在人类生境约束下思考语言的设计原理和运作机制

On the Constraint of the Human Habitat on the Design Principles and the Operating Mechanism of Language

文章述评了霍凯特提出的人类语言的13种设计特征,并重点讨论其中的语言符号离散性和二元构型特征。从自然语言处理的角度看,离散性使语言符号的形式与意义之间存在着语义鸿沟,需要把自然语言的词向量化为连续性数值才可以进行计算,这种运算的结果可以从语言学上进行解释。由于语言系统和生物系统在二元构型上存在相似性,可以将自然语言处理的一些模型运用于生物分子研究领域。根据托马塞洛关于人类沟通的起源和合作性心理平台的学说,任何诉诸语言本身有某种繁复而自足的深层结构的幻想都是不切实际的,语言学家应该把语言置于人类生境(即人类进化与生存的现实境况)下,来思考语言的设计原理和运作机制,从而对语言的结构方式和功能效用有更加切实的了解,进而开辟一种更具人文主义情怀的语言学研究进路。

Based on a critical review of Hockett’s(1960)discussion of underlying design features of human language and Tomasello’s(2010)psychological focus on human communication,this paper attempts to argue for the importance of humanizing and historical dimensions in language computerization study.This paper examines what Hockett(1960)proposed and referred to as 13 design features by which human language is characterized with a focus on two of these features:discreteness and duality of patterning.I fi rst discuss three diff erent ways of defi ning the discreteness of linguistic signs and the respective focal points of these three definitions and introduce methods to integrate the discrete attributes of linguistic signs into continuous vectors as well as computational applications of these methods.Secondly,I look into the similarity between the linguistic system and the biological system in terms of their duality of patterning,including how relevant algorithms and models in the fi eld of natural language processing are applied in molecular biological studies.Finally,this paper turns to discuss Tomasello’s(2010)theory regarding the origination of human communications and his ideas about the cooperative psychological platform.While showing that any eff ort to delve into an underlying complicated and self-suffi cient structure is bound to be unrealistic,this paper argues that linguistic researchers should locate language in the human habitat(i.e.,the real situation in which human beings exist and evolve)thus to refl ect upon the design principles and the operating mechanism of language.In so doing,a greater prospect can be obtained into the structural patterns and functional utilities of language with an aim of opening up a linguistic approach with prominent humanistic considerations.