Linguistic meta-theory the formal and empirical conditions of acceptability of linguistic theories and descriptions

[摘要] Most linguists acknowledge, explicitly or implicitly,the relevance of epistemological questions inlinguistics but relatively few have given more than acursory, ad hoc or incomplete consideration to them.The work of one of those few, Jan Mulder, forms thestarting point for much of the present discussion.Epistemological considerations arise in many contextsin linguistics and in many guises. It is an epistemologicalmatter whenever we test the adequacy of adescription or the acceptability of a theory. Epistemologicalconsiderations are latent whenever we discussthe form or the content of linguistic theoriesand descriptions or their interrelations. The comparisonof different approaches to linguistics inevitablyraises epistemological questions concerning ourapproach to linguistics or our presuppositions about it.These questions are of a general nature and transcendquestions about particular linguistic theories and descriptions.These epistemological questions force us toconsider what we take linguistics to be. In consideringquestions of the type mentioned we are forced, forexample, to analyse what we mean by a "linguistictheory", a "linguistic description" and what phenomenawe are aiming to understand. We are, furthermore,forced to analyse the constraints which a scientificattitude places upon linguistic theorisingand description-building. It is these questions concerningthe acceptability of linguistic theories anddescriptions which we call linguistic meta-theory.This thesis falls into five main parts. Firstly,in Chapter One, we consider the nature and scope oflinguistic meta-theory. Secondly, in Chapter Two, welook at a number of previous approaches to the subject.Other important contributions are discussed as theyarise in the text. Thirdly, in Chapters Three andFour, we consider in detail the major meta-theoreticaldistinctions in linguistics and their consequences.In particular, we distinguish linguistic theoriesfrom linguistic descriptions and discuss the nature oflinguistic phenomena. The view is put forward thatlinguistics is a scientific subject. The meaning ofthis assertion is analysed and the interrelations oflinguistic theories, descriptions and phenomena areconsidered in the light of this analysis. The mainepistemological requirement that is put forward anddefended is that of the empiricism of linguistics.Certain changes in our view of the philosophy of scienceand in our view of the form of linguistic theoriesand descriptions follow from the conjunction ofthese major meta-theoretical positions.Fourthly, we consider the main meta-theoreticalconsiderations concerning theories (Chapter Five) andreject a widespread view of linguistic theory as anon-empirical study (Chapter Six) and we consider themain meta-theoretical conditions relating to linguisticdescriptions and some practical examples of description-building consonant with the general positions adoptedin Chapter Seven. In Chapter Eight, we look at a concreteexample of theory-building in the light of themeta-theoretical conditions of acceptability previouslyset up. We are especially concerned to show how atheory can meet the condition of being "applicable" or"indirectly scientific" through the establishment ofacceptable empirical descriptions consonant with themeta-theoretical conditions on descriptions consideredearlier.The view that linguistics is a science impliesthat we must be concerned with the empirical testing ofdescriptions and, so, the fifth part of the work isdevoted to methodology. In Chapter Nine, we defendthe role and necessity of methodology in linguisticsand set up the logical framework of relations betweenthe methodology and theory descriptions and phenomena.In Chapter Ten, we examine two of the known types ofempirical testing and their shortcomings. Finally, inChapter Eleven, we give an example of the successfuland correct application of a methodology in order tobring out the nature of empirical testing and to demonstrateits feasibility within a scientific linguisticsof the sort we imagine.

[发布机构] University:The University of St Andrews;Department:Modern Languages (School of)

[效力级别] Linguistics--Philosophy

[关键词] Linguistics;Linguistics--Philosophy;Linguistics--Research