Phenomenology of Language

Phenomenology of Language

Suppose we undertake a phenomenological investigation of human speech (we leave Vulcan speech to the Vulcans). What distinctions will we need to make? What categories must we adopt? What methods should we use? What precedents should we cite? Obviously, we will need a speaker-hearer distinction, as well as distinctions between inner speech and outer speech, written speech and vocal speech, sign language and sound language. But we will also need to distinguish levels of phenomenology corresponding to articulatory facts, syntactic facts, semantic facts, and pragmatic facts. An Italian speaker will differ in his articulatory phenomenology from an English speaker, because of the different sounds produced and received; but his syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic phenomenology may coincide with those of the English speaker. The same goes for the deaf speaker: signs are not identical to sounds, so there is a difference in articulatory phenomenology, but there need not be any difference at the other levels. In other words, there may be phenomenological universals at the deeper levels, rather like the grammatical universals postulated by Chomsky and others (these universals will likely have phenomenological counterparts). With respect to categories, we may expect that the usual categories of word, phrase, and sentence will map onto phenomenological categories—for example, there may be a sense of completeness corresponding to whole sentences but not to individual words. As to methods, the obvious method will be first-person and introspective, but we cannot rule out more “objective” methods such as brain scans and behavioral studies, and also evolutionary theory. Precedents may include other human traits and activities that bear on linguistic activity such as perception, memory, and motor skills. All in all, the subject of language phenomenology will have all the complexity and variety of other studies of language, scientific and philosophical. In particular, I expect that we will need to recognize deep and surface linguistic phenomenology, as well as syntactic and semantic phenomenology. Do not expect to limit consideration to data traditionally associated with language studies; we may need to take in other aspects of human biology and psychology, including evolutionary history and human cognition generally.

At the articulatory level, we should acknowledge that sound is only part of what goes into speech production and hence into consciousness of what we call speech acts. In addition, and importantly, there are various kinds of motor activity—elaborate sign language centered on the hands, paralinguistic gestures of many kinds (notably pointing), and small movements of the vocal apparatus (larynx, tongue, and lips). There is a whole lot of shaking (moving) going on. This has a phenomenological impact–proprioceptive, kinesthetic, and visual. Call all this sensorimotor phenomenology. It interacts with other types of movement and awareness thereof, such as approach and avoidance behavior. Commands illustrate the point perfectly (“Bring me a biscuit!”). Language is clearly one component of our total behavioral output and is experienced as such. At the syntactic level, we have the much-celebrated creativity of language, combined with its rule-governed nature and abhorrence of grammatical nonsense. We have the feeling of creativity whenever we put a new sentence together, which we take for granted, so familiar is it. We are consciously, knowingly, creative creatures, syntactically speaking. We are also creative in other ways that parallel and interact with our linguistic creativity—as in dreaming, imagining, producing art and science. We are phenomenologically original and ground-breaking, unlike the majority of animals. Thus, we experience ourselves as undetermined, free, unfettered, almost godlike (outside of nature anyway). We have a naturally bigheaded phenomenology, encouraging us to look down on the rest of nature. Because we speak, and seem to ourselves to speak, we think we are a cut above, natural biological aristocrats, a superior species. Our morality is shaped by this (you see what I mean about linguistic phenomenology reaching into other areas of human life). Is our species supremacism a result of our felt syntactic virtuosity? Our ability to generate novel sentences taps into our identity as constructivecreatures: not only do we construct dwellings, cities, and technology, we also construct sentences—wholes made up of functional parts. We are natural builders—of linguistic edifices: and not just sentences but also speeches, essays, books, encyclopedias. We are verbal architects and artisans, forever constructing new linguistic structures: we are self-conscious language producers and consumers, the bigger the better. We accordingly pride ourselves on our verbal felicity and productivity, some speakers achieving immortality this way. It is part of our species identity, our lived human experience. We construct pyramids of words. Verbosity is our pride and joy.

What about semantics? I have written elsewhere on the role of the hand in providing the groundwork for the emergence of reference, particularly prehension and ostension (gripping and pointing).[1] It is obvious on reflection that the hands are integral to human speech—it is probable that the original human language was a sign language. Granted this point, we can observe that the phenomenology of speaking will allude to our hands and their place in our life, which is pervasive and indispensable. We are a manual species as well as a verbal species. Our hands have their own complex phenomenology, which lies adjacent to our verbal phenomenology—as when we gesture while speaking, or resort to the hands when language won’t do the communicative trick (as in a foreign land). We use our hands to communicate just as we use our mouths. In the beginning was the hand, which begot the word. The human brain has large areas dedicated to the hand and mouth; and these are linked organs in many ways. The distinction between noun and verb may owe its origins to our hand activities, gripping and acting. In addition to this, language taps into our conceptual capacities—our thinking faculty. Accordingly, speaking and thinking are never far apart (though one sometimes doubts the necessity of the connection): the phenomenology of thinking shapes the phenomenology of talking. Propositions enter the sphere of the linguistic—hence logic, scientific thought, books. Speaking is phenomenologically propositional (at least much of the time). Theories of propositions thus bear on linguistic phenomenology: for example, Frege’s function-argument theory of the proposition can be adapted into a phenomenological description of the act of speaking. Functions take consciousness from an object as argument to another object (possibly a truth-value) as value, thus bringing the concept of truth into our thought and speech. According to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, using a sentence involves us in thoughts of the whole world and the totality of facts that composes it. Metaphysics and logic come to shape what it is like consciously to speak a language. In Wittgenstein’s later work, the phenomenology will include language games, family resemblance, rule following, other people, forms of life, and so on. Choose your phenomenological poison: metaphysics has phenomenological implications. The point I would make is that the phenomenology is likely to be complex and multilayered, not admitting of summary formulation: semantic phenomenology is as complex as the human mind. It is also fleeting, hard to pin down, and resistant to literal expression. There could be a whole academic journal devoted to it.

Here is a thought experiment designed to highlight the distinctive character of linguistic phenomenology. We are extremely familiar with the experience of speaking and hearing; we take it completely for granted. We have forgotten what it was like to be introduced to language as young children—what that felt like. Also, it was fairly gradual, protracted enough to habituate to it. But suppose you were born without a language faculty and had no knowledge of language until well into your teenage years; then an operation is performed on your brain that installs linguistic mastery in its mature form. Suddenly you can speak and understand! That would be like acquiring sight one day after being blind your whole life. I venture to suggest that that would be a remarkable experience, a phenomenological revelation. Your entire consciousness would be put into a new configuration—a Wow moment. You had been missing so much! The combinatorial power alone would astound you. Your self-esteem would shoot up. Your life would become a lot more interesting. Your consciousness would buzz with new and exciting experiences. You might dread going back to your old pre-linguistic state. You had no idea that meaning could be so…meaningful. So, wouldn’t it be great to have a perspicuous description of this newfound condition of consciousness? A good book on the phenomenology of language would be well worth reading. Language is a remarkable phenomenon, as has often been remarked; but so is our consciousness of that phenomenon.[2]

[1] See my Prehension (2015) and also “Consciousness and Language”.

[2] Why then has it been so persistently ignored in linguistic studies? Is it because consciousness is deemed “subjective” and therefore not scientific? It is true that consciousness is a subjective phenomenon, but it doesn’t follow that studying it is “merely subjective”, i.e., not an objective form of study. That is a non sequitur based on a bad pun. But the hold of behaviorism has been strong in studies of the mind, objectivity being the mark of the serious. In fact, of course, studying the subjective (ontological) can be perfectly objective (epistemological). I recommend beginning with an inquiry into the phenomenology of “not”: surely this word brims with phenomenological content and some work has already been done on it in the phenomenological tradition (see Sartre’s Being and Nothingness). Let it be noted that such a study is no form of psychologism, i.e., reduction of the logical to the psychological; rather, it is ancillary to logic, a separate area of study. Of course, we may expect contributions from one discipline to the other (it is the same with mathematics). Does the truth function corresponding to “not” have phenomenological reality?