人物专栏 | Noam Chomsky教授访谈

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《理论语言学五道口站》（2023年第06期，总第270期）“人物专栏”与大家分享Patrick C. Trettenbrein博士对Noam Chomsky教授的访谈，访谈以“50 Years Later: A Conversation about the Biological Study of Language with Noam Chomsky”为题。Noam Chomsky教授，享誉世界的语言学家、认知科学家、政治批评家、哲学家和历史学家。Patrick C. Trettenbrein博士，德国马克斯·普朗克人类认知与脑科学研究所认知科学家。

本期访谈中，Noam Chomsky教授首先介绍了生物语言学领域早期的发展情况并阐述了《语言的生物学基础》一书的学术价值，随后对生物语言学的研究方法和研究现状做出了评价，最后探讨了语言学与生物学之间的关系。

访谈内容转自Biolinguistics（《生物语言学》）在线期刊2017年12月第11期，由本站成员何姝颖、董泽扬翻译。本次访谈共分为上下两期，后续内容将在下一次人物专栏中继续与大家分享，敬请期待。

访谈内容

将Eric Lenneberg称作语言的生物学研究领域的奠基人并非过誉，他的《语言的生物学基础》（Biological Foundations of Language）也足以称为这一领域的开山之作。与之类似，现代语言学的生成语法研究由Noam Chomsky于20世纪50年代创始，他的《句法结构》（Syntactic Structures）也被视为这一领域的奠基之作。

乍一看，Chomsky与Lenneberg以及他们各自的著作之间联系并不紧密——毕竟，《语言的生物学基础》考察的是生物学领域的文献，《句法结构》则是以形式化手段分析自然语言的句法。然而，事实并非如此：Lenneberg和Chomsky在哈佛大学攻读研究生期间共同创立了今天我们称之为“生物语言学”的理论。快速翻阅一下《语言的生物学基础》便可以看到Chomsky为这本书撰写了一篇论“语言的形式本质”的附录。若是仔细研读就会发现，Lenneberg本人非常依赖于Chomsky所提供的（语言的）形式化分析，并以此来推进自己的论点。

Noam Chomsky是这一领域的联合创始人、也是Eric Lenneberg同时期的好友，与他的交谈显然势在必行。我们有幸邀请到了Chomsky教授解答了关于该领域建立初期的一些问题，讲述了他的工作和与Lenneberg的关系。此外，我们还探讨了那些跨越半个世纪仍旧吸引我们去探索的科学议题。

01.

Patrick C. Trettenbrein博士：首先，感谢您拨冗解答我的问题。如您所知，本次采访是为了纪念Eric Lenneberg的不朽著作《语言的生物学基础》（1967）出版50周年，这本著作现在也成为了公认的该领域的奠基作之一，与其他著名作品，比如您的《句法结构》（Chomsky 1957/2002）齐名。我想先请问一下在生物语言学发展初期您与Eric Lenneberg的关系。您和他的第一次见面应该是在哈佛的时候吧?

Noam Chomsky教授：我1951年来到哈佛。Eric也差不多是在那个时间来的。我们很快就见了面，并成为了家人般的密友。

02.

Patrick C. Trettenbrein博士：您能概括性地介绍一下这个领域早期的发展情况吗？是什么指引您和Lenneberg去研究这些问题？或者说，是什么指引您从生物学的角度来看待语言？

Noam Chomsky教授：对我和Eric、Morris三个人来说，人类的语言官能与视觉和其他官能一样，显然是人类生物学的一部分。如果是这样的话，语言研究只有纳入一个普遍的生物学框架中才有意义。这也正是Eric以自己的方式所追求的道路，他为此付出了巨大的努力并取得了成功。

03.

Patrick C. Trettenbrein博士：50年后的今天再来回顾这本著作，您认为它最大的成就是什么？为什么您认为它仍然与研究息息相关，为什么今天的研究人员和学生仍然要花心思去阅读它？

Noam Chomsky教授：这本著作为研究人类语言官能、语言的使用和进化提供了一个可靠、深刻、全面而精巧的生物学基础，其中不仅汇集了关于这一议题的已有知识，而且大大扩展了讨论的范围，其中一些当时看来背离传统的、极具挑战性的推测在后来许多研究中均得到确证。从此，相关的讨论日益增多，但这项研究仍然是语言的生物学各方面的一个不可或缺的参考。

04.

Patrick C. Trettenbrein博士：尽管当时许多关于语言习得的关键实证研究还没有进行，但Lenneberg在书末尾的总结部分中所概述的对语言的发展及其生物学理论的观点已经十分新颖，令人印象深刻。他的理论虽然可能需要进行一些局部的修正和更新，但仍然非常准确。在他早期的作品中（Lenneberg 1964），Lenneberg已经表示，他的长期目标正是要建立语言的生物学理论。

有趣的是，《语言的生物学基础》在很多方面都算是后来者，因为此前您对《言语行为》（Verbal Behavior）的评论（Chomsky 1959）已经对语言学和心理学产生了巨大的影响。当时，Lenneberg一书的审稿人也指出，在某种程度上，Lenneberg似乎不仅试图勾勒出语言的生物学理论，而且想要“为那些仅凭形式上的论证便为之献身的不安经验主义者们提供人们能感知到的生物学上的合理性”（Bem & Bem 1968: 498-499）。您同意这个观点吗？

Noam Chomsky教授：1948年，Skinner在他主讲的William James系列讲座中阐述了他的《言语行为》一书的核心思想，这些思想在我们来到哈佛时已经受到公认，成为了语言的心理学研究的权威方法，其中一部分原因在于他采用了当时极具影响力的哈佛哲学家W.V.O. Quine提出的基本理论框架。几乎只有我们三个人认为这个理论严重偏离正轨。

你提到的那篇评论是我在1957年提交发表的，虽然当时Eric去了医学院，但我们在早些年已经对这些问题进行过广泛的探讨。这篇评论源自我们对行为学文献的阅读和讨论，与主流的正统观点相去甚远。当时的正统观点严重僵化，即便是Karl Lashley在1951年发表的关于行为序列的重要论文在剑桥（编者注：指哈佛大学所在的剑桥市）行为学界也完全掀不起风浪。这篇文章极大地动摇了Skinner的行为主义，但当我在评论中提及它时，却发现相关文献中根本没有对这篇文章的参考（我是从艺术史学家Meyer Schapiro那里了解到的）。但这些话题恰恰是我们讨论的重心。当时Eric已经在进行生物学基础的探索，仅仅几年后他便完善了他的理论并出版了著作。

05.

Patrick C. Trettenbrein博士：所以，由于Lenneberg在德国长大，您得以通过阅读德语原版的欧洲行为学文献的方式开启自己在哈佛的学习生活。当然，您曾经指出，实际上语言最好是放在行为学框架内进行研究，但关于语言本身，一些显而易见的论断仍然没有得到普遍认可。例如，您所认为的语言是人的固有属性，并且首先是人脑的固有属性。尽管这一表述简单明确，但由于有一些认知科学家认为，不论表达的意思为何，语言都是为了适应人类大脑而进化的（如Christiansen & Muller 2015），所以您的观点可能在某种程度上仍旧具有争议性。那么，您对当今生物语言学研究的现状有什么看法呢？

Noam Chomsky教授：“不论表达的意思为何”此言不差。而且，我与Morris、Eric在50年代早期确实在阅读行为学文献。他们都能说流利的德语，能够阅读原文。而我主要阅读英文文献。在我们所处的剑桥知识分子圈里，这一领域无人问津，但绝非完全未知，因此可以说是一个受到忽视的领域。人类语言或认知能力中可能蕴含了某种本能，这一观点在我们看来几乎是老生常谈，但在那些最有影响力的学者看来却是无稽之谈。因此这几乎可以算是一个私人兴趣。除了George Miller和其他几名同学之外，很少有人能接受我们的想法。

从那以后直至今天，生物语言学一直在蓬勃发展，这归功于我们对语言的本质、语言的习得和使用有了更深入的理解，也得益于新的成像技术在某种程度上克服了人体实验的伦理限制。与视力及其他能力的研究不同，由于语言具有物种特异性这一基本属性，人类之外的其他物种身上没有相应的系统可供研究，因此我们无法从动物实验中获得很多信息。

06.

Patrick C. Trettenbrein博士：插个题外话，我想问一个笼统的关于语言学的问题。Eric Lenneberg有关语言官能科学研究的理念即便在今天也有时被认为具有争议性的——即使我们能观察到一个很有趣的现象，有些评论家主张与Lenneberg类似的观点但却从不引用他本人的文献。您认为是什么造成了这种情况？通常人们觉得去抨击那些不再维护自己观点的人是更具吸引力的事情。

Noam Chomsky教授：我不认为那是原因所在。你得去问问过去是哪些人做过评论家。在过去的六十年里，我经常和许多不同领域的人们一起讨论我们（目前还囊括了许多新人）的作品。哲学家们、语言学家以及各种社会科学学家常常认为我们的作品是具有高度争议性的（如果并不荒谬的话），但物理学家、数学家、生物学家以及卓越的大人物，其中还有诺贝尔奖获得者，并且还包括一个上个世纪七十年代和我一起共事指导语言生物学研究生研讨会的同事，这些人并没有做出此类评价。

评论家里根本鲜有人知道Eric的作品。如果他的作品被熟知，就会被评论家视为“正儿八经的科学”而不会遭受此类评价。自然学科里，那些在David Marr称为计算/具象以及算法的平台上构建和发展的解释性理论是再自然不过的东西了，与之类似的在这个领域也是屡见不鲜。这些事情都受到过广泛讨论。举一个例子，Jerry Fodor的卓越事业中的大部分时间都用于解释这类方法的合理性并反击对这些方法的批评之声。1

1 采访者备注：这次对话发生于2017年11月末Jerry Fodor逝世前。

07.

Patrick C. Trettenbrein博士：我们就这个话题再延展一下。研究语言学似乎有两种不同的方式，某种程度上，或许与生物学还被称为自然史时的研究方式有着相似之处。Norbert Hornstein论及“languistics”时将其与“linguistics” 区分开。您认为整个学科在多大程度上仍处于在“文化历史”这个发展阶段，对世间所发现的事物进行分类，就像生物学家前辈们在生物学还是自然史时所做的那样？

Noam Chomsky教授：如果我们把上个世纪五十年代期刊上所刊登的内容与今日更多种类期刊上的内容做比较的话，答案会更加明确。这生动地阐明了从“languistics”概念到Hornstein所定义的“linguistics”的改变。进一步说，随着所探究问题的深度加深，所研究语言类型的范围也大幅拓宽了，这其中大部分在不久之前都是难以想象的。在这个重要的意义上，“对世界所发现之事物进行分类”不仅横向上的工作范围扩大了，纵向的探究深度也增加了。

08.

Patrick C. Trettenbrein博士：我想进一步深入探究语言学和生物学之间的关系。以生物学的方式研究语言在上个世纪五六十年代就成型了，但“生物语言学”这个标签似乎在此之后又过了好一阵子才兴起，直到过去几十年才开始普及，其中包括Biolinguistics杂志的创设。最近，有些人对于生物语言学这个标签颇有微词，他们觉得这不过是生成语法的另一个叫法而已，真正的生物语言学在他们看来应该是包含对语言官能的所有生物学方式研究的更宽泛的标签（e.g., Martins & Boeckx 2016）。您怎么看？

Noam Chomsky教授：我不明白这个争议。对语言官能的生物学研究在定义上来讲就是对语言官能的一种研究方式。而生成语法研究的是语言官能的核心特质。为什么会有争议出现呢？

09.

Patrick C. Trettenbrein博士：我同意。在我看来，此类批评指的是理论语言学一如既往照例开展研究却标榜其为生物语言学，与此同时却没有积极寻求实现与生物学在这方面研究的统一整合。Boeckx & Grohmann（2007）在这个期刊首次发表的文章里将此归为生物语言学的两种内涵：一个是弱势一个是强势；弱势内涵指的是语言学家尝试揭示语法的性质，而后者强势内涵则指需要同时结合语言学洞见以及其他学科视角研究的工作。您是否也认为需要进行这样的划分呢？

Noam Chomsky教授：研究人员可以选择他们个人感兴趣的领域和项目。然而，被定义为强势生物语言学的领域显然只有在语言学洞见——即语法特性——被充分探索之后才能与其他领域相结合。无论探究的特定领域是什么：视角（正如David Marr有名的讨论; 详见Marr 1982/2010）的不同会干扰人们的交流。

10.

Patrick C. Trettenbrein博士：为了为此项目做准备，我重新研读了许多Eric的出版作品，在我看来似乎他很有可能同意这个比较有批判性的评价：语言学和生物学的真正融合仍未发生，因此生成语法悄然“夺走”了生物语言学这个名头。显然，在Lenneberg的时代，语言学与生物学是两门相距甚远的学科。总体上他是否对语言学和生物学最终的融合持乐观态度呢？而您也是否对其看好？是否认为我们现在与五十年前相比距离“真正的生物语言学”更进一步呢？

Noam Chomsky教授：如上所述，我并不明白“夺走名头”这件事。当然，在过去的五十年人们对有关语言的生物学方面——生物语言学——已经有了大概的了解了。我并不知道什么样的“真正的生物语言学”能与真正的生物学视角有所区别。人们已经对这个话题有更多的理解了。我们还在期待别的什么呢？

11.

Patrick C. Trettenbrein博士：我承认“夺走名头”这个说法有点过激。实际上，Lenneberg的一段话我仍记得。他写道：“如果将主要关于语言的研究标榜为生物学性的，我们会因此一无所获，除非我们能用这个视角来探索新的研究方向——除非能发现更多的关联性（Lenneberg 1964: 76）。” 也许您会认为是生成语法提供了“新的研究方向”，这也是这个问题根本没有发生的原因。您觉得是这样吗？

Noam Chomsky教授：当一门语言被当作一个生物学对象，就像在生成语法里那样（当代术语称为I-语言），就会直接产生一些问题：

•语言是如何被习得的？

•它的神经生理基础是什么？

•它是怎么进化演变的？

•它是如何被使用的？

如果语言被视作某种共同体性质——比如某种共同体里的“契约”（索绪尔）或者“一个言语共同体的言语集合”（布龙菲尔德），那么此类问题就不能得到清晰的解答。尽管没有被完全忽视，此类问题只能在这些构想里被有限探究。

正如前面提到的，进一步讲，这些问题只能在这些生物学对象的性质被完全理解之后才可以被继续探究，这几乎不言而喻。毫无争议的是，在生成语法伊始就采用的生物语言学的框架下，这些“新的研究方向”的发展卓有成效。

English Version

It is not an overstatement to consider Eric Lenneberg the founder of the field of biology of language and his Biological Foundations of Language one the field’s founding documents. Similarly, modern linguistics in the tradition of generative grammar was founded by Noam Chomsky in the 1950s with his Syntactic Structures as one of the founding documents of this field.

At first, the work of Chomsky and Lenneberg as well as their respective seminal books may seem only vaguely related—after all, Biological Foundations of Language surveyed the biological literature while Syntactic Structures provided a formal analysis of natural language syntax. However, nothing could be further from the truth: Lenneberg and Chomsky cofounded what today is known as biolinguistics during their time as graduate students at Harvard. Even a quick look at Biological Foundations of Language gives this away: Chomsky contributed an appendix on “The formal nature of language” to the book. A closer look reveals that Lenneberg himself heavily relied on formal analysis (of language) just like that provided by Chomsky in order to advance his argument.

Consequently, talking to Noam Chomsky as a co-founder of the field, contemporary, and friend of Eric Lenneberg was the obvious thing to do. Luckily, Professor Chomsky took the time to answer some questions about the early days of the field, his work and relation with Lenneberg, and a number of other questions and scientific issues that (still) captivate us 50 years later.

01.

Dr. Patrick C. Trettenbrein: First of all, let me thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. As you know, the reason for this interview is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Eric Lenneberg’s monumental Biological Foundations of Language (1967), now widely considered one of the founding documents of the field besides, for example, your Syntactic Structures (Chomsky 1957/2002). I would like to start out by asking you about your relationship with Eric Lenneberg in the early days of biolinguistics. I take it the two of you first met during your time at Harvard?

Prof. Noam Chomsky: I arrived at Harvard in 1951. Eric did at about the same time. We met very soon and quickly became close friends, the families too.

02.

Dr. Patrick C. Trettenbrein: More generally, could you elaborate a little bit on the early days? What led you and Lenneberg to pursue these questions, that is, what led you to look at language from a biological point of view?

Prof. Noam Chomsky: To the three of us—Eric, Morris, and me—it simply seemed obvious that the human language faculty is part of human biology, much like the visual and other faculties. If so, it only made sense to try to incorporate the study of language within a general biological framework, the path that Eric pursued in his own way with such intensity and success.

03.

Dr. Patrick C. Trettenbrein: Now, looking back 50 years later, what would you consider to be the book’s biggest achievement? Why do you think it is still relevant, respectively, why should researchers and students today still bother reading it?

Prof. Noam Chomsky: The book developed a sound, deeply informed, comprehensive, carefully executed biological basis for the study of the human language faculty, its use and its evolution, not only bringing together what was known about this topic but substantially extending it, including provocative speculations that were far from conventional at the time but have since in many cases been shown to have been on the right track. And while a great deal has been learned since, this study remains an indispensable source for inquiry into the biology of language in all of its aspects.

04.

Dr. Patrick C. Trettenbrein: Yes, it is very impressive how modern Lenneberg’s view of language development and the biological theory of language he sketches at the end of the book in a summarising chapter already were, despite the fact that a lot of the important empirical work on acquisition from which we can draw today had not yet been carried out. While some modifications and updates may be required here and there his theory is still very accurate. In earlier work (Lenneberg 1964) he already indicated that his long-term goal was to do exactly this: come up with a biological theory of language.

Still, it is interesting to note that Biological Foundations of Language in many ways was kind of a late comer to the party: Your review of Verbal Behavior (Chomsky 1959) had already had a huge effect on linguistics and psychology and some reviewers of Lenneberg’s book at the time noted that, in a way, it seems that he not only sought to sketch a biological theory of language but also wanted to

[. . . ] provide a palpable biological plausibility for conclusions to which a number of uncomfortable Empiricists [. . . ] [had] committed themselves on the basis of formal argument alone. (Bem & Bem 1968: 498–499)

Do you agree?

Prof. Noam Chomsky: When we arrived at Harvard, Skinner’s William James lectures of 1948, the essence of his book Verbal Behavior, were widely regarded as the definitive approach to the psychology of language, in part because of the adoption of the basic framework by the highly influential Harvard philosopher W.V.O. Quine. Our triumvirate was almost alone in regarding it as seriously misguided.

My review, to which you refer, was submitted for publication in 1957, when Eric was already in medical school, but we had discussed these matters extensively in earlier years. The review drew from our reading and discussion of ethological literature, which was remote from the reigning orthodoxy. The rigidity of the orthodoxy is illustrated by the fact that even Karl Lashley’s important 1951 paper on serial order in behaviour, which pretty much undermined Skinnerian behaviourism, was apparently unknown in the Cambridge behavioural science community. I couldn’t find a reference in the relevant literature when I brought it up in the review (and I learned about it from an art historian, Meyer Schapiro). But these were the kinds of topics we were discussing. Eric’s exploration of biological foundations was already underway at the time, though fully developed and published only a few years later?

05.

Dr. Patrick C. Trettenbrein: So, you started out in Harvard by reading the European ethological literature in the original German—because Lenneberg grew up in Germany. Of course, you pointed out that language is actually best studied within an ethological framework and there are some obvious points about language that can be made which are still not being universally acknowledged. For example, the very straightforward and obvious idea that your language is a property of you and, first and foremost, your brain is still—maybe somewhat implicitly—deemed controversial when there are cognitive scientists who say that languages evolve(d) in order to fit human brains (e.g., Christiansen & Muller 2015), whatever that is supposed to mean. What is your take on the current state of the biolinguistic research program today?

Prof. Noam Chomsky: True: “whatever that is supposed to mean.” And yes, in the early ’50s, Morris, Eric and I were reading ethological literature. They were both fluent in German and read originals. I kept mostly to the English language literature. This was foreign territory in the Cambridge intellectual community of which we were part, and to the extent that it was known at all, it was dismissed. The idea that there could be an instinctive element in human language, or cognitive capacities generally, which seemed to us virtual truism, was regarded by the most influential figures as virtual nonsense. So it was a private preoccupation. Almost. George Miller was receptive to what we were thinking about, along with several fellow students. But few others.

In the years since, and currently, biolinguistics has been flourishing, thanks to much deeper understanding of the nature of language, its acquisition and use, but also in part to new imaging technology that has in some measure overcome the ethical constraints on direct experimentation—and unlike the study of vision and other capacities, experiments with other animals tell us very little because of the species-specificity of the basic properties of language. There are no homologous systems to investigate.

06.

Dr. Patrick C. Trettenbrein: Digressing a little bit for second, I’d like to ask a related question that concerns linguistics as a field more generally. Your own and thus, by extension, Eric Lenneberg’s ideas about the scientific study of the language faculty are sometimes still portrayed as “controversial” even today—though it is interesting to see that Lenneberg is hardly ever referenced by critics despite having advocated a very similar point of view. Why do you think that is? One would think that it would be more attractive to attack someone who is no longer around to defend their views?

Prof. Noam Chomsky: I don’t think that’s the reason. You have to ask who the critics have been. In the past 60 years, I’ve discussed the kind of work we (and by now a great many others) have been doing with people and audiences in many different disciplines. It’s often been considered highly controversial (if not absurd) by philosophers, linguists, and a variety of social scientists, but not by physicists, mathematicians, biologists, including distinguished figures, among them Nobel laureates in evolutionary biology, with one of whom I co-taught graduate seminars in biology of language in the 1970s.

Among the critics, Eric’s work was barely known, if at all, and if it had been known would have been considered “real science,” not subject to this kind of critique. In the hard sciences, explanatory theories that are developed at what David Marr (1982/2010) called the computational/representational and algorithmic levels are considered quite natural, and analogues are familiar in the disciplines. These are matters that have been extensively discussed. To mention one example, Jerry Fodor has devoted much of his distinguished career to explaining the validity of such approaches and countering criticism of them.1

1 Interviewer’s note: This exchange took place before the passing of Jerry Fodor at the end of November 2017.

07.

Dr. Patrick C. Trettenbrein: Continuing with this topic for just a little bit longer, it seems that there are two different ways of doing linguistics, on some level maybe analogous to the way in which biology was done when it was still called natural history as opposed to how biological research is carried out nowadays. Norbert Hornstein speaks of languistics as opposed to linguistics. To what extend do you think the entire discipline is still caught up in the “cultural history” stage, cataloguing what is found in the world, analogous to what the predecessors of biologists did when biology was still natural history?

Prof. Noam Chomsky: The answer becomes clear when one compares what was appearing in the journals in the ’50s with what appears in the (many more) journals today. It illustrates dramatically a change from languistics to linguistics in Hornstein’s sense. Furthermore, the typological range of languages investigated has vastly extended along with the depth of the questions examined, most of them unimaginable not many years ago. In this crucial sense then, “cataloguing what is found in the world” has vastly increased both in scope and depth.

08.

Dr. Patrick C. Trettenbrein: I would like to dwell a little more on the relationship of linguistics and biology. While the biological approach to studying language took shape in the ’50s and ’60s of the past century it seemingly took a while for the label “biolinguistics” to catch on and it has been popularised only in the past decades, amongst other things with the establishment of Biolinguistics, the journal in which this interview will be published. Recently, some people have complained that the label biolinguistics is kind of a rebranding of generative grammar, whereas actual biolinguistics should be understood more exclusively as a label for all biological investigation of the language faculty (e.g., Martins & Boeckx 2016). What is your take on this?

Prof. Noam Chomsky: I don’t see much of an issue. Biological investigation of the language faculty is, by definition, an approach to investigation of the language faculty. Generative grammar is the study of core properties of the language faculty. Why should any issue arise?

09.

Dr. Patrick C. Trettenbrein: I agree. As I understood it, the criticism is about theoretical linguists mostly carrying on with their business “as usual” while labelling their work as “biolinguistics,” despite not actively seeking integration with biology. Boeckx & Grohmann (2007), in the inaugural article of this journal, labelled this the two senses of biolinguistics: the “weak” and “strong” sense; the former being that linguists still seek to uncover the properties of grammar and the latter referring to work that requires the integration of linguistic insights with those from other disciplines. Would you agree that this distinction should be made?

Prof. Noam Chomsky: Individuals can choose their own research interests and projects. Clearly, however, the domain of “strong” biolinguistics, as defined, can be pursued only to the extent that “linguistic insights”—that is “properties of grammar”—have been developed sufficiently to be combined and integrated. Same quite generally, whatever the specific domain of inquiry: vision (as David Marr famously discussed; see Marr 1982/2010), insect communication, any other. Again, I don’t see any issues.

10.

Dr. Patrick C. Trettenbrein: When re-reading many of Eric Lenneberg’s publications as preparation for this project it seemed to me that he probably would have agreed with the rather critical assessment that a true integration of linguistics and biology is still missing and that generative grammar has kind of “hijacked” the label biolinguistics. Obviously, there was a clear gap between linguistics and biology in Lenneberg’s days and there still is today. Was he generally optimistic about an eventual integration of linguistics and biology? And are you yourself still optimistic about that, respectively do you think we are now closer to a “real biolinguistics” than 50 years ago?

Prof. Noam Chomsky: As noted, I don’t understand the “hijacking” issue. Surely a lot has been learned about the biology of language—biolinguistics—in the past 50 years. I don’t know what a “real biolinguistics” is any more than what a real biology of vision is. There is increasing understanding of the topics. What more can we expect?

11.

Dr. Patrick C. Trettenbrein: I admit that “hijacking” may be a bit strong of a term. Still, I actually had a quote by Lenneberg in mind. He wrote that

nothing is gained by labeling the propensity for language as biological unless we can use this insight for new research directions—unless more specific correlates can be uncovered. (Lenneberg 1964: 76)

I suppose you would say that generative grammar offers the “new research directions” and that’s why the issue doesn’t even arise?

Prof. Noam Chomsky: When a language is understood as a biological object, as in generative grammar (an I-language in contemporary terminology), then certain questions arise directly:

• How is language acquired?

• What is its neural basis?

• How did it evolve?

• How is it used?

Such questions cannot be formulated in any clear form if language is regarded as some kind of community property—say, a “sort of contract” in a community (Saussure) or “the totality of utterances made in a speech community” (Bloomfield). Accordingly, though not entirely neglected, such questions could be pursued only in limited ways in terms of such conceptions.

Furthermore, as noted earlier, it is virtual truism that such questions can be pursued seriously only to the extent that the properties of these biological objects are understood. It is not controversial that these “new research directions” have been developed in highly productive ways within the general “biolinguistic framework” that generative grammar adopted from its origins.

采访人物简介

Noam Chomsky

诺姆·乔姆斯基，麻省理工学院荣休教授、亚利桑那大学桂冠教授，享誉世界的著名语言学家、认知科学家、政治批评家、伟大的思想家、哲学家、历史学家，是现代语言学史上被引用最多的学者。自20世纪50年代起，他的研究彻底改变了语言学领域，将语言视为一种人类特有的、基于生物遗传属性的认知能力。他将语法按照生成能力分为0-型语法、1-型语法、2-型语法、3-型语法四种类型，并规定了不同类型语法之间的层级关系，这被称之为“乔姆斯基等级”。这一理论目前仍是计算机科学中的有机组成部分。通过对语言学和多个相关领域的贡献（包括认知思维科学、形式科学、人脑科学和人工智能等），乔姆斯基引领了一场持续至今的“认知革命”，启发和催生了包括“生物语言学”在内的多个语言学分支学科的产生和发展。乔姆斯基也因此被认为是“第二次认知革命”的代表人物、“语言学界的爱因斯坦”。

Brief Introduction of Interviewee

Noam Chomsky, an Emeritus professor of MIT and Laureate professor of the University of Arizona, is a distinguished linguist, cognitive scientist, political critic, a great thinker, philosopher, historian and the most cited living scholar in modern linguistic history. His work from the 1950s revolutionized the field of linguistics by regarding language as a kind of human specific, biological genetic properties based cognitive ability. He classified grammars into four types: Type-0 grammars, Type-1 grammars, Type-2 grammars and Type-3 grammars, and specified a containment hierarchy of classes of formal grammars, which is called the "Chomsky hierarchy". This theory is still an integral part of computer science. Through his contributions to linguistics and related fields, including cognitive science, formal science, brain science and artificial intelligence, Chomsky helped to initiate and sustain what came to be known as the “cognitive revolution”. It inspired and promoted the emergence and development of multiple linguistic branches including Biolinguistics. He is therefore considered as the leading figure of “the Second Cognitive Revolution” and as the ‘Einstein’ in Linguistics. 

采访者简介

Patrick C. Trettenbrein

Patrick C. Trettenbrein，德国认知科学家，德国莱比锡马克斯·普朗克人类认知与脑科学研究所Angela D. Friederici实验室研究员。主要研究兴趣为语言的神经生物学，关注大脑中语言计算的模态依赖性。

Brief Introduction of Interviewer

Patrick C. Trettenbrein is a German cognitive scientist, working in the lab of Angela D. Friederici at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany. His main research interest is the neurobiology of language, focusing on the modality (in-)dependence of linguistic computations in the brain.

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