MENTALISM AND MECHANISM
IN LINGUISTICS
Toshiaki FUKAZAWA
CONTENTS Prefece ...
I. Mechanism---Bloomfield . . 1.1 Introduction ...
1.2 Stimulas---Response . . 1.3 Meaning----Form . . . . 1.4 Bloomfield----Weiss . . . 1.5 The Source of Mechanism 2. Mentalism---Sapir, Chomsky
2.1 Introduction ...
2.2 Sapir ...
2.3 Chomsky ...
3. Conclusion ...
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Preface
Linguistics is called a scientific study of language, and in so far as it is a science it must construct theory. Then what are the aims of linguistic theory? To answer this we need to consider two con- flicting approaches in modern linguistics: the mentalistic versus the mechanistic approach, or the rationalistic approach versus the em- pirical. Without understanding these two trends in linguistics we cannot talk about the aims of linguistic theory. In fact the question of the aims of linguistic theory has come out of the controversy surrounding the mentalist and mechanist approaches to language study. Without understanding these views of language (which are ultimately views of man) which underly various contemporary
linguistic theories, we cannot understand even selves. It is with these points in mind that I of both approaches, mainly through a study of and Noam Chomsky, in the study to follow.
those theories them- have made a survey Leonard Bloomfield
1. Mechanism----Bloomfield
1.1 Introduction
In this chapter we shall be dealing with "mechanism" in Leonard Bloomfield. It was in his Language in 1933, I think, that the word
"mechanist" first appeared in contrast with "mentalist" . In the Preface to Language he says:
The mentalists would supplement the facts of language by a version in terms of mind,—a version which will differ in the various schools
of mentalistic psychology. The mechanists demand that the fact be
presented without any assumption of such auxiliary factors. I have
tried to meet this demand not merely because I believe that mechanism is
the necessary form of scientific discourse, but also because an exposi-
tion which stands on its own feet is more solid and more easily sur-
veyed than one which is propped at various points by another and
changeable doctrine.
It is not too much to say that American structural linguistics has its origin in this "mechanism". But since we cannot understand the whole meaning of "mechanism" only from this statement, it is necessary for us to see what Bloomfield states about this subject in his other works. We shall make a general survey of this, beginning with his "Linguistic aspects of science" in 1939, in which we find the following statement:
It is the belief of the present writer that the scientific description
of the universe, whatever this description may be worth, requires none of the mentalistic terms, because the gaps which these terms are
intended to bridge exist only so long as language is left out of ac-
count. If language is taken into account, then we can distinguish
science from other phases of human activity by agreeing that science
MENTALISM AND MECHANISM IN LINGUISTICS 25 shall deal only with events that are accessible in their time and place
to any and all observers (strict behaviorism) or only with events that
are placed in coordinates of time and space (mechanism), or that sci-
ence shall employ only such initial statements and predictions as lead
to definite handling operations (operationalism); or only terms such as
are derivable by rigid definition from a set of everyday terms con-
cerning physical happenings (physicalism). These several formulations,
independently reached by different scientists all lead to the same de- limitation, and this delimitation does not restrict the subject matter
of science but rather characterizes its method (Bloomfield, 1939, pp.
90--91).
His intention is therefore not to restrict the subject matter of science but to characterize its method, that is, not to use the extra- scientific terms of mentalism.
1.2 Stimulus----Response
Here we shall look into his concrete view of language. Chapter 2 of Bloomfield's (1933) book is entitled "The Use of Language".
In this chapter he gives his well-known illustration of the "Jack and Jill" paradigm:
Suppose that Jack and Jill are walking down a lane. Jill is hungry.
She sees an apple in a tree. She makes noise with her larynx, tongue,
and lips. Jack vaults the fence, climbs the tree, takes the apple, brings
it to Jill, and places it in her hand. Jill eats the apple (Bloomfield,
1933, p.22).
This is the normal description of the events that take place.
But Bloomfield (1933, pp. 22-27) explains this somewhat differently.
"She was hungry; that is, some of her muscles were contracting, and some fluids were being secreted, especially in her stomach."
She saw an apple in a tree; that is, "the light-waves reflected from the red apple struck her eyes." All these events constitute the stimulus. Further, she "moved her vocal chords... her lower jaw, her tongue, and so on, in a way which forced the air into the form of sound-waves." That is, instead of responding directly to this
stimulus, that is, getting hold of the apple by herself, Jill's speech acts as a substitute stimulus for Jack, causing him to fetch the apple.
Thus "the two human ways of responding to a stimulus" are symbolized by two diagrams:
1. speechless reaction: s--- ) R
2. reaction mediated by speech: S--q-...s----) R.
In the latter case, "the gap between the bodies of the speaker and the hearer—the discontinuity of the two nervous systems—is bridged by the sound waves."
Here appear two theories about the variability of human conduct, that is, "mentalism" and "mechanism".
The mentalistic theory, which is by far the older, and still prevails both in the popular view and among men of science, supposes that the
variability of human conduct is due to the interference of some non-
physical factor, a spirit or will or mind (Greek psyche, hence the
term psychology) that is present in every human being. This spirit,
according to the mentalistic view, is entirely different from material
things and accordingly follows some other kind of causation or perhaps
none at all (Bloomfield, 1933, p. 32).
The materialistic (or, better, mechanistic) theory supposes that the variability of human conduct, including speech, is due only to the
fact that the human body is a very complex system. Human actions,
according to the materialistic view, are part of cause-and-effect se-
quences exactly like those which we observe, say in the study of physics or chemistry (ibid., p. 33).
As we shall see in due course, the latter statement shows ex- plicitly a materialistic view of man.
1.3 Meaning----Form
Bloomfield (1933, p. 139) defined "the meaning of a linguistic form as the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response which it calls forth in the hearer." This statement means that the meaning of a linguistic form is "S" and "R" in his diagram "S--4
MENTALISM AND MECHANISM IN LINGUISTICS 27
r... s-- R". And he says that "S" (speakers situation), "as the earlier term, will usually present a simpler aspect than the hearer's response; therefore we usually discuss and define meanings in terms of a speaker's stimulus."
Concerning "meaning" the theories of "mentalism" and "mecha- nism" appear. In Language, chapter 9, "Meaning", he explains both:
Adherents of mentalistic psychology believe that they can avoid the difficulty of defining meanings, because they believe that, prior to
the utterance of a linguistic form, there occurs within the speaker a non-physical process, a thought, concept, image, feeling, act of will
or the like and that the hearer, likewise, upon receiving the sound-
waves, goes through an equivalent or correlated mental process. The
mentalist, therefore, can define the meaning of a linguistic form as
the characteristic mental event which occurs in every speaker and hearer in connection with the utterance or hearing of the linguistic
form. The speaker who utters the word apple has had a mental image of an apple, and this word evokes a similar image in a hearer's
mind. For the mentalist, language is the expression of ideas. feelings,
or volitions.
The mechanist does not accept this solution. He believes that mental images, feelings, and the like are merely popular terms for
various bodily movements... (Bloomfield, 1933, p. 142).
Here we had a considerable understanding of these two theories.
One is idealistic and the other is materialistic. Thus, for the mecha- nist the "mental processes" are "merely traditional names for bodily processes" (p. 143).
His absorbing interest in linguistics is to make a science of it.
Bearnard Bloch (1949) explains this in his obituar "Leonard Bloomfield":
There can be no doubt that Bloomfield's greatest contribution
to the study of language was to make a science of it. Others before him had worked scientifically in linguistics; but no one had
so uncompromisingly rejected all prescientific methods, or had been
so consistently careful, in writing about language, to use terms
that would imply no tacit reliance on factors beyond the range of
observation. To some readers, unaware of the danger that lies in
a common-sense view of the world, Bloomfield's avoidance of everyday expressions may have sounded like pedantry, his rigorous definitions
like jargon. But to the majority of linguists, the simple clarity of Bloomfiele's diction first revealed in full the possibilities of scientific
discourse about language. It was Bloomfield who taught us the neces-
sity of speaking about language in the style every scintist use when
he speaks about the object of his reserch: impersonally, precisely, and
in terms that assume no more than actual observation discloses to him.
In his long campaign to make a science of linguistics, the chief
enemy that Bloomfield met was that habit of thought which is called
mentalism: the habit of appealing to mind and will as ready-made
explanations of all possible problems. Most men regard this habit as obvious common sense; but in Bloomfield's view, as in that of other
scientists, it is mere superstition, unfruitful at best and deadly when
carried over into scientific research. In the opposite approach—known
as positivism, determinism, or mechanism—Bloomfield saw the main hope of the world: for he was convinced that only the knowledge
gained by a strictly objective study of human behavior, including
language, would one day make it possible for men to live at peace with each other... (pp. 92---93).
Thus, Bloomfield, after a hard stuggle to make a science of the study of language, developed the `postulational method' in his (1926)
"A Set of Postulates for the Science of Language" . Bloomfield's
`postulational method' had a great influence on progress in the sci- entific study of language in America. This `postulational method' expresses one of the important aspects of his mechanical view of language. The postulational method (that is, assumptions or axioms) examine and formulate "our (at present tacit) assumptions" and define
"our (often undefined) terms" so that we can avoid "certain errors"
and save discussion, "because it limits our statements a defined terminology; in particular, it cuts us from psychological dispute"
(p. 153).
He says that "within certain communities successive utterances are alike or partly alike" (p. 154). This is "Assumption 1", which he explained in the followin terms:
A needy stranger at the door says I'm hungry. A child who has
MENTALISM AND MECHANISM IN LINGUISTICS 29 eaten and merely wants to put off going to bed says I'm hungry.
Linguistics considers only those vocal features which are alike in the
two utterances, and only those stimulus-reaction features which are
alike in the two utterances (p. 154).
To understand this statement we shall have to look over his masterpiece, Language, especially chapters 9 and 10. At the begin- ning of chapter 10, entitled "Gramatical Forms", he writes:
We assume that each linguistic form has a constant and definite mean- ing, different from the meaning of any other linguistic form in the
same language. Thus hearing several utterances of some one linguitic
form, such as I'm hvngry, we assume (1) that the differences in sound
are irrelevant (unphonetic), (2) that the situations of the several
speakers contain some common features and that the differences be-
tween these situations are irrelevant (unsemantic), and (3) that this
linguistic meaning is different from that of any other form in the
language. We have sean that this assumption cannot be verified, since
the speaker's situations and the hearer's responses may involve almost
anything in the whole world, and, in particular, depend largely unon
the momentary state of their nervous systems (p. 158).
This means that though there are differences between the two utterances, that is, phonetical and connotational differences, we can- not help admitting that they are alike. This is what Bloomfiled stated as "Assumption 1".
Then Bloomfield (1926) next gives a definition: "That which is alike will be called same. That which is not same is different"
(p. 155). Thus, he defines meanings and forms as follows: "The vocal features common to same or partly same utterances are forms;
the corresponding stimulus-reaction features are meanings" (p. 155).
In other words, "...a form is a recurrent vocal feature which has meaning, and a meaning is a recurrent stimulus-reaction fearture which corresponds to a form" (p. 155).
Here we notice that not only do "same utterances", "meanings"
and "forms" ignore "non-distinctive features", but that "a form is often said to express its meaning" (Bloomfield, 1933, p. 141).
Thus, the correlation between "form" and "meaning" became clear. It can be illustrated as follows.
S-->r ... s--->R meaning Form Meaning
The tendency of the `Neo-Bloomfieldian' school to neglect the study of "meaning" can be traced to Bloomfield's attitude toward meaning. This is clearly shown in the following passage:
The situations which prompt people to utter speech, include every object and happening in their universe. In order to give a scientifically
accurate definition of meaning for every form of a language, we should have to have a scientifically accurate knowledge of everything in the
speakers' world. The actual extent of human knowledge is very small,
compared to this (Bloomfield, 1933, p. 139).
The statement of meanings is therefore the weak point in language-
study, and will remain so until human knowledge advances very far beyond its present state (ibid., p. 140).
He held that "linguistic study must always start from the phone- tic form and not from the meaning" and that "the meanings could be analyzed or systematically listed only by a well-nigh omniscient observer" (Bloomfield, 1933, p. 162).
Though it has been said that Bloomfield and the `Bloomfieldian' school made little positive contribution to semantics until the appear- ance of Noam Chomsky, we shall come to this in due course.
1.4 Bloomfield----Weiss
As we have seen above Bloomfield accepted and developed a
"mechanical" view of language . From what does this "mechanism"
derive? Here we have to mention Albert Paul Weiss.
Bloomfield wrote in the preface to his Language (1933) that in 1914 he had viewed language from the position of Wilhelm Wundt.
But by 1933, he had become a behaviorist partly as a result of his association with the psychologist Albert Paul Weiss. And as Bloch
MENTALISM AND MECHANISM IN LINGUISTICS 31
(1949, p. 89) wrote, Weiss's chief work, A theoretical basis of human behavior, "had a profound influence on Bloomfield ."
Bloomfield (1931) himself wrote the obituary "Albert Paul Weiss" . The following passages will be useful for us to know more about Weiss and his behaviorism:
Weiss was not a student of language, but he was probably the first man to see its significance. He saw that language supplied the key to those phenomena of human conduct and achievement which hitherto had been attributed to non-physical forces. There had always been students who refused to believe in the spectres of our tribal animism (mind, consciousness, will and the like) but these students had never given a clear-cut and satisfactory explanation for the super- biological actions of man-.--the actions which transcend the possibilities of the animal world. In our time these students are the behaviorists,—
an ugly name, said Weiss, but accepted it for want of better . Weiss was a devoted pupil of Max Meyer; the latter's system, most thorough in eliminating animism and finalism, formed the basis of Weiss's work. The pupil's enormous advance was due to his evaluation of language.
In addition to 'handling' responses, man has developed a system of vocal responses, language. These vocal responses serve as stimuli to the speaker's fellows: (p. 219).
Every step in the advance of human knowledge meets with a resistance which has grown feebler as the centuries have passed . The time may be near when Albert Paul Weiss will be counted a heroic figure in the progress of science (p. 221).
Erwin A. Esper, who had been pupil and assistant of Albert P . Weiss, comments on the warm tone of Bloomfield's eulogy and states the close frendship between Weiss and Bloomfield as follows:
Their friendship was product of their personalities; both were modest , unassuming, humorous, irreverent toward "the spectres of our tribal animism", intensely serious about questions of science , inclined to be contemptuous of acdemic triflers and humbugs.... Weiss's importance in this history (leaving out of account his influence in other directions) consists in his having transmitted to Bloomfield the objectivistic natu- ralism which had been developing, from the mid-nineteenth century , among biologically oriented psychologists in Germany , and which was
brought to America by Max Meyer. Weiss's writings may be described as "variations on themes of Max Meyer." (Esper, 1968, p. 174).
Esper (1968) also denies the correlation between John B. Watson and Leonard Bloomfield, and writes:
For the lay public and for most psychologists, Watson was the founder of "behaviorism." For Leonard Bloomfield, Weiss created
the "mechanistic psychology" which constituted the extra-linguistic
starting-point of Bloomfield's "postulates" (1926) and of his major work (1933) (Esper, 1968, p.2).
Weiss's (1925, p. 53) statement, "Specific types of external stim- uli, in addition to releasing specific manual responses, also release verbal responses, and these become, for other individuals, substitute
stimuli for the original stimuli", reminds us of Bloomfield's "Jack and Jill" paradigm; ...s--+R. If we compare the following Weiss statement with Bloomfield's, we cannot but acknowledge how
much the latter owes to the former:
No non-physical, non-biological forces need be postulated, and until it has been conclusively demonstrated that the biological structure of
man and his complex language and social environment are unable to
produce the social institutions which differentiate him from the ani-
mals, the assumption of a special mental force of a mind is gratuitous.
As we learn more about language, there arises a tendency to shift the burden of proof as to the existence of a special mental force,
upon those who hold this hypothesis (Weiss, 1925, p. 56).
It is our hypothesis that the terms 'concept' `idea', and so on add nothing to this. We suppose that the person who says `I was having
an idea of a straight line' is telling us: `I uttered out loud or produced
by inner speech movements the words straight line, and at the same time I made some obscuse visceral reactions with which I habitually
accompany the sight or feel of a straight edge or the utterance or hearing of the word straight. Of all this, only the verbal action is constant from person to person. If we are right, then the term `idea'
is simply a traditional obscure synonym for 'speech-form', and it will
appear that what we now call 'mental' events are in part private and
unimportant events of physiology and in part social events (responses
which in their turn act as stimuli upon other persons or upon the
MENTALISM AND MECHANISM IN LINGUISTICS 33 responder himself), namely acts of speech. If this is true , then lin-
guistics in the future will deal with much wider problems than today
(Bloomfield, 1936, p. 95).
In the above monograph, "Language or Idea?, Bloomfield refers to Weiss and states his own view on linguistics:
Linguistics as actually practised employs only such terms as are trans- latable into the langugae of physical and biological science; in this
linguistics differs from nearly all other discussion of human affairs.
Within the next generations mankind will learn that only such terms
are usable in any science. The terminology in which at present we
try to speak of human affairs—the terminology of 'consciousness',
'mind'
, 'perception', ,ideas', and so on—in sum, the terminology of mentalism and animism—will be discarded, much as we have discarded
Ptolemaic astronomy, and will be replaced in minor part by physio- logical terms and in major part by terms of linguistics.
This prediction was based not only upon what seem to me to be the striking features of linguistic methodology, but in far greater
measure upon the doctrine of non-animistic students of human be-
havior, especially upon the conclusions of our late colleague, Albert
Paul Weiss (Bloomfield, 1936, p. 89).
Bloomfield (1936, p. 90) also mentions the "physicalism" of the Vienna Circle, the main members of which were Rudolf Carnap and Otto Neurath. They "have found that all scientfically meaningful statements are translatable into physical terms--that is, into state- ments about movements which can be observed and described in coordinates of space and time." Thus, he asserts that the Vienna Circle have indepenpeetly reached the conclusion of physicalism:
...any scientifically meaningful statement reports a movement in space and time. This confirms the conclusion of A. P. Weiss and
other American workers: the universe of sciences is physical universe.
This conclusion implies that statements about 'ideas' are to be trans-
lated into statements about speech-forms (p. 89).
1.5 The Source of "Mechanism"
As we have seen above, Bloomfield's notion of "mechanism" is
almost the same as that of "operationalism", "physicalism", and
"behaviorism" . It can be said that they consider the same concept from different aspects respectively. They insist that "any scientifically meaningful statement reports a movement in space and time", hence one must use physical instead of mentalistic terms. Their insistence upon non-mentalistic approach infers methodological questions.
Having already seen that Bloomfield had adopted "behaviorism"
through A. P. Weiss, we shall have to look into this "behaviorism", especially its source.
Esper (1968) treats this problem from the mechanist viewpoint.
The "beaviorism" which was transmitted from Meyer to Weiss, and from Weiss to Bloomfield, "was not the expression of a sudden and radical break in the continuity of science" (Esper, 1968, p. 155).
The following passage from Esper (1968, p. 149) will be useful for our purpose:
Thus from Planck to Weiss the religious component in scientific discourse, and the "idealistic" or "spiritualistic" tradition stemming from Plato, became progressively attenuated, whereas the ethical component of the "materialistic" tradition stemming from Democritus remained prominent .... I have gone into the history of this subject at some length because I think that it is of importance to our under- standing of the origins and nature of that "behaviorism" or "mecha- nism" which Bloomfield adopted in 1933. We cannot arrive at such an understanding if we accept the legend that behaviorism was in- vented by John B. Watson, or the dogma that it was created by men ignorant of philosophy and inhumane in their attitudes toward their fellow men. Behaviorism—in the sense of objective psychology—was a product of the great political, religious, and social changes accom- panying and interacting with the rapid acceleration of scientific research in the last decades of the nineteenth and the early decades of the twentieth centuries. The ideals of objectivity, of unbiased research and of pure science as both the highest activity of man and the surest means of improving the lot of mankind—these ideals might be con- sidered to have been as lofty as any held by theologians, philosophers, or spititually or mentalistically inclined psychologists. The label of philosophical naivety which some linguistic philosophers-at-large have
MENTALISM AND MECHANISM IN LINGUISTICS 35 wished to attach to the behaviorism of Weiss and Bloomfield is nothing
less than grotesque.
"Mentalism" corresponds to the "idealisti
c" tradition stemming from Plato. "Mechanism" or "behaviorism" corresponds to the
"materialistic" tradition stemmi
ng from Democritus. Concerning the fact that the former tended to yield to the latter , Esper writes as follows:
In the history which we are traversing—Planck, Stumpf , Ebbunghaus,
Meyer—we see the progressive separation of science from religion—
but with an intensifying ethical interest—until when we arrive at Meyer we find religion portrayed as the great source , not only of
obfuscation, but also of human misery. In psychology, the tradition
stemming from Pythagoras and Plato, and elaborated by the Christian
theologians, in which the important component of human beings was the soul, became attenuated to some form of mentalism , which then,
with the continued successes of science, particularly of biology , tended
to yield to objectivism. All those terms which have commonly been
regarded, and which by some linguists and other scientists are still
regarded, as pejorative—materialism, physicalism , positivism, natural-
ism—came often to be associated in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries not only with a more rigorous objectivism in science but also with a heightened humanitarianism in ethics (p. 126).
Giving support to the materialistic tradition of behaviorism , Esper (1968, p. 179) stresses that though the "emotional and moral nature" of some philosphers' and linguists' "reaction was revealed by the epithets which they used", that is, "crass", "hardboiled" ,
"mechanistic fetishism"
, "mechanical materialism", it never reduces
"all intellect
, virture and beauty to a Democritearian swirl of atoms".
For the behaviorist, "... the humanitarian motivation was at least as strong as the scientific; it was in the tradition of Epicurus and Lucretius, and in the sprit of Friedrich Lange and Bertrand Russell"
(p. 181).
Here we have come to the crucial point. As we have seen , in the broader sense of the word, "materialism" characterizes "behav-
iorism". So, to undersand the "mechanism" or "behaviorism", we shall have to have a proper understanding of this "materialism", that is, the materialistic view of man.
It was no less a person than Charles Darwin (1809-1888) who had had a decisive influence upon the materialistic view of man in the modern history. It is not too much to say that Darwin's materi- alistic view of man, supported by so much concrete evidence, had altered the stream of modern philosophic thought regarding language.
Esper (1968) refers to Darwinism and writes:
...the second half of the nineteenth century was characterized in both physiology and psychology by an objectivistic and mechanistic
trend. Developments in anatomy, physiology, and physiological chemi- stry, reinforced by the enormous influence of Darwinism, encouraged
the belief in the continuity of psychology with the "natural sciences",
and in particular, the belief that the phenomena of animal and human
"mental" activity could be deterministically explained in terms of
"natural" laws; i.e., laws based on objective observations eventually
expressible in physiological, chemical, and physical terms. Among the considerable number of men who contributed to this movement,
Helmholtz, Sechenov and Ebbinghaus might be considered the chief founders of "behaviorism"; that is, of the study of "mental" activity
by objective and quantitative methods (pp. 137-138).
As we have seen in 1.3, Bloomfield's absorbing interest in lin- guistics was to make a science of it. It seems obvious that "the belief that the penomena of animal and human `mental' activity could be determinstically explained in terms of `natural' laws" un- derlies Bloomfield's attitude toward the question.
Concerning the influence of Derwin, Robert L. Miller (1968) writes:
Influenced by Darwin, the majority of linguists regarded language as part of nature, as a tool to aid man in adapting himself to his en-
vironment but not as fundamentally altering his conception of that environment. Under this view language itself came to be explained
in the same terms as nature, namely, as following certain physical or physiological 'laws' (p. 35).
MENTALISM AND MECHANISM IN LINGUISTICS 37 When Darwin formulated the evolutionary theory in reference to man in his Descent of Man in 1871, the barrier between man and animal was taken away. Chapters 3 and 4 of his (1879) Descent of Man bears the title "Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals." Throughout these two chapters he fully ex- plains that man is not separated from animals either by his mental faculties or his language. "My object in this chapter", he writes,
"is to show that there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in there mental faculties" (p. 66). Before Darwin it had been assumed that language was a product of man's reason: it was this reason that marked him off from the lower ani- mals. But Darwin challenged this view:
Of all the faculties of the human mind it will, I presume, be admitted
that Reason stands at the summit.
Only a few persons now dispute that animals possess some power of reasoning. Animals may constantly be seen to pause, deliberate, and
resolve. It is a significant fact, that the more the habit of any par-
ticular animal are studied by a naturarist, the more he attributes to
reason and the less to unlearnt instincts.
In future chapters we shall see that some animals extremely low in the scale apparently display a certain amount of reason (p. 75).
Thus it was only natural for him not to regard language as man's evclusive possession:
Language—This faculty has justly been considered as one of the chief distinctions between man and the lower animals. But man, as
a highly competent judge, Archibishop Whately remarks, "is not the only animal that can make use of language to express what is passing
in his mind, and can understand, more or less, what is so expressed
by another" (p. 84).
From a body of facts Darwin draws the following conclusion:
...the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. (p. 126).
Since he considered that the language of man had originated from the cries of the animals, for him the language of man is only the complicated form of animal cries. It was a difference in degree and not in kind. It is obvious that this view of language corresponds to his materialistic view of man, which was drawn from his evolu- tionary theory. Thus Wilson (1941, p. 45) says: "It is customary now and a mark of modernism to speak of the language of animals and the language of man as merely two branches of the same thing, as though there were no longer any doubt about the question."
It is Darwin's materialistic view of man that underlies "mecha- nism", "behaviorism" and "physicalism". Here we can clearly understand Bloomfield's "Jack and Jill" paradigm and his insistence upon the necessity for using the physical terms discarding the ter-
minology of 'consciousness', `mind', `perception', `idea', and so on.
Bloomfield's stimulus—response theory is in itself the theory of 'objectivistic biology' and of `animal psychology' .
Thus we have come to the conclusion that there are two phases of "mechanism". One is the phase of methodology, and the other is the phase of a view of man.
---
1. Methodology:
MechanismTo the terminology of 'mind'use physical terms discarding . 'idea'
Behaviorismand so on.
Physicalism
--- 2. A view of man:
To regard man as a complicated from of animal life.
Bloomfield treats "mechanism" mainly as questions of method- ology. But there can be no doubt, as we have seen, that the mate- rialistic view of man underlies the methodology. The following statements implicity express what I have stated above:
The materialistic (or, better, mechanistic) theory supposes that
MENTALISM AND MECHANISM IN LINGUISTICS 39 the variability of human conduct, including speach, is due only to the
fact that the human body is a very complex system. Human action,
according to the materialistic view, are part of cause-and-effect se-
quences exactly like those which we observe, say in the study of physics or chemistry (Bloomfield, 1933, p. 33).
Furthermore he mentions the practical effectiveness of the ma- terialistic view and writes:
A worker who accepts the materialistic hypothesis in psychology is under no such temptation; it may be stated as a principle that in all
sciences like linguistics, which observe some specific type of human
activity, the worker must proceed exactly as if he held the material-
istic view. This practical effectiveness is one of the strongest con-
siderations in favor of scientific materialism (ibid. p. 38).
Thus, it can be said that the question of "mentalism" and
"mechanism" is not only the question of method
ology but also the question of a view of man. And at the back of "mechanism" lies the materialistic view of man that derives mainly from Darwin.
2. Mentalism---Sapir, Chomsky
2.1 Introduction
We have seen in the previous chapter that the question of a view of language is basically the question of a view of man and that the materialistic view of man underlies "mechanism". We have also seen that this materialistic view of man stemming from Demo- critus, was strongly influenced by Darwin in the modern history.
Concerning the mental faculties, Darwin insisted that there was no fundamental difference between man and animal and that the dif- ference in mind between them is one of degree and not of kind.
This materialistic view is opposed to the "idealistic" or "spi- ritualistic" view stemming also from the Greek philosopher, Plato.
This idealistic view, which asserts that the important component of human beings is the soul, was elaborated by the Christian theo-
logians and gradually became attenuated to some form of "mental- ism" (see Esper, 1968, p. 126). So it can be said that "mentalism"
and "mechanism" are to a view of language what "idealism" and
"materialism" are to a view of man.
Leonard Bloomfield, as we have seen in Chapter 1, adopted
"behaviorism" through Weiss as a framework for linguistic descrip - tion. He called it "mechanism". And though he is thought to be the founder of American structural linguistics, strictly speaking, as Fries (1962). writes, it was Sapir's "Sound Patterns in Language"
in the official journal of the Linguistic Society of America, Language (1925) that marked the beginning of American structural linguistics.
"This article represents
, I believe, the break-through into the new approach which has developed into our `structural linguistics' "
(Fries, 1962, p. 60). But Bloomfield had had a much greater in- fluence on American linguists than Sapir. It is due to the differ- ence in a view of language between them, that is, their respective
"mechanism" and "mentalism" . Concerning this difference Leroy (1967, pp. 116-117) writes:
The mechanistic or behaviorist approach, deriving from Bloomfield...
is a positivist system that considers that language, just like other human activities, is a natural consequence of the actions and reactions
of the different elements making up the human body.
Mentalism, on the other hand, the approach preferred by E. Sapir and on the whole by R. Jakobson, is a psychological doctrine that
considers that the variability of language is an effect of the action
on physical factors of a spiritual force (will, reflection, emotivity, ete.)
that operates on our nervous system. As opposed to the behaviorists, Sapir... held that the `linguistic consciousness' of the speakers must be taken into account.
Since Bloomfield adopted "mechanism" and discarded "mental- ism" in his Language (1933), American linguistics tended toward the former. But as we shall see in due course, "mentalism" sur- vived and has revived lately, having had a strong advocate Noam Chomsky.
MENTALISM AND MECHANISM IN LINGUISTICS 41 Bloomfield's "mechanism", as I have emphasized in the previous chapter, is traceable to Darwin. Sapir's "mentalism" traces its line of descent to the following persons: to Rene Descartes (1596-1650),
Johann Gottfried Herder (1774-1803), and Wilhelm von Humboldt (1.767-1835) (see Chomsky, 1965,. 1966 b; Wilson, 1941., Chapter IV, V).
They believed that language was a unique characteristic of man and a product of his reason. They had never admitted the mecha- nistic view that the difference between the language of man and the cries of animals is a difference in degree and not in kind. But under the influence of Darwinian naturalism, as I have explained in the previous chapter, "the inseparability of Geist and Sprache, upon which Humboldt had insisted, was replaced by a tendency to regard language as but another episode in nature" (see Miller, 1968, p. 11).
"Sapir's knowledge of Humboldt was apparently direct" (see Brown, 1967, p. 16) and the "Sapir—Whorf" hypothesis derives from Humboldt. Here we shall have to make reference to the `linguistic relativity' hypothesis:
...each language was said to contain a peculiar Weltanschauung,
which causes its speakers to `see' the world in a way different from the speakers of other languages. The earliest formulation of this
conception of language, which has since come to be known as the
`linguistic relativity' hypothesis
, is usually associated with the name of Wilhelm von Humboldt, but foreshadowings of it can be found in
the writings of his immediate predecessors, Johann Georg Hamann and
Johann Gottfried Herder (Miller, 1968, p. 10).
It was E. Sapir who revived Humboldt's hypothesis in America.
...an American version of linguistic relativity was appearing. The hypothesis of linguistic relativity was probably introduced to America
by Franz Boas, became well known through its formulation by his
student Edward Sapir, and was vigorously defended in the writings of
Benjamin Lee Whorf (ibid., p. 11).
This American version of linguistic relativity is what is called
the "Sapir-Whorf" hypothesis. And Brown (1967, p. 16), making reference to the direct continuity of thought from Herder to Whorf, writes: "...there is no mystery about where at least some of the perspectives of Boas, Sapir, and Whorf came from; the line from Herder to Whorf is unbroken...."
2.2 Sapir
The difference between "mentalism" and "mechanism" can be clearly seen in the definition of language. Sapir defines language in his Language (1921) as follows:
Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communi-
cating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a system of voluntarily
produced symbols. These symbols are, in the first instance, auditory and they are produced by the so-called "organs of speech." There
is no discernible instinctive basis in human speech as such, however
much instinctive expression and the natural environment may serve
as a stimulus for the development of certain elements of speech,
however much instinctive tendencies, motor and other, may give a
predetermined range or mold to linguistic expression. Such human
or animal communication, if "communication" it may be called, as is
brought about by involuntary, instinctive cries is not, in our sense,
language at all (p. 8).
For Sapir language is a unique characteristic of man and animal communication is not language at all. For the mechanist, language consists of verbal responses:
Language as a form of behavior through which the individual adjusts himself to a social environment, is not the same thing as language as
a medium of expression of so-called subjective desires, hopes, and aspirations. As a form of behavior, language represents biological,
physiological, and social conditions; as a medium of expression, it as- sumes the existence of non-physical forces or types of psychical energy
whose existence has not been adequately demonstrated (Weiss, 1925,
p. 52).
In the above statement Weise regards language as a form of behavior, and not as a medium of expression of so-called subjective
MENTALISM AND MECHANISM IN LINGUISTICS 43 desires, hopes, and aspirations. Weiss's definition of language is therefore opposed to Sapir's. Moreover, in the following statement we can clearly see a view of language traceable to Darwin. The origin of man's language is considered to be a form of sensorimotor interchange common to both man and animal; and the difference in language between them to be one of degree:
Human achievement, as compared with animal achievement, dif- ferentiate itself particularly through its greater variety and through its cooperative character. The essential condition for producing these effects is a high degree of sensorimotor interchangeability between individuals.... This simple form of sensorimotor interchange is common to both man and animal, and such signaling may be regarded as the beginning of language behavior. In man the process soon becomes very complex. Specific types of external stimuli, in addition to releasing specific manual responses, also release verbal responses and these become, for other individuals, substitute stimuli for the original stimuli. The number of these substitute systems become greater and we have the biginning of what we know as human speech (Weiss, 1925, pp. 52-53).
When we compare these two kinds of view on language we im- mediately notice how Sapir's view differes from Weiss's. Sapir clearly states his mentalistic view of language in his two monographs,
"Sound Patterns in Language" in 1925 and "The Psychological Reality of Phonemes" in 1933. He puts his view and purpose quite clearly in the opening lines of the former:
There used to be and to some extent still is a feeling among linguists that the psychology of a language is more particularly concerned with its grammatical features, but that its sound and its phonetic processes belong to a grosser physiological substratum. Thus, we sometimes hear it said that such phonetic processes as the palatalizing of a vowel by a following i or other front vowel ("umlaut") or the series of shifts in the manner of articulating the old Indo-European stopped consonants which have become celebrated under the name of "Grimm's Law" are merely mechanical processes, consumated by the organs of speech and by the nerves that control them as a set of shifts in relatively simple sensorimotor habits. It is my purpose in this paper as briefly as may
be, to indicate that the sounds and processes of speech cannot be properly understood in such simple, mechanical terms (Sapir, 1925,
p. 49).
As Fries (1962, p. 61) says, this article "is a fully developed demonstration with the evidence of both the negative and the posi- tive aspects of his general statement." Sapir completely demon- strated his view that "mechanical and other detached methods of studying the phonetic elements of speech are, of course, of consider- able effect of obscuring the essential facts of speech-sound psy- chology" (Sapir, 1925, p. 53). And at the end of this article he
states his mentalistic view, in opposition to the mechanistic view of attributing man's language to the so-called physical forces:
The whole aim and spirit of this paper has been to show that phonetic phenomena are not physical phenomena per se, however necessary in
the preliminary stages of inductive linguistic reserch it may be to get
at the phonetic facts by way of their physical embodiment (p. 65).
In "The psychological Reality of Phonemes", as its title shows, Sapir treats phoneme from the mentalistic viewpoint. He stresses the point that there is nothing in human experience that can be adequately explained on physical principles:
THE CONCEPT of the "phoneme" (a functionally significant unit in the rigidly difined pattern of configuration of sounds peculiar to a
language), as distinct from that of the "sound" or "phonetic element"
as such (an objectively definable entity in the articulated and perceived
totality of speech), is becoming more and more familiar to linguists. The difficulty that may still seem to feel in distinguishing between the two
must eventually disappear as the realization grows that no entity in
human experience can be adequately defined as the mechanical sum
or product of its physical properties (Sapir, 1933, p. 67).
2.3 Chomsky
Chomsky, as I have touched on in section 1, is the successor to Sapir. As Lyons (1970, p. 30) writes, Sapir did take a more `huma-
