How Does Language Work?

These days we expect our sciences to have a practical side. We understand how things work and make use of the knowledge.Science began as common sense put into theoretical shape by Aristotle. Thus, pretty much every advanced science has begun by showing what common sense missed and Aristotle got wrong. So common sense says the sun revolves around the earth. Then Aristotle developed a theory of physics that took common sense observations for granted. Aristotle ’s physics, however, was purely theoretical without practical benefit.Copernicus, Galileo and Newton overturned that common sense and introduced a more modern physics. The proof of the new science was that it led to practical applications, first in mechanics and later in space travel.At the time of Galileo, Rene Descartes was also introducing a new theory of physics, one that relied solely on logical hypotheses and deduction. Although widely admired at the time, this work has not held up. For one thing, it did not address the common sense of earlier ages, for another it led to no practical or explanatory work.Sixty years ago the study of language grew radical without addressing common sense or Aristotle. The common-sense proposition was that language is meaningful, and the Aristotelean theory was that language works by combining sounds with meaning. Reasonable as this definition sounds, nobody ever figured out how to use it and the practical traditions of rhetoric and composition pay no attention to Aristotle.The lingui...
Source: Babel's Dawn - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Authors: Source Type: blogs