第四范式:语言研究的新理念

The Fourth Paradigm： New Ideas in Studies of Language Use

科学研究的第四范式是数据密集型造就的研究范式，它的精髓是在研究中“让数据说话”。在大数据的影响下，人们传统的研究理念和思路会发生变化：从抽样趋向于全样、从关注于因果关系趋向于关心相关关系、从追求精确趋向于获得对发展大趋势的认识。语言研究逃脱不了大数据的“缠绕”。随着数据量的高速增长和计算机算法的发展，计算机依靠语料的大数据将不仅能模拟和仿真，还能进行学习、归纳、分析、推理、总结，并且得到理论；也就是说，过去由索绪尔、乔姆斯基等语言学家从事的工作，部分可以由计算机来做，这开辟了语言科学研究的广阔前景。这样的研究，我们称之为语言的“e-研究”。

The fouith paradigm of scientific research is the research paradigm created to deal the emergence of huge sets of data-intensive, the marrow of which is ＂Let the data speak＂. The traditional idea in the research has been changed in three aspects： the development from sampling analysis to complete induction, from causality to correlation, and from exactitude to imprecision. Language studies have to be twined around by big data. With the rapid increasing of the volume of the big data about language uses and the wiser and better development of computer algorithm, computers can not only demonstrate the ability of simulating and emulating, but also do the work of learning, inducting, analyzing, reasoning, summing - up, so as to work out theories; that is to say that part of the researches done in the past by Ferdinand de Saussure and N. Chomsky can be taken place by computers, thus opening up promising prospects in language research. This is termed in this paper as ＂e-research＂.