他關於「知道語言」的觀點相當於是某人擁有或者掌握一個東西,這個東西是特定的行為傾向所形成的集合。史金納認為,學習語言就是去掌握行為傾向所形成的集合之總合。史金納認為這個過程可叫做operant conditioning。(operants是指行為不能從特定環境看出來,或歸納得出結果的。相對於respondents,operants是相較於反映出特定刺激的。因此,眨眼時,某人出現在你眼前是一種respondent, 嬰兒的牙牙學語是一種operant。)史金納認為,許多人的動詞行為都是operant: 它們的開始和刺激並沒有什麼關連。然而,人們卻可以去判斷刺激(或是行為)所帶出的結果的背後因素或條件,等等。在這些條件式的事物之下,行為的問題或多或少(或者在實用上)都像是一個由被規定的環境因素之恰當位置中,強加上的"增加計畫": 獎賞或是懲罰都是被給予的,就像一個主體response每一刻的各種因素。
5/24/2009
Innateness and Language 10
Given his view that knowing a language is just a matter of having a certain set of behavioral dispositions, Skinner believed that learning a language just amounts to acquiring that set of dispositions. He argued that this occurs through a process that he called operant conditioning. (‘Operants’ are behaviors that have no discernible law-like relation to particular environmental conditions or ‘eliciting stimuli.’ They are to be contrasted with ‘respondents,’ which are reliable or reflex responses to particular stimuli. Thus, blinking when someone pokes at your eye is a respondent; episodes of infant babbling are operants.) Skinner held that most human verbal behaviors are operants: they start off unconnected with any particular stimuli. However, they can acquire connections to stimuli (or other behaviors) as a result of conditioning. In conditioning, the behavior in question is made more (or in some paradigms less) likely to occur in response to a given environmental cue by the imposition of an appropriate ‘schedule of reinforcement’: rewards or punishments are given or withheld as the subject's response to the cue varies over time.
4/27/2009
Innateness and Language 9
The behaviorist psychologist B.F. Skinner was the first theorist to propose a fully fledged theory of language acquisition in his book, Verbal Behavior(Skinner 1957). His theory of learning was closely related to his theory of linguistic behavior itself. He argued that human linguistic behavior (that is, our own utterances and our responses to the utterances of others) is determined by two factors: (i) the current features of the environment impinging on the speaker, and (ii) the speaker's history of reinforcement (i.e., the giving or withholding of rewards and/or punishments in response to previous linguistic behaviors). Eschewing talk of the mental as unscientific, Skinner argued that ‘knowing’ a language is really just a matter of having a certain set of behavioral dispositions: dispositions to say (and do) appropriate things in response to the world and the utterances of others. Thus, knowing English is, in small part, a matter of being disposed to utter “Please close the door!” when one is cold as a result of a draught from an open door, and of being disposed (other things being equal) to utter “OK” and go shut a door in response to someone else's utterance of that formula.
行為主義心理學家史金納,他首先提出了成人習得語言的理論,在他1957年的書Verbal Behavior。
他的理論認為,學習語言就相當於語言學的行為本身。他認為人類的語言學行為(也就是我們產生的指稱以及回應指稱的那些東西)有兩個因素:(1)當下促使說話者的環境因素,(2)說話者自我的歷史背景(就是那些已經賦給說話者回應語言行為的環境,或者說,那些約束他的獎勵經驗,懲罰經驗)。史金納幾乎是扯到不關心智的非科學說法去了,他認為,「知道」語言就是擁有特定生理傾向的物質：傾向就是可以說(而且可以做)出某方面稱指來回應這個世界的事物的東西。若是如此,知道英文就是某個人有傾向去使用"Please close the door!"這句話,當他想要使空氣流通時,他就會打開門,而且有另一人當下就有傾向(其他條件都和前一個說話的人一樣)去說"OK",然後去關上門,執行這個動作來回應前面那個人做的稱指。
4/22/2009
Innateness and Language 8
§§2.2-2.5 discuss the main arguments used by Chomsky and others to support this ‘nativist’ view that what makes language acquisition possible is the fact that much of our linguistic knowledge is unlearned; it is innate or inborn, part of the initial state of the language faculty.[2] Section 3 presents a number of other avenues of research that have been argued to bear on the innateness of language, and shows how recent empirical research about language learning and the brain may challenge the nativist position. Because much of this material is very new, and because my conclusions (many of which are tentative) are highly controversial, more references to the empirical literature than are normal in an encyclopedia article are included. The reader is encouraged to follow up on the research cited and assess the plausibility of linguistic nativism for him or herself: whether language is innate or not is, after all, an empirical issue.
2. Terminological Note: In this article, I will use ‘innate’ and ‘inborn’ as synonyms; such usage is typical in the literature on linguistic nativism. As many have pointed out, however, these terms cannot generally be treated as synonymous in the philosophical literature on innateness (See, e.g., Cowie, 1999, chs.1-3; Elmanetal., 1996; Griffiths, 2002; Wimsatt, 1999.
在第2-2到2-5的部分,討論喬姆斯基的主要論證, 還有支持「在地的語用者」的觀點。支持這個觀點的主張會認為, 使得語言知識被獲得的可能是指, 有眾多的語言學知識是未被學習到的；這個知識是先天的或事先驗的,先天的部分指的是語言的能力(註二)。第三章有許多正在被討論的觀點,這些觀點是一些找尋天賦語言的進路,而且它們展現進棋友一些經驗上研究學習語言和大腦的相關事項, 也許直接挑戰了在地語用者的觀點。這些研究非常的新,而我們的結論(也許只是直覺)又非常具有爭議性,更多是指向經驗證據勝過心理學文章的結論。鼓勵讀者多參照引用的研究和語言學研究「在地語用者」的研究,無論他或是她的語言是否為天賦的,都是一篇經驗的文獻。
註二,專業術語: 在這篇文章,「天賦」和「天生」是同義的。就像許多觀點一樣,這兩個詞不能在其他哲學的文獻和語言學的文獻中被同樣地看待。(例如寇溫,1999,chs1-3,艾蒙特,1996, 紀費斯,2002,溫斯特,1999。)
4/14/2009
Innateness and Language 6-7
Clearly, there is something very special about the brains of human beings that enables them to master a natural language — a feat usually more or less completed by age 8 or so. §2.1 of this article introduces the idea, most closely associated with the work of the MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, that what is special about human brains is that they contain a specialized ‘language organ,’ an innate mental ‘module’ or ‘faculty,’ that is dedicated to the task of mastering a language.
On Chomsky's view, the language faculty contains innate knowledge of various linguistic rules, constraints and principles; this innate knowledge constitutes the ‘initial state’ of the language faculty. In interaction with one's experiences of language during childhood — that is, with one's exposure to what Chomsky calls the ‘primary linguistic data’ or ‘pld’ (see §2.1) — it gives rise to a new body of linguistic knowledge, namely, knowledge of a specific language (like Chinese or English). This ‘attained’ or ‘final’ state of the language faculty constitutes one's ‘linguistic competence’ and includes knowledge of the grammar of one's language. This knowledge, according to Chomsky, is essential to our ability to speak and understand a language (although, of course, it is not sufficient for this ability: much additional knowledge is brought to bear in ‘linguistic performance,’ that is, actual language use).[1]
顯然的,特別是關於人腦可以掌握語言的能力---在八歲的時候這個能力就完備了,在文章2.1有相關的討論,和麻省理工學院的語言學家,南蒙‧喬姆斯基的工作有關,包含有人腦組織語言的特殊能力,一種天賦的模組或是能力,它是的貢獻就在於[能被賦予]掌握語言的任務。
喬姆斯基的觀點是,語言的功能包含有,各種語言學規則的天賦知識,還有語言學的構造和語言學的原則[這些的天賦知識],天賦知識造就了語言學功能的"初基心智"。當我們還是孩童時我們的語言經驗影響著我們-那就是喬姆斯基說的"首要語言與料"(primary language data, pld)(見2-1)-這個與料會告訴我們新的語言知識,即特別指出的那種語言知識(例如中文或是英文)。[某人的]語言態度和終極語言心智功能,會構成他對語言掌握的完整度還有他對文法的知識。根據喬姆斯基,這個知識就是我們在本質上能說出語言和理解語言的能力(然而,這很理所當然,這件事情並不足以構成這樣的能力:知識可由使用語言的能力接連產生,這件事只是指[某人去]使用語言罷了)。
1. This paper assumes that linguistic competence involves syntactic knowledge of some kind. See, however, Devitt 2006 for an intriguing argument that no representation of syntactic knowledge is involved in being able to speak and understand a language.
註一, 這篇文章預設了一些語言學的爭論所引起的語法知識。見戴維特在2006年有一篇文章爭論說,沒有任何語言的語法知識的表述是可以去說或是去理解的。
4/13/2009
Innateness and Language 5
If that's the case, though, language mastery can be no simple matter. Modern linguistic theories have shown that human languages are vastly complex objects. The syntactic rules governing sentence formation and the semantic rules governing the assignment of meanings to sentences and phrases are immensely complicated, yet language users apparently apply them hundreds or thousands of times a day, quite effortlessly and unconsciously. But if knowing a language is a matter of knowing all these obscure rules, then acquiring a language emerges as the monumental task of learning them all. Thus arose the question that has driven much of modern linguistic theory: How could mere children learn the myriad intricate rules that govern linguistic expression and comprehension in their language — and learn them solely from exposure to the language spoken around them?
若是如此,那特殊的語言現象就可以沒有任何簡單元素。當代的語言學理論已經顯示,人類的語言有非常多複雜的東西。當代的語法學決定了句子的組成,而語意學指派了句子的意義,而[句子組成的]片段仍非常複雜,然而語言的使用者每天都將[字句]使用千百次,[這些字句]全然是沒有功用和無意識的。但若知道一個語言就是知道那些晦澀的規則,那麼習得一個語言所呈現的就像是全面的學習學習它們的全部。因此才產生了當代的語言學理論。孩童是如何學習數量極大的瑣碎規則,而且將它們表達道與自己的語言一致---而且從表達出的語言詞彙當中學到那些瑣碎規則?
Innateness and Language4
All this changed in the early twentieth century, when linguists, psychologists, and philosophers began to look more closely at the phenomena of language learning and mastery. With advances in syntax and semantics came the realization that knowing a language was not merely a matter of associating words with concepts. It also crucially involves knowledge of how to put words together, for it's typically sentences that we use to express our thoughts, not words in isolation.
二十世紀時,語言學家,心理學家和哲學家越來越關心,也越來越靠近語言學習的現象時,過去的這些看法都改變了。語法和語意學的成果使[這些專家們]了解,語言不僅是連結字和概念而已。最重要的發展是組合字的知識, 典型地說,它(組合字的知識)是我們表達想法的句子,不僅是獨立的字而已。
4/11/2009
Innateness and Language3
In Part 5 of the Discourse on the Method, for instance, Descartes identifies the ability to use language as one of two features distinguishing people from “machines” or “beasts” and speculates that even the stupidest people can learn a language (when not even the smartest beast can do so) because human beings have a “rational soul” and beasts “have no intelligence at all.” (Descartes 1984: 140-1.) Like other great philosopher-psychologists of the past, Descartes seems to have regarded our acquisition of concepts and knowledge (‘ideas’) as the main psychological mystery, taking language acquisition to be a relatively trivial matter in comparison; as he puts it, albeit ironically, “it patently requires very little reason to be able to speak.” (1984: 140.)
在第五小節方法的論述,舉例來說,笛卡兒將使用語言的能力看成一個人俱有二個特徵,這個特徵區分了人和「機器」、「野獸」,他更推測,即使最笨的人也可以學習一個語言(而最聰明的野獸不能)因為人類有「理性心靈」但野獸「不具有這類優秀能力」。(Descrates 1984: 140-1) 就像過去的心理哲學家,笛卡兒認為我們的概念與知識(理型)之所以被習得,是因為某種特殊的心理學現象,語言的習得能力就像瑣碎事務;像他所說的,諷刺的是,「說話毫無疑問是不需要任何理由的」。(1984:140)
3/11/2009
Innateness and Language 2
To be sure, many theorists have recognized the crucial part played by language in our lives, and have speculated about the (syntactic and/or semantic) properties of language that enable it to play that role. However, few had much to say about the properties of us in virtue of which we can learn and use a natural language. To the extent that philosophers before the 20th century dealt with language acquisition at all, they tended to see it as a product of our general ability to reason — an ability that makes us special, and that sets us apart from other animals, but that is not tailored for language learning in particular.
資料來源：http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/innateness-language/
不可置疑的,許多理論已經認同了天賦觀念在我們語言當中所扮演的角色,而且已有那種推測(語法上或是語意上的)語言的性質,能夠提供它(一些天賦觀念的研究)在語言當中所扮演的角色。無論如何,我們或多或少都有那樣的的特殊性,內在於我們的能力,使得我們可以學習以及使用日常語言。在20世紀以前,哲學家用來解決語言這個區塊的問題的方法,絕大部分都是傾向認為,我們使用日常語言的能力得自於我們的普遍理性能力---也就是我們人之所以能夠與動物區分開的那種能力,但是對語言的學習而言,那不是被特別講究的部分。
3/10/2009
Innateness and Language 0-1
這篇文章是從Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy的條目來的。
今天以後會從第一段開始閱讀,然後翻譯,當作我個人的學習紀錄吧!
The philosophical debate over innate ideas and their role in the acquisition of knowledge has a venerable history. It is thus surprising that very little attention was paid until early last century to the questions of how linguistic knowledge is acquired and what role, if any, innate ideas might play in that process.
我的翻譯：
哲學在有關天賦的觀念,以及他們所扮演的角色,這部分的知識探究上已有很長一段歷史了。在近代之前都沒有特別注意到這方面的問題,直到有關語意上的知識,是如何學習得到的,還有它們有什麼角色,如果有任何關於此的問題,天賦觀念在這裡可能是重要的過程。