In my last blog I gave a summary of Tomasello’s triadic theory of human cognition (different from the dyadic communication of the great apes).
Tomasello’s main theoretical aim is to contest Chomsky’s hypothesis of the Language Acquisition Device, namely that a Universal Grammar is programmed innately into the human brain. Tomasello argues that, on the contrary, the learning of language can be accounted for more satisfactorily in terms of usage (nurture rather than nature).
There is already a large body of empirical research to support this hypothesis. Tomasello’s Construction Grammar, as it is called, has the advantage over Chomsky’s Universal Grammar in that, rather than narrowly isolating grammar from all the semantic information which any real utterance has to incorporate, it examines whole utterances at any linguistic level. It also encompasses figurative and abstract language, which Universal Grammar cannot handle.
What I find curious is that the only linguistic schools considered by Tomasello are those derived from Chomsky’s model. There are a number of alternative schools including Systemic Functional Linguistics associated with the work of M.A.K. Halliday* and his successors in the Sydney School. SFL is based on a triadic functional analysis of human language:1. The experiential function, realised in the transitivity system (saying who does what to whom i.e. what is happening in the world).
2. The interpersonal function, realized in the mood system (the relation between the speaker/writer and the listener/reader – declarative, interrogative or imperative)
3. The textual function (how texts are strung together by cohesion)
The first two functions would seem to fit rather neatly into the theoretical framework of Tomasello’s cognitive psychology – that is, they describe exhaustively the way in which language not only enables but obliges human beings to communicate simultaneously TO someone ABOUT the world.
Has no-one brought together these exquisitely mapped theories of cognitive psychology and linguistics?
*M.A.K. Halliday: An Introduction to Functional Grammar