索绪尔与海德格尔语言观*——本体论层面比较

Saussure and Heidegger's Views on the Ontology of Language

索绪尔的语言本体论实际上是建基在社会规范上,困境在于无法摆脱语言与社会规范之间的恶性循环。海德格尔坚持语言本质不在语言之外,而在语言自身。本文认为,这两种本体论观点的主要焦点不能简单地划归为社会决定语言还是语言决定社会的论争之上,而是语言本体论问题必须是开放的,不应该拥有一劳永逸的答案,而要在考察全部人类思想和实存的"语言条件"的前提下追问。从这个角度看,索绪尔和海德格尔仅仅提出了各自的假设而非语言本质的定论。

The author contends that the nature of language viewed by Saussure is evidently of convention and the dilemma of Saussure＇s view is the vicious circle of language and convention,while Heidegger holds that the essence of language is language itself and not something outside.The paper also shows that the interesting point of the two views does not fall on whether language determines society or vice versa,but on the openness of the question as well as its characteristic of unsettlement,hence the possible answers to the question should be pursuited in the linguistic condition of human thought and existence.It is in this sense that both Saussure and Heidegger＇s answers are only hypothetical and not the absolute ones to the nature of language.