Contrasts Between Columbia School and Generative Frameworks
The following was adapted from the handout accompanying an oral presentation
by Wallis Reid at the conference "Alternatives to Chomsky", held at
Rutgers University, in September 2000.
The early outline of Columbia School theory emerged just as Chomsky’s Aspects
of the Theory of Syntax appeared in the mid-sixties. While defining a
linguistic position in terms of its relation to the Generative paradigm is no
longer necessary, it is still a short-hand way of locating it on the linguistic
map. Listed below are a series of pithy and provocative contrasts between the
Columbia School framework and the Generative paradigm, many of which distinguish
the Columbia School from various formal approaches as well.
| Category |
Generative Paradigm |
Columbia School |
| Kinds of Problems |
Big questions about language and mind |
Small questions: Why do linguistic forms appear where they
do? |
| Kind of Data |
Decontextualized sentences fabricated by the analyst |
Data drawn from extended discourse, context crucial to testing
meanings |
| Nature of Language |
Language is
essentially a representational system and only incidentally a
communicative system. |
Language is essentially a communicative system (and not
a representational system at all). |
| Basic Theoretical Unit |
The sentence |
The linguistic sign |
| Relation between Form and Meaning |
Sentences have a formal structure independent of its meaning
structure. |
Linguistic form and linguistic meaning united in the
linguistic sign. |
| Syntax |
Formal rules for what word sequences the language allows |
No syntax in that conventional sense |
| Grammaticality |
A bedrock irreducible fact about sentences |
An epiphenomenon that seems real chiefly to linguists |
| Nature of Linguistically Encoded Meaning |
Precise fractions of the message |
Imprecise hints and clues to the message |
| Relation between word and sentence ‘meaning’ |
Compositional relation |
Instrumental relation, i.e. meanings help to communicate a message without
necessarily being conceptual fractions of the message |
| Model of Communication |
A telementational
model of communication |
An inferential model of communication |
| Psychological Process of Speaker |
Rule-governed behavior |
Goal-directed behavior |
| Psychological Process of Hearer |
Decoding the message |
Inferring the message from the linguistic meanings signaled and the
larger context. Creative problem-solving. |
| Status of literal, a-contextual sentence ‘meaning’ |
A linguistic object that can be formally represented |
Personal psychological experience; not a linguistic object |
| Grammatical Categories |
A universal inventory of grammatical categories |
No universal inventory; language-particular grammatical categories |
| Object of Explanation |
Grammaticality, structure and meaning judgments; language
“acquisition” |
The phonetic and
graphic output of people using language to communicate |
| Mode of Explanation |
Aspires to purely formal explanation |
Non-formal, functional explanation |
| Genetic endowment for language |
A language faculty
consisting of formal and substantive linguistic universals |
Symbolic ability; problem-solving; jumping to conclusions;
abduction |
| Species specificity of language |
Only human beings have language |
Some apes seem to be able to learn rudimentary language of a human kind
(i.e., linguistic signs whose
meanings bear an inferentially-mediated relation to the message.) |
| Faculty specificity |
The language faculty is independent of other psychological
faculties. |
Both linguistic structure and language use are shaped by
recognizable human psychological characteristics evident in other human
behavior. |
