Mistä on pienet säännöt tehty?

• Urho Määttä

Avainsanat: emergenssi, keskusteluntutkimus, kielioppi, kognitiivinen kielitiede, sääntö, yleinen kielitiede

Abstrakti

Where do the rules of a language come from? (englanti)

2/2000 (104)

Urho Mtt (University of Tampere; [e-mail])

WHERE DO THE RULES OF A LANGUAGE COME FROM?

Linguistics has described languages through the ages using rule-based grammars. The aim of the scientific description of a language or the standardisation of a language via grammar is always an abstraction. However, there has been an increasing demand in linguistics for objects of research to have some empirical substance, found via cognitive psychology, neurology or natural conversation. Indeed, we may speak of an empirical turning point in linguistics. This empirical turning point means that greater importance is attached to investigating the ontological and epistemic nature of rules.

The concept of rules and the description of social reality using rules are, in themselves, familiar, everyday matters. Metatheory centred on the individual has, however, come to dominate in linguistics. According to this, language is understood as an internal feature of an individual's mind, the structure of which is then identified using descriptive grammar.

The article seeks to resolve the fundamental problems associated with describing rules, internal grammar and the empirical turning point by using the general logic of scientific inquiry and by defining language description as a part of human language. Human language is epistemically and ontologically a multilevel phenomenon which cannot be described satisfactorily from the viewpoint of a synchronic code or conceptual (cognitive) structures.

The solution presented is called emergent metatheory. This states that the features of scientific analysis of a language (rules, rationality, intentionality) are present in differing degrees naturally throughout the entire language. The detailed description of a language and formal concern over the use of the language represent the highest level in the emergent dimension of the structure of the language.