Cognition or communication?

A survey of works in contemporary linguistics suggests that there are two main contrasting hypotheses on the functions of human languages. These hypotheses are:

(3) Hypotheses on the main function of languages

a. To express thought,

b. To communicate.

Let us refer to (3a) in brief as the cognition hypothesis and to (3b) as the communication hypothesis. According to (3a), language is for internal knowledge representation; it is designed for cognition or the computation underlying reasoning, that is, for thought or inner speech, rather than for social interaction. This position is held by Chomsky (2002: 76–7), who observes that ‘‘language use is largely to oneself: ‘inner speech’ for adults, monologue for children,’’ and communication may even be of no unique significance for understanding the functions and nature of language.

That inner speech and monologues are part of language use is uncontroversial; but that language use is largely to oneself rather than to others is a claim that contrasts with what other students of language structure have written on this issue over the last centuries, many of whom find (3b) to be a more attractive hypothesis: The way languages are used and structured, it is argued, can be accounted for appropriately only with reference to communicative intentions of the people who create and use these systems, rather than with reference to cognitive abilities (see e.g. Givo̒n 1979c, 1995).

There are different views on (3b), depending on whether it is meant to refer to communication of information or for establishing or maintaining social relationships (Fritz Newmeyer, p.c.); we will ignore this distinction in the paragraphs to follow. That language structure is based on a speaker-hearer setting—and hence lends support to the communication hypothesis—is suggested in particular by two different kinds of observations. The first kind relates to the genesis of new linguistic systems, such as pidgins, homesigns, Nicaraguan Sign Language, and basic varieties: All these systems appear to have arisen in situations where communities were seeking communication (Senghas and Coppola 2001; Pinker and Jackendoff 2005: 19). Conversely, we are not aware of language systems that evolved in situations where a person developed a language system without intending to communicate with other persons.

The second kind of observations relates to structural properties characterizing human languages.¹ One property can be seen in the virtually universal presence of personal pronouns for second-person deixis (‘you’) in the languages of the world, which suggests that a speaker–hearer dichotomy is a central component of both language use and language structure. Note further that second-person pronouns are among the most frequently used linguistic forms in many languages. And the structure of personal deixis offers perhaps even more plausible evidence in favor of the communication hypothesis (3b): In many languages there is a functional distinction between inclusive (‘I/we including you’) and exclusive personal pronouns (‘we excluding you’) (see e.g. Nichols 1992). The presence of such functional categories can be interpreted meaningfully only if one assumes that communication based on a speaker–hearer dichotomy is a central function of human language, while we are not aware of any convincing structural evidence supporting the cognition hypothesis.

A second property can be seen in morphosyntactic categories having an interpersonal-manipulative function, such as imperatives and other categories of deontic modality on the one hand, and interrogative structures on the other. Both the virtually universal presence of such categories and their frequent use in linguistic discourse suggest that social interaction is a paramount function served by human languages.

Another piece of evidence in favor of the communication hypothesis is the following: That language use presupposes a speaker–hearer setting can also be seen in the occurrence of definite and indefinite articles. One of the main uses of indefinite markers concerns speech acts where the referent of a noun phrase is identifiable for the speaker, and where this referent is presented by the speaker in such a way that it is left unidentified for the hearer. Definite articles on the other hand are nominal determiners whose functions include that of marking definite reference, where the referent is uniquely identifiable for both the speaker and the hearer. Accordingly, the grammaticalization of a distinction between indefinite and definite articles, to be found in quite a number of languages across the world, implies that for the speakers concerned a dichotomy between speaker and hearer is crucial for using language.

Other examples suggesting that a speaker–hearer dichotomy is a central component of both language use and language structure are not hard to come by. For example, many languages have a functional distinction proximal (‘this’) vs. distal (‘that’) in demonstrative deictic categories, where the former means ‘near to speaker (and hearer)’ and the latter ‘at some distance from speaker (and hearer)’—hence, a grammatical distinction that also presupposes a communicative setting. But in a number of languages there is in addition another grammaticalized category, namely a spatial-deictic demonstrative meaning ‘near to hearer but not to speaker’. That such a category exists crosslinguistically also suggests that the cognition hypothesis is not sufficient to understand the nature of language structure.

Nevertheless, the communication hypothesis is also not without problems. Chomsky argues, for example, that language design appears to be in many respects dysfunctional, ‘‘yielding properties that are not well adapted to the function language is called upon to perform’’. But even if one does not subscribe to this view (see Pinker and Jackendofff 2005: 224 for a contrasting position), there remains another problem that the communication hypothesis shares with the cognition hypothesis, namely the question of how they can be tested. Both communication and cognition are complex phenomena having many different manifestations— accordingly, depending on which of these manifestations one has in mind, different testing methods are required, and it is unlikely that each of them will lead to the same conclusions.

The situation may be different once the notion ‘‘communication’’ is narrowed down to some specific manifestation. This is what Pinker and Jackendoff (2005: 231) attempt to do when they argue that ‘‘language is an adaptation for the communication of knowledge and intentions’’. But even this hypothesis is hard to verify or falsify as long as the relevant terms are not properly defined and justiWed;² as it stands, it remains unclear what exactly ‘‘adaptation’’ stands for—especially what the selection pressures were that led to adaptation, and the terms ‘‘knowledge’’ and ‘‘intention’’ are clearly contrasting phenomena which each require different tools of analysis.

To conclude, there are structural properties across languages as we know them today that can be taken to lend support to the communication hypothesis; still, there does not appear to be conclusive evidence in support of one hypothesis against the other. But what about early language? Newmeyer (2003: 74, 2004) proposes a perspective that combines both hypotheses. He argues that the origin and evolution of grammar cannot be reduced to one motivation only, rather, that there was a conjunction of two factors, namely cognition-aiding (knowledge representation) factors and vocal interaction-aiding (‘‘functional’’) factors, roughly corresponding to our distinction cognition vs. communication—in other words, according to him there is room for both hypotheses. He goes on to hypothesize that the former preceded the latter in time, that is, that ‘‘cognition left its mark on language before communication’’:

In other words, cognitive factors were the first to shape grammars. But with the passage of time, the exigencies of communication came to play an ever-more important role in grammar. (Newmeyer 2004: 7)

He presents in particular the following arguments in favor of the cognition hypothesis:³

(a) Grammars are ‘‘propositional’’, and one’s cognitive representation embodies all the arguments of the sentence. This contrasts with actual language use, where arguments tend to be either reduced to pronominal or affix status or omitted entirely.

(b) Recursion is presumably not necessary for communication, but human thought has recursive properties.

(c) Considering the amount of ambiguity that they allow, human languages ‘‘are horribly designed for communication’’. Since different meanings are represented differently from the cognitive standpoint, grammars seem well adapted to cognition.

(d) We are able to utter pure nonsense sentences: the presence of communicatively useless sentences suggests that language is ‘‘over-designed’’ for communication.

(e) Grammatical categories tend to have a closer relation to cognitive categories than to communicative ones: Parts of speech and units of word formation are almost always definable semantically. Compared to that, communicative categories such as topic and focus are less likely to be marked by a special category.

(f) Those aspects of language structure that seem designed to better aid communication are historical in nature, while those suggestive of cognition are not ‘‘learnable’’, which suggests ‘‘that they were there from the dawn of human language itself’’ (Newmeyer 2004: 4–6).

¹ For additional observations, see Pinker and Bloom (1990: 714 V.), Hurford (2002), and Newmeyer (2004: 2–4).

² Fitch, Hauser, and Chomsky (2005) note that communication ‘‘is far too vague to constitute such a hypothesis.... Consider the analogous question: ‘What is the brain for?’ No one would question the assertion that the brain is an adaptation (in some broad and not particularly helpful sense), but it would seem senseless to demand that neuroscientists agree upon an answer before studying neural function and computation.’’

³ We are ignoring his sixth argument, which is theory-dependent and controversial, as he admits (Newmeyer 2004: 6).

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مواضيع ذات صلة

Who were the creators of early language?

Functions of early language Discussion

Motivations underlying grammaticalization

Functions of early language

Word order

From non-language to language

Grammatical evolution Layers

Early language

On the rise of recursion Conclusions

Generative approaches to grammar

Loss of recursion

Cognitive approaches to grammar