Integrationalists Revolutionary linguistics: Abandoning the code model

4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon? 179

4.4.2.3. Integrationalists

The terms integrated and integrational linguistics are developed by Harris 1981 , 1990 as contrasting with the “orthodox” linguistics developed under the “language myth” of the “telementational fallacy” and the “determinacy fallacy.” Harris introduces the language myth as follows: The language myth is the product of two interconnected fallacies: the telementational fallacy and the determinacy fallacy. The telementational fallacy is a thesis about the function of language, while the determinacy fallacy is a thesis about the mechanism of language…. According to the telementational fallacy, linguistic knowledge is essentially a matter of knowing which words stand for which ideas. For words, according to this view, are symbols devised by man for transferring thoughts from one mind to another. Speech is a form of telementation…. The determinacy fallacy, or ‘fixed code’ fallacy as it might alternatively be called provides the explanation of how the telementation process works, and indeed of how tele- mentation is possible. Harris 1981 :9–10 Harris defines the telementation theory as “the theory which explains communication as the transference of thoughts from one person’s mind to another person’s mind” Harris 1990 :26. In referring to the telementation theory and “mythologised” linguistics see 1981 :9–11, Harris is addressing the Saussurean paradigm and code model linguistics. Harris is one of few linguists who have expressed serious reservations concerning the continued development of the discipline of linguistics under the code model perspective. Harris characterizes integrational linguistics as follows: A demythologised linguistics or, to give it a less negative designation an ‘integrational linguistics’ would need to recognise that language allows and requires us to do both far more and far less than the telementational model claims. Language is a process of making commu- nicational sense of verbal behavior. Our training in language is a training to use words in such a way that, in the context of a particular situation, our total behavior will make the kind of sense to others that we intend it should, and effectively implement our interactional objectives. It follows that language cannot be studied in isolation from the investigation of ‘rationality’. It cannot afford to neglect our everyday assumptions concerning the total behavior of a reasonable person. These include assumptions about his probable utilisation of the linguistic resources available to him, but stop well short of assuming that everyone in a language community uses and interprets words in exactly the same way. On the contrary, it is manifest that if individuals actually behave in accordance with the principle of mechanical uniformity conjured up by the language myth, most of their attempts to communicate would be bound to end in failure. Harris 1981 :165 In his 1990 article titled On Redefining Linguistics, Harris suggests a provocative and ambitious agenda for reformation: An integrationalist redefinition of linguistics can dispense with at least the following theoretical assumptions: i that the linguistic sign is arbitrary; ii that the linguistic sign is linear; iii that words have meanings; iv that grammar has rules; and v that there are languages. This last point, despite its paradoxical appearance, follows from the first four. In effect, to dispense with the first four assumptions is, precisely, to say that linguistics does not need to postulate the existence of languages as part of its theoretical apparatus. What is called into question, in other words, is whether the concept of ‘a language’, as defined by orthodox 180 4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon? modern linguistics, corresponds to any determinate or determinable object of analysis at all, whether social or individual, whether institutional or psychological. If there is no such object, it is difficult to evade the conclusion that modern linguistics has been based upon a myth. Harris 1990 :45 In Harris’ view, “Languages are functions of communicational processes, not vice versa” 1990 :50. He elaborates, stating: Integrationalism redefines linguistics as a mode of inquiry into the construction and artic- ulation of our linguistic experience. It inquires not into the hypothetical structure of abstract linguistic systems, nor into their even more hypothetical representations in the human brain, but into the everyday integrational mechanisms by means of which the reality of the linguistic sign as a fact of life is established. Harris 1990 :50 Harris suggests that integrational linguistics should proceed according to several principles. These are developed extensively in Harris 1981 , but only briefly introduced here: First and foremost, an integrational linguistics must recognize that human beings inhabit a communicational space which is not neatly compartmentalised into language and non- language. The consequences of this ‘non-compartmentalisation principle’ are basic for the methodology of linguistic studies. It renounces in advance the possibility of setting up systems of forms and meanings which will ‘account for’ a central core of linguistic behavior irrespec- tive of the situation and communicational purposes involved. But it is important to note that this consequence does not automatically destroy the concept of a language community. What it does rather, is to demand that the concept of a language community be reformulated in more realistic terms than those of the regimented sameness postulated by the language myth. Nor is there any assumption that the communicational space available to the participants in a given situation is an amorphous area which cannot in principle be mapped out, and its loca- tional features differentiated. What is assumed, simply, is that no such cartography can be divorced from the communicational purposes involved, and the available channels of contact between participants. If that is equivalent to denying that there is any one identifiable system which is ‘the language’ in question, so be it. The alternative to a linguistics which concerns itself exclusively with ‘the language’ is a linguistics which takes as its point of departure the individual linguistic act in its communi- cational setting .… Harris 1981 :165–166 Harris continues: Secondly, what is important from an integrational perspective is not so much the fund of past linguistic experience as the individual’s adaptive use of it to meet the communicational requirements of the present. That use is—and can only be—manifest in the communication situation itself. No new technology is required to study it. The evidence is available in prae- sentia. All that is lacking is the readiness to accept it. On the semantic side, this requires willingness to concede the indeterminacy of what is meant, and on a scale which many may feel goes against the grain of the whole educational tradition. In this they would be right. For the educational tradition in question has been based for centuries on the sacrosanctity of the dictionary. The assumption that we communicate by means of internalised dictionaries is a natural continuation of that tradition, transposed into the terms of Saussurean psychologism .… Harris 1981 :187 In contrast to emergent grammarians and cognitive semanticists and grammarians, Harris provides little discussion of particular methods and techniques which might be 4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon? 181 employed in integrational linguistics. He does, however, provide discussion of philo- sophical concerns which are important not only to integrationalists, but to revolutionary linguists in general.

4.5. Viewing revolutionary approaches as developmental

Revolutionary approaches must be recognized as being somewhat autonomous of normal science approaches; they depend on a different conception of language and its relationship to communication, even though their proponents may not have explicitly outlined the models so employed. In consideration of Kuhn’s incommensurability hypothesis, reviewers must make a concerted effort to overcome the biasing effect of a familiar paradigm before offering criticism of a competing paradigmatic perspective. Reviewers may find it difficult to think in the terms defined by a different paradigm. They can begin, however, by considering the research questions defined by the revolutio- nary approach, comparing those questions to the research questions of the paradigmatic perspective with which they are familiar. Revolutionary approaches should also be recognized as being developmental. That is, being in the process of development, they may not address all the areas of inquiry covered by approaches with greater longevity. Linguists from other schools are under- standably eager to see how this or that new theory will handle their favorite area of interest. Occasionally, however, that eagerness grades into criticism. It is said that such criticism was occasionally directed toward Chomsky’s early work in developing genera- tive linguistics. Critics complained that the new grammar was inadequate since it didn’t cover every area that previous theories had addressed. Chomsky is said to have responded with something to the effect of “We must assume that those areas will be developed in time” Donald A. Burquest 1998, personal communication. A similar defense may be offered on behalf of approaches presently considered revolutionary.