Viatcheslav B. Kachkine (Voronezh Technical University)

ASPECTS of METALINGUISTIC ACTIVITY  

It is well known that one of the first to pinpoint the scope of metalinguistics was Roman O. Jacobson ¹ . The metalinguistic function focuses on the use of the code (language). It is displayed in the professional activity of linguists, on the one hand, and in the metalanguage activity of ‘naive’ users, on the other. The latter side of metalinguistic activity is, in a manner of speaking, primary, moreover, the professional linguist, by virtue of the well known border paradox between the subject and the object in the so-called ‘humanitarian knowledge’, does not cease to be a naive user himself. It adds to an increasing interest in studying the human metalinguistic activity in a domain traditionally considered to be the object of official linguistics. At the same time, the naive language user always acts as the subject investigating (and creating) language. In this respect there is a point in speaking not so much of the metalinguistic function of language, as of the metalanguage activity of the human subject (meta-languaging, to paraphrase H.Maturana’s terminology ² ), who carries out this function.

The metalinguistic component is singled out as one of those components of language activity that exercise an essential influence upon its organization and flow. On the one hand, there is an embedded metalinguistic mechanism displaying itself, in particular, in the fact that any unit of language is a model of itself and a number of similar units ³ . Anyhow, metalanguage activity is also carried out in a more explicit manner: from clearly expressed "personal theories" of language study ⁴  and activity, to less obvious beliefs concerning the essence and the character of language units and actions – mythologemes of language activity.

As well as any other activity, metalanguage activity is governed by dynamic stereotyped patterns, which form a mythological picture of the life of language and of the life in language as environment ⁵ . Mythologemes of linguistic activity do not so much describe language from the point of view of naive science, as evoke a certain attitude in the users’ memory. They symbolize certain patterns of repeated actions and strategies of behavior. In essence, there are no distinctions in the way such systems are organized, both in ‘naive’ and in ‘professional’ science ⁶ . It is possible to distinguish the following characteristic features of such systems: intersubjectivity; Vermittler function; symbolic character, reality for the included observer ⁷ ; metaphorical nature; behavioral relevance; the function of integrating separate stages into one action; coordination of actions. The absolute majority of definitions given to the notion of myth in dictionaries and encyclopaedias enumerate practically the same traits, together with the characteristic of narrativity with traditional myths. As for everyday concepts of language, they are ‘dispersed’ to a greater extent, and usually not overtly expressed. At the same time, it is essential for understanding human language activity to disclose the mechanisms of their action. Proficiency in foreign language study depends not only upon the assiduousness of the learner and on well-described rules, but also upon those elements of his tacit knowledge (Wittgenstein’s term), which predetermine his strategy and tactics in manipulating with language: does he expect each word to have a certain meaning, or he admits polysemy; does he expect isomorphic correlation between the native and the foreign language systems or he admits variance, etc. Success in intercultural contacts depends to a great extent also on prejudices about "beautiful", "difficult", "easy", "highly-developed", etc. languages.

The widespread opinion that language by itself is a mythological system may probably also be true, otherwise speaking it is a system of symbols designating not just the objects of the external world, but certain patterns of attitude towards them and of manipulation with them, patterns that serve to organize human behavior. Besides the mythological nature of words in language, one can also distinguish mythologemes of general systemic and procedural character, without which language would not be able to exist and to be executed, those mythologemes that constitute the language game as such: the "thingness" of words and the natural finality of their meanings ⁸ . The mythological character of the users’ attitude to the words of language comes to light at change of roles: the included observer who is placed within the limits of the circle of language (following Humboldt’s metaphor) changes his role to that of a meta-observer. The included observers exchange several words, give one's word, take one’s words for granted, accept words of apology, exchange information, as though they dealt with things. For a meta-observer each word can be presented as a process both in the phonetic, and in the semantic plane, as an interaction of intentions and inferences, of various choice factors ⁹ , and of various historically and situationally motivated interpretations.

The negative influence of mythologemes on language activity is associated with the swap of positions and temporary moments of the actual language process. The positions of an included observer (user) and that of a meta-observer are essentially opposite, however the contemporary language teaching paradigm, which in modern culture bases upon the descriptive-prescriptive approach offers training on the example of already written (told) another person's texts, while in real language process we deal with a multifactor situation of choice and with multiplicity of interpretations. Many mythologemes in language teaching are formed on the basis (or bias) of the mechanistic determinism not only of everyday knowledge, but also that of school grammars. Such are, for example, the mythologeme of contextual determinism (the authors of grammar exercises provide the learner with a concept of the strict contextual determinedness of the chosen form); the mythologeme of situational determinism (the conceptual situation is substituted with the outer-world one, sometimes it is even suggested to measure real time with the help of a clock or a watch, so as to motivate the use of this or that verbal form); the monolinguistic mythologeme (the relations within one’s mother tongue are extrapolated onto a foreign language: Why do these strange Englishmen have so many verbal forms; do they really use every one them? – fragment from an interview); the mythologeme of naive naturalism (But you see, bread – is just bread, and what have they thought up – du pain! – example quoted by prof. E.D.Panfilov from St.Petersburg University); the monosemy mythologeme (The English language is difficult, because all words in it have many meanings. And in the Russian language all words have one definite meaning – from an interview), etc.

Metalanguage activity provides an extensive field of research, however there are a number of spheres within this field, where the knowledge about language of a various degree of explicitness is rather obvious:

• • “folk wisdom”: mythological and proto-scientific conceptions of language expressed in proverbs, sayings, tales (for example, Call me a pot but heat me not – a Russian saying – as an illustration of the arbitrariness principle of the sign), and being expressed, for example in “letters to the editor” concerning correctness and violation of language norms, purity and rottenness of language and the like;
  • “poetic wisdom”: bits of implicit knowledge about language in poetry and prose (for example, Pushkin’s What’s in my name to you? and Shakespeare’s What's in a name? as different approaches to semiotic principles of nomination) and explicit deliberations of poets and writers on the topic of language and language processes (for example Mayakovsky’s How to write verses, Dante’s De vulgari eloquentia etc.);
  • teacher’s and students’ knowledge acquired during learning both their native and a foreign language; there are also two layers, at least, which can be observed here: explicit knowledge received as a result of self-contemplation, language awareness, – and implicit knowledge, of which there is no direct awareness, mythological knowledge. One should not forget knowledge in the usual sense, i.e. knowledge received from an external source, typical for a given culture (for example, from the textbook) ¹⁰ ;
  • intercultural knowledge which is obtained from observing situations of language contacts and contrasts (the opposition of we and they, their and our language, sociopolitical impacts of such oppositions);
  • professional sphere of knowledge and observation of the people concerned with the use of language in their job and everyday life: interpreters, polyglots and bilinguals, teachers, journalists, advertisers, public speakers, PR-men, public figures, diplomats etc.;
  • "negative material" of mistakes, slips of the tongue, connected not only with the interference of systems and norms, but also with the metalanguage competence of the language user.

One could name more mythologemes, rendering negative influence on the process of language acquisition or on communication, as well as more spheres of "naive" knowledge. However it is evident that a systematic study of proto-scientific and implicit knowledge of language should bring its contribution both to understanding the essence of language activity, and to the task of optimizing linguistic technologies (in language teaching, mass communication etc.).

Bibliography and notes:

1 Jacobson R. Linguistics and poetics // Structuralism: "for" and "against". M.: "Nauka", 1975. Pp. 193-230.

2 Maturana H. The Nature of Time. 1995. http://www.inteco.cl/nature_of_time.htm/.

3 Cf. the example given by Roland Barthes: quia ego nominor leo as an actual sentence, and as an example in the grammar book: Barthes R.. Le mythe, aujourd'hui // Selected works. Semiotics. Poetics. M.: Progress; Univers, 1994. Pp. 79-81.

4 Dufva H. Everyday knowledge of language: a dialogical approach to awareness // FINLANCE. 1994. Vol. XIV. Pp. 22-49. http://www.jyu.fi/~dufva/

5 Cf.: Gasparov B.M. (1996). Language, Memory, Image. A Linguistics of Language Existence. M.: NLO, 1996. Pp. 5-6, 42-51.

6 It is common practice to name "professional" systems of mythologemes, after the works of Th.Kuhn, "paradigms". Cf.: Nalimov V.V, Drogalina Zh.A. The Reality of the Unreal. M., 1995. Pp. and other works by V.V.Nalimov. Nalimov V.V. Space, Time, and Life. The Probabilistic Pathways of Evolution. Ed. Robert G. Colodny. Philadelphia: ISI Press, 1985. Nalimov, VV, In the Labyrinths of Language: A Mathematician's Journey. Ed. Robert G. Colodny. Philadelphia: ISI Press, 1985. http://www.cc.emory.edu/INTELNET/rus_thinkers_gallery_20_2.html
A.F.Losev also wrote that "science does not exist without myth, science is always mythological": Losev A.F. The Dialectics of Myth // Myth – Number – Essence. M.: Mysl, 1994. P. 20.

7 Losev A.F. Op. cit. Pp. 9-10: "from the point of view of mythological consciousness itself... myth is the brightest and the most genuine reality". c
http://www.cc.emory.edu/INTELNET/rus_thinkers_gallery.html

8 A.Blinov, in particular, names language communication "the game of the meaningfulness of sounds": Blinov A.L. Communication. Sounds. Sense: On one problem of the analytical philosophy of language. M.: Russian phenomenological society, 1996. Pp. 9, 270-272.

9 Kashkin V.B. Choice Factors in Translation // Target. 1998. 10:1. Pp. 95-98, 109-110. http://www.cogprints.soton.ac.uk/ling/199807006

10 Dufva H., M. Lahteenmaki. What people know about language: A dialogical view // Zeitschrift fur Fremdsprachenforschung. 1996. Band 7. Heft 2. S. 121-136.

 Originally published in: Lexicon and lexicography. A collection of articles. / Yu. G. Korotkikh, A.M.Shakhnarovich, Eds. – Vol. 10. - M.: Institute of linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, 1999. Pp. 64-68.