限于版权 课堂演示中出现的某些材料并未得以显示 This class today is about language.
今天我们要讲的是语言 And language is, to a large extent, where the action is.
很大程度上来说 语言就是行为 The study of human language
人类语言的研究 has been the battleground over different theories of human nature.
是各种人性理论的重要领域 So, every philosopher or psychologist
因此 无论是哲学家 心理学家 or humanist or neuroscientist
人类学家 还是神经系统学家 who has ever thought about people
只要他们曾经研究过人类 has had to make some claim about the nature of language and how it works.
便会就语言的特性及其功能提出某些理论 I'm including here people like
我所说的这些学者包括了 Aristotle and Plato, Hume,
亚里士多德 柏拉图 休莫 Locke, Freud and Skinner.
洛克 弗洛依德以及斯金纳 I'm also including modern-day approaches
而这些理论则包括了 to computational theory, cognitive neuroscience, evolutionary theory
计算理论 认知神经科学 进化论 and cultural psychology.
以及文化心理学的诸多当代理论 If you hope to make it with theory of what people are
如果你想要理解关于人类本质 and how people work,
及其行为模式的理论 you have to explain and talk about language.
就必须得探讨并解释语言 In fact, language is sufficiently interesting that,
事实上 语言是非常有意思的 unlike most other things I'll talk about in this class,
与本门课上探讨的其他主题不同 there is an entier field devoted to this study
对它的研究形成了一个完整的专业 the field of linguistics
即语言学专业 that is entirely devoted to studying
这个专业致力于研究各种语言的 the nuances and structures of different languages.
细微差异及其结构 Now, I'll first, before getting into details, make a definitional point.
在详细讨论之前 我想首先下一个定义 When I'm talking about language
当我谈到语言时 I'm meaning systems like English and Dutch
我指的是诸如英语 荷兰语 and Warlpiri and Italian and Turkish
沃皮利语 意大利语 土耳其语 and Urdu
乌尔都语这样的语言系统 and what we've seen and heard right now in class in the demonstration
以及我们在正式上课之前的课堂演示中 that preceded the formal lecture.
所看到和听到的语言系统 Now, you could use language in a different sense.
现在 你可以应用另一种意义上的语言 You could use the term "Language" to describe
在此意义上 "语言"可以被用来描述 what dogs do,
狗儿在干什么 or what chimpanzees do,
黑猩猩在干什么 or birds.
或是鸟儿在干什么 You could use language to describe music,
也可用来描述音乐 talk about the--a musical language
即音乐语言 or art,
或是去描述艺术 or any communicative system,
或任何的交流系统 and there's actually nothing wrong with that.
都是没问题的 There's no rule
因为并没有什么 about how you're supposed to use the word "Language."
关于应当如何运用"语言"一词的规定 But the problem is
但问题是 if you use the word "Language" impossibly, incredibly broadly,
如果你无限宽泛地使用"语言"一词 then from a scientific point of view
那么从科学的角度来看 it becomes useless to ask interesting questions about it.
探究语言就变得毫无意义了 If language can refer to just about everything
如果语言能够表示一切 from English to traffic signals,
从英语到交通信号 then we're not going to be able to find interesting generalizations
那我们就无法得出各种有趣的概论 or do good science about it.
或是无法对语言进行科学的研究 So, what I want to do is,
因此 我想做的是 I want to discuss the scientific notion of language,
我想来谈谈语言的科学定义 at first restricting myself
首先我会将自己限定在 to systems like English and Dutch and American sign language
诸如英语 荷兰语 美国手语 and Navajo and so on.
或迪瓦霍语等语言系统之下 Once we've made some generalizations
一旦我们在狭义上 about language in this narrow sense,
得出了某些关于语言的概论 we could then ask, and we will ask,
那我们就可以发问 to what extent
诸如动物交流系统之类的其他系统 do other systems such as animal communication systems
会在多大程度上 relate to this narrower definition.
符合这个狭隘的定义呢 So we could ask,
我们可以发问 in this narrow sense, what properties do languages have
从狭义上说 语言拥有何种特性 and then go on to ask,
然后我们可以接着发问 in a broader sense,
从广义上说 what other communicative systems also possess those properties.
哪些其他的交流系统也同样拥有那些特性 Well, some things are obvious about language
有些关于语言的知识非常明显 so here are some; here are the questions we will ask.
这是我们将会提到的的一些问题 This will frame our discussion today.
我们今天就主要来讨论这些问题 We'll first go over some basic facts about language.
我们将首先温习一些语言的基本事实 We'll talk about what languages share,
我们将会谈及各种语言的共性 we'll talk about how language develops,
谈及语言的发展 and we'll talk about language and communication in nonhumans.
以及非人类的语言交流 I began this class with a demonstration of
我用一段演示来开始今天的课 --that illustrates two very important facts about language.
这段演示阐述了语言非常重要的两个事实 One is that languages all share
其一是 所有语言都共享 some deep and intricate universals.
一些深层且复杂的共性 In particular, all languages, at minimum,
尤其是所有的语言都至少 are powerful enough to convey an abstract notion like this;
能够有效地表达抽象概念 abstract in the sense
在某种意义上来说 that it talks about thoughts
抽象概念能够表达思想 and it talks about a proposition and spatial relations in objects.
能够表述物体的位置与空间关系 There's no language in the world
世界上并不存在 that you just cannot talk about abstract things with.
无法谈论抽象概念的语言 Every language can do this.
所有语言都可以 But the demonstration also illustrated another fact about language,
但这个演示也阐明了语言的另一个事实 which is how different languages are.
即语言如何不同 They sound different.
两个事实听上去是不同的 If you know one language,
如果你掌握了一种语言 you don't necessarily know another.
你就不需要再去掌握其他的语言了 It's not merely that you can't understand it.
不仅是因为你不能理解另外一种语言 It could sound strange or look unusual in the case of a sign language.
比如说手语看上去会很奇怪或是异常 And so, any adequate theory of language
因此 任何完善的语言理论 has to allow for both the commonalities and the differences across languages.
都必须谈及不同语言间的共性和差异 And this is the puzzle faced by
这也是心理学和语言认知学 the psychology and cognitive science of language.
所面临的难题 Well, let's start with an interesting claim
我以达尔文提出的 about language made by Charles Darwin.
一个有趣的语言观点来作为开始 So, Darwin writes,
查尔斯·达尔文写到 "Man has an instinctive tendency to speak,
"人类拥有说话的本能倾向 as we see in the babble of our young children,
我们会看到幼儿含糊吐字 while no child has an instinctive tendency
然而儿童却并不具有烘焙 to bake, brew or write."
酿酒或是写作的本能倾向" And what Darwin is claiming here,
达尔文在此所表达的观点 and it's a controversial and interesting claim,
极具争议而又非常有趣 is that language is special
这个观点认为 语言之所以特殊 in that there's some sort of propensity or capacity or instinct
是因为总有某些倾向 能力或本能 for language unlike the other examples he gives.
使得语言与他所举的其他例子有所不同 Not everything comes natural to us
我们的一切并非都是天生的 but Darwin suggests that language does.
但达尔文却认为 语言是与生俱来的 Well, why should we believe this?
我们为什么要相信他的观点呢 Well, there are some basic facts that support Darwin's claim.
达尔文的观点得到了一些基本事实的支持 For one thing, every normal... every human society has language.
举例来说 所有人类社会都拥有语言 In the course of traveling, cultures encounter other culture
在旅行过程中 文化与文化相互碰撞 and they often encounter cultures
而人们通常则会遇到 that are very different from their own.
与其自身所处文化截然不同的另一些文化 But through the course of human history,
但在人类历史的进程中 nobody has ever encountered another group of humans
还没有人曾经遇到过 that did not have a language.
没有语言的人类族群 Does this show that it's built in?
这是否表明语言就是天生的呢 Well, not necessarily. It could be a cultural innovation.
未必 可能只是文化创新而已 It could be, for instance,
比如说 可能只是因为 that language is such a good idea
语言是一个非常棒的创新 that every culture comes across it and develops it.
所有文化都接受了它 并且发展了它 Just about every culture uses some sort of utensils to eat food with,
几乎所有的文化都会使用某些餐具 a knife and a fork, chopsticks, a spoon.
刀叉 筷子 勺子 This probably is not because
之所以都用餐具 use of eating utensils is human nature,
并不是因为使用餐具是人类本性 but rather, it's because it's just a very useful thing
而是因为 所有文化都不断发现 that cultures discover over and over again.
餐具非常的实用 Well, we know that this probably is not true with regard to language.
我们知道 语言可能并不是这个情况 And one reason we know this
我们之所以这样认为 is because of the demonstrated case studies
是因为有许多的个案研究 where a language is created within a single generation.
都证明了一代人之内是可以创造出语言的 And these case studies have happened over history.
这些个案研究曾在历史上得到多次验证 The standard example is people involved in the slave trade.
典型案例就是奴隶交易中的人们 The slave trade revolving around tobacco or cotton
为了获得烟草 棉花 or coffee or sugar
咖啡 或糖块的奴隶交易 would tend to mix slaves and laborers
会将来自不同语言背景的奴隶 from different language backgrounds,
和劳动者们混在一起 in part deliberately,
这也在某种程度上 so as to avoid the possibility of revolt.
谨慎地避免了可能的造反 What would happen is these people who were enslaved from different cultures
这些来自不同文化的被奴役的个体 would develop a makeshift communication system
会创造出一种临时的交流系统 so they could talk to one another.
以便他们之间能够互相交流 And this is called a "Pidgin," P-I-d-g-I-n, a pidgin.
这就是所谓的"混杂语言" And this pidgin was how they would talk.
他们会使用这种混杂语言来进行交流 And this pidgin was not a language.
而实际上混杂语言并不是一种语言 It was strings of words borrowed
它只不过是从身边的不同语言当中 from the different languages around them
借用了一些单词串 and put together in sort of haphazard ways.
以随意的方式将它们放在一起 The question is what happens to the children
问题是在这种社会中长大的儿童 who are raised in this society.
究竟会怎样 And you might expect it that they would come to speak a pidgin,
你可能会以为他们也将学会这种混杂语言 but they don't.
但事实并非如此 What happens is, in the course of a single generation,
实际情况是 在一代人的时间里 they develop their own language.
他们创造出了属于自己的语言 They create a language
他们用丰富的语法 语态和语音 with rich syntax and morphology and phonology,
创造出一种语言 terms that we'll understand in a few minutes.
我们马上会来讲这些术语的 And this language that they create is called a "Creole."
他们创造的这种语言被称为克利奥尔语 And languages that we know now as creoles,
而这些叫做克利奥尔语的语言 the word refers back to their history.
再次说明了它们的历史 That means that they were developed from pidgins.
就是说 它们是由混杂语言发展而来的 And this is interesting because this suggests
这一点很有意思 因为这表明 that to some extent
从某种程度上来说 the ability to use and understand and learn language
语言的使用 理解以及学习能力 is part of human nature.
是人类本性的一部分 It doesn't require an extensive cultural history.
它无需深远的文化史 Rather, just about any normal child,
甚至 任何一个普通的小孩 even when not exposed to a full-fledged language,
即使并未接触过成熟的语言环境 can create a language.
也可以创造语言 And more recently, there's been case studies of children
而近期更有些关于儿童学习手语的 who acquire sign language.
个案研究 There's a wonderful case
研究者在尼加拉瓜曾做过 in Nicaragua in sign language
一个精彩的手语个案研究 where they acquire sign language from adults
儿童们从本身并不熟悉手语的成年人那里 who themselves are not versed in sign language.
习得手语 They're sort of second-language learners struggling along.
他们艰难的学习着第二语言 What you might have expected would be
你可能会认为儿童会使用 the children would then use whatever system their adults use,
成人所使用的语言系统 but they don't.
但事实并非如此 They "Creolized" it.
他们将语言克利奥尔化 They take this makeshift communication system developed by adults
他们继承了成人发展出来的临时交流系统 and, again, they turn it
将这个临时交流系统 into a full-blown language,
再次发展成一种成熟的语言 suggesting that to some extent
这表明从某种程度上来说 it's part of our human nature to create languages.
创造语言是我们人类本性的一部分 Also, every normal human has language.
每个正常的人类也都拥有语言 Not everybody in this room can ride a bicycle.
在座各位并不都会骑自行车 Not everybody in this room can play chess.
在座各位并不都会下国际象棋 But everybody possesses at least one language.
但每个人都至少掌握了一种语言 And everybody started to possess
每个人从儿童时代开始 at least one language when they were a child.
便至少掌握了一种语言 There are exceptions,
也有些例外 but the exceptions come about
但只是由于某些脑损伤 due to some sort of brain damage.
这些例外才得以出现 Any neurologically normal human
任何神经上正常的人类 will come to possess a language.
都能够掌握一种语言 What else do we know?
我们还知道些什么呢 Well, the claim that language is part of human nature
语言是人类本性的一部分的这个观点 is supported by neurological studies,
得到了神经研究的支持 some of which were referred to in the chapters on the brain
在之前大家阅读的关于大脑的章节中 that you read earlier that talk about dedicated parts of the brain
对专门负责语言功能脑区的探讨 that work for language.
就描述了其中的一些研究 And if parts of these brains--if parts
如果这些脑区 --if these parts of the brain are damaged
如果这些脑区受到损伤 you get language deficits or aphasias
那就会患上各种语言障碍或失语症 where you might lose the ability to understand or create language.
就是说可能会失去理解或创造语言的能力 More speculatively, there has been some fairly recent work
更具体的来说 studying the genetic basis of language,
一些最新的语言遗传基础研究 looking at the genes that are directly responsible
探查了直接影响语言学习 for the capacity to learn and use language.
及使用能力的基因 And one bit of evidence that these genes are implicated
证明这些基因起作用的一些证据 is that some unfortunate people
是这些基因会在某些不幸的人身上 have point mutations in these genes.
发生点突变 And such people are unable to learn and use language.
这些人无法学习和使用语言 So, in general,
总的来说 there is some support,
语言在某种意义上 at least at a very broad level,
是人类本性一部分的这个观点 for the claim that language is in some sense
至少在一般性水平上 part of human nature.
得到了一些支持 Well, what do we mean by language?
那么 我们所说的语言到底是什么意思 What are we talking about
当我们讨论语言时 when we talk about language?
我们到底在讲些什么 We don't want to restrict ourselves,
比如 我们并不想把自己 for instance, to English or French.
只局限于英语或法语 What do all languages share?
所有语言都拥有什么共性呢 Well, all languages are creative
所有语言都是具有创造性的 and this means a couple of things.
这表达了几层含义 One meaning is the meaning emphasized by Rene Descartes.
其中一层便是勒奈·笛卡尔所强调的含义 When Rene Descartes argued that we are more than merely machines,
勒奈·笛卡尔提出人类不只是机器的时候 his best piece of evidence for him was the human capacity for language.
他最有力的证据便是人类的语言能力 No machine could do this
机器并不具备语言能力 because our capacity for language
因为我们的语言能力 is unbounded and free.
是不受控制的 是自由的 We could say anything we choose to say.
我们可以说任何想说的话 We have free will.
我们拥有自由意志 And in fact, language allows us
事实上 语言使得我们能够 to produce a virtual infinity of sentences.
创造出近乎无限的句子 So, we could create and understand sentences
因此 我们能够创造和理解 that we never heard before.
那些我们未曾听过的句子 And there are a lot of sentences.
这样的句子非常的多 So, if you want to estimate
如果你想估计一下 how many grammatical sentences
用二十个英文单词 under twenty words in English,
可以组成多少个符合语法的句子 the answer is, "A lot."
答案会是 "很多" And what this means is
这也就意味着 that any theory of language use and language comprehension
任何语言使用和语言理解的理论 cannot simply appeal to a list.
都无法列出一份句子的清单 When you understand a sentence I said
当你在理解我所说的一句话时 you have to have the capacity to understand a sentence
你必须要拥有理解这句话的能力 even if you've never heard it before.
即使你在之前从未听到过这句话 And this is because we could effortlessly produce and understand sentences
这是因为我们可以毫不费力地创造和理解 that no human has ever said before on earth.
那些世上从未有人说过的句子 Would anybody volunteer to say a sentence,
有没有人自愿说个句子 non obscene, non derogatory,
不能是下流的 不敬的 that has never been spoken before on earth, ever?
得是世上从未有人说过的句子 Here. I'll start.
我先来说一个吧 "It's surprisingly easy to get a purple tie on eBay
"如果你不是很在意质量的话 if you don't care much about quality."
那么在易趣买条紫色领带是非常容易的" I could imagine no one else in the world has said this before.
我可以想象此前世上并无他人说过这话 "I am upset
无法从iTunes上 that one cannot easily download
轻松下载《吸血猎人巴菲》 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' through iTunes."
让我感到很失望 Now it's possible somebody said both these sentences before,
有可能某人曾说过这两句话 but you probably have not heard them.
可你们却并没听到过 But you understand them immediately.
但是你们马上就理解了句子的意思 So, how do you do it?
你是怎么做到的呢 Well, you have rules in your head.
在你的头脑中有许多的规则 You've learnt what the words mean,
虽然你已经知道了这些单词的意思 but you have abstract and unconscious rules
但却是你所拥有的抽象且无意识的规则 that take these words, figure out the order,
让你认清单词 确认语序 and in a fraction of a second, give rise to understanding.
然后在一瞬间让你理解整个句子 And that's the sort of thing linguists study.
这就是语言学家们所研究的内容 So, take some standard examples from the linguistic study of English.
举一些英语语言学研究的典型案例 And bear in mind the rules we're talking about here
记住 我们在这里所讨论的规则 are not rules you explicity know.
你无法明确地意识到 They're automatic rules of the same sort
这些自动的规则 we're going to talk about in the context of visual perception
和我们将要讨论的视觉感知是类似的 in that they're implicit and unconscious
因为它们都是内隐的 无意识的 and not accessible to explicit understanding.
也是无法清晰了解的 So for instance, immediately you read "The pig is eager to eat"
例如 你快速的阅读了"猪想吃东西" versus "The pig is easy to eat"
和"猪肉容易吃"这两句话 and in a fraction of a second you know
你在一瞬间就会懂得 there's an important difference.
这两句话之间是有很大区别的 "The pig is eager to eat"
"猪想吃东西" means the state of affairs that we're talking about
意思是我们在说猪吃东西 is when the pig does the eating.
这个事件的状态 "The pig is easy to eat" Is when the pig is being eaten.
"猪肉容易吃"则是在说猪被吃的时候 You would see a sentence like
你会看类似这样的句子 "Bill knew that John liked him"
"比尔知道约翰喜欢他" and you know, without even knowing how you know,
你都不知道你是如何理解这句话的 that this could mean that
但你却知道这句话是在说 Bill knew that John liked Bill
比尔知道约翰喜欢比尔 or it could mean that Bill knew that John liked Fred.
或是在说比尔知道约翰喜欢弗雷德 But it can't mean that Bill knew that John liked John.
但它的意思不会是比尔知道约翰喜欢约翰 The natural interpretation, in fact, is that
实际上 正常的解释就是 Bill knew that John liked Bill.
比尔知道约翰喜欢比尔 The two words co-refer.
这两个词互相指代 Contrast that with "Bill knew that John liked himself,"
而"比尔知道约翰喜欢他自己"这句话 which only has the meaning Bill knew that John liked John.
就只是意味着"比尔知道约翰喜欢约翰" And this is what linguists do for a living
这就是语言学家们研究的问题 so if you hear me talking about this and say,
如果你听了我的讲解然后说 "I want to spend the next forty years of my life studying that,"
"我想用我的余生来研究这些东西" you should become a linguist.
那你该去做一个语言学家 But that's the sort of--
而那些 those are the sort of phenomena that we're interested in.
而那些现象则正是我们所关心的 Now, it gets more complicated.
现在 问题变得更加复杂了 Those are examples from syntax,
这些例子都是从语法上来说的 but language has many structures.
但语言却是有很多结构的 Language has structures going from the bottom to the top.
语言拥有自下而上的结构 All languages--All human languages have phonology,
所有人类语言都拥有语音 which is the system of sounds or signs;
语音是声音或符号系统 morphology, which is the system of words or morphemes,
语态 也就是词或语素的系统 basic units of meaning
是意义的基本单位 and syntax, which refer to rules and principles
以及语法 是指将词和短语 that put together words and phrases into meaningful utterances.
组成有意义表达的规则和原则 And I want to talk briefly about each of these three parts of language
在探讨一些其他问题之前 before looking at some other issues.
我想简单的讲一下语言的这三个成分 I'm indebted here to Steven Pinker's excellent book
非常感谢史蒂芬·平克写了这本精彩的 The Language Instinct
《语言本能》一书 which provides, I think, a superb discussion of these phenomena.
我认为该书对这些现象进行了极好的讨论 And I'm going to steal some of my examples from Pinker.
我将会从平克那里借用一些例子 So, phonology.
先说语音 Phonology is the system of sounds that languages have.
语音是语言的声音系统 There's a subset.
它拥有一个子集 There's a list, a finite list, of possible sounds that language can use.
语言使用的可能声音列表是有限的 I'm going to put aside for the moment
我想暂时把手语 the question of sign languages and how they work.
及其如何作用的问题先放到一边 I'm going to talk about them in a little bit.
我会简单的讲下它们 The idea is that English has about forty of these phonemes.
英语拥有大约四十个音位 So, if you're a native monolingual speaker of English
如果你是英语母语的单语说话者 you hear speech
你听到一段演讲 and each sound you hear is categorized as
你所听到的每个声音 falling into one of those forty morphemes--sorry, phonemes.
都被归类为这四十个音位中的一个 So, for example, English has a phoneme of "Lu,"
例如 英语有"Lu" "L," and a phoneme of "R."
"L" 和"R"的音位 And so, an English speaker can hear the difference
所以 英语说话者可以听出 between "Lip" and "Rip"
"Lip"和"Rip"之间的差别 and that corresponds to two different words in English.
而这两种声音在英语中对应了不同的单词 Other languages don't have that distinction
其他语言并没有这样的差别 and so those distinctions are very difficult
所以非英语母语的说话者 for non-native English speakers to learn.
很难发现这些差别 So, part of what goes on when you learn,
因此你在学习语言时要做的一件事情便是 is you have to learn the language --the phonemes that your language has.
你必须学习你所学语言的各种音位 Another part of the problem of learning language is
学习语言的另一个问题是 you have to figure out what the boundaries are between the words.
你必须得确定单词之间的界线是什么 You have to use sound signals
你必须要用声音信号 to figure out the boundaries between the words.
来确定单词之间的界线 Now that--If the only language you've ever heard is English,
如果你只接触过英语 that's going to seem like a really weird example of a problem
那么刚才的问题就看上去非常奇怪了 because you're listening to me speak
因为你在听我讲话 and in between each of my words you're hearing a pause.
而你会在我所说的单词之间听到一个停顿 You don't have to be very smart to figure out
你并不需要非常聪明才能够确定 where one word begins and one word ends.
哪里是单词的开始和结束 But the pause is a psychological illusion.
但停顿只是一种心理错觉而已 If you were to just talk into an oscilloscope
如果你对着 that measured your sound vibrations,
测量声震的示波器讲话 there are no pauses between the words.
你会发现在单词间并没有停顿 Rather, the pauses are inserted by your mind
相反 停顿只是由你的心理活动插入的 as you already know where one word begins
因为你已经知道了一个单词的开始 and another one ends.
与另一个单词的结束在什么地方 And you insert a pause at that point.
然后你在这个点上插入停顿 You could see this
当你听到一种你从未听过的语言时 when you hear a language you don't already know.
你便会理解这个现象 So, for those of you who have never heard French before,
因此 对于那些从未听过法语的人来说 when you hear somebody say, "Je ne sais pas"
当你听到有人说 "我不知道" you could say, "Remarkable!
你可能会说 "太神奇了 French has no pauses between words."
法语在单词之间居然没有停顿 And you-- And now a French speaker, of course,
当然 讲法语的人听到"我不知道"时 hears "Je ne sais pas."
是会感觉到停顿的 For Hebrew, I know one sentence in Hebrew:
我知道一句希伯来语 "Sleecha, eypho ha-sheeruteem"
"请问 卫生间在哪里" which I think is a request for the bathroom.
我猜这话的意思是想去卫生间了 But if you don't know Hebrew
但如果你不会希伯来语 there's no pauses.
你就会觉得没有停顿 And the truth is, when you each gave your demonstrations,
事实上 当你们听到例句的时候 nobody spoke properly
没有人能正确地说出例句 because nobody spoke
因为本来就没人会说 -Here's the sentence:
比如这个句子 "Glorp fendel smug wuggle."
"快醒醒 疯狂 自满 拥抱" Rather, you all sounded like,
相反 你们都觉得这句话听起来像 "Blublublublublub" without any pauses
"啦啦啦" 并未感觉得到任何的停顿 because I don't know your languages.
因为我并不懂你的语言 Children come into the world without knowing any specific language
儿童出生时并不知道任何特定的语言 and so they have to learn pauses.
因此他们需要学会停顿 They have to learn to interpret sounds in context
他们必须学会通过上下文来判断声音 and sometimes they make mistakes.
有时他们会出现错误的情况 They get problems of segmentation.
他们会犯些分割句子的问题 And there are some illustrations.
这里有几个例子 You could see their mistakes
如果他们试图重复 if they're trying to repeat back something
被社会所熟知的某些东西 that's already known within a society.
那你就可以看到他们的错误了 So, songs are a good example.
歌曲是个不错的例子 These are excerpts from children.
这些歌词节选自儿童 "I'll never be your pizza burnin."
"我永远都不是你的披萨燃烧" Anybody know--figure out what that corresponds to?
谁知道这改编自哪首歌的歌词 Beast of burden?
驮畜 [滚石乐队经典歌曲] "Beast of burden." Very good.
"驮畜" 很好 "A girl with colitis goes by."
"一个患结肠炎的女孩从身边走过" Somebody?
有人知道吗 "A girl with kaleidoscope eyes."
"双眼如万花筒般绚烂的女孩" "The ants are my friends; they're blowin' in the wind."
"蚂蚁是我的朋友 它们在随风飘荡" And this is a religious one.
还有一句宗教的 "Our father with Bart in heaven;
"我们在天上的父和巴特 Harold be they name?
哈罗德是他们的名字吗 Lead us not into Penn Station?"
不让我们去佩恩车站" Now, phonological understanding illustrates all sorts of aspects
语音理解实际上说明了 of language processing and, in fact, of consciousness.
语言加工和意识的各个方面 Because remember I said that,
你们记得我之前说过 typically, when you hear a sentence
通常来说 当你听到一个句子时 you make --you manufacture in your mind
你会通过心理活动 gaps between the words.
在词与词之间创造出间隔 Typically, when there's something which is unclear
通常当你听到某些不清楚的单词时 you'll fill in the gap and figure out what the word is.
你会填入间隔 并确认那个词是什么 And you will hear it that way.
你就是以这种方式倾听句子的 So, the few examples--The best examples, again, are for when it goes wrong.
最好的例子还是出错的时候 So, a classic example
经典的例子 is from the song "Super Freak" By Rick James.
是瑞克·詹姆斯的"超级怪胎"这首歌 I got a big lecture about copyright laws
我上过一次关于版权法的课程 and this is going to violate most of them.
不过这就要违反大多数的版权法了 Rick James is going to be sitting on the--at--staring
等瑞克·詹姆斯两年后上网 at the web two years from now saying,
看到这个视频 会说 "Hey. That's my thing."
"嘿 这是我的歌" Okay. So, I want you to listen to this line.
好了 我希望你们来听听这句歌词 I'm sure most of you have heard this before
我相信你们中的大多数之前都听过这首歌 but I want you to listen closely.
但我还是希望你们能仔细的听听 What was that last line?
最后一句是什么 "The kind of girl you read about--"
"你所读到的女孩" Well, it turns out that nobody really knows.
结果没人知道究竟在说什么 And it sounds to many people who do top-down interpretation as
很多进行自上而下解释的人 也包括我 -to me as well,
都将它听为 that "She's the kind of girl you read about
"她是你在《新闻周刊》杂志上 in Newsweek magazine."
所读到的女孩" But that makes no sense at all
但你听到你不想"带回家给妈妈"的歌词 given that you don't want to "Bring home to Mama."
你会发现这完全说不通 And she's--and it's not the--and in fact,
而实际上 if you check the notes on the song,
如果你去看歌曲的附注 she's in fact,
实际上她是 "The kind of girl you read about in new wave magazines."
"你在《新潮流》杂志中所读到的女孩" Now, when you listen to it then, again,
当你再次听到这句话时 knowing that, you hear it that way.
你便知道 你是听到的是这个 Now, this top-down...this is known as "Top-down" Processing.
这就是"自上而下"的加工 Top-down processing is an example of
举例来说 自上而下加工就是 when you know what something is
当你知道某句话是什么的时候 you hear it that way.
你便会按照这句话去听 And this is extremely useful
当需要在声音中填入间隔时 when it comes to filling in gaps in sounds.
自上而下加工是非常有效的 In normal conversation, if I'm to say "S-- entence"
在正常对话中 如果我说"句-句子" you won't hear that as "S-- entence."
你不会听成"句--子" Rather, you hear "Sentence."
相反 你听到的是"句子" You fill in the gap.
你将间隔填补上了 This can lead to problems.
这可能会导致一些问题 The problem it's led to in my life
我在生活中遇到的问题 revolves around the song "Get Crunk"
与"玩旷课乐吧"这首歌有关 because I've heard "Get Crunk"
因为我听过这首歌 And my children asked me
我的孩子们问我能不能 if I would buy them "Get Crunk" from iTunes.
从iTunes上给他们下载这首歌 My children are eight and ten.
他们一个8岁 一个10岁 And now "Get Crunk," as I was aware from having heard it before,
我之前在听"玩旷课乐吧"时就发现 involves the consistent refrain of
这首歌的副歌部分包含了 "Get crunk" Extremely bad word, "Get crunk" Extremely bad word,
连续的不和谐歌词 and so I said "No."
因此我说"不行" And then they said, "Well, there's a clean version of it."
然后 他们说"这首歌有和谐版" So, I downloaded the clean version.
所以 我下载了和谐版 Unfortunately, knowing what the clean version--knowing what the word is
很遗憾 在知道了和谐版的歌词之后 means to me the clean version is not very clean.
我发现和谐版也不怎么和谐 Now, I will add, before people write letters and stuff,
在你们做笔记之前 我要告诉你们 this is the clean version.
我放的这个是和谐版的"玩旷课乐吧" Thank goodness they took away that obscene word.
谢天谢地他们把那些脏话都删掉了 So, top-down processing affects how we hear things,
所以 自上而下加工几乎总是 usually, almost always, for the better.
会往好的方向影响我们的理解 And in fact, this is a theme we're going to return to next class
实际上 我们下节课讲视觉的时候 when we talk about vision
还会再来讲讲这个主题 because the same thing is going to happen there.
因为自上而下加工也会出现在视觉活动中 How we see the world is often confusing and befuddled
我们所看到的世界充满了不解与困惑 but what we know can clear things up.
但我们的知识却能帮助我们拨开迷雾 Same with sound.
对于声音来说也是这样 Morphology is the next level up.
更高层次的成分是语态 Phonology is sounds. Morphology is words.
语音是声音 语态则是词 And human language uses this amazing trick
人类语言使用这些 described by Ferdinand de Saussure, the great linguist,
被语言学家费迪南德·德·索绪尔 as "The arbitrariness of the sign."
称之为"符号任意性"的神奇把戏 And what this means is
符号任意性是指 we can use --take any arbitrary idea in the world,
我们可以拿来世间任何想法 the idea of a chair or a story or a country,
比如椅子 故事 或是国家 and make a sound or a sign to connect to it.
再发明一种声音或符号来与之相联系 And the link is arbitrary.
这种联系是任意的 You might choose to use a word for "Dog" as "Woof woof"
你可以用"汪汪"这个词来表示"狗" because it sounds like a dog
因为它听起来像只狗 but you can't use a word for "Country"
但你却无法使用一个听起来像国家的词 that sounds like a country.
来表示"国家" You could use a sign language thing for "Drink"
你可以用看起来像喝这个动作的手语 that looks sort of like the act of drinking
来表示"喝" but you can't use a sign language word for "Country"
但你无法用看起来像国家的手语 that looks like a country,
来表示"国家" or for "Idea" that looks like an idea.
或用看起来像想法的手语来表示"想法" So, the way languages work is it allows for arbitrary naming.
所以 语言是允许任意命名的 It allows for this map between a symbol,
语言允许在符号 say a spoken word,
比如说出的一个词 and any sort of thought
与我们想要使用的任何想法之间 we want to use.
存在着这种映射关系 And those arbitrary mappings, as we come to learn them,
当我们掌握了这些任意映射时 make up the vocabulary of a language.
这些任意映射便组成了某种语言的词汇 I'm talking about words
我说的是词 but the more technical term is "Morpheme."
但更专业的术语则叫做"语素" And what a morpheme is is the smallest meaningful unit in a language.
语素是语言中最小的意义单位 Now often, this is the same thing as a word.
通常来说 语素和词是一样的 So, "Dog" is a word.
所以 "狗"是一个词 And "Dog" Is also a morpheme,
"狗"也是一个语素 but not always
但词和语素并不总是相同 because there are single morphemes
因为语素是独立的 and then there are words that are composed of many morphemes.
但词却可以由很多语素组成 So, "Dogs" and "Complained"
因此 "狗狗们"和"抱怨的" are one word, but two morphemes
都是由两个语素组成的单一词 and what this means is
这也就意味着 that you make the word by putting together two morphemes.
你将两个语素组合在一起成为了一个词 To put it differently, in order to know what "Dogs" means,
换个说法 为了知道"狗狗们"的意思 you never had to learn the word "Dogs."
你不需要去学"狗狗们"这个词 All you had to know is the word "Dog"
你只需知道"狗"这个词以 and the plural morpheme 's'
及复数语素'们' and you could put them together to create a word.
你可以将它们组合在一起来创造出一个词 How many morphemes does the average speaker know?
讲话者平均知道多少个语素呢 The answer is fairly startling.
答案相当惊人 The average speaker knows,
保守估计 as a low-ball estimate, about 60,000 words.
说话者平均知道大约六万个词 I think the proper estimate is closer to 80,000 or 100,000.
我认为正确的估计约为八万到十万个 What this means, if you average it out,
如果你将这个数字平均一下 这意味着 is that since children start learning their first words
儿童从一岁左右 at about their first year of life,
学习第一个词开始 they learn about nine new words a day.
每天学会九个新词 And it's not a continuous nine words every day.
并不是连续的每天学会九个词 It goes up and down depending on the age.
学会的词量随着年龄有所起伏 But still, the amount of words we know is staggering.
但我们所掌握的词量依然令人吃惊 How many of you know more than one language pretty fluently?
你们有多少人能熟练掌握不止一门语言 Those of you who know other languages
你们当中掌握其他语言的人 might have in your heads 200,000 words or 300,000 words
可能会在头脑中记住两万到三万个词 and you're accessing them in a fraction of a second.
你们能在瞬间运用它们 It is--could legitimately be seen
这可以被合理地看做 as one of the most astonishing things that people do.
是人类所做出的最惊人的事情 Finally, syntax.
最后一个成分是语法 So, we have the sound system of a language, the phonology.
语言拥有声音系统 也就是语音 We have the words of a language, the morphology,
语言也拥有词 即语态 but all that gives you is "Dog,"
但这些词只能让你知道 "狗" "Cup," "Chair," "House,"
"杯子" "椅子," "房子" "Story," "Idea."
"故事" "想法" That won't allow us to communicate complicated ideas.
我们无法用这些词来进行复杂的思想交流 So, the final step in the story is syntax.
所以语言的最后一个成分便是语法了 And syntax refers to those rules and principles
语法是指使我们将词组合成短语 that allow us to combine words into phrases and phrases into sentences.
以及将短语组合成句子的规则和原则 And syntax uses another neat trick,
语法使用了另一种神奇的把戏 this is defined by Wilhelm von Humboldt
威廉·冯·洪堡 as the "Infinite use of finite media."
将之定义为"有限域的无限应用" So, here's the question.
那么 问题就来了 Your vocabulary is finite.
你的词汇量是有限的 There are just so many words.
就只有那么多的词 You have to learn them one by one,
你必须一个个的去学习这些词 but you could produce a virtual infinity of sentences.
但你却可以创造出实际上无限的句子 How can you do that?
你是如何做到的呢 How can you go from a finite list of symbols
你如何使有限的符号 to an infinite number of sentences?
变成无限的句子 And the answer is you have a combinatorial system.
答案便是 你有一个组合系统 Now, language is not the only thing in culture or nature
语言并不是在文化或自然中 that has this sort of combinatorial system.
唯一拥有这种组合系统的事物 Music also has a combinatorial system.
音乐也拥有组合系统 There's a finite number of notes
音符的数量是有限的 but a limitless number of musical compositions.
但乐曲的数量却是无限的 DNA also has this sort of combinatorial system
脱氧核糖核酸也拥有这种组合系统 where you have a finite number of,
你的生物基础或氨基酸数量是有限的 I guess, bases or amino acids
但却能组合出 that could combine to a possible infinity of strings of DNA strings.
几乎无限的脱氧核糖核酸螺旋结构 So, how does this happen?
这是如何发生的呢 Well, the infinity mechanism,
这种无限机制是递归的 and many of you will be familiar with this
你们许多人会在数学与计算机科学中 from mathematics or computer science, is recursion.
熟悉这个词 And there's a lot to be said about this
要想解释清这一点还是比较费劲的 but it could be pretty simply illustrated in language.
但要用语言来说明就很简单了 So, here's an example of a simple language.
这里有个简单的语言例子 It's not--It's actually close to
这个例子和语言学家所描述的 how linguists describe normal languages,
正常语言非常接近 but it's very simple.
但却很简单 It has three nouns,
这个例子中有三个名词 "Fred," "Barney" and "Wilma,"
"弗雷德" "巴尼" "威尔玛" and two verbs, "Thinks" and "Likes."
两个动词 "觉得"和"喜欢" A very simple language. And one rule.
简单的语言 只有一条规则 And the way to read this rule
这个规则的内容是 is you make a sentence
你这样来创造一个句子 by taking a noun, any noun,
用一个名词 任何一个名词 putting a verb after it,
在名词后跟一个动词 and then following that verb with a noun.
再在动词后跟上一个名词 Now, when you do this, how many-- and then so,
你按照规则去做之后 for instance, you get the sentence
比如说 你会得到一个句子 "Fred likes Wilma."
"弗雷德喜欢威尔玛" When you do this,
按照这种规则 how many possible sentences are there?
能够组成多少个可能的句子 Let me just take a second.
给你们点时间 Okay. Any guesses?
好了 有没有人猜一下 Eighteen.
十八个 The sentences are "Fred likes Fred,"
这些句子是 "弗雷德喜欢弗雷德" "Fred likes Barney,"
"弗雷德喜欢巴尼" "Fred likes Wilma,"
"弗雷德喜欢威尔玛" "Fred thinks Fred,"
"弗雷德觉得弗雷德" "Fred thinks Barney,"
"弗雷德觉得巴尼" "Fred thinks Wilma," and so on.
"弗雷德觉得威尔玛" 等等 The three nouns followed by any of the two verbs
名词后接两个动词中的任何一个 followed by any of the three nouns.
动词后再接三个名词中的任何一个 That is not a very interesting language.
这种语言听起来很没劲 But now, take a more complicated language--
但现在 我们来说一种更加复杂的语言 same vocabulary, the same three nouns,
同样的词汇 同样的三个名词 the same two verbs, the same sentence,
同样的两个动词 同样的句子 but now one other sentence.
但现在却多了另一个句子 This sentence expands to a noun
这个句子就扩展成了 一个名词 followed by a verb followed by a sentence
后跟一个动词 再接刚才的句子 and there you get recursion.
这样就变成了递归 You have one rule invoking another rule
遵循调用前一个规则的这个规则 and then you can get a sentence
这样你就得到了 like "Fred thinks
像"弗雷德觉得巴尼喜欢威尔玛" Barney likes Wilma."
这样的句子 And here you get a potential infinity of sentences.
这样你就能得到潜在的无限数量的句子 And this is obviously a toy example
这只是个小例子 but you could see the use of recursion
但在日常生活和日常用语中 in everyday life and in everyday use of language.
递归的应用极为广泛 You could say, "John hates cheese,"
你可以说 "约翰讨厌乳酪" "My roommate heard a rumor that John hates cheese,"
"我的室友听说约翰讨厌乳酪" "It disturbed Mary
"我告诉玛丽 when I told her that my roommate heard a rumor
我室友听说约翰讨厌乳酪时 that John hates cheese,"
玛丽很困扰" "I was amazed that it disturbed Mary
"我告诉玛丽 when I told her that my roommate heard a rumor
我室友听说约翰讨厌乳酪时 that John hates cheese,"
玛丽很困扰 这让我很吃惊" "Professor Bloom had devoted way too much of his lecture talking about
"布罗姆教授浪费太多时间在他的课上讲 how I was amazed
我告诉玛丽 that it disturbed Mary when I told her that my roommate heard a rumor
我室友听说约翰讨厌乳酪时 that John hates cheese,"
玛丽很困扰 让我如何吃惊 "It really bothered me that--"
还可以说"这真的让我很烦--" and there's no limit.
可以无限下去 There's no longest sentence.
句子可以无限延长 You could keep producing a sentence deeper and deeper embedded until you die.
你可以不断地嵌入新句子直到你死掉 And this is part of the power of language.
这就是语言的力量之一 Now, the syntactic rules are complicated.
语法规则是复杂的 And one of the puzzles of syntactic rules, or one of the issues of them,
语法规则的一个谜团或问题是 is that different rules can conspire to create the same sentence.
不同规则可以共同作用来产生同一个句子 So, you take a sentence like
举例来说 --This is a classic line from Groucho Marx:
这是《格劳乔·马克斯》的经典台词 "I once shot an elephant in my pajamas.
"我曾在我的睡衣里射杀了一头大象 How it got into my pajamas I'll never know."
至于它怎么进来的 我就不知道了" And the humor, such that it is,
像这样的幽默 revolves around the ambiguity of rules that generate it,
正是利用了创造幽默的规则的模糊性 like this versus like this.
像这样而不是那样 Often, to illustrate the issues of ambiguity,
通常 为了说明模糊性的问题 people have collected poorly thought-out headlines
人们收集了那些未经深思熟虑的 in newspaper reports that play on--that inadvertently have ambiguity.
在无意间造成模糊性的新闻标题 "Complaints about NBA referees
"对NBA裁判的投诉 growing ugly."
越越来越多" [越来越难听] So, that's the beauty of that structure.
这就是这一结构的巧妙之处 "Kids make nutritious snacks."
"孩子做营养快餐" [是营养快餐] "No one was injured in a blast
"镇政府天然气泄漏导致爆炸 which was attributed to
所幸并无一人受伤" the buildup of gas
[由于镇政府天然气泄漏 by one town official."
因而并无人员在爆炸中受伤] Last summer I was in Seoul visiting the --visiting Korea University
去年夏天我去首尔的韩国大学访问 and the big headline there on the front page
那里报纸的头版头条是 was "General arrested
"将军因因调戏士兵而被捕" for fondling privates."
[喜欢士兵要被逮捕] Now, there actually is -The ambiguity is actually quite difficult to avoid
在句子结构和理解中的模糊性 in the construction and understanding of sentences.
实际上是很难避免的 It's one of the ways in which it's often difficult to write clearly,
有很多句子通常都很难被表述清楚 and in fact, there's a whole sub-field of the law
实际上 有一个完整的法律分支 involving the use of linguistic theory to disambiguate sentences
应用语言学理论来消除在宪法 both in the Constitution, in legislation, as well as in some criminal cases.
法律以及某些刑事案件中句子的歧义 And there was, several years ago, a very serious criminal case
多年前的一桩刑事重案 that rested on a sentence.
就是依据一句话来定案 And here's what happened.
事情是这样的 There were two brothers, one of them retarded,
两兄弟 其中一个智力发育迟缓 and they get into a robbery.
他们想抢劫 And a police officer sees them and points the gun at them.
一名警官发现了他们 并用枪指着他们 And one of the brothers points a gun at the police officer.
兄弟中的一个用枪指着警察 The police officer shouts for the brother,
警官要求智力正常的兄弟 the non-retarded brother, to drop the gun.
把枪放下 Actually, he said, "Give me the gun."
实际上 他说的是"把枪给我" The retarded brother shouted,
发育迟缓的兄弟大喊 "Let him have it,"
"给他一枪" [把枪给他] whereupon the brother shot and killed the police officer.
于是他的兄弟开枪射杀了这名警官 Now, the brother who did the shooting was plainly a murderer.
开枪的兄弟很明显是个谋杀犯 What about that brother who shouted, "Let him have it"?
那个大喊"给他一枪"的兄弟呢 Well, it depends on what he--on how you interpret that sentence
这取决与你如何解释那句话 because the sentence is beautifully ambiguous.
因为那句话模糊的近乎完美 It could mean "Shoot him, let him have it,"
可以是说"开枪吧 给他一枪" or it could mean "Give him the gun, let him have it."
也可以是说"给他吧 把枪给他" And in fact, the trial, which I think somebody could
事实上 对此案的审理 If people out there know about this,
如果有人知道这个案情 please send me an e-mail.
请发电子邮件告诉我 My understanding was he was found guilty
我猜他是被判有罪了 but a lot to turn on the ambiguity of a sentence.
但这个案件却展现出了句子的模糊性 I want to shift now
现在我想来换下一个话题 and talk about where does all this knowledge come from
说说这些知识都是从哪学到的 but I'll stop and answer any questions
不过我要先停下来回答你们 about the material so far.
关于目前内容的问题 What are your questions? Yes.
你们的问题是什么 请讲 How does syntax differ from grammar
这里的语法和平时说的语法有何区别 or are they exactly the same?
或者说它们是不是完全一样的 Syntax--The question is,
这个问题是 "How is syntax different from grammar?"
"这里的语法和平时说的语法有何区别" They're exactly the same.
它们是完全一样的 Syntax is a more technical term
这里说的语法是更加专业的术语 but it means the same thing as grammar.
在意义上和平时说的语法是一样的 Yes.
你来 you said that every normal human being that's born
你刚才说过 所有正常的人类新生儿 uses at some point or another some kind of language.
都会在某种程度上使用某种语言 Aren't there people
存不存在这样一种人 who weren't born within a culture and grew up
他们在一种文化下出生和成长 and who never really spoke a language
但却从未说过一种语言 though they were physically normal?
尽管他们在生理上是正常的 Yes. I'm glad you actually asked me about that
很好 非常高兴你能问我这个问题 because, as I said it,
因为我之前说过这话 I realized it wasn't quite right.
但我认识到这话是不对的 The point that was just raised here
我这里向表达的关键是 is I had said before that everybody who's neurologically normal
我之前说过所有神经上正常的人 comes to acquire and learn a language.
都会掌握和习得一种语言 But what about people who are neurologically normal
但那些神经上正常但却没有语言环境的人 but they don't have language around them?
又会怎样呢 And in fact, there have been, historically, some cases of this.
事实上 历史上曾有过一些这样的例子 There's been, probably apocryphal, stories
有很多狼或狗抚养儿童的故事 about children who are raised by wolves or by dogs.
当然这些故事有可能是杜撰的 There are stories, horrible stories,
有一些很可怕的故事 some in the twentieth century,
其中的一些讲述的是在二十世纪里 about children who are locked away by insane or evil parents
被精神失常或邪恶的父母锁起来的儿童 and have never learned to speak.
他们不曾学会说话 There are stories of deaf people who are within certain societies
还有些关于生活在并无手语的 where nobody signs to them,
特定社会下聋人的故事 and so they're what's known as linguistic isolates.
这种情况就是所谓的语言隔离 And they themselves never learn to speak.
他们也不曾学会说话 And those cases are the dramatic exception
这些例子都是极为特殊的 and they do tell you something.
但我们却能通过它们了解一些事情 They tell you that it's not enough
这些故事说明 对于语言而言 to have a brain for language.
仅仅拥有大脑是不够的 Somebody does have to use it with you.
还必须要和他人交流互动 Interestingly,
有意思的是 it doesn't have to be that many people.
这种交流互动并不需要很多人才行 So, Susan Goldin-Meadow has studied deaf children
苏珊·葛丁麦道研究了 that nobody signed to
并无手语环境的失聪儿童 but what she studies is
但她的研究发现 deaf children with deaf siblings
拥有失聪兄妹的失聪儿童 and these children don't just sit there.
他们并不会傻坐在那 They create their own language.
他们会创造属于自己的语言 It's not a full-blown language like american sign-language
这种语言并不像美国手语 or langue des signes quebecoise
或加拿大魁北克手语那样成熟 but it's a language nonetheless,
尽管如此 with words and syntax and phonology.
这种语言依然拥有词 语法和语音 It's an interesting question.
这是个很有趣的问题 Any other questions?
还有别的问题吗 Yes.
请讲 It's a good question.
这个问题很好 The question is,
这个问题是 "Are there inherent limits in our abilities
"我们创造语法的能力 to come up with grammars?"
是否存在天生的局限" And most linguists would argue "Yes,"
大多数语言学家们都会回答"是的" that languages are highly constrained in how they do things.
语言在很大程度上依赖于语法规则的使用 So, for instance, one example is there's no language in the world
举例来说 世界上并没有语言能够通过 that ever constructs a question
改变句子中词的顺序 by switching the order of words around in a sentence.
来构成疑问句 There's no language in the world that has a rule
世界上并没有语言规定 that says the fifth word has to be a verb.
说第五个词必须是动词 And linguists have all of these conditions
而语言学家们知道这些条件 they say, "No language in the world works this way."
他们会说"世界上没有语言会这样表达" Now this is--;So, these are constraints on grammar
这些就是语法的不足 and they're really interesting
它们很有意思 because they tell us
因为它们可以告诉我们 what's a humanly natural language
什么是人类的自然语言 versus what's not a humanly natural language.
什么不是人类的自然语言 But notice,
但是请注意 even if there is incredible constraints on grammars,
即使语法有着难以置信的不足 still--we could still produce an infinite number of sentences.
我们却依然可以创造出无限数量的句子 It's just like if you restrict me to only a subset of numbers,
这就像 如果你把我限制在数字的子集 only the odd numbers,
只是奇数 still there's an infinity of odd numbers.
但奇数的数量却仍然是无限多的 So, grammar can be restricted
所以 语法是有些局限 but still give rise to an infinity of possible sentences.
但仍然能产生无限可能的句子 Well, there's a radical claim
关于语言的起源 about the origin of language
语言学家诺姆·乔姆斯基 associated with the guy
提出了一个激进的观点 who we met when we talked about behaviorism
我们曾在讲述行为主义时提到过 who wrote A Review of Verbal Behavior, the linguist Noam Chomsky.
他写过篇叫《<言语行为>述评》的论文 And Chomsky makes this radical claim.
乔姆斯基提出了这个激进的观点 And this is
这就是 that we shouldn't view language learning as learning at all.
我们完全不应将语言学习视为学习行为 Instead, we should view it
相反 我们应当将语言学习 as something similar to growth.
视为某种类似的发育过程 So he says,
他认为 no one would take seriously the proposal that a human organism
没人会相信人体组织通过学习经验 learns through experience to have arms rather than wings,
长出了手臂而不是翅膀 or that the basic structure of particular organs
或者特定器官的基本结构 results from accidental experience.
是偶然经验的结果 Language proves to be no less marvelous and intricate
语言和这些生理结构一样的 than these physical structures.
不可思议和错综复杂 Why, then, should we not study
我们为什么不应当 the acquisition of a cognitive structure
像研究某些复杂身体器官那样 like language more or less
去或多或少地研究 as we study some complex bodily organ?
像语言这样的认知结构的习得 So, you might learn to play baseball,
因此 你可能学会打棒球 you might learn about the American Civil War,
学到关于美国内战的知识 but if Chomsky is right
但如果乔姆斯基是对的 you didn't learn to speak English.
那么说英语并不是习得的 Rather, what happened is you heard English
相反 你听到了英语 and--but the capacity grew in your head
你脑中的英语能力得到增长 and something a lot more similar to
这个和手臂 下肢 the development of arms or legs or a visual system.
或是视觉系统的发育很相似 Well, should we believe this?
我们是否应该相信这个观点呢 We know there has to be some effect of the environment
我们知道 很明显某些环境作用 shaping language, obviously,
塑造了语言 because in order to know English you have to have heard English,
因为要理解英语 你必须听过英语 in order to know Dutch
要理解荷兰语 you have had to heard, to--had to have learned and heard Dutch.
你必须学过和听过荷兰语 And in fact, languages differ in all the ways
事实上 各种语言在我们所讲的 that we were talking about.
各个方面上都是有所差别的 Some languages like English
某些语言 如英语 has a-- have a distinction between 'l' and 'r.'
在"l"和"r"之间是有差别的 Other languages do not.
其他语言则没有 For a language like English,
对于像英语这样的语言 that creature there is referred to with the morpheme "Dog."
那种生物被表示为语素"狗" That's a historical accident of English.
这是英语的一个历史偶变 In French it's chien
法语中用"狗"[法文]来表达 and in Greek it's something else.
在希腊语中则用其他词来表达 And each of those 6,000 languages
这六千种语言都会不同 and people in the room who know another language would say,
在座中懂得其他语言的人会说 "Yeah, in Vietnamese it's this,"
"是的 在越南语中是这样表达的" "In Urdu it's this,"
"在乌尔都语中是这样表达的" "In Czech it's that."
"在捷克语中是那样表达的" Finally, there is syntax.
最后是语法 So, English is what's known as a subject-verb-object language.
英语是所谓的主谓宾结构的语言 That means if you want to convey the idea
也就是说 如果你想表达 that Bill hit John,
比尔打了约翰这个意思 you would say, "Bill hit John."
你就要说"比尔打了约翰" But not all languages work that way.
但并不是所有的语言都这样表达 In fact, the majority of languages, more languages,
事实上 大多数语言 更多的语言 are actually subject-object-verb languages.
都是主宾谓结构的语言 So, you would say, if you wanted to convey
因此 如果你想表达 that bill was the hitter and John was hit,
比尔打了人 而约翰被打了 "Bill John hit."
就要说"比尔约翰打了" All of this has to be learned.
所有这些都必须通过学习而获得 And all of this has to be learned
而且所有这些都必须通过 through exposure to language users.
暴露于拥有语言使用者的环境才能习得 On the other hand, there is considerable evidence
另一方面 有大量证据表明 that the development of these language skills, in some way,
这些语言技能的发展 在某些方面 is similar to growth in the way that Chomsky suggests.
与乔姆斯基所提出的发展方式相类似 So, here are some basic facts about language development.
下面是与语言发展有关的一些基本事实 One is something which I had mentioned before.
其中的一个基本事实我之前提到过 All normal children learn language.
所有的正常儿童都能习得语言 There can be specific impairments of language.
一些语言的特殊损伤也是存在的 Now, again, we spoke about them before when talking about the brain.
我们再一次在讲述大脑前提到了这些损伤 Some of these impairments could be due to trauma,
某些损伤可能是由于外伤而导致的 the aphasias.
比如失语症 Trauma, a blow to the head, a stroke
外伤 脑部撞击 中风 can rid you of your language.
都可以让你失去语言能力 But, also, there are genetic disorders, some falling under the rubric
但被叫做"特殊言语损伤"的遗传障碍 of what's known as "Specific language impairment,"
也能使你失去语言能力 where children are born without the same ability
儿童出生便不具有 as the rest of us to learn to speak.
我们其他人所具有的学习说话的能力 And these are interesting in many ways.
从很多角度来看 这些都很有意思 One reason that they're interesting is
它们有意思的一个原因便是 that they illustrate something about human language.
它们阐明了人类语言的某些东西 It is not--It would not be unreasonable for you to think
在上这节课前 before listening to his lecture,
你们或许会有以下想法 "Look. All you need to have to learn a language is to be smart"
"只要你够聪明你就能学习语言" or "All you need to have to learn a language is to want to communicate"
"只要你想要交流你就能学习语言" or "All you need to have to learn a language is to be a social person
"学习语言需要社会个体有能力 wanting to--having the ability to understand others and deal with others."
去理解和应付他人" But the cases of specific language impairments
但是特殊言语损伤的案例表明 suggest that all of that is wrong,
以上的所有都是错的 because there are children in this world right now
因为现在在世界上 who are plenty smart, who really want to communicate,
会有些足够聪明 想要交流 and who are entirely social creatures
完全社会生物的儿童 but they can't learn language.
他们无法学习语言 And this suggests that the ability to learn language and understand language
这表明学习语言和理解语言的能力 is to some extent separate
在某种程度上是独立于 from these other aspects of mental life.
其他方面的心理活动的 Continuing on this theme,
关于这个主题 we also know that language is learnt
我们还知道 语言是在没有 without any sort of feedback or training.
任何反馈或训练的情况下习得的 There are many Americans who believe that
有很多美国人都认为 they need to teach their children language.
孩子们的语言需要他们去教授 And there's a huge industry
设计来教授儿童语言的 with DVDs and flash cards and all sorts of things
DVD和闪存卡以及其他存储 designed to teach your children language.
形成了一个庞大的产业 And I think many parents believe that
我相信很多父母认为 if they didn't persist in using these things
如果他们不坚持使用这些东西 their children would never learn to speak.
他们的孩子将永远也学不会说话 But we know that that's not true.
但是我们知道 事实并非如此 We know that this isn't true
我们知道这种想法是错误的 because there are communities
是因为在很多社会中 where they don't speak to their kids.
家长是不和他们孩子说话的 They don't speak to their kids
他们之所以不和孩子们说话 because they don't believe it's important to speak to their kids.
是因为他们觉得和孩子们说话并不重要 Some linguists would interview --Linguists would interview adults
语言学家们会访问 in these communities and say,
住在这些社会中的成人 然后问道 "Why don't you speak to your babies?"
"你为什么不和你的宝宝说话" And these adults would respond,
这些成人会回答 "It'd be ridiculous to speak to a baby.
"和宝宝说话太可笑了 The baby has nothing to say.
宝宝什么都不会说 You might as well just speak to your dog."
你和在对狗说话一样" And then the American linguist would say,
然后这些美国的语言学家会说 "Yeah. We speak to our dogs."
"是啊 我们会和我们的狗说话" Americans and Europeans speak to everything and everybody.
美国人和欧洲人会对所有东西所有人说话 Other cultures are more picky
其他文化则更加挑剔 and they don't talk to their children
直到孩子自己能够开口说话 until their children themselves are talking.
他们才会和孩子讲话 This doesn't seem to make much of a difference in language learning.
看起来这对语言学习没什么太大的影响 Some studies have, motivated by Chomsky's work in expressed
受到乔姆斯基 -sorry, motivated by Chomsky's critique of Skinner's Verbal Behavior,
《斯金纳<言语行为>述评》的启发 have asked even in --
一些研究甚至询问道 "What if we just looked at children within the United States?
"要是我们只研究美国儿童又会怎样呢" Don't these children get feedback?"
难道这些儿童们得不到反馈信息吗 And the answer is yes and no.
对这个问题的回答是 既有又没有 So your average highly educated Western parent
受到普通高等教育的西方家长 does give their children feedback
确实会根据儿童所说的内容 --do give their children feedback based on what they say.
而给予他们反馈 But they don't typically give feedback
但他们通常不会根据儿童所说话语的语法 based on the syntax or grammaticality of what they say.
或者是否符合语法 来给予反馈 The example given by Brown and Hanlon
布朗和汉隆在二十世纪七十年代的 in the classic study in the 1970s
一个经典研究中给出了一个例子 is they did all of these studies
他们做了很多这样的研究 looking at what children say and how parents responded,
探查儿童的话语和父母的反应 and it turns out parents respond not
结果表明父母并不会 to the grammatical correctness
对语法的正确性给出反应 but to the affect or cuteness
而是会对表达的情感 可爱程度 or sociability of the utterance.
或社会性给出反应 So for instance, if a child says to his mother,
例如 如果孩子对妈妈说 "I loves you, Mommy,"
"我爱你 妈妈" it's a very unusual parent who would say,
很少有家长会说 "Oh, no. The verb agreement is mistaken.
"不对 动词一致性错了 You've added a redundant 's.'
你多加了一个's' [复数] It's not appropriate."
这是不对的" Similarly, if a child is to say,
同样 如果孩子说 "I hate your guts, Mother,"
"我讨厌你的肠子 妈妈" it's an unusual mother,
也不会有家长说 "That's wonderful.
"太棒了 There's a subject, verb, object.
这是主谓宾结构 The whole thing's structurally fine."
句子结构非常完整" We respond to our kids like we respond to each other
我们对孩子的反应和对他人的反应一样 based on the message that's conveyed,
都是基于表达的信息内容 not the grammaticality of the utterances.
而不是表达的语法正确性 Children make grammatical mistakes all the time
儿童们总是会犯些语法错误 but then they go away and they go away without correction.
但随后这些错误无需纠正也都消失了 So those are some basic facts.
这都是一些基本事实 What do we know about the time course of language?
对于语言的时间进程 我们知道些什么 Well, early on children start off
儿童在出生早期 and they prefer the melody of their own language.
喜欢他们自己语言的旋律 These studies were done in France with four-day-old babies.
这些实验在法国对四天大的婴儿进了研究 And what they did was they used a sucking method.
它们应用了一种吮吸的方法 Remember, there's a limited number of things babies can do.
记住 婴儿们能做的事情有限 One of the things they can do is suck,
他们能做的事情之一就是吮吸 and these babies would suck on a pacifier to hear French.
这些婴儿听到法语时会去吮吸奶嘴 And they would prefer to hear French than to hear Russian.
他们更喜欢听到法语 而不是俄语 And these investigators claimed
这些研究者宣称 this is because they had been exposed to French
这是因为他们在出生的头四天里 in the first four days of their lives.
暴露在了法语环境中 Reviewers, mostly from France, objected and said,
大多数法国的评论者们则反对道 "No. Maybe French just sounds better.
"不对 是因为法语更好听 Everybody's going to like French."
人人都喜欢法语的" So, they re-did the study in Russia.
所以他们又在俄罗斯做了实验 Russian kids sucked harder
相较于听到法语 to hear Russian
俄罗斯的儿童则在听到俄语时 than they did to French.
会更加用力的吮吸 And what they're listening to isn't the words.
婴儿们所听到的并非是词 They don't know words yet.
他们还不理解词 They don't know of syntax yet.
也不懂得语法 It's the rhythm of the language.
这是语言节奏造成的 For you,
对你们来说 French and Russian sound different.
法语和俄语听起来是不一样的 Even if you're like me and you don't know a word of either language,
即使你像我一样 完全不懂这两种语言 they still sound different.
它们听起来仍然是不一样的 They sound different to babies too.
婴儿们也会听出它们的不同 And a baby being raised in France
在法国长大的孩子 or a baby being raised in Russia
或者在俄罗斯长大的孩子 knows enough to tell what's his language
完全能够区分出什么是他的语言 and what isn't.
什么不是 Early on, children are sensitive to every phoneme there is.
儿童早期对听到的所有音位都非常敏感 So, English-speaking children, for instance,
比如 can--English-speaking babies, babies who are born in the United States
在美国出生的讲英语的婴儿 can distinguish between English phonemes
能够区分出诸如"Lip"和"Rip"这样的 like "Lip" And "Rip".
英语音位上的差别 But they could also distinguish between phonemic contrasts
但他们也能够区分出 that are not exemplified in English,
无法在英语中举例的音位对比 such as phonemic contrasts in Czech or Hindi.
比如在捷克语或是印地语中的音位对比 Yes.
请讲 I'm wondering if you can say the wrong things to them --to infants
我想问 根据你刚才所讲的 based on what you were saying before.
是否能够对婴儿说些错误的表达 Because I was in France one summer
因为我曾在法国呆过一个夏天 and I had some neighbors there.
我在那里有些邻居 I hated these neighbors, I thought they were stupid.
我讨厌他们 我认为他们很傻 Not because they were French,
并非因为他们是法国人 but they had a baby
而是因为他们的婴儿 and it would gaggle and coo
婴儿会讲些咯咯咕咕的婴儿语 and they would respond in similar terms.
而他们会以同样的婴儿语对婴儿进行反应 They would gaggle and coo back at the baby.
他们也对他们的婴儿咯咯咕咕的说话 And I hate these people.
我讨厌这些的人 So I don't know if it
所以我想知道 -Does it matter what you say to babies
是不是只要你对婴儿说话就行 as long as you say something.
说话的内容并不重要 There's a lot going on in your question.
你的问题还挺长 Some raising--Well, there's a lot going on in your question.
你的问题还真挺长的 The answer to the question-- The question was,
这个问题是 "Your baby's going to coo and 'ga ga, goo goo,'
"你的婴儿一直咕咕咯咯地说婴儿语 does it matter if you coo and 'ga ga, goo goo' back?"
你也那样回应很重要吗" No, it doesn't make a difference.
不 不会有什么影响 Your hatred towards them was unmotivated.
你对他的憎恨是没有依据的 You can be relieved of that debt,
你可以释怀了 or now you know you feel bad now, I guess.
我想你也许还会有些许歉疚 If you speak to your children in perfect English,
如果你用完美的英语表达和你的孩子说话 it's very strange.
会是非常奇怪的 Nobody speaks to their babies in,
没有人会对婴儿说 "Hello, Son. It's time--Oh.
"你好 儿子 You want to change your diaper right now so stay still."
现在该换尿布了 给我老实点" That's bad parenting.
这不是好抚养方法 It sounds kind of silly.
听上去有些愚蠢 More--What most people do is,
大多数人会说 "Oh. You're such a cute little baby."
"哦 你真是个可爱的小宝宝啊" And it probably--One--There's--Evolutionary psychologists
进化心理学家们在争论 debate the function of why we talk funny to babies.
我们为何要以如此好玩的方式来同婴儿讲话 And some people have argued that it does help their language learning.
一些人认为这样做有助于婴儿的语言学习 And some people have argued instead that what it does is it calms them.
而还一些人则认为这样做能使婴儿冷静 They like to hear the music of a smooth voice and so on.
婴儿们喜欢听到拥有平缓声音的音乐等等 But whether or not you do so
但不论你是否选择这样做 doesn't seem to make a big difference.
都不会有什么太大的影响 It is very difficult to find any effect
家长跟儿童的说话方式 of how parents talk to their kids
并未对儿童如何学习语言 on how their kids learn language,
产生任何影响 particularly when it comes to babies.
尤其是在对待婴儿的时候 So, early on babies can--are sensitive to all phonemes
所以 早期的婴儿对于音位非常的敏感 and then that goes away.
之后这种敏感便消失了 Around twelve months of age it goes away.
大约在十二个月大的时候就会消失 This is one thing you were much better at
相比于现在 when you were a baby than you are now.
你在婴儿时对语音更加敏感 When you were a baby
当你还是婴儿的时候 you were a multilingual fool.
你完全不懂多种语言 You could understand the sound differences of every language on earth.
你可以听出世上所有语言之间的声音差异 Now, if you're like me, you could barely understand English.
现在 如果你像我一样 只懂英语 You narrow down
你逐渐缩小敏感的范围 until you're sensitive just to the language you hear.
直到只对你所使用的语言敏感 And this narrowing down
这种敏感范围的缩小 is largely in place by about twelve months of age.
大约发生在婴儿十二个月大的时候 Around seven months is babbling.
婴儿在大约七个月大的时候开始咿呀学语 And I want to stop at this point
我想在这里停一下 to go back to the issue
回到之前的一个问题上 --I promised you I would turn a bit to sign language
我说过我会稍微讲一下手语 and I want to describe now a very elegant --I want to show a little film now
我现在想要播放一小段电影 of a very elegant series of experiments
展示一系列精彩的实验 looking at the question of whether babies
这些实验探究了暴露在手语环境中的婴儿 who are exposed to a sign language, babble.
是否会进行咿呀学语的问题 One of the real surprising findings in my field
过去的十到二十年间 over the last ten/twenty years has been that
在我的研究领域里最令人吃惊的发现之一就是 the acquisition of sign languages
各种手语的获得过程 has turned out to be almost exactly the same;
被证明几乎是完全相同的 in fact, as far as we know,
实际上据我所知 exactly the same as the acquisition of spoken languages.
和口语语言的获得过程是完全相同的 It didn't have to be that way.
其实并不用那样去证明 It could have been just as reasonable to expect
有理由相信 that there'd be an advantage for speech over sign.
口语比手语更加优越 That sign languages may be full-blown languages
手语或许是成熟的语言 but they just take--they're just harder to learn
但它们更难学 because the brain and the body have adapted for speech.
因为大脑和身体已经适应了口语 It turns out that this just isn't the case.
这不光是一个个案 It turns out that sign and--the developmental milestones of sign languages
手语的发展阶段 and the developmental milestones of spoken languages are precisely the same.
和口语语言的发展阶段是完全相同的 They start babbling at the same point.
婴儿们同时开始咿呀学语 They start using first words,
他们同时使用第一个词 first sentences, first complicated constructions.
第一个句子 第一个复杂结构 There seems to be no interesting difference
似乎大脑在如何获得和使用口语语言 between how the brain comes to acquire and use the spoken language
与如何获得和使用手语之间 versus a sign language.
不存在任何的差别 Around twelve months of age,
儿童在大约十二个月大时 children start using their first words.
开始使用他们的第一个词 These are words for objects and actions
都是些表达客体和动作的词 like "Dog" And "Up" And "Milk."
例如"狗" "向上"和"牛奶" They start showing some sensitivity to the order of words.
他们开始对词语顺序感到敏感 So they know that "Dog bites cat"
所以他们知道"狗咬猫" is different from "Cat bites dog."
和"猫咬狗"是不同的 Around eighteen months of age,
在大约十八个月大的时候 they start learning words faster.
他们学习单词的速度加快 They start producing little, miniature sentences
他们开始创造出短小的句子 like "Want cookie" Or "Milk spill"
比如"要饼干"或"奶洒了" and the function morphemes, the little words,
而诸如"在内" "属于" "In," "Of," "A," "The," and so on
"一个" "这个"等短词的功能语素 start to gradually appear.
也开始逐渐出现 Then the--Then there's the bad news.
接下来有个坏消息 Around seven years of age going up through puberty,
大约七岁的时候开始 一直到青春期 the ability to learn language starts to go away.
学习语言的能力逐渐减弱 The best work on this has been done
在这方面最佳的研究 by Elissa Newport and Sam Supalla
是由伊莉萨·纽波特 who have studied people
和萨姆·苏普拉所进行的 who have been in the United States
他们研究了在美国生活了 for many, many years like 30, 40 years
三四十年以上的人们 and seeing how well they have come to speak English.
探究了这些人们讲英语的流利程度 And it turns out the big determinant
作为移民 of how well you speak English as an immigrant
你的英语口语究竟有多么流利 isn't how smart you are.
最大的决定因素并非你有多么聪明 It's not how many family members you have when you're here.
并非是你此时有多少个家庭成员 It's not your motivation.
也并非是你的动机 It's how old you were when you started.
最大的决定因素是开始学习语言时的年龄 It turns out that if you start learning a language,
如果你在出生的头几年里开始学习一门语言 a second language is where most of the work's been done,
非常努力地学习了第二门语言 within the first few years of life you're fine.
那么你一切正常 You'll speak like a native.
你会说的和母语一样好 But then it starts getting worse and worse.
但随着年龄的增长 学习能力逐渐减弱 And once you hit puberty,
一旦你到了青春期 suddenly there's huge variation
学习语言的能力会在突然间 in the abilities you have to learn language.
发生巨大的变化 It is very rare, for instance, for somebody
比如 在青春期后才学习英语的人 who has learned English past puberty to speak without an accent.
很少有讲英语是没有口音的 An accent is very hard to shake
口音很难改掉 and it's not just an accent.
而且问题还不止是口音 It's also other aspects of phonology,
还有些在语音 syntax, and morphology.
语法和语态方面的其他问题 It's like the part of the brain that's responsible for language learning
就好像负责语言学习的大脑区域 is only around early in development
只是在发展的早期比较活跃 and if you don't get your language by then
如果你没有在这个时候获得语言 it'll just run out.
那你就没有机会了 I want to begin next class with this question,
我想在下节课开始的时候讲讲这个问题 the question of animals.
这个关于动物的问题 And that will shut down
而讲完这个问题 the language learning part.
语言学习这部分也就讲完了 But one thing I'll put up here
我要给你们在这里播放的 is your second reading response.
是你们的第二次阅读要求 So, I'll also put this up on Wednesday,
我周三的时候还会给大家呈现这个 and by Wednesday you might have a bit of a better
也许到周三的时候 --be in a better position to answer this question.
你们就能更好地回答这个问题了 But I'll continue with language on Wednesday
但周三的时候我还是会接着来讲语言 and then we'll also talk about vision, attention, and memory.
之后我们还会讲到视觉 注意和记忆 I'll see you then.
下次再见