Geeaerts Decontextualising and Recontextualising Tendencies...
Geeaerts Decontextualising and Recontextualising Tendencies...
Geeaerts Decontextualising and Recontextualising Tendencies...
UNIVERSITY OF LEUVEN
Publication reference:
Geeraerts, Dirk. 2003. "Decontextualizing and recontextualizing tendencies in 20th-century
linguistics and literary theory". In Ewald Mengel, Hans-Joerg Schmid & Michael Steppat
(eds.), Anglistentag 2002 Bayreuth 369-379. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag.
On the other hand, parole is an individual, psychological activity that consists of producing specific combinations from the elements that are present in the code:
La parole est au contraire un acte individuel de volont et dintelligence, dans lequel il convient de
distinguer 1) les combinaisons par lesquelles le sujet parlant utilise le code de la langue en vue
dexprimer sa pense personelle 2) le mcanisme psycho-physique qui lui permet dextrioriser ces
combinaisons (1916: 30).
When langue and parole are defined in this way, there is a gap between both: what is
the mediating factor that bridges the distance between the social and the psychological,
between the community and the individual, between the system and the application of
the system, between the code and the actual use of the code?
The Chomskyan distinction between competence and performance formulates the fundamental answer to this question: the missing link between the social code and the individual usage is the individual's knowledge of the code. Performance is basically
equivalent with parole, but competence interiorizes the notion of linguistic system:
competence is the internal grammar of the language user, the knowledge that the language user has of the linguistic system and that he puts to use in actual performance.
Remarkably, however, Chomsky introduces a new gap into the system. Rather than the
trichotomy that one might expect, he restricts his conception of language to a new dichotomy: the social aspects of language are largely ignored. In comparison with a ternary distinction distinguishing between langue, competence, and parole/performance
(between social system, individual knowledge of the system, and individual use of the
system), the binary distinction between competence and performance creates a new
empty slot, leaving the social aspects of language largely out of sight.
Relegating the social nature of language to the background correlates with a switch
towards the phylogenetic universality of language. The Chomskyan emphasis on the
genetic nature of natural language links up logically with his apparent lack of interest
for language as a social semiotic. Where, in particular, does the individual knowledge
of the language come from? If the source of linguistic knowledge is not social, what
else can it be than an innate and universal endowment? If the language is not learned
through acculturation in a linguistic community (given that a language is not primarily
a social code), what other source could there be for linguistic knowledge except genetics?
of interest for the social side of language. But in actual historical fact, Chomsky's preference for a genetic conception of language seems to have grown more from his discussion with behaviorist learning theory (Skinner in particular) rather than from a confrontation with Saussure. Because the amazing ability of young children to acquire
language cannot be explained on the basis of a stimulus-response theory - so the argument goes - an innnate knowledge of language has to be assumed. But if one of the
major features of language is its genetic nature, then of course the social aspects of
language are epiphenomenal. Regardless of the direction in which the link is contrued,
however, the effects are clear.
Second, if natural language is primarily a genetic entity, semantics or the lexicon cannot be part of the core of linguistics. - Meanings constitute the variable, contextual,
cultural aspects of language par excellence. Because social interaction, the exchange
of ideas, changing conceptions of the world are primarily mediated through the meaning of linguistic expressions, it is unlikely that the universal aspects of language will
be found in the realm of meaning. Further, if the lexicon is the main repository of linguistically encoded meaning, studying the lexicon is of secondary importance. Here as
before, though, it should be pointed out that the actual historical development is less
straightforward than the reconstruction might suggest. The desemanticization of the
grammar did not happen at once (nor was it absolute, for that matter). Triggered by the
introduction of meaning in the "standard model" of generative grammar (Chomsky
1965), the "Linguistic Wars" (see Harris 1993) of the late 1960s that opposed Generative Semantics and Interpretive Semantics basically involved the demarcation of
grammar with regard to semantics. The answer that Chomsky ultimately favoured implied a restrictive stance with regard to the introduction of meaning into the grammar,
but this position was certainly not reached in one step; it was prepared by severe debates in the generativist community.
Third, if semantics or the lexicon cannot be part of the core of linguistics, linguistics
will focus on formal rule systems. - The preference for formal syntax that characterizes
generative grammar follows by elimination from it genetic orientation: formality is
required to keep out meaning, and studying syntax (or more generally, the rule-based
aspects of language) correlates with the diminished interest in the lexicon. It should be
added that the focus on rules is not only determined by a negative attitude with regard
to meanings, but also by a focus on the infinity of language: language as an infinite set
of sentences requires a rule system that can generate an infinity of sentences. (At this
point, an additional undercurrent in the history of 20th century linguistics crops up: the
relationship between linguistics and logic. Chomsky, in fact, got the inspiration for his
conception of linguistic rule systems from the architecture of logical proof theory. This
is not a line to be pursued here, though.)
Finally, if linguistics focuses on formal rule systems, the application of the rule systems in actual usage is relatively uninteresting. - If the rules define the grammar, it is
hard to see what added value could be derived from studying the way in which the
rules are actually put to use. The study of performance,in other words, is just as secondary as research into the lexicon.
tics embodies a fully contextualized conception of meaning. (There are other approaches that develop a meaning-based approach to grammar, like Hallidayan Systemic-Functional Grammar, but I concentrate here on Cognitive Linguistics because it
the most outspoken example of this tendency.)
3. The link between linguistic performance and grammar is re-established in two different ways. First, a number of functionalist approaches try to find (potentially universal) discourse motivations for grammatical constructs. Discourse is then no longer the
mere application of grammatical rules, but the grammatical rules themselves are motivated by the discourse functions that the grammar has to fulfil. The existence of passives in a given language, for instance, is then explained as a topicalization mechanism: grammars contain passives because topicalizing direct objects is a useful function in discourse. Seminal publications within this approach include Givon (1979),
Hopper & Thompson (1980), Hopper (1987).
Second, there is a growing methodological interest in actual language use as a methodological basis for linguistic research. Such usage-based models of language (as they
are aptly called by Barlow & Kemmer 2000) link up with the highly productive field
of corpus linguistics. From a theoretical point of view, it is particularly important to
note that the usage-based approach also holds the promise of answering the acquisition
problem that looms large in the Chomskyan delimitation of linguistics. Specifically in
the work done by Tomasello and his group (1998), an alternative is presented for the
Chomskyan genetic argument. These researchers develop a model of language acquisition in which each successive stage is (co)determined by the actual knowledge and
use of the child at a given stage, i.e. language acquisition is described as a series of
step by step usage-based extensions of the child's grammar. The grammar so to speak
emerges from the child's interactive performance.
4. Recontextualising grammar in a social context is as yet a only a minor trend, but at
least two burgeoning trends may be identified. First, there is a renewed interested in
the social construction of linguistic meaning. The methods of semantic description that
are being developed in the context of Cognitive Linguistics can be applied to culturally
specific meanings. If meaning is experiential, then obviously the socio-cultural context
is part and parcel of the experiential background of language use, and it will have to be
investigated how language and culture interact. Examples of this trend are Palmer
(1996) and Lakoff (1996). (Again, there are a few similar tendencies outside Cognitive
Linguistics, but for reasons of economy, I restrict myself to the latter.)
Second, there is an incipient tendency, as illustrated by Grondelaers et al. (2002), to
bring grammatical analysis and variationist research closer together. Usage-based and
meaning-based models of grammar introduce more variation into the grammar than a
rule-based approach tends to do: the language-internal or discourse-related factors that
influence the use of a particular construction may be manifold, and the presence or
absence of a construction is not an all-or-none matter. In the analysis this type of
variation, it often appears that the variation is co-determined by 'external',
sociolinguistic factors: the variation that appears in actual usage (as attested in
corpora) may be determined simultaneously by grammatical, discursive, and
sociolinguistic factors. Disentangling those different factors, then, becomes one
- 'cultural linguistics'
- variationist approaches
social code
performance
GRAMMAR
- "cognitive"
approaches
meaning/lexicon
- lexicalist grammars
- Construction Grammar
Figure 1
factor culture and community, i.e. the historical, social and geographical situation of
the literary production, including communities of readers. Finally, the factor 'meaning'
may be linked (given a maximally contextualized interpretation of 'meaning') to the
individual experiential background of the author.
If we try to use these parallel concepts to classify approaches to literary criticism (just
like we did with their counterparts in linguistics), we immediately find that they can
indeed be used to demarcate some of the well-known tendencies in literary theory.
First, an interest in the author's experiential background corresponds with the biographical approach in literary theory, for instance in the form of a romantic conception
of the artist as genius. Second, a focus on cultures and communities takes two different
forms. An older, idealist version sees literary texts in the context of the history of
ideas. Literary theory as Ideengeschichte explores how the ideas and ideals that live
within a historical community influence literary production. Reception theory (reader
response theory) is a more recent, empiricist version of the focus on cultures and
communities. Third, concentrating on the text as text takes the form of different types
of formalist approaches, in the historical line of close reading and New Criticism. And
fourth, interpreting literary texts against the background of the relevant semiotic system is exemplified by traditional philological criticism.
However, it will be clear that this enumeration does not exhaust the existing approaches to literary theory. In order to arrive at a more comprehensive view, we have
to add an additional dimension: I suggest that we introduce a distinction between approaches that study the relevant factors in a fairly straightforward way, as overt and
transparant influences, and those approaches that study them as rather hidden and
covert factors - hidden, in particular, from the author himself. The latter set of approaches often take a critical turn: revealing the hidden factors behind the literary texts
is a critical activity.
Systematically, we may then identify psychoanalytic approaches as corresponding to
the biographical approach. Reception theory and the history of ideas are complemented by various socially critical approaches: marxist criticism, and the more recent
forms of critical theory (feminist and gender criticism, ethnic and minority studies,
postcolonial theory). A text-based approach is obviously represented by poststructuralism and deconstruction: texts may generate ever new meanings beyond the original intention of the author. Structuralism itself, finally, matches philological criticism
as an approach focusing on the code rather than the texts. Typically, structuralism is a
'deep structure' approach, identifying underlying patterns rather than restricting the
analysis to the surface of the text.
The resulting classification of approaches in literary theory may now be summarized
as in Figure 2. Given this classification, we can now ask the definitional question:
what would decontextualization or recontextualization mean in literary theory? In
contrast with linguistics, where an interest in the linguistic system (either as a social
code or as an individualized grammar) occupies the centre of the attention, literary
theory is more or less by definition primarily interested in the text. This is an important
observation for the definition of 'contextualization': while the evolution of linguistics
as I have presented it essentially involves the relationship between the grammar and
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the other three factors, the literary question involves the relationship between the literary text and other relevant factors. I suggest, then, that decontextualization in literary
theory involves any theoretical or critical shift away from the immediate communicative context of the text, i.e. any shift away from authors and readers to so-called
autonomous texts and to the independently existing code in which the text is produced.
In terms of Figure 2, a decontextualization then takes the form of a downward shift in
the figure.
OVERT FACTORS
HIDDEN FACTORS
psychoanalytic approaches
- marxist approaches
- critical theory
deconstruction, poststructuralism
THE SEMIOTIC
structuralism
AUTHOR'S EXPERIENTIAL
BACKGROUND
CULTURES AND COM MUNITIES
SYSTEM
Figure 2
Given this definition of decontextualization, we may now have a look at the chronology of the various approaches. Roughly, we can identify a timeline with five stages. In
the first stage, before 1930, the biographical and history of ideas approaches dominant.
In the stage between 1930 and 1960, formalism is in the centre of the theoretical developments. Between 1960 and 1980, the major innovations come from structuralism,
to be followed by a poststructuralist and deconstructionist stage from 1980 onwards.
From 1990 on, critical theory constitutes a new focus for theoretical developments.
If we map this timeline onto the classification in Figure 2, we can indeed see a succession of a downward shift followed by a recontextualizing move upwards, as may become apparent from the position of the stages 1 to 5 in Figure 3. At the same time,
though, Figure 3 adds a nuance to the overall picture of decontextualization and recontextualization: some approaches are not included in the main line of development,
like reception theory and marxist criticism as older forms of the recontextualising
trend.
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OVERT FACTORS
HIDDEN FACTORS
AUTHOR'S EXPERIENTIAL
BACKGROUND
psychoanalytic approaches
CULTURES AND
COMMUNITIES
- marxist approaches
- critical theory
5
deconstruction, poststructuralism 4
THE SEMIOTIC
SYSTEM
structuralism
Figure 3
6 Conclusion
The challenge defined at the onset of this paper was the following: can we find a line
of thought that brings together the history of linguistic theory into an insightful narrative perspective? I hope to have shown that this can be done by describing the history
of 20th century linguistics in terms of a decontextualising and a recontextualising
movement, where 'context' involves either the socio-cultural environment, the performative level of actual language use, or the cognitive and experiential background of
language users. It adds to the appeal of the model that we can extrapolate it to literary
theory, given that the focus of attention in literary theory is the text rather than the linguistic system. Given this proviso, we have been able to identify a similar, though
somewhat less straightforward succession of decontextualisation and recontextualisation in literary studies.
Of course, these sketchily drawn lines of development will have to be described in
more detail. What exactly are the various theories that belong in the different
traditions? What are the exact historical processes behind the overall evolution? What
are the undercurrents that should be added to the picture? Even though these questions
make clear that we are still far removed from a comprehensive history of 20th century
thought in linguistics and literary theory, we can at least be confident that a synthetic
view of that history is not altogether impossible.
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