Generative linguistics

The generative Linguistique gathers a whole of explanatory theories developed by Noam Chomsky in the years 1960. She is opposed to the theory behaviorist and the Structuralisme.

The generative theory is distinguished from the other traditions by making the distinction competence/performance, which distinguishes the linguistic capacity from the act of speech. Thus, according to this orientation, each speaker has a linguistic body specialized allowing the analysis and the production of the complex structures forming the speech. In other words, each language forms an observable structure, result of an innate system (including/understanding " génétique"), and universally divided. It is thus necessary, according to this school of thought, to include/understand the structure of this system and its comportement.

In fact, according to Chomsky, the goal of linguistics is to define the parameters of variation between the languages, because according to its approach, the linguistic variation is not a fact of the chance.

Within this approach, one finds the standard theory (TS), the wide standard theory (TSE) and the theory minimalist, which is still of topicality.

Contrary to certain ideas, the framework of the generative theory exceeds the study of the syntactic system : it includes all the linguistic process. The fact that the majority of work are in the syntactic field explains by a methodological choice since it is thought that this field is easier to isolate from the other cognitive phenomena .

History

The structuralist linguistic school, initiated by Ferdinand de Saussure in 1916 and declining since the years 1980, developed an new approach of the study of the language. Indeed, the members of this school want to make linguistics a scientific discipline by applying the principle of the observation of the linguistic corpora (finite element of produced statements).
In addition, they put before the idea that the language is decomposable in systems of smaller identifiable elements (phonemes, morphemes,…) that one can identify according to a technique of classification. This approach is thus empirical and taxinomic .

According to the approach behaviorist, it so developed in first half of the 20th century, the language is a whole of practices conditioned by the phenomenon stimulus-answer , allowing memorizing. It results from this, according to the structuralist ones such as Leonard Bloomfield and Hockett, that any action of the word is either an act of repetition , or a Analogie.

Questionings and assumptions

Surgénéralisation during the period of training of the native tongue

Observation: certain errors made by a great percentage of children tend to show that there exists a process of generalization of the rules (example: they sontaient instead of they were ) inherent in the training.
Interpretation: the child does not learn by imitation since the error was not copied of a " professeur" but produced by the child himself. That contradicted consequently the theory behaviorist.

Standardized training of the native tongue

Observation: the progression in the training seems to be temporally ordered. Thus according to last research, the children start by analyzing the prosodic structure around 3 months, then the structure segmentale, followed syllabic structure, the lexicon and finally, syntax.
Interpretation: the faculty of training of the language is structured and, consequently, depends on a cognitive system. Moreover, the fact that this order hardly varies according to the children seems to indicate that this system is universal.

Structural phenomena universals

Observation: certain phenomena not implying our vocal apparatus seem regular from one language to another (one can quote the anaphoric phenomena , the syntactic behavior of the words question, etc).
Interpretation: the behavior of the languages is based on a universally shared cognitive structure.

New Theoretical Framework

Faculty of language

According to Chomsky, the structuralist approach of the language does not make it possible to give an account of certain remarks, such as the capacity of the speakers to include/understand and create an infinity of new sentences, or such as the evolution of the training in the child who seems to be well structuré.
However, Chomsky does not call into question nature structural of the language, but he proposes, in his program, to explain the causes of them since its theory wants to be explanatory and not descriptive (see Épistémologie).

The generative theory takes again the design mentalist of the language developed by philosophers such as Descartes and Humbolt. According to this approach, the language is a cognitive process resulting from the faculty of language . The faculty of language is a specialized innate capacity of the mankind, which allows the acquisition of the language . Thus, it puts forth the assumption of a universal human cognitive module which is used as a basis for faculty of language and being able to explain the rapid acquisition of the native tongue, and this, it does not matter the language. This cognitive module must comprise a procedure of evaluation , which limits the choice of grammars according to the following criteria:

observational adequacy : grammar must be able to create all the statements of the language, without exception.
descriptive adequacy : grammar must represent the intuitive knowledge of the speaker.
explanatory adequacy : grammar must make it possible to describe the structure of the sentences with a finished whole of rules and principles which limit the possible classes of the generated structures (Théorie X-bars, theory of tying, theory of under-jacence, etc)

Modules of linguistic faculty

Currently, the linguists agree to say that several cognitive modules take part in the production and linguistic comprehension. The analysis of the sentences rises from the interaction of these modules. However, there exist several assumptions when with the organization of these interactions. According to the theories, one a:

the lexical module, presents the syntactic, semantic and phonological properties of the lexical elements.
the syntactic module,
the phonetic module,

According to this theory, one supposes the autonomy of the modules:

See too

universal Grammar
Generative grammar

Random links: