “more than a set of individuals; reflecting the communicative interactions between the individuals in the community” (p. 78). This chapter is mainly about “linkages”, which Yngve has already defined as “a linguistic model or theory of a group of real people, large or small, along with the communicatively relevant aspects of their environment*’ (p. 47). Yngve also introduces various types of “coupling” (types of linkage interaction). He then adds such terms as “simple linkage vs compound linkage”, “compound participant” and “compound part”. His terminology is certainly unique, yet I do not see that anything new emerges about the nature of human communication with these new terms. Hasn’t linguistics been plagued by different terminology for the same thing? Witness moneme and morpheme, stop and plosive, vowel and vocoid, anaptyxis and epenthesis, prothesis and prosthesis, etc! The final chapter (Chapter lo), “Tests of Theory against Observation” (pp. 88-107), compares the treatment of certain types of observational evidence within human linguistics vs within “business as usual” (Yngve’s term for traditional therefore, non-scientific linguistics). For instance, in human linguistics, variations, “rather than being ignored in the core theory, are actually taken as observational partitioning . . .” (p. 91). Yngve evidence supporting . . . the law of componential also points to “intuitions and the correction of mistakes*’ (p. 92) (he includes the well-known dictum that “field linguists are also well aware that what people report that they would or would not say often does not correspond with what they do in are actually different fact habitually say . . .” (p. 92). He believes that such intuitions stereotypes which individuals project on themselves and others. In examining the dynamic nature of communication, Yngve points out that the rules of grammar are not in the physical domain. For this reason, he chooses to describe communication in terms of procedures rather than rules. Also discussed in this chapter is ambiguity
Language
252
Sciences,
Volume
11, Number
2 (1989)
in reference, along with aspects of discourse phenomena and pragmatic phenomena (Yngve sees human linguistics as “pragmatics freed from any ties to signs, language and grammar” (p. 101)). Additionally, metaphor and figurative language are accounted for within human linguistics. Yngve’s final two sections deal with “the social implications of communicative behavior” (p. 104) and “writing and the advancement of knowledge” (p. 105). I must admit that at the outset, I thought the book could be used as a suitable textbook for an introductory course (they say never judge a book by its title). But as I started to read this essay (Yngve’s word, p. vii), I became more convinced than ever that the book is addressed to the professional theoretical linguist (only?) who disagrees with the Chomskyan position that language is spoken by an ideal speaker-hearer who knows his language perfectly (in terms of his competence). Yngve tries to make a case that “one cannot obtain scientific evidence about competence” (p. 93), but has not succeeded in convincing this reviewer that this is so. The book is very difficult to follow in many places (some reasons have already been given for this) and is quite repetitive, Even specialists will have severe difficulty with the style of presentation of the material and especially with the formal formulae and notations (note, however, that Yngve is Professor of Information Science, Linguistics, and Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago). Thus I cannot agree with the book-cover promotion that it will “provide greater relevance and sociologists will have even to adjacent disciplines.. .” Surely anthropologists more difficulty than linguists in trying to read this. Also, I believe the practitioners of other disciplines would expect more linguistic data to be used (there was precious little), i.e. they would probably leave this book “hungry” saying: “Where was the beef?”
NOTES 1.
2.
I do not know whether all linguists would agree with Yngve when he states (p. 3) that most major physicists agree on theory in contradistinction to most major linguists who rarely agree (on anything?). I remain totally confused by Yngve’s footnote (p. 110) that “human linguistics” studies how people communicate but not through language and grammar. Don’t people communicate via language? The term seems to have been coined by Yngve in 1971. It is used in many of his publications and occurs dozens of times in the present work. I do not find the term particularly useful, in all frankness.
Reviews
253
REFERENCE Chafe, Wallace L. 1970 Meaning Chicago
and the Press.
Structure
of Language,
Chicago:
University
of
LANGUAGE, THOUGHT, AND OTHER BIOLOGICAL CATEGORIES: NEW FOUNDATIONS FOR REALISM. By Ruth Garrett Millikan. The MIT Press, 1984, x + 355pp.
Reviewed California
Millikan’s work demonstrates such seemingly varied disciplines sophy of language, lay the foundations man’s capacity
the interrelated connections which exist between as linguistics (especially semantic theory), philo-
particularly epistemology for a non-foundationalist
to gain knowledge
by Alan S. Kaye State University
through
and ontology. Her basic purpose is to view of realism, which is based upon evolution.
The implicit
assumptions
are
that language and the conceptual structures related to it and symbolized by it (i.e. cognitive capacity) have evolved with man along with his other biological endowments and, therefore, should be regarded as parts of the natural, human condition much the same as respiration, digestion and other human functions. Millikan adopts Aristotelianism promoting a naturalist’s point of view of realism while rejecting the Cartesian mind-matter dichotomy. The Neo-Platonic view of Descartes defined thinking as the essence of mind and dimension as the essence of matter. Mind and matter were the components of the nature of being yielding the dictum that man’s potential for knowledge, then, is a priori. However, for Aristotle, truth can only be found in the existing world, through human senses and experiences, which, by definition, are defined through logos (i.e. la langue or, perhaps, le langage). Homo sapiens sapiens is endowed with the ability to reason and this is how he comprehends the structure of the world (his