模因论:象似性的生物学理据

Memetics:A Biological Support of Iconicity

语言是任意的还是象似的,这是一个关系语言本质的问题。对于二者的争论可追溯到古希腊罗马时期。20世纪初Saussure提出的语言符号任意性学说为语言学家广泛接受,在语言学界一直占据着主导地位。70年代后期,语言的象似性重新进入语言学的研究领域。然而,前人对象似性的研究只停留在对大量语言象似性现象进行分类论述的层面上,从而缺乏理论支持,对象似性的形成未能追根溯源。因此,本文试图通过论述象似性在语音、形态和句法三个层面的表现,结合模因论中模因/模因复合体的生命循环特点探讨此三种象似性的形成过程及其原因,以期能够为语言的象似性本质提供最基础的生理理据。同时,也希望能够加深我们对模因论这种新生物学理论的理解与掌握,并将之运用于语言教学课堂。

Whether language is arbitrary or iconic is a question concerning the nature of language.Argument between the hypothesis of arbitrariness and that of iconicity finds its way back to the ancient Roman times.Since the early 20th,Saussure＇s principle of arbitrariness has been extensively accepted and been viewed as a fundamental theory in modern linguistics.However,with the development of cognitive linguistics during the late 1970s,linguists began to give an eye to the function of people＇s cognition in the language evolution and development.Thereafter,iconicity,as a challenge to arbitrariness,reentered into the researching field of linguistics.However,previous iconic studies are generally conducted by proposing and analyzing iconic phenomena without offering any motivation or evidence for forming iconicity.Therefore,through categorizing iconicity reflected on phonological,lexical and syntactical levels,and applying the lifecycle of memes or memeplexes to illustrate how iconicity is formed on those three levels,this paper is intended to elaborate the nature of language in the perspective of the memetic theory in the hope of giving a biological support to the iconic nature of language as well as gaining a deeper understanding of memetics as a new theory and thus also shedding some light on language teaching.