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    131 views17 pages

    Herbert H. Clark, Communities, Commonalities, and Communication

    Uploaded by

    Zoltán Horváth
    research article

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    0 COMMUNITIES, COMMONALITIES, AND COMMUNICATION HERBERT H. CLARK ‘What is the link between the thoughts we have and the language we peak? Benjamin Lee Whotf argued for two proposals, One sas Ungusie relaivity: a6 languages differ, vo do the thoughts of the people who use thenn, Whort suggested, for example, that English and Hopi encode. diferent points of view ~ diferent perspectives or fepreseatations —of the physical and social world, and when people lie the two languages, they buy into these diferenes. The ots, more radical, proposal was Fngustic determiniom: te language people speak Tlps determine the very say they think about their physical and focal world, As an example, Whort compared Enalish and Hopt fhouns for physical quantity. English has both count and mass nouns, {sin many. dogs and much sand, s0 for speakets of English, according to Whorl, “the philosophic “substance’ and ‘matter’ (of mass nouns) le the naive idea; they are instantly aceptable, ‘common sense Hopi, on the other hand, has only count nouns, so for speakers of Hopi, he claimed, the potions of substance and matter are not Common sense though he offered no evidence for this. Linguistic ‘Seterminism is clearly the stronger doctrine. It is one thing to sy that English and Hopi encode diferent points of view. It is quite another {ovsay that Frglish and Hopi speakers are forced to think in ways tated by these dferences. “Yet how do languages dir in thee representations of the world, and how might these representations help determine the way we think? Surely, the answers depend on what we tae to be language, of thought ‘Whowf himself concentrated on the lexicon and the grammar. He was readies to compare two languages in ow their words categorized the ‘World and in how their grammatical Features might inluenee people's Conceptions of time, space, number, and other abstract objects, But ‘what about other aspects of language and language use, such as Conversations! practice, literacy, politeness, native fueney? What about Sather aspects of thought such ss mental imager, social skill, technical Enow-how, and. memory for musi, poetry, places, or faces? About these Whort had nothing to #83. So the doctrines of linguistic relativity a Commuaities, commonalities, and commuuncation 328 and linguistic determinism are not two monolithic theories, but rather tivo families of hypotheses about particular aspects of language and thought. It isnot the doctrines per ee that ate tre oF false, but only the member hypotheses, some of which may be true and others false ‘without contradiction Tn proposing these doctrines, Whorf seemed to take for granted that Janguaze is primarily an instrument of thought. Yet this premise i fase Language is fist and foremost an instrament of communication ~ the Nerohange of thoughts,” as one dictionary puts it~ and itis only dervatively an instrument of thought. IF language has an influence on ‘ought, as Whort believed, that iniuence must be mediated by the way lunguage is vsed for commanisation. The alteration in my tile is not cudeatal, for communication, as it Latin rool suggests, iste but on fommonalites of thought between people, especially those taken for {runt inthe communities in Which each language is wsed. Once this is rade explicit, T suggest, we will nd it dificult to distinguish many potential infencs of language on thought from the influences of other Commonalites of mental if, especially the bei, practices, and norms ‘of the communities to which we belong. [ill apply this argument the lexicon. One reason for choosing the lexicon is that it was one of Whor's main test laboratories for linguistic ‘elatvity and linguistic determinism, Another reason is tht it presen us twth examples pur excellence of how language is an instrument of Communication. ‘That wil enable us go beyond Who's simple doctrines to 8 more pespicuous view ofthe relation between language and thought 1 Co-ordination in language ase People use language to do things together. In conversation = the primordial form of language ~ they talk face-to-face, interactively, 38 ‘hey pln, transact busines, gossip, and accomplish other goals with each, the A hallmark of these aetivites is tha they ae joit aetvites. They fre like shaking hands or plying a piano duet: they cannot be tccomplished by the participants acing autonomously. They need co- ‘ordination, and when co-ordination fal, they break down. At one lvl there must be co-ordination between the speaker's issuing an witerance land the addressee’ paying attention, listening, and trying to understand it Ata higher level there must be co-ordination between what speakers ‘mean and what addresses take them to mean. Speakers and addresecs ‘annot achieve that co-ordination without establishing commonalities of thought betwoon them, Let us $2 Bow. 326 Herbert H. Clark LL Seheling games ‘Suppose Anne points to a clump of trees and asks Burton, “What do you think ofthat tee7” Anne is using “that tree” to refer toa particular ree that she intends Buron to identi. They are faced with 3 co-ordination problem: fo get Anne's meaning and Burton's construal of her meaning {o match. In 1969, David Lewis offered a general analysis of co- ‘ordination problems ike this, He argued, in effet, that Anne and Burton ‘ust come to the mutual belief about which tree Anne is using “that tree” to efor to, Todo tht, they need a co-ordination deve, a notion he

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