Overcoming word-centrism: towards a new foundation for the philosophy of language

What does this mean for philosophy? First and foremost, one must accept that, when looking at the essence of language, it is wrong to start from the idea of a correspondence between “words” and “objects”. Undoubtedly, every language in some way corresponds to the world, but the nature of this correspondence is different from the simplified picture depicted in the classic approach. Firstly, a language corresponds not to discrete objects (and even ontogenetically this correspondence is not universal, as attested by the fact that the process of acquiring a language depends heavily on its lexical-grammatical structure) but to complex events (or situations), which can be divided and understood in an objective, processual, singular, discrete manner, through the use of different models of action and causality, and so on - the rich illustrative material concerning this problem can be found in the works of cognitive linguists (cf. the diversity of construal operations); in other words, in language itself the method of imagining what language corresponds to possesses the features of constructivity. Secondly, in the act of correspondence a big role is played by features of the particular language - the models contained within it for categorizing experience, dividing elements by degree of tightness, language-specific criteria for identifying words, parts of speech, patterns of formal, lexical, discursive and referential obligatoriness; in other words, what is important is that organization of meanings and usage models are imposed by a particular language (of course, the degree of imposition differs depending on what component of language we are considering). Thirdly, the very character of correspondence between language and event can differ from language to language, which is a result of the permanent influence of language on cognitive operations, especially selective attention, perception, working memory, and so on. In other words, language in some sense forces us to choose and submit to categorization that with which (and how) it must be brought into correspondence. Thus, in the schema “language-correspondence-event” language-specificity is relevant for all three components. In addition, from the above it should be evident that the linguistic sign - due to its involvement in a network of heterogenous and multifunctional relations within the linguistic system - cannot be understood as a particular instance of a more general conception of the sign - at least without damaging its essential features. Despite Saussure, linguistics is not a part of semiotics.

Let us once more emphasize this: we are looking at the real situation of how the act of relating language and reality takes place, that is, we are trying to identify the most general and universal features that characterize this act. In this regard the question may arise: is it right to limit the philosophical position to the position of the speaker of one particular language or is a person capable in principle of overcoming the limitations imposed on him by a specific natural language and to understand the essence of language in general? This must be answered as follows. Of course, to limit one's philosophical position - by definition, a position that strives for universality - to the position of the speaker of one particular language is wrong. But this is exactly what the whole of European philosophy has been doing throughout its history. The typical Western theorist judges the essence of language unreflectively, looking at this essence in connection with the naпve schema of “word-object”. The reflective position consists in fact of looking at the function of language from a broader typological perspective. It then turns out that humanity in principle is capable of overcoming the limitations imposed on it by its particular native language (or several languages), and of posing the question of the essence of “language as such” - of what is characteristic of natural language as language. However, this has not yet been done in the philosophy of language. We hope that the first steps in this direction, which have been outlined in this article, will ultimately lead to a more perfect understanding of the nature of language.

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