Of Some Problems about Language
Since ancient Greece, the western intellectual circle already begins the complex discussions about language issue, and in the long years after it, the western intelligentsia’s close concern about language issue has never stopped; while in the 20th century, language philosophy attracts many scholars’ attention and becomes a main focus of academia, and there are already numerous books and papers discussing language issue, too, and language philosophy has become one of the main stream of modern philosophy. Obviously, language issue is a very broad issue, and in this paper, we just want to do some study about it from several specific aspects.
(I) The relationship between language and real life. A somewhat obvious fact is, language is not abstract symbols irrelevant with human life, conversely, it reflects the complex and broad practical life, or in other words, it is a natural product of the broad real life.[1] Because the range of our actual experience is broad, many aspects like human relationship, hands-on operation, travel and leisure, job skills, etc, are all very complex and detailed, and thus, we need a great many words to well analyze and deal with these objects, and many words we often use, like ‘evaluate’, ‘report’, ‘squeeze’, ‘fill’, ‘swell’, ‘cut’, ‘drive a car’, ‘bus’ and etc, are exactly the direct products, and naturally, every human society has a set of complex and flexible language system. About it, Quine once writes: “Each of us learns his language from other people, through the observable mouthing of words under conspicuously intersubjective circumstances. Linguistically, and hence conceptually, the things in sharpest focus are the things that are public enough to be talked of publicly, common and conspicuous enough to be talked of often, and near enough to sense to be quickly identified and learned by name.”[2]
Meanwhile, Quine also discusses one type of person, and they hope to create a more precise kind of language which is above ordinary language: “He may imagine an ideal ‘protocol language’, which, even if in fact learned after common-sense talk of physical things or not at all, is evidentially prior: a fancifully fancyless medium of unvarnished news. Talk of ordinary physical things he would then see as, in principle, a device for simplifying that disorderly account of the passing show.”[3] Obviously, such kind of more ‘rigorous’, ‘precise’ language is difficult to produce, because our practical life probably does not need to be that precise and scientific, and if we force to use a set of ‘scientific’, ‘precise’ language like that, our ordinary life perhaps will become too cumbersome, for example, if we overuse many written language when cooking or driving a car, then it will be inefficient, stiff and mechanical when we do these operations, in brief, this set of ‘scientific’ language not only will not improve the current situation, but will make the situation even worse.
But on the other hand, what language reflects is naturally not merely real life, and it also describes much information in humanity and social fields and many facts in science and technology fields. As for humanity and social aspects, politics, economy, society, history and culture are also all very complex and broad, and thus, they need a large number of words to characterize them, for example, many ordinary words like ‘capital’, ‘historical figure’, ‘beautiful’, ‘custom’, ‘board’, ‘museum’ all originate from humanity and social aspects, and in the busy real life, we also extensively use these words every day. As for science and technology aspects, medicine, chemistry, physics and computer science also include much information, and words like ‘plastic bottle’, ‘programming’, ‘robot’, ‘photo studio’, ‘3D printing’, etc, all originate from science and technology fields, and we also naturally use these familiar words every day. Generally speaking, language at least includes numerous information and facts in real experience, humanity and society, science and technology these three major aspects, and obviously, these three aspects’ contents are also very broad, complex and detailed; in our daily life, we often use many words in these three fields in a mixed and interlaced way.
(II) The breadth and flexibility of oral language. As stated in the above section, many words and sentences in our language all come from the extensive real life, which therefore leads to the great flexibility of our oral language. It is easy to understand that, we not only absorb a great deal of language information from formal channels like books, in verbal words and everyday life, we can also learn many useful words, for example, many people who do not receive formal college education learn many words and sentences through verbal and daily communication; meanwhile, for many words we get verbally, sometimes we do not know their written form, but still can flexibly use them, and these colloquial words are also indispensible for our practical life, which all show that our understanding about the forms of language should not be too narrow and rigid. The range of oral language is vast, and through verbal communications and daily practice, we often learn a large number of spoken words, like “sit down’, ‘come here’, ‘tell me’, ‘upstairs’, ‘take medicine’, ‘sunny’, etc, and at the same time, these colloquial words are also quite flexible, not that stiff and strict like written language, and obviously, these many flexible and effective colloquial words are also part of our daily life.
(III) The interrelation between language and social condition. As stated above, at individual level, language and real life have an extensive and close interrelation, and likewise, at the social level, language and social condition also have an extensive and vigorous interrelation: on one side, the practical language naturally reflects many situations in the overall society, for example, English words like ‘millionaire’, ‘go to college’, ‘social networking’, reflect the relevant social condition; on the other side, many popular words and popular notions in the society will also exert positive or negative reactions on the function of society, for example, some widely used positive words (like fantastic, marvellous, fascinating and energy in English) will have positive impacts on the development of society, and about it, Saussure once writes: “The culture of a nation exerts an influence on its language, and the language, on the other hand, is largely responsible for the nation.”[4] To sum up, language and social condition also have an extensive and close interrelation.
On the other hand, the society we live in is not a single unit, but includes many different subfields, like politics, business, entertainment, medicine, academia, working class, science and technology, etc, and in every field of them, it will produce a large number of words, sentences, grammatical forms, etc, and these many fields also have complex and active interactions, and thus, it also leads to that our language is often the integrated product of various subfields in society. In every subfield of society, people all use a great many of language to communicate, cooperate and create; on one side, people are using many existed words, grammars and sentence forms; on the other side, people are also creatively using various linguistic elements and are also creating some new linguistic forms, which all represent the extensive and active interactions between language and various social subfields. In a word, the interaction between language and social condition can probably be divided into social totality and various subfields in society these two different levels.
(IV) The broadness of language. As the direct product of the described phenomena in the previous three sections, the contents of the language we use are very broad. Firstly, various languages’ vocabulary are all very large and there are many verbs, nouns, adjectives, conjections, etc; secondly, various languages’ grammars and sentences are also quite complex and diverse, and in every language, there are many different grammars and sentence patterns; thirdly, some specific languages’ concrete contents are also very extensive (such as many popular words and popular sentences), and due to the superposition and interwovenness of these aspects, which naturally leads to that nearly every language has broad contents. Another point worth noting is that, the range of our oral language is broad, and our written language is also broad, though most areas of them are overlapping, they also have individually owned parts, which also partly results in the language’s broadness. In a deeper level, the reason why language is so broad is that the world we live in is complex, and just for literature, its contents are already very complex, and we need a large amount of different words, sentences, sentence forms, grammars to characterize it, while our world are made up of dozens of different areas, which directly leads to that most languages include vast contents, namely, language’s broadness essentially comes from the world’s broadness and complexity.
(V) The continuity and evolution of language. An easily discovered basic fact is that, the language we use is naturally not fixed, but is constantly expanding and changing; compared with the language in 200 years ago, today’s language has many continuities, but also has many changes, and these changes mainly embody in breadth, vocabulary and grammar these two aspects (change such as the early-20th-century Chinese society’s transformation from classical Chinese to modern Chinese is surely more intense).
Take English as an example, if we compare English used by John Mill in the 19th century and John Dewey in the first half of 20th century with English people use today, we are easy to see that, their grammatical forms are largely similar, and many words are also similar, like ‘enter’, ‘particular’, ‘enjoy’, ‘try’, ‘impression’, ‘solution’, ‘physical’, etc, and these words people often use today are also frequently used at that time, which proves the language’s continuity in grammar and vocabulary.
But on the other hand, compared with the 19th century, today’s era naturally also has many changes, and things like ‘gay and lesbian’, ‘computer chip’, ‘GDP’, ‘UN’, ‘plane’ did not exist in the society at that time, and moreover, different eras’ many popular notions will also have much change, which all fully demonstrate the continuous changing of language, as Quine says: “They exalt ordinary language to the exclusion of one of its own traits: its disposition to keep on evolving. Scientific neologism is itself just linguistic evolution gone self-conscious, as science is self-conscious common sense.”[5] If we make some more detailed inquires about the grammar and vocabulary these two aspects pointed out above, we can probably think, the grammatical system of a somewhat mature language is relatively fixed during the change of several centuries (though will also have quite a few changes), while the major changes of language embody in its contents, vocabulary, sentences and etc.
If looking from social environment, we can realize the essential cause of various languages’ many-sided changes, because some new things will constantly emerge in society, and thus, some new words will correspondingly emerge and become somewhat popular, and the influence of some old words will gradually weaken, for instance, in communication and information technology, with the invention and popularity of computer and smart phone, words like ‘Wi-Fi signal’, ‘Apple’, ‘Samsung’, ‘memory’, rapidly emerge and become increasingly popular; while with the improvement of vehicles, words like ‘carriage’, ‘wooden boat’, are gradually disappearing; in terms of clothes, it is also similar, words like ‘T-shirt’, ‘jeans’, become quite popular, and with the disappearance of old style clothes, some old words are gradually being forgotten by people. In conclusion, the language’s change and social environment’s various changes have extensive and close connections. To summarize the above analyses, we can know that the continuity and change of various languages are their two significant characteristics.
(VI) The development history of some specific languages. Below, we want to briefly examine the development process of some languages, and from it, we can strongly feel the variability of language as stated in the previous section.
Firstly, take Chinese as an example; as is well known, in phonology, scholars often divide the development stage of Chinese into three stages, namely, archaic phonology, middle ancient phonology and modern phonetics. In them, archaic phonology means the Chinese phonetics of ancient Chinese period (from the early Western Zhou Dynasty to the late Han Dynasty), which lasts more than one thousand two hundred years, and its representative phonology are rhyme system of the Book of Songs and initial system in the Pre Qin period. Middle ancient phonology means the Chinese phonetics from Northern and Southern Dynasty to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and its representative phonology is classified rhyme phonology. Modern phonetics means the Chinese phonetics in Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing Dynasties, and its representative phonology is Central China phonology in Yuan Dynasty; the major differences between modern Chinese’s phonetic system and middle ancient phonology are: the voiced initials change into voiceless initials and the simplification of finals. From this brief statement, we can know, in the long history, Chinese goes through a somewhat complex changing process.
Secondly, take Italian as another example, and it also goes through a gradual development process. As is well known, Italian is evolved from Latin, and more precisely, it mainly comes from common Latin, namely, the ordinary language in ancient Rome. Take Italian words as example, besides some are evolved from Greek, Germanic languages and Arabic, they are mainly from Latin, and its grammatical features are also similar to Latin. Italian formally appeared around 1200, and at that time, Italy was on the eve of Renaissance, and the stern and stiff Latin was already difficult to adapt to people’s colorful secular life, and therefore it was constantly improved by Italian writers. With the gradual formation of Tuscan dialect, it laid the foundation of standard Italian’s main basis, while the reason why Tuscan dialect is so prevalent is due to this region’s advanced economic condition and deep culture background, particularly, world-famous Florence and Pisa are both located in this region, and brilliant people like Petrarch, Dante, Botticelli, Michelangelo, de Vinci, Galileo, are also born in this region. After the 14th century, today’s Italian is basically formed on the basis of Tuscan dialect.
Finally, we want to discuss the development history of English. English starts to develop in 410 A.D. when Romans withdrew from Britain and the Anglo-Saxons came in; after that, the Vikings invaded England in 800 and brought many Viking words, and there are about 2000 words from the Vikings in English. In 1066, William the Conqueror invaded Britain, and brought the French across the channel, and French started to become the language of upper class and official affairs, and English words like ‘judge’, ‘justice’, ‘evidence’, ‘pork’, come from French; in general, English probably absorbs about 10 thousand words from Norman, and during the Hundred Years War, English also absorbed many French words. In the 16th and 17th century, Shakespeare invented about 2000 new words. Over the Britain’s empire period, English also absorbed many new words and phrases from various colonies’ different languages. While in North America, due to the continuous adding of immigrants from many countries, American English also absorbs many countries’ different words, like ‘cookie’ in Dutch and ‘pizza’ in Italian, which makes English more colorful. In a word, English has been through a complex development process, which also causes that English’s vocabulary is large and its expressive ability is quite strong.
From the development process of the above several languages, we can naturally more concretely feel the language’s continuity and change in the above section, and meanwhile, we can also easily see that, the significant changes of language have close connections with external environment like politics, society, culture, etc.
(VII) Language and creative activity. It is easy to understand that, the rich creations in many different fields are all expressed in the form of language and are also grounded in language, like humanity and social sciences and business. Firstly, in humanity and social sciences, some great scholars, like economist Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations), political philosophers Sidgwick (Methods of Ethics) and Rawls (The Theory of Justice), and writer Stendhal (Red and Black), all make their own creations in the form of words; certainly, their creations are all based on the deep and broad understandings about their own fields, and then they put forward many original ideas and build their thought systems. Obviously, in various fields of humanity and social sciences, language is the basis of many basic things, like viewpoints, problem background and theoretical system.
Outside the academic field, in the broad practical areas, like business, many businessmen also do their own thinkings in the form of language and words; for great businessman like Rockefeller, their thinkings are also based on language, and their business decisions and business behaviours are also often expressed through the form of language (certainly, the concrete questions they think are complex, like interpersonal contact, business channel, political environment, industrial technology, etc, and these complex questions are all conducted through language; meanwhile, they also take many busy actions, and these actions are often directed by definite ideas, while ideas naturally use language as the carrier).
In conclusion, many different areas all need to think and create in the form of language, which is a somewhat obvious fact.
(VIII) Language and science and technology creation. Furthermore, even in science and technology fields, the influence of language is still strong and profound; in normal cases, people often think that scientific fields are dominated by symbolic thinkings, and thus, the language’s function is not evident, but experienced scientific practitioners will not think so, and they often think that knowledge in many different fields also has high value for their own research, and as Chenning Yang says: “A graduate’s most important responsibility for his future, is to know which parts of their studied subject are somewhat promising, and also grasp the general development direction of the whole field. How can he do this? My suggestion is, lengthen the ‘antenna’ and browse a lot, and not just browse narrow range literature of his own subject, and need to always pay attention to other subjects, and through broad contacts, he can find out the general direction of his field.” S. S. Chern also says: “The selection of subject and direction is difficult to decide, and many of them are opportunities. My suggestion is, one people needs to have wide knowledge and not just study his own subject, whether it’s relevant or not, he needs to absorb as much as possible, and the wider the range of understanding, the higher the possibility to make correct decisions.”[6] Mr. Yang’s and Mr. Chern’s views are naturally definite, namely, scientific practitioners need to have extensive knowledge, and these extensive knowledge naturally includes much verbal and literary information, and these literary information are also often very important for science and technology research. In conclusion, in science and technology creations, besides symbolic thinkings, there are also many thoughtful and verbal thinkings, which is also a basic fact not difficult to understand.
(IX) Vocabulary size and humanity and social sciences creation. In humanity and social sciences, people generally think that vocabulary size has strong and all-around influence towards creation. Take some brilliant writers as example, Shakespeare is said to have 200 thousand vocabulary, and Churchill’s vocabulary is also more than 120 thousand, and these two writers’ brilliant achievements naturally have close relationship with their extensive vocabulary; it is easy to understand that, vocabulary has a direct and comprehensive impact on literary and academic creations, because the larger and richer the vocabulary, the more lively, detailed and precise the writings about specific things and thoughts, and relevant scholars can more fluently express their various types and many levels of ideas, which is an obvious basic fact. Of course, Shakespeare’s and Churchill’s vocabulary are large is not an isolated fact, and the deeper reason is that their living experience, read books, thinking problems, and mastered language contents are all very broad, namely, the essential reason why brilliant scholars’ vocabulary is large is that they know many things and their thought scope is wide.
The reason why vocabulary size is so important also lies in: firstly, language is the basis of information; secondly, language is the basis of thought; we all know, information is naturally not equal to thought, because thoughts are founded on many concrete facts, which can be formed only by personal independent thinking; certainly, much information is also important for our practical life; since language is the basis of information and thought, and therefore, vocabulary size often reflects the richness degree of information and thought stored in our mind, namely, vocabulary often reflects our thinking ability and the depth and breadth of our thoughts, and generally speaking, the thoughts of individuals with large vocabulary often have a wide breadth and sufficient depth. To conclude, the influence of vocabulary size to various creations in humanity and social sciences is extensive and profound.
(X) The sense of infinity conveyed by language. The sense of infinity conveyed by language is also an important fact worth our analysis. It is easy to understand that, ideas conveyed by language are often limited, but in some situations, language can also bring us a deep experience about the sense of universe’s infinity, as Whitehead says: “I deeply feel that language is insufficient to express our conscious thoughts, and our conscious thoughts are insufficient to express our subconscious ideas.” “The majority of thoughts and feelings we use conscious spirit and human language to think and express, are narrow and superficial. Only in rare moments, that kind of more profound and more broad world will enter our conscious thoughts or language. For a nobler and wider purpose of ours, we are used as a tool of a force greater than us.” “No matter how insufficient those words are, they can more or less arouse readers or listeners to feel the sense of infinity of the ideas, emotions or experience it describes.”[7] What Whitehead characterizes here is a basic phenomenon, namely, our life is naturally limited, but we are also in the broad infinite possibility of universe, and in some certain moments, language and art can bring us a profound experience about the universe’s infinity. In brief, though our lives are limited, we also live in the broad possibilities of the world, namely, what we live in is not a finite and closed world, but an open world with broad possibilities, and through basic means like language, philosophy and religion, at certain moments, we can feel the infinite possibilities of the world. To conclude, what we live in is a world with endless possibilities, and profound and beautiful language sometimes can let us feel the world’s infinity through subtle and complex stimulus, which is undoubtedly a precious and necessary experience, and it is also one of the basic values of language in human life.
(XI) The inherent limitations of language when expressing experience. In the above section, we discuss the relationship between language and the world’s infinity, namely, sometimes language can let us feel the world’s infinity, but at the same time, language also exists another problem, namely, sometimes language cannot completely express our specific experience, or in other words, language will have its limitation when expressing much relevant experience. About it, Hayek once writes: “It is also difficult to explain in a particular vocabulary-because of its own limitations and because of the connotations it bears-something that differs from what that language had traditionally been used to explain. Not only is it difficult to explain, or even to describe something new in received forms, it also may be hard to sort out what language has previously classified in a particular manner-especially a manner based on innate distinctions of our senses.” “Yet the traditional vocabulary that still profoundly shapes our perception of the world and of human interaction within it-and the theories and interpretations embedded in that vocabulary-remain in many ways very primitive. Much of it was formed during long past epochs in which our minds interpreted very differently what our senses conveyed. Thus, while we learn much of what we know through language, the meanings of individual words lead us astray: we continue to use terms bearing archaic connotations as we try to express our new and better understanding of the phenomena to which they refer.”[8] The views Hayek expresses here are clear, namely, many traditional words in our language cannot effectively and properly describe many complex facts in our real life and social condition, namely, language will have its own limitations when expressing much complex and subtle experience, and in many cases, we will have the internal feeling of ‘language ambiguity’. This fact sometimes will lead to some problems at the social level, like some social problems such as the repression of individual independence and autonomy and government’s over intervention towards market brought by too many ‘social’ level words and few ‘individual’ level words which Hayek says. In brief, this important characteristic of language Hayek analyzes here is also worth our attention.
(XII) Language and foreign language’s function. About language’s function in human society and practical life, it is naturally a complex and old problem, and in it, Hobbes once does somewhat systematic discussions, and he writes :“The general use of speech, is to transfer our mental discourse, into verbal; or the train of our thoughts, into a train of words; and that for two commodities; whereof one is, the registering of the consequences of our thoughts; which being apt to slip out of our memory, and puts us to a new labour, may again be recalled, by such words as they were marked by. So that the first use of names, is to serve for marks, or notes of remembrance. Another is, when many use the same words, to signify (by their connexion and order) one to another, what they conceive, or think of each matter; and also what they desire, fear, or have any other passion for. And for this use they are called signs. Special uses of speech are these; first, to register, what by cogitation, we find to be the cause of any thing, present or past; and what we find things present or past may produce, or effect: which in sum, is acquiring of arts. Secondly, to show to others that knowledge which we have attained; which is, to counsel, and teach one another. Thirdly, to make known to others our wills, and purposes, that we may have the mutual help of one another. Fourthly, to please and delight ourselves, and others, by playing with our words, for pleasure or ornament, innocently.”[9] In this passage, Hobbes makes a somewhat good summation of language’s two general uses and four special uses, which can also help us to deepen the understanding about language’s basic functions.
As some specific languages, foreign language’s function is also worth our deep analysis. In modern society, learning foreign language is a somewhat common phenomenon, while the reason why people are fond of learning foreign language is naturally because foreign language has somewhat great value, and as we know, foreign languages have the following two basic uses: the tool for communication, work and learning, integration into the local society. As foreign language’s instrumental value, we can easily find, practitioners in many different fields need to use foreign language as their work’s important tool, for instance, for doctors, they need to read many professional literature, and many of these professional literature are in foreign language; humanity and social sciences workers also need to read many professional literature in foreign language, while a good mastery of foreign language is helpful for them to expand intellectual horizon; many scientific practitioners also need to read papers and books in foreign language, and a good language foundation is helpful for them to better absorb much knowledge essence; for many businessmen, when they do business with foreign businessmen, they also need foreign language as the basic condition, and if they well master the foreign language, it will also bring much convenience for their business activities. To conclude, as a useful tool, foreign language is valuable for practitioners in every field.
As for integration into the local society, if one people’s foreign language is not good, then he is difficult to understand local people’s society, culture and living condition, and they will also have an alienation with local people’s life, because local people’s entertainment, athlete, daily communication and work condition all have complex contents, and they use language as the carrier, and therefore, if one people’s foreign language is not good enough, he will be difficult to truly understand local people’s thoughts, emotion and psychological condition, and local people’s life will look somewhat remote and inaccessible for him. On the contrary, if one people’s foreign language is good, he will be familiar with and know many aspects about local people’s work and life, and then he will feel familiar and intimate with local people’s life, work and leisure, and will not have barrier to communicate with local people in ideas and notions. Hence, the ‘culture shock’ we often say is actually mainly caused by language, and it will be somewhat more appropriate to say ‘language shock’; and moreover, it is also not easy to overcome this barrier in language, and we need at least 4 to 5 years’ somewhat systematic learning and training.[10]
(XIII) The origin of language and consciousness. The origin of language and consciousness has always been a basic problem with various opinions, which is naturally also an interesting significant problem, and in this part of our paper, we prepare to discuss this problem. Here, Li Zehou’s paper “Outline of origin of humankind” and Part II of Mead’s Mind, Self and Society these two studies will be the major foundation for our analyses.
Li Zehou’s “Outline of origin of humankind” is an original paper, and it does somewhat in-depth investigations about the origin of language and emergence of consciousness. Firstly, Mr Li emphasizes the generation of hand’s important role in the development of primitive human, and he writes: “Many paleoanthropologists emphasize that walking upright is the key link in human progress. But I think what is more noteworthy is, the forelimbs of apes evolve from the climbing and crawling organs into special organs using tools. Namely, since they are specifically involved in using natural tools to dig, cut, get food and protect themselves for staying alive, which thereby causes a series of changes in morphology, and in them, the important thing is the forelimbs gradually form the human hand in which thumb is mutually against and assisted with four fingers. The gradual formation of hands marks the historical achievements by using varied tools. Such kind of extensively and necessarily using a lot of natural tools (branch, rock, etc) to keep alive, should be the primitive labor for which human starts to differ from apes.” Namely, due to the birth of hand, hominid can use many tools to solve lots of problems in practice, while animals cannot produce many tools, “animals can also use and even ‘produce’ tools in lab or natural conditions, but they are just accidental (not extensive and indispensible) or unitary (one tool or one using method), which are not dominant in maintaining their species’ survival. In the history of evolution from apes to human, activities of using tools has a great meaning of ‘from quantitative changes to qualitative changes’. Thus, it produces human hands which apes do not have.” Producing and using tools bring enormous and fundamental impacts on the thinking development of hominid, “the emergence of tools breaks the above biological limitation, and various natural objects increasingly become the ‘extension’ of living creatures’ existed limbs. This ‘extension’ is not mainly because the limbs become more capable due to using tools, what arises here is a qualitative change, namely, the diversity feature of activities of using tools (diversity of natural tools like various shapes and properties of sticks, bone artifacts, and stone artifacts, and diversity of holding styles, operation postures and motions), and it fundamentally breaks the particularity, fixity and narrowness of any biological species’ existed limbs, organs and abilities, and it creates extremely diverse and extensive objective casual links in actual world, which is completely incomparable by any instinctive motion (beat, run, jump and climb…).” Namely, with widely using tools, hominid’s types of motions are rapidly enlarging, and their thinking modes like casual thinking are also becoming increasingly complex, and meanwhile, with continuously using tools, hominid’s subjective thinking also gradually emerges :“as stated above, animal’s living activities and objects are ruled by the same natural law, and the differences between subject and object are meaningless, but after embedded with tools, the situation is quite different: it produces strong force in which the subject can use natural law and have endless possibilities to change nature, it faces nature and differs from nature (object) and makes up the subject.” Naturally, using and producing tools are firstly discovered and adopted by single individuals, but with the passage of time, these behaviours are also gradually followed in group, “using natural tools and producing tools are always firstly discovered and practised by individuals, and they are transmitted with other individuals’ imitations in group. Due to the success of this kind of primitive labor and they are conveyed in group by individuals, which are continually strengthened and consolidated. Over a long period, they increasingly get rid of various chances and uniqueness of individual activities’ environment and conditions and the tentative in actions, and tend to finalize and simplify, and gradually become general means to solve a series of tasks in certain aspects–skill. Continuously imitate, operate and use this kind of standardized and simplified movement skills, to preserve, practise, strengthen them and pass on to the next generation, such kind of action form is essentially the initial subjective reflective pattern of the causal links (law) in the objective world (namely the objective casual laws and forms stored in skills), and it’s just that this reflective pattern is expressed through movements, and not through language.” Namely, with extensively using and producing tools, some mindset expressed through action form widely emerges, and after these extensive action thinkings produce, they will gradually evolve into symbolic thinkings like gesture :“It (action thinking) will eventually develop and simplify into a set of symbolic structure and becomes means of communication to transfer experience, like gesture.” At last, due to the convenience of using, after many experiments and long-term practice, action thinking will gradually evolve into language thinking: “With this development of conditional connections between action and speech, speech gets semantics and becomes the corresponding symbol of action, and gradually replaces action. The action thinking forms gradually give way to language thinking forms. Language gathers the behavior and becomes real intelligent actions. Because it uses an extremely light material shell (sound) to replace heavy material shell (action posture), which is very convenient for communication and making generalizations. This is the real human language.”[11] Namely, in this stage, human primitive language gradually appears.
From Mr Li’s above analyses, we can realize, in the production process of human language and consciousness, the role of hand is particularly important, and meanwhile, human language’s origin process is a long process, and the general path is: firstly, extensive use and production of tools lead to much action thinking; secondly, much action thinking creates many gestures; thirdly, gestures subsequently evolve into verbal thinking primitive language, and meanwhile, it is also in the long process of using and producing tools, hominid’s spiritual world gradually evolves from the overall condition which is mingled with the natural world into thinking structure with subjective thinking (certainly, the whole process is somewhat more complex than the brief elaborations here). It’s easy to see, the whole evolution process of hominid’s language and consciousness is somewhat clear, and in them, using hands to extensively manipulate and produce tools plays a decisive good role (as we know, human hands can do hundreds of actions), and it brings substantial changes in many aspects, about it, Whitehead once writes: “ Whether it’s human hand creates brain, or brain creates hand, this is a controversial problem. But the relationship between hand and brain is definitely close and interactive.”[12] To conclude, through the above systematic investigations, we can roughly see, the origin of language is not an overly complex basic problem which is difficult to analyze.
In Part II of Mind, Self and Society, Mead also does somewhat systematic studies about issues like language and consciousness, and his research focus is: animal’s imitations and signals are meaningless, why do human symbols become ideographic? Why do they have meanings? Firstly, Mead compares the essential differences between animal’s imitation and human, and he points out: “The monkey learns very quickly but he does not imitate. Dogs and cats have been studied from this standpoint, and the conduct of one form has not been found to serve the purpose of arousing the same act in the other form.”[13] “The parrot learns to ‘speak’. It is not, we shall see, genuine speech, for he is not conveying ideas, but we commonly say the parrot imitates the sounds that appear about it.”[14] After it, Mead points out the fundamental feature of ideographic signs, namely, the reactions induced by ideographic signs on a single individual must be consistent with reactions on other individuals, namely: “It is possible for intelligent individuals under such conditions to translate these gestures into significant symbols, but one need not stop to translate into terms of that sort. Such a universal discourse is not at all essential to the conversation of gestures in cooperative conduct.”[15] “What a long road speech or communication has to travel from the situation where there is nothing but vocal cries over to the situation in which significant symbols are utilized. What is peculiar to the latter is that the individual responds to his own stimulus in the same way as other people respond. Then the stimulus becomes significant; the one is saying something.”[16] Mead finally concludes: “It is,…the relationship of this symbol, this vocal gesture, to such a set of responses in the individual himself as well as in the other that makes of that vocal gesture what I call a ‘significant symbol’.”[17] Obviously, the basic problem what Mead focuses on here is clear, namely: animals like dog, cat, parrot, lion, bee and horses, also can do certain imitations and also have some actions like shouting, but why do their movements and imitations not have intelligence and thought, and human’s many imitations and sounds have definite meanings? About these fundamental problems Mead raises here, we think Li Zehou’s systematic analyses in the above give a partial answer. In conclusion, combine Li Zehou’s and Mead’s brilliant research results together, I think we can form a somewhat systematic and broad understanding towards the origin of language.
(XIV) Locke’s language study. Many people think western academic circles’ wide attention to language problem mainly begins in the 20th century, and represented by scholars like Wittgenstein, the twentieth-century philosophical world takes place the so-called “linguistic turn”, here, we think this overall viewpoint is debatable; indeed, language philosophy’s study is the most fruitful in the 20th century, but it is obviously not that language philosophy does not attract the wide attention of intelligentsia until the 20th century. Firstly, in ancient Greece, many scholars then were already repeatedly discussing language issue, like Parmenides’s complex discussions on ‘being’. Secondly, in the 16th and 17th century modern philosophy period, important scholars at that time also paid much attention to language issue, and here, we want to give two examples of important scholars: Hobbes and Locke.
In Leviathan, Hobbes once does quite a few discussions about language, for example, he writes: “(insignificant names) those of two sorts. One, when they are new, and yet their meaning not explained by definition; whereof there have been abundance coined by Schoolmen, and puzzled philosophers. Another, when men make a name of two names, whose significations are contradictory and inconsistent; as this name, an incorporeal body, or (which is all one) an incorporeal substance, and a great number more (like ‘round quadrangle’).”[18] Here, what Hobbes discusses are some types of insignificant names, which is obviously an investigation about a definite language problem.
For Locke, this is especially true, and in the great work An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke uses the whole third volume to make a systematic and extensive discussion on language problem. For example, about particle’s basic function, Locke uses the word ‘but’ to make detailed discussions, and now we quote his passage: “First, ‘but to say no more:’ here it intimates a stop of the mind in the course it was going, before it came quite to the end of it.
Secondly, ‘I saw but two plants:’ here it shows, that the mind limits the sense to what is expressed, with a negation of all other.”
Thirdly, ‘you pray; but it is not that God would bring you to the true religion.’
Fourthly, ‘but that he would confirm you in your own.’ The first of these Buts intimates a supposition in the mind of something otherwise than it should be; the latter shows, that the mind makes a direct opposition between that, and what goes before it.
Fifthly, ‘all animals have sense; but a dog is an animal:’ here it signifies little more, but that the latter proposition is joined to the former, as the minor of a syllogism.”[19]
From Locke’s this exposition, we can easily see, Locke also repeatedly thinks about language problem, and his thinkings are probably somewhat more systematic and orderly than Wittgenstein (meanwhile, Leibniz’s situation is also similar, and in the whole Volume III of the classic New Essays on the Human Understanding,Leibniz makes systematic investigations about various language issues). To conclude, about the development process of language philosophy, we need to have wide intellectual perspective and seriously consider ancient Greek philosophy’s and the 16th and 17th century modern philosophy’s treatments about language problem, and we should not neglect or forget many previous people’s rich and systematic research results; only by combining the broad explorations of these scholars in different ages together can we have somewhat reasonable and objective evaluations about twentieth-century language philosophy.
(XV) Wittgenstein’s language philosophy. Wittgenstein’s language philosophy has attracted wide attention in the 20th-century academia, and he is also regarded as one of the founders of language philosophy; in Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein makes many specific contributions for the development of language philosophy, and many problems he studies in this book are novel and interesting, and his writing is also fresh, graceful and lively, which make that he puts forward many original new ideas in language philosophy (like the discussion about ‘the duck-rabbit figure’[20] ). But, about Wittgenstein’s contributions in language philosophy, I think we also need to pay attention to the following issue.
Generally speaking, Wittgenstein’s philosophical explorations are extensive, but are also a bit disorderly and fragmentary and not systematic enough; in the work Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein discusses many different thought themes, but these themes are somewhat scrappy and not systematic enough (certainly, Wittgenstein’s expositions are also not overly scattered and completely lack internal connections, and his work still has logical continuity). We want to give two examples, about the first example, Wittgenstein once writes: “We said that the sentence ‘Excalibur has a sharp blade’ made sense even when Excalibur was broken in pieces. Now this is so because in this language-game a name is also used in the absence of its bearer. But we can imagine a language-game with names (that is, with signs which we should certainly include among names) in which they are used only in the presence of the bearer; and so could always be replaced by a demonstrative pronoun and the gesture of pointing.”[21] Here, Wittgenstein is discussing whether the subject of a sentence exists in reality, and it is obviously a problem which has been repeatedly discussed in philosophy.
In another paragraph, Wittgenstein writes: “What does it mean to know what a game is? What does it mean, to know it and not be able to say it? Is this knowledge somehow equivalent to an unformulated definition? So that if it were formulated I should be able to recognize it as the of my knowledge? Isn’t my knowledge, my concept of a game, completely expressed in the explanations that I could give? That is, in my describing examples of various kinds of game; shewing how all sorts of other games can be constructed on the analogy of these; saying that I should scarcely include this or this among games; and so on.”[22] Here, Wittgenstein discusses the issue whether our understandings about one thing are complete and whether we can use language to systematically and accurately describe some things.
From the above two examples, we can easily see that Wittgenstein’s philosophical explorations indeed have a somewhat fragmentary and scattered tendency, and his investigations in every section are indeed around some definite thought themes, but looking from the overall context of the text, many thought themes he studies around in different sections often have a somewhat jumping inclination. To conclude, we think Wittgenstein is indeed one of the important founders of langauge philosophy, but considering the relevant research of modern philosophers like Locke and 20th-century philosophers like Quine, its meaning should be more objectively and prudently evaluated.
(XVI) Saussure’s linguistics. As we know, Saussure makes important contributions for the development of 20th-century linguistics, and the basic feature of his research method is scientific and systematic; Saussure summarizes the many-sided accumulated achievements in linguistics at that time, and creates a series of new concepts, terms and methods, and makes groundbreaking systematic investigations about linguistics. Below, we firstly quote Saussure’s one passage: “The linguistic sign unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound-image. The latter is not the material sound, a purely physical thing, but the psychological imprint of the sound, the impression that it makes on our senses. The sound-image is sensory, and if I happen to call it ‘material’, it is only in that sense, and by way of opposing it to the other term of the association, the concept, which is generally more abstract.”[23] This paragraph well represents Saussure’s research method, namely, it examines some basic features of language from many different angles, like psychology, physiology and thought. In Course in General Linguistics, Saussure comprehensively uses many different tools like phonology, syllable, vowel, syntagmatic, language family, etymology, Latin, Teutonic, etc, to make systematic and extensive deep investigations about linguistics.
If we compare Wittgenstein’s and Saussure’s language study, we can find some basic differences: Wittgenstein’s research is a bit scrappy and fragmentary, while Saussure’s research is systematic and clear; Wittgenstein’s research is somewhat ‘philosophical’, while Saussure’s research is more ‘scientific’ flavor , and the materials, terms, concepts Saussure uses are also a bit more professional; we can easily find, Saussure also masters more different languages, like Latin and Teutonic, namely, his professionalism is a bit stronger. (Quine’s Word and Object probably also has some ‘philosophy’ flavor, but this work’s overall framework is also a bit more systematic and orderly thanPhilosophical Investigation) Obviously, these two people’s broad researches both have a significant impact on academia and also represent the two different directions of linguistic study.
(XVII) Chomsky’s grammatical study. Grammar is naturally also an important field of language study, and in Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures published in 1957, Chomsky puts forward his famous “transformative-generative grammar”. Below, we quote a short passage in this book:
“(13) (i)Sentence->NP+VP
(ii)NP->T+N
(iii)VP->Verb+NP
(iv)T->the
(v) N->man, ball, etc
(vi)Verb->hit, took, etc
Suppose that we interpret each rule X->Y of (13) as the instruction ‘rewrite X as Y’. We shall call (14) a derivation of the sentence ‘the man hit the ball.’ where the numbers at the right of each line of the derivation refer to the rule of ‘grammar’ (13) used in constructing that line from the preceding line.
(14) Sentence
NP+VP (i)
T+N+VP (ii)
T+N+Verb+NP (iii)
the+N+verb+NP (iv)
the+man+Verb+NP (v)
the+man+hit+NP (vi)
the+man+hit+T+N (ii)
the+man+hit+the+N (iv)
the+man+hit+the+ball (v)
Thus the second line of (14) is formed from the first line by rewriting Sentence as NP+VP in accordance with rule (i) of (13); the third line is from the second by rewriting NP as T+N in accordance with rule (ii) of (13); etc.”[24]
From Chomsky’s this quotation, we can feel one basic feature of his grammatical study, namely, with certain mathematical feature, and abstracts grammar of language into some certain mathematical symbols; in this way, Chomsky also makes quite a few contributions in grammar.
If we compare the research methods and concrete conclusions of Wittgenstein, Saussure and Chomsky these three scholars who study language in the above three sections, we still can easily see their research styles’ basic differences, and one of them is, their research objects have basic differences: Wittgenstein is concerned with the relationship between language and life, philosophy, while Saussure pays attention to language’s history, sociality, psychological feature, grammar, semantics and speech structure, etc, and Chomsky’s research scope is somewhat narrow and deep and he mainly focuses on the grammatical issue in various languages. These three scholars’ researches show substantial differences in style is certainly not accidental, and one essential reason is the exceptional broadness and complexity of language; as section (IV) says, language is a wide area, and vocabulary, grammar and the contents of language three basic aspects are all broad, which also leads to different scholars will pay attention to different sides of language field, and thus, it will form different research levels, research methods and research directions and also lead to that linguistics often give people an extensive and confused overall feeling. (In this paper, we just compare the study styles of Wittgenstein, Saussure and Chomsky these three people, if we include 20th-century famous philosophers’ relevant research like Austin and Quine and modern philosophers’ relevant works like Locke and Leibniz, the whole language philosophy field will be somewhat more complex and jumbled) To conclude, language is a broad problem, and we cannot generalize its main connotation by using several simple ideas, and the reason is our life, society and culture, etc, are all broad.
[1] Certainly, some philosophers will object to this view, and they think, language has little to do with actual experience, as Russell’s description: “Some modern philosophers have gone so far as to say that words should never be confronted with facts but should live in a pure, autonomous world where they are compared only with other words.” “These authors tell us that the attempt to confront language with fact is ‘metaphysics’ and is on this ground to be condemned.” While Russell refutes: “Language consists of sensible phenomena just as much as eating or walking, and if we can know nothing about facts we cannot know what other people say or even what we are saying ourselves. Language , like other acquired ways of behaving, consists of useful habits and has none of the mystery with which it is often surrounded.” (See My Philosophical Development, Chapter XIII, ‘Language’) Russell’s views here are clear, namely, words come from actual sensory experience, and are not certain abstract symbols out of touch with the real world.
[2] Word and Object, Chapter I, Section 1, “Beginning with Ordinary Things”, p. 1, The MIT Press, 1964.
[3] See the above book, above section, p. 2.
[4] Course in General Linguistics, Introduction, Chapter V, “Internal and External Elements of Language”, p. 20, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1915
[5] Word and Object, Chapter I, p. 3
[6] See the essay “S. S. Chern, Chenning Yang, Tsung-Dao Lee, and Yuan Tseh Lee on Learning in Tsinghua (1992)” in Collected Essays of Chenning Yang, p. 762, East China Normal University Press, 2000
[7] See the article “Permanent universe and temporary notions”, included in Whitehead’s Anthology, pp. 316, 317, Zhejiang Literature & Art Press, 1999
[8] See The Fatal Conceit, Chapter VII, “Our Poisoned Language”, pp. 106, 107, Routledge Press, 1988
[9] See Leviathan, Part I, Chapter IV, “Of Speech”, p. 21, Oxford University Press, 1998
[10] See my paper “A Brief Analyses on Oral English Learning”
[11] See “Outline of Origin of Humankind”, especially Section II, III and IV, included in Li Zehou’s philosophical papers (Volume II), pp. 527-531, Anhui Literature & Art Press, 1999. Our elaborations here are somewhat brief, and interested readers can refer to this paper’s full text.
[12] See the paper “Technical Education and Its Relationship with Science and Literature” included in The Aims of Education, p. 89, Sanlian Books, 2002
[13] See Mind, Self and Society, Part II, section VIII, University of Chicago Press, 1934
[14] See the above book, above section
[15] See the above book, above section
[16] See the above book, section IX
[17] See the above book, section X
[18] See Leviathan, Part I, Chapter IV, p. 26
[19] An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book III, Chapter VII, “Of Particles”, Penguin Books, 1998
[20] For detailed expositions, seePhilosophical Investigations, Part II, Section XI, p. 194, Basil Blackwell, 1958
[21] See the above book, Part I, Section 44, p. 21
[22] See the above book, Part I, Section 75, p. 35
[23] See Course in General Linguistics, Part I, Chapter I, Section 1, “Sign, Signified, Signifier”, p. 66
[24] See Syntactic Structures, Chapter IV, “Phrase Structure”, pp. 26, 27, The Hague Publishers, 1972
