A succinct naturalistic reflection on language

Simon Busch

During the last couple of decades the debate about the nature of human language
has been taking different paths and intensities. However, many philosophers, linguists
and psychologists who take part on it are recognizing that there are only two clear
positions. On one side, the idea of an innate, pre-structured and universal-ruled
language is argued. On the other hand, there is the position that thinks of language as
institutional, socially-constructed and culturally-shaped. At the same time, it has been
acknowledged that these two positions are sustained by two, apparently, contradictory
premises. In the case of innatist and universalist theories it is said that the existence of a
set of general rules, imprinted in the brain structure of each human being, is the very
nature of language. The other supposedly claims that language is originated along the
social human interchange within culture, sometimes referred as a tool.
Therefore, the presented panorama implicitly contains several binary
oppositions,

namely:

social/personal,

natural/cultural,

ruled/contextual,

hereditary/acquired, rationalist/empiricist and so on. Clearly, this distribution is of little

help when the idea is to decide what approach could be more fruitful to understand the
phenomenon. This is because the reduction of the different concepts to binary
oppositions overlooks the characteristics of the problem, a priori attributing conditions
to it that are, in fact, features of its occurrence. In other words, if it is human language
that is in question, then it must be understood as something that happens to individuals
but always within society and, for the same reason, it can be a structure ordered by rules
but a natural utterance of it will be expressed in a particular context; language is not
simply inherited as a hard wired structure, neither it is a pure culturally-developed tool.
The first proposition of this essay is intended to show how there are some
general problems in the approaches taken by theories that tend to generalize beforehand
the hypothesis that they are trying to demonstrate. These are issues related to the stance
taken, they must not be understood as a final proof against any theory. With this in
mind, a very general review of the first presented position can be done, the so-called
nativist theories. Evidently, the first reference is related to the Chomsky's language
organ idea: he refers to language as an organ in the sense of a system that conforms part
of the human body, such as circulatory system or immune system (Chomsky, 2000). At
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the same time, this language organ, which is part and within the human brain, operates
as a computational device that organizes the structure of language as inputs and outputs
in a structured and continuous form of competence and performance, interpretative and
productive skills (Pinker, 1999). In addition, language posses a grammatical recursive
property which affects all the levels of the linguistic structure, from phonology to
semantics and that is the very essence of human language (Chomsky et al., 2005). And
most importantly, language, with all these characteristics, is pre-structured by genes in a
specific form within the human brain (Chomsky et al., 2005). To explain this, Chomsky
(2006) has stated that there is a Universal Grammar (UG) underlying the structure of
any particular grammar (e.g. Spanish, Mapudungun, Japanese) and that that is the basis
of human language as an emergent phenomenon which differentiates it from every other
form of animal communication.
Evidently, this is a very brief resume of the huge enterprise which has been the
generative grammar theory and the minimalist project. However, to present the basic
fundamental points which constitute the central hypothesis and the specific theoretical
stance of this theory it is enough. Now it is feasible to analyze the possible problems of
this perspective.
1) There is a problem related to biology, namely: the brain has structures specialized in
language, as the foundational study of Damasio & Geschwind (1984) shows. However,
this does not imply that those structures are sustaining a UG or a genetic design for
language, but only that the human capacity for language is innate (Geshwind, 1970),
like other forms of animal communication are but with different grades of
specialization. Emergent properties can be noticed from the biology of human language;
nevertheless that is not proof of the emergent condition of the human language as a
whole and it is not in strict correlation with a UG. The capacity for language does not
imply that every attribute of language is pre-structured in the brain, only that the
features of the structure make those properties possible.
2) The second issue is properly linguistic. Despite that the minimalist project has
provided valuable and relevant studies to contribute to the understanding of human
language and mind, the central hypothesis has been treated as a premise and not as a
target to be proved. In fact, as Evans & Levinson (2009) have exposed, there is an
accumulated amount of evidence showing that the stated universal features and
principles of UG are not present in all languages.

3) Finally, there is a problem referred to the epistemological framework developed by

this group of theories. The issue is not complex and it is relatively evident: if a set of
universal rules that underlies every specific grammar is postulated, then: a) it is
necessary to abstract a universal structure prior to undertaking the task of the study of a
particular syntax specific to a determined language because that permits the description
and attribution of functions to the superficial structure, or b) the abstraction of the
superficial features can only show how the deep structure could be operating but cannot
generate a strict proof of its actual shape.
The fundamental problem with this is that for (a) the fundamental rules are
supposedly operating in a physical way somewhere into the brain structure, so they are
accessible only with studies and technologies that are not available at the moment, thus
the hypothesis that should be proved by the theory must be turned into a fact or
proposition and posited as a premise of the theory. And for (b) it becomes difficult to
abstract the universal rules, because it is impossible to observe the system as a structure
without knowing its components and being capable of abstracting them as parts of it,
hence the deep structure of language is posited in parallel to the surface structure which
cannot describes it accurately because the superficial components are not in
correspondence with the deep features.
The first two issues concern science, and should be debated in the presence and
account of evidence and experimentation. On the other hand, the third proposition is
only showing that the philosophical stand point of these theories is inaccurate. Searle
(1972) has explained it in simple terms:
The fallacy can be put in the form of a dilemma for the theory: either the
analysis of meaning itself contains certain of the crucial elements of the
notion to be analyzed, in which case the analysis fails because of
circularity; or the analysis reduces the thing to be analyzed into simpler
elements which lack its crucial features, in which case the analysis fails
because of inadequacy. (section V, paragraph 3)
The first fallacy stated by Searle corresponds to the point (a) argued before, and the
second, clearly, to the point (b). Of course this is not proof that the complete theory of
generative grammar and the thesis of a UG is wrong. However, at least, this gives an
account of an epistemological inaccuracy of these theories, and that can demark some
limits for that approach.

Therefore the innate capacity for language is not necessarily inscribed in a

grammar, funded in logical relations. In addition, it is also probable that this capacity
for language is resting in some relational or associative faculties of the mind (Lakoff,
1987), or that the brain has specific functions which cover distinct properties and, as a
result of a combination of the functioning of those structures emerges the capacity for
language. And this is understood as a consequence of the change of structures that were
present in other species and result in the human brain structures as a gradual process of
change (Geschwind, 1970; Damasio & Geschwind, 1984 ). Furthermore, it is important
to highlight that these approaches are not necessarily committed against the idea of a
UG, but simply are not taking it for granted or as a given thing and, simultaneously, are
positing some doubts about its plausibility.
Moreover, when one of the presented issues is not noticed, and it is necessary to
give an account of the impact these type of theories have in the comprehension of mind,
reaching an argumentative impasse becomes very probable. For example, McGinn
(1994) claims that this innate capacity of language is at the same time limiting for the
comprehension of certain kind of phenomena. He understands that philosophical
knowledge is inaccessible to the human mind in a clear and complete form. The
problem with this is that McGinn is considering the objects of study of philosophy as
discrete empirical phenomena, merging them with the objects that science studies. For
him, the study of the circulatory system can be homologized to the study of, for
example, free will. The confusion of categories is clear and, in part, could be regarded
to the dualist approach that is separating the functions of the brain (understood as a
proper organ) and stating that they are organs inside the greater one just because they
are functions and, at the same time, that makes those functions inaccessible. Then
functions are comprehended as natural occurrences, which is erroneous because
functions are human attributions to processes that naturally happen in the world (Searle,
1995). Objects, processes and systems do not have functions, as they do not have
meaning, as an inherent property.
The role of philosophy in this case can be understood not as a system of
knowledge which looks for the empirical facts and features of consciousness or
language, but which tries to define what is comprehended by those different concepts
that are under human observation (from different knowledge systems, including
philosophy itself). So, when McGinn (1994) argues that genes contain the information
necessary to understand consciousness because the genetic code contains what a
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conscious being is, he is overlooking all the findings in brain plasticity, sociology and
psychology that are showing how concepts, ideas and other cognitive processes can be
inscribed in the brain through the life of individuals regarding their social relations
which is the definition of the human species as a biological fact. In other words: the
brain changes through the course of a person's life. This sort of critique is sustained as
well by Bunge (2010), who explains how the radical abstraction of language from its
historical, social and cultural context is blocking the study of speech in its proper
natural occurrence within society. The attribution of total uniqueness to human
language, overlooking it as a form of communication, is what dualism tends to do at the
end, when its own object of study turns to be inaccessible, that impenetrability is
extended to the whole aspect of knowledge or to the procedures to acquire that
knowledge because that object is supposed to be made of a different and impenetrable
substance.
In conclusion, the idea of a binary opposition between one group of theories and
another, as for example can be seen in Strawson (1967) is not accurate. Indeed, there is
a consistent group of theories which are arguing for the understanding of language in its
natural sense, and they include society and individual cultural development as a natural
processes as well. This naturalistic approach is explained by Searle (2007) as a simple
but solid theoretical position: namely, the comprehension of speech as natural is to
consider it under its natural circumstances of occurrence within society and culture.
Furthermore, society and culture are relevant instances for language production and are
natural processes associated with human biology as well. Hence, the distinction between
artificial and natural appears as an artifice itself; the dissociation between culture and
nature tends to force the comprehension of the different studied phenomena into an
erroneous set of oppositions that can obscure the logical and epistemological
development of a theory.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that if speech and language are understood
considering that their purpose is to communicate (Sarle, 2007), so they can be
comprehended as a joint activity (Clark, 1996). With this in mind, to study language is
not enough to see it in its abstracted form (despite it can be very productive under
certain circumstances), but it must be considered in its institutional aspect (Searle,
1995) and as a communicative action which is realized always in coordination
(synchronically or asynchronically) with other human being (Clark, 1996). For that
reason a naturalist approach becomes relevant: culture and society must not be
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understood as artificial consensual things (they can be conventional), nor language. On

the contrary, they are natural processes which have resulted from the evolutionary
process of the human species and, in spite of all the emergent phenomena that those
aspects has as part of their definitions, the process always have a degree of biological
continuity in relation with past states, such as biological ancestors, previous cultural
stages and other historical periods.

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