北京市社会科学界联合会重点学术资助项目
动物伦理学与护生文化系列讲座第28讲


主讲人：郭鹏 （山东大学哲学与社会发展学院副教授）
主题：语言是人类所独有的吗？

   （Against the Denial of Animal Language)
时  间：2014年6月15日（周日）下午2：30-5：00 
地点：清华大学明斋241（图书馆北，万人食堂南，请从中门进入）
主持人：蒋劲松（科学技术与社会研究所副教授）
主办单位：
清华大学科学技术与社会研究所
北京市哲学会
动保网
中国食文化研究会素食委员会
中国动保记者沙龙
绿野方舟
中国青年动保联盟
欢迎参加！
主讲人及演讲主题简介：

郭鹏，山东大学哲学与社会发展学院副教授，主要研究方向语言哲学与动物伦理学。

摘要：
在当代语言学及语言哲学研究中，“语言是为人类所独有的”这种观点几乎是一个默认的前提，语言学家霍凯特（Charles Francis Hockett）和哲学家乔姆斯基（Avram Noam Chomsky）是明确持这种观点并在学术界产生广泛影响的人。这种观点不仅影响着对人类的语言和认知的研究，也在大大影响对非人类动物的相关研究。在我看来，无论是霍凯特还是乔姆斯基都没有为此观点提出有效的论证，我将对他们的论证进行详细的剖析并提出自己的反驳和观点。


Abstract:
Currently, linguistic research is dominated by the view that language is a phenomenon that uniquely belongs to humans。This claim has made a great impact on those experts who study animal language and animal cognition. Linguist Charles Francis Hockett and philosopher Avram Noam Chomsky are two representatives of this view. I intend to show that neither of them offered any valid argument to support this anthropcentric view.
I found three problems in Hockett’s argument: 1. Even it is the case that there are certain features uniquely belong to human spoken language, we can use this features to characterize (or define) human spoken language but not language. 2. Our knowledge of the communication systems of other species is too limited to enable us to reach the conclusion that some features are uniquely belong to human, such as Duality of Patterning. It is impossible for us to do so before we know the meaning and the structure of their (vocal) signals. 3. Hockett puts human communication in one category and put machinery communication, non-huuman  animal  communication  in another    category.  We can see that some non-human animals communication systems share more features with human communication than machinery communication.

In his earlier research, Chomsky (1957) insists that human being is the only animal has linguistic ability and he supports this idea by claiming that humans uniquely possess an innate universal grammar that is not possessed by other species. I call this approach ‘The Essentialism Approach’. My argument is that we cannot reach the conclusion that language is uniquely human from the uniqueness of human language. Other species can also possess some uniqueness of their languages and this does not make language a unique phenomenon of any of these species. In his later research, Chomsky(2004) shifted to what I call ‘The Great Leap Forward Approach’--after Alfred Russell Wallace, he believes that there is a great leap forward in evolution that rewired human brain and enable us to perform the linguistic tasks that other species are not capable of doing so. My argument against Chomsky is mainly based on biological individualism, which is inspired by the research of Marc Becoff and other ethologists.



描述:明斋路线图图片:眀斋路线图.jpg[删除]



动物研究读书会总汇 


 动物伦理学与护生文化系列讲座总汇