1、 The Comparison between Firthian Linguistics and Noam Chomskys Generative GrammarAbstrat: Fr st f ur lifetie, e just use and prehend ur native language unnsiusly ithut any arguents and questins. nly hen e thught f ur hildhd and aybe brught up the hildren ight e realize that h any pliated aspets are
2、invlved in the aquisitin press. And after e have knn the first language r native language, e try t learn a send language r freign languages, e fund it re diffiult t understand that huan beings have t ake effrts t btain the petene fr language uniatin. Hene it is really iprtant t kn sething abut the s
3、hrt histry f linguistis. f urse there are s any shls f linguistis in its histry. But in this essay, nly the parisn beteen Firthan Linguistis and Na hskys Generative Graar is presented t sh yu the siilarities and differenes f the t and h languages e int being.Firthian linguistis, r the Lndn Shl, as f
4、unded in England, a untry in hih ertain aspets f linguistis have an unusually lng histry, by Jhn Rupert Firth (1890-1960), the first general linguistis anthrplgist and father f the Lndn Shl. Firth, a Yrkshirean, read histry as an undergraduate. He as prfessr f English at the University f the Punjab
5、fr 1919 t 1928, and returned in the latter year t a pst in the phnetis departent f University llege, Lndn. In 1938 Firth ved t the linguisti departent f the Shl f riental and Afrian Studies, here in 1944 he beae the first prfessr f General Linguistis in Great Britain. Until very reently, the ajrity
6、f university teahers f linguistis in Britain ere peple h had trained under Firths aegis and hse rk refleted his ideas. There are any ther British linguists in this shl, suh as F. Paler, Jhn Lyns, R.H. Rbins and . A. K. Halliday. Firths thery: 1) Analysis f language: struture / syste; 2) He argues nt
7、 nly sial press but als individual huan beings are invlved in the develpent f language. He ephasis the persnal side f huan being. He did nt agree Saussuran ditu, langue and parle, language is a set f ensins, and de f atin. 3) Speeh is the essene f language. 4) Language is develped as a result f inte
8、r-nature and nurture. Peples learning press f language the target language used by peple in reality.During the develpent, there ere t utstanding aspets that are alays assiated ith the nae f Firth: ntext f situatin thery and prsdy.The ntext f situatin thery is the fundatin f linguistis. Firth insiste
9、d that sund and eaning in language ere re diretly related than they are usually taken t be. eaning is the fus f linguisti study; ntext ay be eplyed t be the thery and apprah f analysis. eaning des nt e fr the idea f the rd prised the situatin by, r fr the relatin. It has three ntents: 1) speeh inter
10、relates ith utside rd; 2) narrative situatin; 3) speeh is used t fill a kind f vauu, fr instane, the phalli funtin in uniatin: “H d yu d?” “Nie day!” “h!” et. The priniple just entined did have se heuristi value fr the rk f the Lndn Shl. It eant fr instane, that the pratitiners f the shl ere quite h
11、appy t intrdue graatial nsideratins t their phnlgial analyses. T Firths ntin f eaning e ust exaine the linguisti ideas f his lleague Brnisla alinsky (1884-1942), prfessr f anthrplgy at the Lndn Shl f Enis fr 1927 nards. Fr alinsky, t think f language, as a “eans f transfusing ideas fr the head f the
12、 speaker t that f the listener” as a isleading yth (1935, p.9): t speak, partiularly in a priitive ulture, is nt t tell but t d. His ain ideas: 1) language is nt a self-ntained syste, it is dependent n the siety itself in hih language is used n t ays: a. Language evlves in the ardane in the puter: i
13、n ne rds t the speifi deands; b. Language is used in ntext. 2) Language serves as great variety f ntext situatin. Firth aepted alinaskys vie f language, and indeed the t en prbably eah influened the ther in evlving hat are ultiately very siilar vies; as a result, Firth uses the rd eaning in rather b
14、izarre ays. The eaning f an utteranes is hat it des, but f urse varies aspets f utteranes d very different kinds f thing. alinasky larifies his idea f eaning by appealing a ntin f “ntext f situatin”(alinasky 1923, p.306). T qute Lyns expsitin f Firths vie (1966, p.290), “eaning” r “funtin in ntext”,
15、 is t be interpreted as aeptability r apprpriateness in that ntext: an utterane r part f an utterane is “eaningful” if, and nly if, it an be used apprpriately in se atual ntext“. Firths vie n eaning see, in fat t have very little t ffer.Anther develpent in linguistis, hih is als lsely related t Firt
16、h, is prsdi analysis. The prsdy eans 1) the relatinship f eah phnee t its phnei ntext; 2) the relatinship eah lexial ite t the thers in the sentene; 3) rphlgial relatins f eah rd; 3) sentene type; 4) relatinship f sentene t its ntext situatin. The prsdi phnlgy has n phnee but harater. The segents il
17、l reain t be phneati unit after the strutural prsdi unit being analyzed and taken ff. The supersegaental features in intnatin, pith, stress; palatalizatin, nasalizatin and lip runding divided int prsdi pnent unit. Fr phneati unit, it has feer phnlgial features, aybe just the feature f viing. The prs
18、dy perates the different kinds f it ver streth f strutures e.g. tth features in lip-runding, aspiratin. Different tnes ill ause the hange f its eaning. Prsdys link in graatial ategry: e.g. rs ruz inflexible, plural fr f a nun, present singular third persn f a verb; but rse ruz just the graatial eani
19、ng. S the rd “tth” tu: is expressed as 1V2 in phneati. “” represents lip runding, et. There are als plysysteiness prinipal and nsysteiness prinipal. Fr exaple the pleentary ntributin f / p/ in ph pt and p in stp, spt; / . n / ie, nie; ru, run, rung. In s far as shlars trained ithin the Lndn Shl have
20、 ntributed t ur understanding f seantis, as Jhn Lyns in partiular has dne, they have ahieved this by ging beynd the fraerk f ideas shared by ther ebers f the shl. The appliatin f these priniples t syntax has been arried ut by suessrs f Firth, ntably ihael Halliday (b. 1925), ne prfessr f General Lin
21、guistis at University llege, Lndn, and at the tie f riting prfessr at the University f Sydney, and R. A. Hudsn (b. 1939), f UL.Syntati analysis in the Lndn style is nly alled “systei graar” (ther, less signifiant ters have als been used). A “syste” in Firthian language, reebers, is a set f utually e
22、xlusive ptins that e int play at se pint in a linguisti struture. This is the lue t Lndn Shl syntax: like Firthan phnlgy, it is priarily nerned ith the nature and iprt f the varius hies hih ne akes (nsiusly r unnsiusly) in deiding t utter ne partiular sentene ut f the infinitely nuerus sentenes that
23、 nes language akes available. T ake this learer, e ay ntrast the systei apprah ith hskys apprah t graar. A hskyan graar defines the lass f ell-fred sentenes in a language by prviding a set f rules fr reriting sybls as ther sybls, suh that if ne begins ith the speified initial sybl S and applies the
24、rules repeatedly the end-result ill be ne f the target sentenes. Suh a graar an sueed in defining a range f different sentenes, learly, nly beause in applying the rules ne is ften faed ith hies. But in a hsky graar the hie-pints are diffused thrughut the desriptin, and n speial attentin is dran t th
25、e. any hies are ade in the nstitueny base: a given ategry sybl is expanded by eans f braes r as int alternative reriters, r brakets are used t sh that se eleent ay r ay nt ur in the reriter f a ategry sybl. ther hies arise in applying transfratins: ertain transfratins are ptinal, thers an apply in a
26、lternative ays, and (in se versins f transfratinal thery) there are alternative rders fr applying transfratins, ith the nature f the ultiate result varying arding t hih rder is seleted. ften it uld be the ase that se hie in applying transfratinal rules bees available nly if ertain ptins have been se
27、leted in the nstitueny base, but a hskyan graar des nthing t ake suh interdependenies beteen hies expliit that is nt its ai. T ite a very siple exaple, Halliday (1967, p. 40) suggest that ne syste f hies perating in English ain lauses, a syste hih he labels “transitivity”, prvides fr a hie beteen “i
28、ntensive” and “extensive”. In a standard transfratinal graar, the syntati differenes beteen these lauses uld rrelate ith hie f rerite fr the ategry sybl “VP” and fr ertain ther sybls in the base, ith hie f hether r nt t apply the Passive transfratin, and ith hie f hether r nt t apply the transfratin
29、 hih deletes the by-phrase prdued by passive. N expliit stateent uld be fund in a transfratinal graar pinting ut, fr exaple, that the hie f applying the Passive transfratin arises nly if ertain ptins are hsen hen reriting “VP” in the base, and there are ertainly n speial naes given t the alternative
30、 strutures hih result fr the varius hies. (asinally hskyans d use a speial ters t desribe se partiular syntati struture, but usually this is a ter inherited fr traditinal phillgial vabulary, and traditinal terinlgy prvide naes fr nly the st eleentary ang the any systes defined in a systei graar hsky
31、ans d nt ake a pint f suppleenting this defiieny.) Lndn Shl linguists have n interest in asking hat partiular types f rules are used in realizing varius systei ptins, sine they are nt nerned ith the questin f linguisti universals. In the ase f syntax the hskyans are less ne sided than in the ase f p
32、hnlgy, sine st hskyan graars inlude a nstitueny base defining a range f deep strutures as ell as a set f transfratinal rules nverting deep int surfae strutures. Alngside the ntin f “syste”, Halliday (fr exaple, 1961) intrdues int syntax the ntins “rank” and “deliay”: sale f rank; sale f deliay and s
33、ale f expnene. Any graatial syste ill perate at a speifi rank. If e think in ters f hskyan hierarhial tree diagras, Halliday is saying, as it ere, that sentenes an be represented nt erely as trees but as trees hih are regiented in suh a ay that alng any branh there are the sae nuber f interediate nd
34、es beteen the “rt” and the “leaf”. The st iprtant vie f Halliday is his sale and ategry graar, and systei graar. He suppsed that there are fur ategries in language: unit, lass, struture and syste. These fur ategries are linked ith sale f rank, sale f deliay and sale f expnene. Firthian Linguistis an
35、d hskyan Generative Graar is just a sall prprtin in the histry f linguistis. But the interest tards languages and the pratial prbles aelerates the independent establishent f linguistis at several enters, suh as India, Arab and Greek Re. Eah enter has its n ahieveents. It is very hard t believe that
36、the Eurpean linguistis uld nt reah suh a level ithut laning the linguisti ahieveent utside f Eurpe espeially the anient India linguists study n Sanskrit graar and phnlgy. It is said that Eurpean siene is the glbal ne. S it is sae in the ase f linguistis. T learn sething abut Eurpean linguisti shls eans t learn linguistis internatinally. BibligraphyRbins, R. H. 1967, 语言学简史 ， 安徽教育出版社Sapsn, Geffrey ，1980, Shls f Linguistis , Stanfrd University Press王宗炎， 1980， 伦敦学派奠基人弗思的语言理论 ， 国外语言学 ， 1980 年第 5 期胡壮麟， 1983， 韩礼德 ， 国外语言学 ， 1983 年第 2 期赵世开， 1987， 国外语言学概述 流派和代表人物 ， 北京语言学院出版社徐志民， 1990， 欧美语言学简史 ，学林出版社
