洪堡尔特语言理论的历史背景

The intellectual milieu of Wilhelm von Humboldt's linguistic theory

洪堡尔特(Wilhelm von Humboldt,1767-1835)在十九世纪的西方语言学史上占有独特的地位。他做了同时代其他语言学家没有想到要做或者难得去做的抽象理论研究,他在语言本质、语言的认识功能等问题上比同时代人站得高。但洪堡尔特仍是属于那个时代的人物,他的语言理论带有明显的时代印记。本文论述了洪堡尔特与同时代的语言学家、思想家和哲学家的关系,着重指出德国古典唯心论哲学对洪堡尔特的理论和方法的影响,最后叙述了洪堡尔特以后的一代语言学家对他的评价。

To understand Wilhelm von Humboldt's unique place in the history of Western linguistics as well as the theoretical sophistication of his view on language, one has to consider his methodol-ogy, which, the article argues, was deeply influenced by the philosophers of his time. Humboldtdid try to explain language problems from a dialectical point of view, but in many cases he failedto maintain consistency, leaving his arguments in what Steinthal referred to as 'absolute incompre-hensibility'. The links between Humboldt's linguistic ideas and those of Hamann and Herder arealso discussed.