对语法隐喻与科学及真理相对论相关论题的反思

A Refutation of the Claims of Grammatical Metaphor Theory about Science and Relativism of Truth

Halliday的语法隐喻理论关于科技语篇、科学理论以及真理问题有四个论题:论题一:名词化导致事物化;论题二:科学语言导致权力语言和等级语言;论题三:科学理论是语言的建构物;论题四:语法隐喻理论为真理相对论提供了语言学辩护。本文则指出,语法隐喻理论除了对论题二显示出深刻的洞见外,对其他三个论题的论证都不能成立。根本原因在于这三个论题都建立在强语言相对论的基础之上。从体验哲学的立场出发,本文利用Lakoff基于"概念系统"与"概念化能力"的区分对语言相对论的反驳,分析并驳斥了这三个论题成立的基础,指出Halliday的理论夸大了语言对意义的建构作用。另外,论题三和论题四的错误还在于忽视了科学与非科学的界限。本文的结论是:用语法隐喻理论解构科技语篇并证明真理相对论是不能成立的,也不符合科学研究的事实。

This study investigates into the four theses derived from Halliday＇s grammatical metaphor theory concerning the issues about scientific discourses, scientific theories and truth：①nominalization leads to thingiflcation; ②the language of science results in the language of hierarchy; ③scientific theories are the construction of languages ; and ④grammatical metaphor theory justifies the relativism of truth. It is revealed that all the theses are invalid except thesis ②, which shows a penetrating insight into the analysis of scientific discourses. The invalidity of the three theses results from their erroneous assumption on the strong version of linguistic relativity, which is falsified by Lakoff based on his distinction between conceptual system and conceptualizing capacity. It is pointed out that Halliday＇s linguistic theories overstate the constructive effect of languages on meaning. Theses ③ and ④ are fallacious also because of their ignorance of the demarcation between science and non-science. The paper finally concludes that the application of grammatical metaphor theory to justifying the relativism of truth is actually invalid.