易境创新实验:人与动物语言区别的可实证窗口

文章系统地分析了霍凯特的设计特征理论,认为仅从霍凯特定义的设计特征入手还不能十分明确地区分人类语言和动物交流系统。我们认为,易境性和还原生成性是人类语言与动物语言区别的关键性质,但还原生成性难以观察,易境性却可以通过实验直接观察。我们提出易境创新实验模型,用以观察人类语言和动物交流系统的异同。基于易境创新实验模型,我们从认知科学的视角提出了研究语言演化的新方法,但仍不能忽视以霍凯特的设计特征理论为代表的语言本体研究和动物行为实验结合的方法。实际上,结合三种方法探索语言的基本属性,可能是构建语言演化路径的有效途径。

Innovative Experiment in Displacement: Verifiable Window for the Linguistic Differences between Human Beings and Animals

This paper systematically analyzes Hocketts design features theory, assum- ing that it is not enough to distinguish human language from animal commu-nication system solely from the design features of Hockett s definition. It isargued that displacenment and generation of original situations are the twofeatures that differentiate human and animal languages. Nevertheless, it iseasy to observe displacement rather than generation of original situationsthrough experiments. We argue that the innovative experiment model in dis-placement can be applied for the observation of similarities and differencesbetween human language and animal communication system. Based on themodel, we formulate new methods for the research on language evolutionfrom the perspectives of cognitive science, but do not neglect Hocketts de-sign features theory as adopted in the combination of linguistic ontologicalr?search and animal behavior experiment. In fact, these three methods canbe combined for the exploration of fundamental linguistic properties, whichcould be an effective approach to the construction of linguistic evolutionpath.