Theoretical Overview of Columbia School Linguistics

Columbia School linguistics takes as its ultimate object of explanation the perceptible sounds of speech (or sequence of symbols in a written text). Instances of human communicative behavior, then, are its primary data. It accounts for these observables by postulating abstract cognitive systems upon which speakers appear to be operating. Columbia School is thus an avowedly explanatory enterprise and neither a throwback to behaviorism nor an instance of an Externalized (E-)language approach.

The basic structural unit in the cognitive systems is a sign—a signal paired with a meaning. (This is reminiscent of Saussure's signe linquistique composed of a signifiant and a signifié). Both the signals and their meanings are language-particular rather than universal; each language offers its own semantic categories. The analytical problem for the Columbia School linguist is to determine the actual identity of these signal-meaning units in a particular language. This is done by testing proposed signs against actual usage; a hypothesized meaning must fit every message for which its signal is used. This demonstration involves both case-by-case analysis of authentic examples in context, and quantitative testing for predicted skewings of signals throughout a text.

The explanation for the appearance of a particular signal in a text is that its associated meaning—hypothesized and tested by the analyst—contributes semantically to the message being conveyed. A typical Columbia School question would be, What motivates speakers of English to say sometimes broken hearts and other times breaking hearts? What is the difference in meaning between the signals -ing and -en that is guiding their choice? Or, What motivates speakers of Spanish to say sometimes le escribí and others lo escribí, sometimes le llamo, others lo llamo? The sequential order of signals is addressed as well; for example, What motivates the choice between the order of signals in he left the house windowless and he left the windowless house? Here we find two kinds of explanations: either a particular feature of word order is due to natural iconic principles, or it is itself a signal of a grammatical meaning.

This mode of explanation is goal-directed rather than formal because the choice of a sign, either grammatical or lexical, is explained in terms of what its 'chooser’—the speaker—is attempting to accomplish, rather than in terms of syntactic rules. While the linguistic system has a well-defined structure, its deployment is affected by an open-ended number of factors and is thus not amenable to algorithmic formalization. Language use is creative in the everyday sense of that word.