“生物语言学”及术语考究

Investigations on Terms of “Biolinguistics”

生物语言学可以从广义和狭义两个视角进行理解。从广义上来说,生物语言学研究涵盖了从进化生物学、基因科学、神经科学以及心理学等角度展开的语言研究。从狭义上讲,生物语言学主要指的是以乔姆斯基为代表的生成语法学派关于语法属性的研究。文章研究发现国内外百科全书或词典等工具资料书对生物语言学的界定更多地倾向于广义生物语言学;而学术论文的研究更多地关注狭义生物语言学内容。

Biolinguistics can be defined from broad and narrow senses. From broad perspective, biolinguistics refers to the language research in evolutionary biology, genuine science, neuroscience and psychology. Narrowly, biolinguistics is a synonym of Generative Grammar and Minimalism. Based on investigation, we found that dictionaries and encyclopedia prefer to define ＂biolinguistics＂ from its broad sense, while academic publications prefer to focus on its narrow sense.