语言导论

　　《语言导论（2020版）/新经典高等学校英语专业系列教材》：4.6 Rousseau and Herder's reflective theoryRousseau and Herder （1966） proposed an alternative view of language in a clear philosophical argument-the reflective theory of language origin.In their work, Rousseau and Herder stated that, "Man must come endowed with reason and hence endowed with language：' （1966： 127） To put it in another way, language is the twin brother of reasoning; the two were born together. To argue which comes before is to argue if the egg comes before chicken or vice versa. Just as by instinct the bee hums as it sucks and the bird sings as it nests, human beings are born with the capacity to reflect. Language began in silent reflection.According to Rousseau and Herder's observation, animals have keener senses than humans because the former have narrower sphere than the latter. The bee, for example, in its hive builds with a wisdom that a mother could not teach her children; but away from these cells and away from its predetermined activity in the cells, the bee is nothing. Human beings' activities are more varied, their attention more diffuse. Humans have senses for all things, big and small, near and far, present and absent. As a result, their sense for each one is weaker and duller. The narrower the sphere of an animal is, the less its need for language is. On the other hand, the more extensive the sphere of an animal is, the more differentiated its senses are, and the more its need for language is.Gradually human's organ evolved to the stage at which it was possible to produce sophisticated speech. But the organ doesn't cause speech to happen. According to Rousseau and Herder, even a mute person, as long as he/she reflects, has language lying in his/her soul.Rousseau and Herder were fully against the nature theory. They claimed that language is not a scream of emotions, nor an imitation of natural sounds. Birds can imitate very well, but they do not have a language. Nor is language an agreement of society, for the savage and the hermit living alone in the forest would also have had to invent a language for himself, even though he might never speak it. Language is rather a necessary agreement of the human soul with itself. It is human's reflective capacity that causes language to develop. Since the use of reason is natural to human, the use of language must be so as well.Rousseau and Herder also argued against the divine origin. As is mentioned earlier, they held the view that human beings are endowed with the twin capacities of language and reasoning. Even if there were a divine origin of language, human must have the ability to think clearly in order to be able to acquire the first syllable of divine instruction. What is more likely is that when human conceived the first clear thought, language was already present in his/her soul, being there through his/her own resources and not invented through divine instruction. Likewise, parents could never teach their children language without the children, by themselves, inventing language along with them. In other words, parents only facilitate and promote the language acquisition process for their children.……