语言演化研究的批判性反思与继承性开新——序中译版《语言的进化生物学探索》

A Critique of Language Evolution Studies for Blazing New Trails:A Translators’Note on the Chinese Edition of Toward an Evolutionary Biology of Language

经过半个多世纪的发展,生物语言学逐渐形成了以乔姆斯基为代表的生成派生物语言学研究模式,采取从语言现象到心智模型及至人脑神经生理的研究进路。然而,关于语言演化,该模式却未给出富有解释力的一致性方案。其中一个重要原因是,它在很大程度上忽视了人类语言与其他种群的“类语言”、人类的语言能力与其行为能力和认知能力的相关性,这正是以利伯曼为代表的达尔文派生物语言学模式关注的焦点。《语言的进化生物学探索》一书集语言演化研究成果之大成,采取从现代综合进化论到神经生理机制及至语言表征的研究取向。该书英文版自2006年杀青以来,一直未引起国内学界的应有关注。中译版增加了作者近十余年来获得的新证据和新思考,对于深入探索语言演化的根本性问题,具有认识论和方法论意义。

The Chomskyan Biolinguistic Model(CBM),a dominant one in Generative Biolinguistics over the last five decades,follows a pathway of analysis from language phenomena to mental models and neurophysiological mechanisms of the human brain.But it has failed to provide a coherent and convincing interpretation of language evolution,largely due to its neglect of the possible links between human languages and the“quasi-languages”of other species as well as those between linguistic competence and behavioral and cognitive abilities.To bridge the knowledge gap,such links are highlighted in the Darwinian Biolinguistic Model(DBM)as represented by Philip Lieberman.His monograph titled Toward an Evolutionary Biology of Language brings together the author’s long-term research findings on language evolution,following a pathway of analysis from the modern synthetic theory of evolution to neurophysiological mechanisms and language representations.The English edition was first published in 2006 but has not yet received due attention among the Chinese scholars working in this area ever since.It is worthy of note that in the present Chinese edition,Lieberman has added the latest developments in language evolution studies and his multidimensional reflections thereof.In a nutshell,Lieberman’s work holds both epistemological and methodological implications for further inquiry into some fundamental aspects of language evolution.