The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain
The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain
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象征物种：语言与大脑的共同进化
DOI：
10.5860/choice.35-1500
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发表时间：
1998
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Donald Favareau
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Donald Favareau
《象征物种：语言与大脑的共同进化》（The Symbolic Species：The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain），泰伦斯·W·迪康纽约：W.W.诺顿，1997年，527页。由加州大学的唐纳德·法夫罗（Donald Favareau）审核，洛杉矶866年，最近成立的巴黎语言学会通过了一项官方决议，禁止发表任何关于人类语言起源的论文。调查本身的性质，它被认为，它甚至缺乏科学确定性的不可能性，所有与之相关的工作也同样被错过了，因为经验上无法解决，无可救药的投机，毫无成效的分裂。泰伦斯·W迪肯，几乎是一个世纪和半的呼求论战，将doubestly招致甚至更晚，已撰写了亲更暴力的谴责对他的批评者的一部分。迪肯的《象征物种：语言和大脑的共同进化》一书充满了实证性的活力，具有敏锐的思辨性，并有可能产生富有成效的分歧，它挑战了许多（而不是大多数）现代语言学理论的基本假设。语言学家特别感兴趣的是迪肯对乔姆斯基（1972）普遍语法范式的反驳，以及他对先天句法处理或语言学习模块深藏在人脑中的可能性的必然拒绝。相反，迪肯声称，语言本身和它所表现和编码的符号并不存在于个体的大脑中，而是存在于生物学和文化之间的界面上。在神经学方面有丰富经验的生物人类学家。迪肯支持这一论点本身并不是首先诉诸进化论。普遍性是迪肯提出的一个可靠指标，即进化在人类大脑中所建立的东西（第339页）。因此，普遍语法乔姆斯基的概念，即某种知识必须是天生的人类，以准确地说，因为计数某些否则无法解释的普遍特征，关于语言是一个论点，迪肯认为似是而非。乔姆斯基模式的某些锡永深深地嵌入了当代语言学理论，《符号物种》中有相当一部分是对它的反驳。这是一个论点，排除了许多其他迷人的和必然的论点，整个工作，结构。这一审查将奋进recon-基本要旨选择迪肯的论点是十九世纪美国心理学-詹姆斯马克鲍德温的，这一修改895; 1902）理论，其中自然发生的背景本身可以被居民的行为所改变，反过来，应用语言学ISSN 1050-4273第9卷第2期，1998年，加州大学董事会
The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain by Terrence W. Deacon. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997, 527 pp. Reviewed by Donald Favareau University of California, Los Angeles In 866, the recently formed Societe Linguistique de Paris passed an official resolution banning the presentation of any further papers regarding the origins of human language. The nature of the inquiry itself, it was felt, it lacked even the dis- possibility of scientific certainty, and all work pertaining to was likewise missed on the grounds of being empirically irresolvable, incorrigibly speculative, and unproductively divisive. Terrence W. Deacon, almost a century and a half vocative polemic that will doubtlessly incur even later, has authored a pro- more violent censure on the part of his detractors. Empirically vigorous, incisively speculative and with the poten- tial to be productively divisive, Deacon's The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolu- if tion of Language and the Brain challenges many, not most, of the assumptions underlying modern linguistic theory. Of particular interest to linguists will be Deacon's refutation of Chomsky's (1972) Universal Grammar paradigm, as well as his corollary rejection of the pos- sibility of innate syntactic processing or language-learning modules nestled deep within the human brain. bolic representation at all, Instead, claims Deacon, language itself and the sym- which it evinces and encodes lies not inside individual brains but at the interface between biology and culture. A biological anthropologist with extensive experience in neurology. Deacon supports this argument not, in itself, first with an appeal to evolutionary theory. Universality reliable indicator of is Deacon proposes, a what evolution has built into human brains (p. 339). Accordingly, the universal grammatical Chomskian notion that some kind of knowledge must be innate in human beings in order to ac- Precisely because count for certain otherwise unexplainable universal features regarding language is an argument which Deacon considers specious. some ver- sion of Chomsky's model is so deeply embedded in contemporary devoted to linguistic theory, a considerable portion of this The Symbolic Species is its refutation. It is argument, to the exclusion of so many other fascinating and corollary argu- ments presented throughout the work, struct. that this review will endeavor to recon- Fundamental gist ral selection to Deacon's argument is nineteenth century American psycholo- James Mark Baldwin's that this modification 895; 1902) theory that the very context wherein natu- its takes place can itself be modified by the behavior of inhabitants and may, in turn, generate subsequent new sets of selection Issues in Applied Linguistics ISSN 1050-4273 Vol. 9 No. 2, 1998, Regents of the University of California