如何看待语言学理论--一个马克思主义的视角

Linguistic Theories and Language Facts:A Marxist Point of View

在语言学研究中,有一种观点认为,语言研究只要能把语言事实描写清楚就够了,不需要讲什么理论。也有人认为,理论会遮蔽我们对语言事实的认识,因此应该抛开理论,以素朴的眼光看待事实、描述事实。我们认为,这种轻视理论的观念和做法并不符合马克思主义的研究传统和风格,更不符合马克思主义的研究范式。从马克思主义研究方法论来看,仅有对事实的把握和描写,还远远不够。实际上,我们对事实的任何把握和描写,都是以某种理论为基础,以某种科学的方法进行的,而以某种科学的方法把握、描写的事实和现象,仅仅构成进一步进行理论思考和分析的基础;如果不在事实和现象的基础上做进一步的理论思考和分析,我们所描写的一些所谓的事实和现象很可能仅仅是一些外在的表象,如此我们就很可能会错误地把事物的表象当作事物的本质,以致于无法进一步洞察事实与事实之间的联系。

There is an opinion frequently voiced in the field of linguistics,that the central task of language studies is data collection and fact description.In accordance with this opinion is the view held often by some one or other of the scholars researching on the externalized aspects of language,that linguistic theories tend to have a negative effect on the description of the facts of language.Views of this kind inevitably lead to a proposal acclaimed as the right way to research language by those occasionally perplexed by the ever-increasing abstraction of theories,that linguistic theories be discarded in the observation,collection and description of data and facts,as it is believed that only a plain and naive mind unaffected by any linguistic theory can help one see the true picture of the language under investigation and description.Based upon the relevant discussion of the relationship between facts and theories by Marx and Engels,this paper argues that the above views on facts and theories,and especially on the relationship between them,are not only completely misleading,but also irremediably harmful to the development of language studies in China,if the problems of these views are not pointed out and the muddle-headed way of thinking associated with these views is not cast aside.Obviously,it is untrue that facts can be observed and described without the aid of theories.As a matter of fact,any description of facts is theory-loaded,and in language studies,a fine-grained description of language heavily hinges on the quality of the theoretical or analytical tools that a linguistic theory can offer.According to Marxism,only with the help of scientific theories can one have an insightful observation,a fine-grained description and an in-depth analysis of facts,and of course,it is also true that an adequate explanation of the nature of facts cannot be obtained without further development of scientific theories.