Comparing the Behaviourist and Transformative approaches to grammar
 |
9508-HOW
HOW
CREATIVE
IS LANGUAGE ?
comparing
the behaviourist and transformational approaches to grammar
paper by Zachār Laskewicz
ŠNIGHTSHADES PRESS 2008
music-theatre-language ebooks
Noordstraat 1/3, 9000
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Alexander LASKEWICZ who wrote this paper in 1995. If use is made of the
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Reference
Code :
WRIT-9508-HOW
Correlating
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How Creative Is Language?
Comparing the Behaviourist and Transformational Approaches
to Grammar
There is no doubt today that generative
grammar, attributed largely to the groundbreaking work of Noam Chomsky, has
opened up new perspectives to linguistics, particularly noticeable in its
practical application to language teaching.
Although considerably controversial, his theories managed to create a
sort of 'tabula rasa' on which further developments in language theory were
able to take place. In relation to
language teaching, the old-fashioned 'behaviourist' model which had dominated
up until Chomsky's time was brought into question and people began to look at
'creativity' in language in a totally new way.
His theory of transformational grammar in which creative use of
language was seen as the application of universal grammatical principles and
structures added a new element to the study of language, affecting inevitably
the entire field of linguistics: language for the first time was considered in
terms of abstract cognitive processes that could be understood purely on a
structural level.
Theoretical developments that have
taken place since the advent of Chomsky have however brought his whole range of
theoretical ideas into question, resulting from widespread dissatisfaction with
a theory that does not take into consideration the significance of the social
environment in which language events take place, including a large scale
neglect of socially contextualised lexically-based structures within spoken
discourse. These new ideas suggest that
the processing and application of language is not nearly so 'creative' as would
be suggested by Chomsky's theories, and the emphasis has been put back on a
lexical level: words and the contexts in which they are spoken are considered
necessary for the understanding of language and meaning. The new developments have resulted in a
dramatic distinction between a 'Chomskyan' open-choice principle in
which words are fitted into open slots based on purely structural distinctions,
and the idiom principle, in which it is stressed that a great deal of
language output is based on the recitation of fixed speech patterns fitting
into specific social contexts. In this
paper we will be discussing the arisal of both theoretical areas and exploring
their significance and application within the field of linguistics. It will quickly become clear that both
perspectives have been important in theoretical and practical terms, and that
the acceptance of one does not necessarily mean the rejection of the other.
First we will briefly consider the
theories of Chomsky. His ground-breaking
and highly controversial work stated that language is in fact not a "form of
behaviour" but "an intricate rule-based system." (Harmer, 1991). This stood strongly against the then existing
'behaviourist' theories, and his standpoint was based on a model that presented
two keywords: competence and performance. Competence in linguistic terms is a
person's unconscious knowledge of the system of rules of a language which
enable production and understanding of an indefinite number of sentences and
recognition of grammatical mistakes and ambiguities. Performance is taken to be the
practical realisation of these relatively abstract structures inherent within
the human brain. Performance was completely subservient to competence, and
the 'grammar' on which this competence is based was considered to be the basic
structure on which all learning could take place, leaving not much open for
pragmatically influenced factors. In his
model, 'universal' structures existed which could be used creatively by the
language speaker to create new sentences, and this forms the basic theoretical
idea for the 'open-choice principle' introduced previously. Sinclair (1991) describes this principle as
"probably the normal way of seeing and describing language," being envisaged as
a 'slot-and filter' model in which text is made up of "a series of slots which
have to be filled from a lexicon which satisfies local restraints." Chomsky's standpoint was an 'extreme' theoretical
view which opened the doors to further developments in the field of
language. Harmer comments on the
influence Chomsky's theories have had on language teaching methodologies:
"Language teaching has never adopted
a methodology based on Chomsky's work.
But the idea that language is not a set of habits has informed many
teaching techniques and methodologies."
(Harmer, 1991, pg. 33).
Extreme theoretical positions of any
kind are usually followed by an inevitable backlash, resulting in eventual
fusion within a larger theoretical model.
In the case of Chomsky it is no less true. The primary dissatisfaction
in the world of linguistics was with the notion of 'creativity' that is
presented in Chomsky's model. Although
it is true that syntactic structures do tend to reoccur and help us to structure
language, according to a great of deal of theoreticians who reacted against the
work of Chomsky, we "do not exercise the creative potential of syntactic
rules to anything like their full extent" (Carter & McCarthy, 1988). Referring directly to Pawley & Hodgetts
for more explanatory material, it is demonstrated that as a participant in talk
exchange it is also necessary to attend to other requirements besides
grammaticality: "a speaker is expected to make contributions to conversation
that are coherent, sensitive to what has gone on before and what might happen
later, and sensitive to audience knowledge and other features of the social
situation." It is clear then, that
"control of a language must entail knowledge of something more than a
generative grammar." (Pawley & Hodgetts, 1983). In this paper we will be
primarily analysing the theoretical methodology that has resulted in creating
new discourse-based ways of looking at a language based not on the fulfilling
of grammatical rules but the socially inscribed use of lexical formulas.
An important development on the now
almost infamous theories of Chomsky was Dell Hyme's influential work on communicative
competence . In his important
article On Communicative Competence (1972) Chomsky's notion of competence was extended to
include sociolinguistic factors which, according to Hymes, also play an
important role in the way native speakers choose between 'appropriate' and 'not
appropriate' sentences. Widdowson, in
his commentary on the role of lexis in understanding meaning, commented that
"Hymes proposed his concept of communicative competence in reaction to Chomsky,
and it is customary to present it as an improvement in that it covers aspects
of language other than the narrowly grammatical." (Widdowson, 1989). Hymes saw Chomsky's work as being highly
important for a cognitive understanding of language, but as too abstract for
use in a socially and culturally vital world:
"Chomsky's theoretical standpoint [. . .] carries to its perfection the
desire to deal in practice only with what is internal to language." In reaction to Chomsky, Hymes stated that
"Such a theory of competence posits ideal objects in abstraction from
sociocultural features that might enter into their description. [. . .] The theory of performance is the one sector
that might have a specific sociocultural content; but while equated with a
theory of language use, it is essentially concerned with psychological
by-products of the analysis of grammar, not, say, with social interaction." (Hymes, 1972). This dissatisfaction led to the presentation
of a new type of communicative competence which would take account of
the complex social world in which language events occur. Hymes' communicative competence is based on
an intuitive knowledge of the language itself, and at the same time an ability
to use this language in real-life situations.
His theories were important in placing grammar back into the context of
social life, recognising that Chomsky's theories were limited and that the
process of language learning is not simply an in built system but an
interaction between learner and environmental/social needs. Hymes work was primarily important because of
is realisation that the rules governing the use of language extend beyond the
simply grammatical and into those governed by social existence: "Just as rules
of syntax can control aspects of phonology, and just as semantic rules perhaps
control aspects of syntax, so rules of speech acts enter as a controlling
factor for linguistic form as a whole." (Hymes,
1972).
It is at this stage that it would be
useful to examine the importance of developments within the field of
'speech-act theory' and its influence on linguistics. Speech-act theory, like the sociolinguistic communicative
competence of Hymes, can be seen as forming one element within a larger
theoretical reaction against the purity of the structuralist model epitomised
by Saussurian linguistics. In the case
of speech act theory, language is viewed not in terms of what is said but what the 'speech-act' itself actually does in its utterance (see
Relatively new moves within the field
of linguistics have been inevitably influenced by these important theoretical
developments, and these socialised views of language utterances have certainly
filtered down to the word and sentence level, resulting in what has already
been introduced as the 'idiom' principle.
This new paradigm for linguistics can be directly seen in Halliday's
'functionalisation' of grammatical principles in which an emphasis is placed on
the important role of socially-inscribed lexis in an understanding of meaning
at the sentence level. We can open this discussion by considering Widdowson's
questioning of both Chomsky's and Hymes'
belief in the essential creativity of grammar: "The question arises as to how
far knowledge of language is systematic and circumscribed by rule. [. . .]
There is a great deal that the native speaker knows of his language
which takes the form less of analysed grammatical rules than adaptable lexical
chunks. [. . .] A great deal of
knowledge seems to consist of formulaic chunks, lexical units completely or
partially assembled in readiness for use." (Widdowson, 1989). His primary
opinion is that a new communicative competence model should be distanced
from the 'open-choice' principle because language expression "is much more a
matter of knowing a stock of partially preassembled patterns, formulaic
frameworks, and a kit of rules."
According to Widdowson, Chomsky cannot be 'incorporated' into in a new
theory of communicative competence.
Sinclair (1991) can help us further: "the open-choice principle does not
provide for substantial enough restraints on consecutive choices." In this he means that if a given speaker was
to simply follow grammatical rules, he would have an enormously wide choice of
utterances: there must be other restrictions that affect the way
native-speakers make choices. The idiom
principle is based on the presupposition that words are not considered simply
as 'units' fulfilling grammatical rules and functions, but rather as units that
have an essential meaning based connection with one another that helps to
structure the resulting discourse. It
is in this sense that one accepts that control of language is involved not with
simply the unconscious awareness of abstract grammatical structures, but with
an extended lexical knowledge accompanied by an awareness of the
appropriateness of given lexical sequences in given social circumstances.
The idiom principle gets its most clear
expression in the fixed patterns discussed by Pawley & Hodgetts in the form
of 'lexicalised sentence stems'. According
to this duo " A lexicalised sentence stem is a unit of clause length or longer
whose grammatical form and lexical content is wholly or largely fixed; its
fixed elements form a standard label for a culturally recognized concept."
(Pawley & Hodgett, 1983). The amount
of these 'sentence stems' that a normal speaker of English knows "amounts to
hundreds of thousands." In this way,
language utterances are taken out of the context of 'grammaticality' and placed
into the context of socially-based lexical sequences. Referring again to Pawley & Hodgett:
"memorised clauses and clause-sequences form a high proportion of the fluent
stretches of speech heard in everyday conversation." (Pawley & Hodgett,
1983). They also point out that these
'lexicalised' speech units are in fact more than simply grammatical structures,
but are social institutions. In saying that a lexical item is a social
institution Pawley & Hodgett are referring to the fact that the expression
is "a conventional label or a conventional concept, a culturally standardised
designation (term) for a socially recognized conceptual category." (Pawley & Hodgett, 1983). Here we can also make a direct connection with
the concept of ritualization inherent within speech-act theory. A lexicalised sentence stem can be defined as
follows:
"A sentence stem consists either of
a complete sentence, or, more commonly, an expression which is something less
than a complete sentence. In the latter
case, the sentence structure is fully specified along with a nucleus of lexical
and grammatical morphemes which normally include the verb and certain of its
arguments. [. . .] Lexicalised sentence stems may be 'inflected' or 'expanded',
except for a minority of expressions that are completely rigid in their form."
(Pawley & Hodgett, 1983).
Within the study of lexical systems,
contemporary linguists have gradually become aware that an important way of
looking at vocabulary is by observing patterns of reoccurrence for particular
words in particular circumstances, exemplified by the 'lexicalised sentence
stem.' This new context-based emphasis has resulted in a concentration on an
area of study known as collocation. Grammatical terminology is clearly not
sufficient to encompass this importance occurrence within language: it has been
said that the study of lexis can be described as a 'more delicate grammar'
(Carter, 1987) within the broad tradition of systemic linguistics. This area of study, receiving relatively new
interest within the field of linguistics, is certainly affecting the way
language is perceived and taught. A
concentration on collocation is one of the major steps within the new
linguistics paradigm: words began to be considered not only on a paradigmatic
dimension as suggested by the Chomskyan approach, but also on a syntagmatic
level where meaning is considered on a word-based, socially-inscribed
level. J. R. Firths is considered to be
an important figure in this level of research; he was actually responsible for
bringing the term itself into linguistic prominence (Carter & McCarthy,
1988). Firth's notion of collocation was
taken further by McIntosh "who considered recurring lexical patterns to
be just as important as regular grammatical ones. The lexical patterns he called ranges."
(Carter & McCarthy, 1988). The
invention and adoption of this term in the field of linguistics was relatively
important because it recognised the need for terminology outside the purely
grammatical. It was in 1966 that
Halliday presented his paper on the study of lexis. In this paper, Halliday's aim was to "search
for lexical patterns and a lexical theory 'complementary to, but not part of
grammatical theory'." (Carter & McCarthy, 1988). In this sense, 'lexical' meaning was being
approached in linguistic terms which was to radicalise the way language events
were examined in terms of discourse.
According to this theory "grammatical description leaves a lot
unaccounted for, which can still be discussed linguistically,without the
recourse to 'non-language' which semantics brings with it." This new perspective stressed the importance
of an understanding of collocation in the broader context of linguistics. Although, according to Carter & McCarthy
(1988), the importance of this 'lexical level' is yet to be conclusively demonstrated,
the argument "that collocation is a significant level of language choice" is
quite convincing. In this case, we
realise that the co-occurence of words depends not on the blind following of
universal grammatical rules but the repitition of lexical formulas that become
learnt in the context of social life.
This demonstrates the fact that collocation is a considerably important
level of language performance and should be considered within the
language education field.
Although this new emphasis has resulted
in shifting "grammar from its preeminence" and allowing "the rightful claim of
lexis" (Widdowson, 1989), from the evidence presented in this paper it is clear
that we cannot ignore the importance of structural grammar or elements of the
'open-choice' principle when considering language. A primary example is in collocation which can
easily be observed from both perspectives:
Here the word unit is extended beyond the word itself and into the
meaning based context in which words 'co-occur'. Carter (1987) discusses these
patterns of co-occurance in terms of both a grammatical sense-in that they result primarily from
syntactic dependencies-and their lexical sense-in that, although
syntactic relationships are involved the patterns "result from the fact that in
a given linguistic environment certain lexical items will co-occur." (Carter, 1987). Here it is clear that it is impossible to ignore the importance of
grammatical terminology when considering the meaning-based role of
vocabulary. According to Carter &
McCarthy (1988), "neither Halliday nor Sinclair dismisses the importance of
grammatical restrictions on co-occurence."
Pawley and Hodgetts (1983) supply us also with a sort of compromise in
which both grammatical and lexically-based concepts are encompassed: "if the
native speaker knows certain linguistic forms in two ways, both as lexical
units and as products of syntactic rules, then the grammarian is obliged to
describe both kinds of knowledge; anything less would be
incomplete." (Pawley & Hodgetts,
1983). It is clear then that the new
paradigm for language teaching will include a combination of both perspectives,
one in which grammatical knowledge is combined with contextually based
collocation. Stern (1985) can help us
here with his observation that all these theoretical notions are actually only
theoretical 'constructs'; any of this knowledge can be taken and adopted to
suit different situations. This is
particularly significant to the language classroom where teachers should be
given the chance to take on the theoretical compromise that suits the teacher,
the teacher's relationship with the students and the students themselves. This new extended paradigm should allow for
co-existence of a multiplicity of theories giving the teacher the ultimate
choice about the relationship between grammatical structure and lexical
patterning. We can end this discussion
with an important statement from Carter (1987):
"Pedagogical treatments of
collocations, at least, would be seriously lacking if grammatical patterning
were not included alongside lexical patterning and if such elementary
distinctions were not made between them."
References
Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do
things with words Oxford University Press:
Carter, R. (1987). Vocabulary: Applied linguistic perspectives. pp. 47-70.
London: Allen & Unwin.
Carter, R. & McCarthy, M. (1988). Vocabulary
and language teaching. pp.
18-38.
Chomsky, N. (1983). Rules and Representation.
Coulthard, M. (1977). Speech Acts. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis.
Longman.
Harmer, J. (1991). The Practice of
English Language Teaching.
Hymes, D. (1972). On Communicative Competence. In J.B. Pride & J. Holmes (eds.) Sociolinguistics. Harmonsworth: Penguin. pp. 269-293.
Pawley, A. & Hodgetts Syder, F.
(1983). Two puzzles for linguistic
theory: nativelike selection and nativelike fluency. In Richards, J.C. & Schmidt, R. W.
(eds.). Language and Communication. pp. 191-218.
Sinclair, J. (1991). Two models of
interpretation. Corpus,
Concordance, Collocation I. pp.
109-113).
Stern, J. (1985). Models of second language learning and the
concept of proficiency. Fundamental
concepts in language teaching.
Stubbs, M. (1983). Discourse analysis: The sociolinguistic analysis of natural
language. pp. 154-155.
Widdowson, H. G. (1989). Knowledge
of language and ability for use. Applied
Linguistics. 10 (2). pp. 127-137.
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