Introduction to Psycholinguistics 9783110800821, 9789027930330

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INTRODUCTION TO

PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

JANUA LINGUARUM STUDIA MEMORIAE NICOLAI VAN WIJK DEDICATA edenda

curat

C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD INDIANA UNIVERSITY

SERIES MAIOR, 60

1973

MOUTON THE HAGUE · PARIS

INTRODUCTION το PSYCHOLINGUISTICS by

TATIANA SLAMA-CAZACU

1973 M O U T O N THE HAGUE · PARIS

This work appears as a joint edition of the Editura Çtiintificâ, Bucharest and Mouton & Co Publishers

Translated from the

Romanian

by ANDREEA GHEORGHITOIU TATIANA SLAMA-CAZACU VIRGIL and A N T O I N E T T E ÇTEFÀNESCU-DRÂGÂNEÇTI

The translation was entirely revised by the author.

The copyright belongs to

e o EDITURA ÇTIINTIFICÂ 17, Bd. Republic», Bucharest

PRINTED IN ROMANIA

To my mother, Maria Slama

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION 7 PREFACE 11

First part THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS 1 2 3 4

The beginnings of psycholinguistics and its place in the present-day system of sciences 19 The object of psycholinguistics and some of its problems 38 Emission, reception and message 64 Psycholinguistic methodology (Collecting and interpretation of facts). The dynamic-contextual method 93

Second part APPLICATIONS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS (IN RESEARCH WORK AND IN PRACTICE) A. PSYCHOLINGUISTICS AND RESEARCH WORK IN CONNECTED FIELDS

1 2 3 4 5

A few applications of the methodology of psycholinguistics (with special reference to the dynamic-contextual method) 115 Stylistics and psycholinguistics 127 Psycholinguistics and the application of the dynamic-contextual method in dialectology 149 Work and communication. A few problems of psycholinguistics and applied linguistics 163 Psycholinguistics and technical language in automation 188

Β. THE DEVELOPMÈNT OF LANGUAGE AND PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

1 2 3 4 5

Acquisition of language by the child. The first stages 202 Acquisition of language during preschool age. The style of child speech. The dialogue 221 The learning and use of oblique cases by children 239 The relationship between thought and langage. Developmental dynamics of these relationships in children 255 Some psycholinguistic problems of language development (mother tongue) in school and foreign language learning 277

Third part THE

EXPERIMENTAL

METHOD IN

PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

(A FEW EXPERIMENTS AND THEIR RESULTS)

1 2

The experimental method in linguistics and psycholinguistics 311 Experimental reversed speaking 318

3

Experiments on lexical systems 329

4

Experiments on the role of the context 342

5

Experiment of prediction: 1. Statistics of phonemes 354 2. Resolution of homonymy in a text BY WAY O F CONCLUSION 375 BIBLIOGRAPHY 377 APPENDIX. Components of communication, code levels, disciplinary approach — and the object of psycholinguistics

inter-

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

To entirely modify either the text of the book or the notes or the Bibliography would have meant for the author, to write a new book. She will write it later, but for the moment she thinks the present book, such as it appeared in 1968 in Romanian, has not lost its timeliness. On the contrary, perhaps, some ideas that were first hypothetically expressed have found their confirmation with the lapse of time. That is why the present edition is merely a translation of the original text published in Romanian. However, the author has not only revised the whole translation but has also added, in certain chapters, a few updatings required by the presentday state of affairs in psycholinguistics, as well as a number of references (in the notes or the Bibliography) to certain recent works of hers which have appeared after the publication of the book in Romanian and are directly connected with the problems discussed in this book. A Note to the Bibliography also mentions the books of other authors, more relevant in the field, which have appeared since the publication of the Romanian edition of this volume. An Appendix has also been added, where the author defines more precisely certain ideas concerning the object of psycholinguistics, its interdisciplinary status, its autonomy from psychology and linguistics, and its strong connexion with social reality: for the author (who thinks that a term such as "socio-psycholinguistics" is redundant), psycholinguistics cannot be considered as the science of any single individual's act of speech; it is, in fact, a science closely concerned with communication, which is a social act. The author wants to thank her colleagues — Antoinette and Virgil Çtefânescu-Drâganeçti — who translated the first half of this book — and Andreea Gheorghitoiu—who translated the majority of its second half—, as well as the research worker Marilena Tiugan for her help in correcting the proofs. Bucharest, October 1972

PREFACE

Psycholinguistics is certainly — and unfortunately — one of the "fashionable" subjects today. The publication in 1954 of a volume bearing the title "Psycholinguistics" was the signal which gave material form, with the help of a long awaited name, to the aspirations of a good number of research workers interested in the phenomenon designated by the French word langage1 and its various aspects. The effort of some authors — among them, the author of the present book — to elaborate studies that did not deal exclusively with the psychology of langage or with linguistics in its traditional acceptance coincided, in 1953, with the efforts of the authors of the above volume to discuss the provisional bases of a discipline to which they felt they had to give a special name. The interest in psycholinguistics shown at present throughout the world — materialized in books and articles, in lectures, courses or discussions — may be better perceived if we notice that on the one hand it coincides with the appearance of the concern for applied linguistics shown by a number of outstanding linguists and the granting of an official status to this field in the world of science by setting up national applied linguistics associations — in the U.S.A., France, Belgium, the Scandinavian countries, etc. (and by founding in 1964 the International Association for Applied Linguistics). On the other hand, this interest coincides with an increasing interest exhibited both by psychologists and linguists in problems which belong to a great extent to the psychology of langage. I should like to mention here that the theme of the VI th International Congress of Phonetics (1967) 1

The English terms "language" and "speech" will be used, in this work, for F. de Saussure's langue and parole, and the French word langage for the French langage, in order to avoid any equivocal use of "language" for some phenomena with which we shall deal further, and for which there is no proper English term. "Speech" will also be used to denote verbal articulation. The term "fact" will be used in such phrases as: "facts of speech", "facts of langage" etc., corresponding to the French faits de langage etc. Meaning and sense are used for French signification and sens respectively (note added by the author to the English version of the book; such notes will be abbreviated as: NEV).

12

PREFACE

was the acoustic signal and its perception, and at the 18th International Congress of Psychology, in 1966, very many papers were dedicated to langage and language, while a great number of linguists participated actively in the Congress. At the 10th International Congress of Linguistics in 1967 — which was also attended by a number of psychologists —, one of the sections was dedicated to psycholinguistics, another one to the child's langage, another one again to troubles of speech. Lastly it is worth mentioning that one of the most recent classifications in the field of linguistics (made by the Publishing House Mouton for the journal "Linguistics") included among "The general problems of linguistics", alongside Phonetics, Dialectology, Semantics or General linguistics, fields like: Psycholinguistics, Troubles of speech, Child's langage, etc. These are significant phenomena, which put together show more clearly the spirit of an age and its trends. No doubt any "fashion" has its inconveniences related to its being a phenomenon of collective mimicry: its snobs who adorn themselves with a non-functional garment of detail only for the sake of distinguishing themselves from other people, or with a word, the meaning of which they cannot understand —, the naïves or routinizers — who like to use a new name, in order to express their old concepts under a new label —, and, euphemistically said, "practical people" — who adopt a new term as a charm-formula which will bring success, irrespective of the contents of the term. However, for other people the launching of the name "psycholinguistics" and then its spreading round — most rapidly especially in the last years — has appeared as a happy coincidence with research work which they had been carrying out for a long time, on the basis of principles which were neither strictly psychological nor merely linguistic. Among the latter was also the author of this book. The desire of elaborating "something else", different from the traditional psychology of langage, but, on the other hand, of preceding "differently" from linguistics — continuously haunted by discontent caused by "suspicious" phenomena or "extra-linguistic" interpretations — has led us to elaborate a series of works which — flippant bastards — could not fully recognize themselves in any of the two original disciplines. However, the use of this new name did not coincide (maybe exactly because it was too quickly adopted, and by too many people) with a clear meaning of its own. The task of proposing one's own message regarding psycholinguistics is both easy and difficult, as it happens in any new field where the penury of definitions and lack of precision offer the research worker the joys experienced by an explorer confronted with new scenery, when he finds himself before lands which are incognitae et intactae, untouched, rich — too rich —, containing within the infinity itself of their horizons the difficulties and euphoria of the beginning.

PREFACE

13

What does the word "psycholinguistics" mean ? A brief and formal definition may explain it as: a combination between psychology and linguistics. But what deeper sense does this "combination" carry? To some scholars it becomes equivalent to "linguistic psychology", to others to "psychological linguistics", to many it is the psychology of langage, and so on. The true definition of the name of a science is not complete if it does not also include its object. What is the object of psycholinguistics? In this case again we see various opinions, or attempts to avoid the answer by giving only surface definitions. Next, what is the methodology of this new science ? In the case of this question there is no longer any diversity of opinion, there is almost absolute silence. Therefore a certain precision regarding fundamental principles is necessary, as in such conditions any particular research becomes haphazard if it is not founded on a clear theory. Having developed somehow chaotically, being represented at present quite often by works which bear its name without explicating the reason for being included in its field of research, fragmented into many detailed researches and too little illustrated by studies of a general character and showing the osmosis between the theoretical thesis and the individual facts — and vice versa —, psycholinguistics at the present moment needs theoretical discussions which should anchor it in a precise place among related fields and establish the theoretical framework of future detailed research work. Psycholinguistics, which is spoken of vaguely and often ambiguously, this "interdisciplinary field" which I do not yet dare — as can be seen — call a "science", needs certain specifications regarding its object, its relation to psychology and linguistics, its particular problems and methodology. We are on the other hand at a time when the problem of methodology is very acutely raised in connection with many sciences — among which psychology and linguistics as well: so much the more will this problem be raised for a border field like psycholinguistics. Lastly, psycholinguistic studies would have to be carried out at a level of clear knowledge of its objectives, its specific field. First it is necessary to define its place in the general field of culture, in the first place with regard to the sciences from which it has developed: psychology on the one hand and linguistics on the other. Many confuse psycholinguistics — i ntentionally or unpremeditatedly, or, maybe, unmeditatedly — with the psychology of langage, others again identify it with applied linguistics. We do not confuse it with any of the above fields — and we shall state precisely, a little further, how we diferentiate it. Psycholinguistics studies, with the help of such means as psychology and linguistics offer it, the border phenomena between the two above sciences, phenomena which are inevitable as far as langage is a human phenomenon and language is a product of man (and therefore it bears the stamp of human psyche as any product

M

PREFACE

of man) and as language serves as a means of communication between men (therefore it permanently passes through the channel of human psyche or, to be more concrete, as it permanently occurs in the mouth and the ears of human beings and, as such, in the framework of the relations between speaker and listener — becoming "speech", parole —, it must bear the implications of all that forms the psychical particularities of the two partners). As it is neither a "psychology of langage" nor of "communication" — which preserve their own fields to which we shall refer later —, this discipline does not identify itself with linguistics either (or with a linguistic science definitely determined to ignore no longer what any language concretely realized in "speech" should really be), although we shall come across the phenomenon "parole", when analyzing its object. On the other hand, however, psycholinguistics must have an objective which should also include the possibility of giving solutions to certain problems — which may be called "practical" — regarding the learning of languages, troubles of speech, technique of translations, etc. : it will be serving applied linguistics (the aim of which is only the solving of practical problems), without merging into it. Who can or must carry out research work in psycholinguistics? Mere "co-operation" between the linguist proper and the psychologist becomes difficult — as any other co-operation between specialists well anchored in their own fields: the more "specialized" they are in their field, the more stereotyped they become in their methodological patterns and will move along parallel lines without ever really meeting in order to carry out together the psycholinguistic research work required from them. On the other hand a linguist without a thorough psychological grounding (which, in our opinion, means specializing in that field, too) runs the risk of compromising psycholinguistics — and becomes an obstacle which prevents us from observing the support which modern scientific psychology can offer him — if he tries to make use of some amateurish psychology and attempts to play the psychological violin without knowing the scores and using a worn-out or even improvised bow. The psychologist, in his turn, lacking serious training in the field of linguistics will remain at the level of a certain (unsatisfactory in itself) psychology of langage. An interdisciplinary field — which could aspire to become a "science" in future — psycholinguistics should be dealt with by specialists having interdisciplinary training and first and foremost capable of approaching the phenomenon of langage in a suitable frame of mind which should neither be only linguistic nor only psychological. Maybe the term "psycholinguistics" is not the most suitable to designate the field and methodology which we shall discuss in this book. It may not be suitable either to a number of studies which are being carried out now by other research workers. This name recalls "linguistic psychology" too much; it points from the

PREFACE

15

beginning to special stress placed on psychology — which is detrimental to the interdisciplinary understanding o f the field it designates. The name may be improper: the fact remains. Certain hybrid names which designate at present various interdisciplinary fields (sometimes ignored or mocked at because they bear geminated names, inadequate or suggesting amphibious existence, or full of unpleasant semantic resonances because associated with various events in the history of sciences) will perhaps disappear, and the fields which they represent will experience changes — as any science, in its evolution; but it is not the attempt to eliminate them from the "road" of the other sciences, traditional, that will be able to serve — even if it were possible — the advance of the very sciences which have produced them, originally, as shapeless and annoying excrescences. W e ourselves should prefer another name for the field to which we dedicate this book. But the fact that we do not like this name and that, for the time being, we cannot find another one, "better inspired" than the name which has enjoyed the success it has — as well as the disgrace, as anything enjoying success —, cannot make us give up our research work in this field. The fact that a name is not "nice" — or even that a name has not yet been found for a certain notion — has never been able to obstruct the existence of a phenomenon, a being or a science. Auguste Comte did not name linguistics and did not include it in the system of sciences which he had drawn up; however, linguistics existed even at that time and, in any case, it was to develop a few years later and reach the level of the old classical "sciences" of the time of Comte. The present book bears the title of "Introduction" in its strictest sense: as we are dealing with a new discipline, this book, in fact, is not only an "introduction" having teaching purposes connected with the study of a certain field; it is also intended for confrontation of opinions among specialists. Whence our attempt to combine two styles — which should make it accessible even if we have recourse to ideas or notions less commonly employed in university manuals. W e shall make a few personal clarifications regarding the object, the area of the field, the methodology of psycholinguistics, but we shall continually combine the theory with the facts from which it is derived, which support it or the understanding of which it facilitates. From the logical necessity of uniformity and chiefly from the relation factstheory, the facts will be to a great extent collected by ourselves without, naturally, ignoring the observations and experiments made by other research workers. After the introduction to the subject, in which we shall deal with the birth of psycholinguistics and its place in the present-day system of sciences as an interdisciplinary field, we shall deal more comprehensively with the object of psycholinguistics and then the methodology of collecting and interpreting facts (we shall first discuss the methodological principles and then the experimental method together with the method which we call dynamic-contextual). Next we shall present a number of applications of psycholinguistics in research work carried out in related

16

PREFACE

fields and in practice, together with a number of facts collected on the basis of the methodology we propound, that is: applications of psycholinguistics in research work carried out in the fields of stylistics, dialectology, etc., research work regarding language and work, the learning of the mother tongue by children and the learning of foreign languages in general — in order to reach conclusions which may prove of interest both to general linguistics and to the special linguistics of Romanian as well as to the teaching of languages (for which the learning of the first language, the mother lansruage, is a fundamental problem). We shall also raise the problem of relations, in the ontogenetical development, between thought and langage, also studied with the help of psycholinguistics. The experimental method in linguistics and psycholinguistics will form the object of the last part of this book, in which we shall describe a few experiments and their results. As it will be seen, the present book will not contain any "conclusions" or a summing-up in the proper sense of these words. We have not written here a "treatise on psycholinguistics", which would have to include all the results obtained by this science: it is an introduction to the subject and the author has based herself chiefly on her own findings, to which she could now have recourse when illustrating the theoretical principles. The author offers these findings for consideration, discussion or possible suggestions. There are still many blanks, blank pages which will have to be written. Will others write them — will they be written by us? This detail is not very important, except if we refer to a personal project or, at any rate, to linking certain research work to the individual particularities of a certain writer: the essential fact is, in any case, that the blank pages should be written in future. September, 1967

CHAPTER I

The beginnings of psycholinguistics and its place in the present-day system of sciences

1. Psycholinguistics is a "border" or "frontier" science. The present age has witnessed the flourishing of interdisciplinary approaches — whether they refer to certain fields only, or to various disciplines or even to neighbouring sciences. Thus the appearance of psycholinguistics is not an isolated phenomenon and therefore a look into what is taking place today in the innermost intimacy of the system of sciences does not appear only as a necessity as it enables us to draw general and typical conclusions, but the enquiry becomes concomitantly exciting and, as it seems, of contemporary significance 1 . 1.1. The general system of sciences is at present greatly troubled by contemporary dynamism; we see it very much shattered by modern viewpoints, by the desire to breathe more freely, free from tight garments, in the various fields of science. Reality — and the improved means which we have at hand today in order to discover it — compels all sciences to gradually reconsider their former concepts, their former categories : they are discovered to be either too narrow or too inflexible and one looks for more appropriate means of enquiry while seeking new developments, and trying to open such doors which may lead to regions ignored by us before. However, in spite of its immense diversity, reality maintains a wonderful unity: the so-called methodological "objects" of the various sciences are nothing but sections cut by the human spirit out of the ever-advancing continuum of reality, which is unitary in itself. The objects of our knowledge are therefore small units cut out of the larger unit of reality. But our modern spirit is no longer content with breaking down knowledge into small bits, into fragments, and then taking delight in tasting scattered crumbs of knowledge; it tries to investigate much further, connecting what initially appeared to be disconnected because the existing ties had not been noticed yet. Our present-day task is to consider the old "objects" from new viewpoints, which should disclose their constitutive elements better, discover new existing elements, or bring to light facets as yet unknown. Sciences have started to co-operate. But in order to go deeper into reality and to master

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I. THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

the modern system of knowledge better, what becomes absolutely necessary is specialization; on the one hand deep interdisciplinary contacts take place, and on the other hand we select from the fields of two or several sciences, that which may help us to study an object from a completely new point of view. The older sciences give birth to new realms: from these "crossings" between sciences there are born what we call today — employing terms which will certainly become more and more "fashionable" — the border (frontier) or interdisciplinary, or neighbouring sciences or realms. Thus there have appeared sciences or simple "realms" (areas), such as : biochemistry, pharmacopsychology, sociolinguistics, cosmophysiology, psycholinguistics. With or without a hyphen (this depends on the orthography of each language, but also on the more or less respectable age of the respective realms which changes in our conscience one of these conglomerates into a monolithic block), these compound words have, therefore, started by shocking our ears or eyes, and they end by caressing gently the palate of the amateurs who appropriate them diligently, like anything fashionable. 1.2. The ancient system of sciences was rather "thin": Aristotle distinguished in it three groups (the poetical sciences — which included aesthetics —, the practical sciences — which included morals —, and the theoretical sciences — which included physics and philosophy). For the Stoics and the Epicureans the sciences were : logics, physics and ethics. Bacon wanted to classify sciences according to the primary processes which would be specific to each of the various categories: memory for history, imagination for poetry, reason for philosophy. Out of these inconsistent systems the sciences of the nineteenth century have proliferated (Ampère had counted 128 sciences)2, and Auguste Comte was very proud of being able to include and classify them in the framework of a system — up-to-date for that time — corresponding to the stage of development reached in his century. As we know, he based philosophy on six sciences: mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, sociology 3 . 1.3. Do we still accept this system today? It is not a matter of deciding for one classification or another, of accepting A. Comte's classification or that of Herbert Spencer, or again finding a new and altogether different one. We do not refer either to the controversy about the problem: where the various sciences should be included. The real matter is that of recognizing the right of autonomous existence to any science and of proclaiming the law of independent existence for a realm which is still in statu nascendi: to A. Comte — an unjust judge and, from this point of view, a poor diagnostician for the development of sciences —, psychology was just a chapter of biology, and the study of language was entrusted to sociology 4 . What is more important is the fact that new sciences have appeared since A. Comte, sciences which were not even known by E. Goblot 5 , and then some other sciences again, which various "systematisers" of sciences, even closer to us, could not include in their systems, as these sciences were born only now.

I. THE BEGINNINGS O F PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

21

Lastly, what can we do in the present-day system of sciences (for there is a system, although it is very difficult to discern it clearly at present), with the new sciences which are difficult to classify? What can we do for instance with cybernetics: where shall we place it? A complex affiliation has developed, there have been born numerous descendants of such venerable sciences like physics or mathematics or even of younger sciences of that time, such as psychology which was known by A. Comte, or of linguistics which he himself did not even dare to name. The human spirit has made good progress in the knowledge of phenomena, it sees their complexity better, it loathes only unilateral approaches, it does not stop in front of what seems — or we should better say seemed — unfathomable, when examined with the old instruments. The need was also felt to approach the same phenomenon from several points of view simultaneously. Psychology also knows several similar interdisciplinary approaches derived from it: psychophysiology, psychopharmacology, psychopedagogy, etc. (J. Piaget, in his lecture at the XVIII lh International Congress of Psychology of 1966, dealt extensively with these various relations). Interdisciplinary branches have also developed from linguistics: mathematical linguistics is one of the most recent. We could say that psycholinguistics has developed simultaneously from both sources — a double origin attested both by its birth certificate and by various works published up to now, which really deserve to be considered as belonging to it. The fission of matter: we should also speak about the fission of sciences, which in a fecund parthenogenesis creates new means of investigation, combining elements taken from various disciplines into syntheses whose components sometimes — as it is still the case with psycholinguistics — are difficult to articulate into balanced and well outlined units. It is not always the case of discovering a new object — which should require the starting of a new science —, but about the appearance of some new and unknown aspects of an already existing object, which, by applying the combined methods of two sciences and the interpretations proper to them, are better revealed, reaching a depth which goes down to the very essence of the phenomenon. The need is felt for "officializing", for designating in terminological formulae the existing relations between various sciences: this is the case with our psycholinguistics — a name which some find happily created for the time being but which will soon prove to be unsatisfactory. We have tried to throw a "flash" on the general development of sciences — briefly sketched here —, within which psycholinguistics was also born. But what were the specific, the particular circumstances which justified its appearance? 2. The field of the study of langage is very wide. Communication — which is however the more exact term for this phenomenon considered in its most comprehensive generality — includes a multiplicity of aspects: the relative psychic processes, the language or "code", its particular concretization or "messages", the communi-

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I. THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

cation as such, etc., all these build together a single phenomenon having several facets. 2.1. Especially since F. de Saussure's 6 Cours has defined the categories of langage, language, speech (langage, langue, parole), and has drawn boundary lines among them, it has become clear that linguistics studies language, and psychology — langage. Within these limits the activity, which has become traditional, of these two disciplines has been carried out, and not seldom have they reached deadlocks due to these rigid borders and a certain methodology considered "adequate" for the respective objects. 2.2. Relations between psychology and linguistics are old enough. Even as early as the 19th century the psychology of langage — which at that time included much of what used to be called the "philosophy of langage" — sometimes required inroads into linguistics, and some linguists showed interest in psychology. The trail opened by W. von Humboldt (we should remember his idea about energeia — the ability of man's spirit to use articulated sounds in order to express itself) has led in the second half of the century to the works of Heymann Steinthal, Hermann Paul, Wilhelm Wundt Certain attempts have even been made to entitle some works: "psychological linguistics" or "linguistic psychology" (for instance J. van Ginneken) 8 , not very clearly justified, as neither the psychology of langage — muddled up in its associationistic theory — was yet in the possession of satisfactory experimental facts, nor had linguistics collected sufficient data to make itself capable of understanding this system which is language. Before our generation started considering these problems, there had been already a prosperous co-operation between linguistics and psychology in the 30's in France — especially in the framework of the "Journal de psychologie" —, also within the Prague School of Phonology — perhaps also due to the fact that Roman Jakobson, one of its promoters, acquired his knowledge of psychology as a student at the university. Lastly, the German tradition (where the same department used to include philosophy, psychology and linguistics) had also sometimes led, during the same years before World War II, to works in which psychology (and philosophy even more) is mixed with linguistics: Ernst Cassirer, E. Husserl, Karl Bühler, J. Stenzel, F. Kainz 9 . We should also mention in this reviewing, which is far from being complete, the useful analyses for linguistics carried out by Agostino Gemelli 10 — a psychologist — , or the special position held by G. Guillaume and his school — crystallized in the "psycho-mechanics of langage", pointing out the passing from language to speech (discoursJ11, or the influence exerted by B. Whorf 12 . However these relations have been rather scarce, owing to haphazard sometimes. A fact which has greatly hampered the fertile development of these activities was the development — and sometimes also the inclination — usually unilateral, of the research workers (both in linguistics and in psychology), and in general the insuf-

I. THE BEGINNINGS O F PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

23

ficient knowledge of modern psychology by many linguists. Only seldom have there been research workers who deliberately specialized themselves in the field of both sciences with a view to dedicating their research work to the phenomenon of langage13. We ourselves, having amphibious training, felt a growing necessity for the setting up of a new discipline. However nobody is an isolated phenomenon and therefore this necessity was most probably felt also by many other research workers — even those concerned with only one field of activity, either linguists or psychologists — after World War II. A stimulating factor for some of them was the publication — first in the U.S.A. — of the works of authors who had carried out new research work concerning means of mechanical transmission of messages, and then the publication of the first theoretical works concerning information. Although earlier relations between psycholinguistics and linguistics did exist, and although we can trace a continuous line, at the end of which ("end" for only a moment of course) we find today psycholinguistics, still the latter exhibits a number of particularities which make it look quite different from the two early attempts entitled "linguistic psychology" and "psychology of langage" in its old form: both psychology and linguistics on which psycholinguistics is based today are far from what they used to be before World War II. Until now we have travelled a certain distaace in time so that we are able to realize that psychology or linguistics — and probably other sciences as well — have taken after World War II a new aspect, which outlined itself more clearly in the 50's. There is nothing casual in the fact that psycholinguistics in its present-day form was born about 1950 and nurses in itself the echo of the theory of information, of structural linguistics, of renewed psychology — following the Gestalt psychology (but not forgetting it), after the criticism of behaviourism, the developing of materialist psychology also based on experimental physiology (partly Pavlovian) and permanently keeping watch on social determinism —, or lastly, benefiting from the efflorescence of the interdisciplinary spirit. 2.3. By the middle of this century this idea was "in the air". In 1951 a seminar at Cornell University, under the sponsorship of the Social Science Research Council, had assembled six people (psychologists and linguists) who tried to define the relations between the two sciences. Some of these pioneers — John Carroll, Ch. Osgood and T. A. Sebeok —, together with three other research workers and five students, met in 1953 at another seminar, at Indiana University, which led (in 1954) to the volume Psycholinguistics, a survey of theory and research problems14, edited by Charles Osgood — a psychologist — and Thomas Sebeok — a linguist — ; the volume was distributed through two channels, and was sold out very quickly; through the "International journal of American linguistics", for linguists, and through the "Journal of abnormal and social psychology", for psychologists.

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This volume could therefore be considered as the birth certificate of a new discipline, officially acknowledged (adopting the same coined for the first time, as it seems, in 1946, by N. Pronko of Indiana University, in a mere bibliographical account published in the "Psychological bulletin") 15 . This very suggestive and useful volume lacks however both an introduction and a synthetic conclusion containing the general principles of psycholinguistics. Several conferences or symposia held in the United States on various themes and the volumes containing the proceedings of the meetings, as well as various articles, demonstrate the stimulating influence which the first volume of 1954 had in the United States. The work included — without insisting on it — a brief "working" definition of psycholinguistics, showing that "psycholinguistics deals directly with the processes of encoding and decoding as they relate states of messages to states of communicators" 16 . The contents of this volume were chiefly dedicated to the theory of what its authors considered to be the bases of psycholinguistics: the linguistic theory according to which language is to be considered as a system of mutually related elements, then the "learning theory" (the theory of learning according to behaviourists — language as a system of habits, of skills, which related the sign to behaviour), and the theory of information, which considers language as a means for transmitting information (these sources are pointed out in Psycholinguistics)17. Lastly, a good part of the volume contained suggestions referring to problems which psycholinguistics could approach, alongside possible experimental research work in this field. 2.4. There are several works on linguistics, psychology of langage, etc. which are called by other people and not by their authors "psycholinguistics", or to which the authors themselves give this title without knowing well enough why their works are included in that field. Thus, Sol Saporta, in a pan-psycholinguistic élan (which was however very well received by the American promoters of this discipline) published in 1961 an anthology 18 , where very interesting and important articles were grouped together under this title, i.e. "psycholinguistics", without the editor showing us in a preface what is the definition of this discipline which justified their grouping together in the respective volume, or what were the grounds on which he selected the various works he put together. In any case there are many authors in that volume, who never thought of "contributing to psycholinguistics" or who did not write their works with the special purpose of applying psycholinguistic principles. Lastly, a volume recently published (in 1965)19 usefully reedits the volume Psycholinguistics of 1953, published by Ch. Osgood and T. A. Sebeok, and containing also an instructive preface in which the latter presents briefly the history of this intellectual movement. The annexes contain an article by G. Miller on the "psycholinguists", as well as a "Survey of psycholinguistic research, 1954—1964", by A. Richard Diebold Jr., in which the latter presents a history of the current

I. THE BEGINNINGS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

25

and publishes a rich bibliography (based on the same principles as Sol Saporta's anthology — which this "Survey" most comprehensively reviews). As the author himself pointed out, the survey and bibliography were concerned only with American psycholinguistics (indeed, as very many of the works on psycholinguistics published until now). Among the few European authors, contemporary European psycholinguists are not mentioned (for instance the French volume of psycholinguistics is not included). Let us also add that interesting psycholinguistic works on the language of children have also started being published in the United States 20 . The widest current in psycholinguistics and having an almost official status, has been developed in the United States, though it still lacks a totality of theoretical and methodological principles. The bases, sketched in the 1953 volume, began to be rejected by many (for instance G. Miller has severely criticised the mechanistic principles of "learning" considered as a behaviouristic conditioning). Almost all psycholinguistic works — either books, or monograph collections, or articles reviewing works published in this field21 — are lacking a wider theoretical discussion, which should classify the research works carried out regarding a number of special themes or should show the general psycholinguistical principles on which they are based. In the United States, psycholinguistics started to organize itself as a current (in which Ch. Osgood's conception played a fundamental part) before defining itself as an objective field for research. Writers very often also speak about psycholinguistics, and this name is given to various works without knowing very well what the field consists of. As it has been noticed by J. Berko and R. Brown 22 , the name for psycholinguistic methods of research in child langage was created before these methods had been invented. It also happens that each promoter (among whom there are prominent strong personalities) should continue his own line and interests which are his own, in specific fields (stylistics or other fields for T.A. Sebeok, "the measurement of meaning" for Ch. Osgood, etc.), and abandon the central and general purpose of eventually defining psycholinguistics 23 . 2.5. In Europe we can say that the signal given by this title first used in 1953 had been awaited in order to start anew the co-operation (which had become traditional) between linguistics and psychology. In 1962, the annual symposium of the "Association française de psychologie" — held at Neuchâtel — was initially dedicated to the "psychology of langage" however its proceedings were published in 1963 in a volume under the title "Problems of psycholinguistics", with a preface by P. Fraisse 24 . The characteristic of this useful and valuable collective work is that it was written mostly (and edited exclusively) by psychologists and that it includes under the same name studies which have not, however, been carried out according to a co-ordinated plan or common principles. Still, this first European symposium, organized with the efforts of the French psychologists, had the merit of bringing the problems of speech before a wide European forum, where discus-

26

I. THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

sions were to contribute to giving suggestions and revealing obscure points. The fact is regrettable that neither the symposium nor the volume have led to a synthesising statement concerning psycholinguistics. The great interest which is aroused at present by psycholinguistics is marked in various European countries not only by works published in them, which have started bearing the name of this discipline, but also by public activities in the form of congresses (see supra, the Preface), by the initiative of delivering lectures 26 , of organizing symposia (in general, only with local attendance for the time being2®), of setting up centres of research work under the name of "psycholinguistics". Thus, in Italy — where until a few years ago there was only a small interest among psychologists in the problems of language — one of the three symposia organized during the XV th National Congress of Italian Psychologists (in June 1965) opened with a report presented by A. Massucco Costa, entitled Pensiero, linguaggio e realtà nella psicolinguistica contemporanea. A paper — presented by G. Devoto to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in Aprii 1962 and written by E. de Felice — drew the attention of Italian linguists to the interest raised by research work regarding psychology and indeed it pointed to psycholinguistic problems 27 . (The paper was entitled "For a definition of syntax in its psychological aspects"). In Italy again, there was published in 1964 a university course delivered by Renzo Titone and entitled "Psycholinguistics today" 2 8 . R. Titone's book is interesting as it is one of the first attempts to systematize the matter, but it does not properly contain a presentation of the methodology of psycholinguistics or of research work regarding psycholinguistics. R. Titone shows that psycholinguistics is useful especially for "linguistic didactics" 29 and therefore two chapters in the book are dedicated to this application (indeed, the author is a specialist in the didactics of foreign languages). A part of the book includes a historical presentation — in fact, of the psychology of langage (the book also includes the ideas of a number of authors in which I personally could not recognize the spirit of what psycholinguistics has to be); the American conception of psycholinguistics is also stated and especially a number of problems are considered rather from a psychological point of view. We can say that in Romania the interest in psycholinguistics showed itself before the works reflecting it — and about which we shall have the opportunity to speak further on — had been entitled "psycholinguistic", that is before the spreading of this name 3 0 . In order to show their benevolence regarding "psycholinguistics", certain psychologists in various countries have called themselves psycholinguists, although they deal only — or chiefly — with the psychology of language. Even this benevolence (which makes American psycholinguistics seem to have assumed such an ample development) is a mark of the interest aroused at present by psycholinguistics and it will be able to lead in future to very useful works, on condition,

I. THE BEGINNINGS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

27

however, that this benevolence should be doubled by an effort to define more precisely the principles, aims and tasks of such researches, which call themselves "psycholinguistic". 3. The absence of theoretical studies discussing the object, methodology, principles (other than purely psychological or linguistic) of psycholinguistics has obliged us, first and foremost for our personal benefit, to define things methodologically. We shall try now to give a synthetic definition of these principles. However, we should like to add that this methodology which we explicitly formulated as a psycholinguistic methodology especially in the last years, has formed the basis of certain research work which we have been carrying out for several years. 3.1. First we should like to make clear our interdisciplinary position. French psycholinguistics — chiefly supported (see the already mentioned symposium) by psychologists — is considered to be a branch of psychology. This is A. TabouretKeller's point of view, published in her review of Sol Saporta's anthology ( « Si une psycholinguistique devait se justifier, ce serait par l'étude de l'homme parlant pris dans sa totalité, ce qui reviendrait à en faire une branche de la psychologie» — 'if psycholinguistics had to justify itself, it should be by studying the speaker taken as whole, which means making psycholinguistics a branch of psychology') 31. Furthered by psychologists, psycholinguistics consequently becomes a branch of psychology, however without being clearly defined in the framework of psychology; sometimes it is identified with the psychology of langage, at other times sceptical opinions are expressed even regarding the justification of its existence 32 . On the other hand, one cannot see very well what could be the relations between psycholinguistics and linguistics and the contribution of the former to the latter science. A similar point of view is openly put forward by R. Titone 33 both explicitly and implicitly, through the viewpoint in which he deals with the various problems in his book. The position of American psycholinguistics, arising from the common effort of certain psychologists and linguists, does not appear clear enough, but it seems that linguists and psycholinguists contribute equally to its development without helping us understand what it serves, what are its aims and in fact how it is related to psychology and psycholinguistics 34 . A. R. Diebold Jr.'s remark, that in the U.S.A. psycholinguistics has developed at the periphery of linguistics 35 , does not appear justified enough by historical facts and on the other hand one could notice in this remark a certain indirect reproach, which in our opinion could be justfied only if this discipline were considered by linguists as a Cinderella. (We should not forget however that poor Cinderella had in her care the housekeeping of her whole ungrateful family, which she helped with her very useful work). As far as we are concerned, we consider that psycholinguistics should not be considered as a current — in linguistics or psychology — but as a discipline (or

28

I. THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

— for the more modest — a field or an interdisciplinary approach), which is justified by the present-day system of sciences and is in accordance with the spirit of the new methodology of such sciences which are called border sciences. It must have an object of its own, specific problems (at least facets of communication, which are not accessible either to psychology alone, or to present day linguistics). It must have its own investigation methods taken from psychology and linguistics, and especially it must have ways of interpretation proper to it alone. Methods or procedures proper only to linguistics or psychology should not be attempted to be imposed upon it. This would cause the failure of this discipline from the beginning. In our opinion, psycholinguistics is not a branch of psychology, as it is not a branch of linguistics; however, if the problem cuiprodest is raised, I would like to say that it should chiefly serve linguistics (and thus one could clearly see the importance which it could have for applied linguistics; these relations will be discussed further as well, Ch. II, and in Part II). Psychology has its specific field, which is the psychology of langage, and psycholinguistics should help it rather widen the prospect of its research activity, in order to correct such research work activities which overlook language as a human product, the code set up and used as such, and in order to use linguistic data more than this is done at present. Linguistics, however, needs the help of psycholinguistics, not only in order to understand and study language better, but in order to bring about a vital renewal in its methodology, and also to achieve the study of a phenomenon which is much too often forgotten — that is "speech" (parole) ; we shall refer again to this problem in the following chapter. Psycholinguistics will therefore have to study a whole field very little known yet and will have to help linguistics in connection with all applied aspects which are connected with the phenomena of "speech" (parole). 3.2. Obviously — and from this point of view in our interdisciplinary field seeds of various currents can steal in —, psycholinguistics must benefit from — or, we may say, if the case is, bear the ominous influence of psychology and linguistics as regards their theories. However, there is no single psychology as there is no single linguistics. It is well understood that psycholinguistics — even regarding its most general principles — can be influenced by the conceptions of the two mother sciences; the relation between conception and methodology is very close. The linguistic theory made clear in the volume Psycholinguistics (1953) appears as acceptable because it expresses in general some of the very wide-spread principles of contemporary linguistics such as structuralism in its "balanced" form 3 6 . We should like to add to this a linguistic principle which we consider fundamental, but whose importance was overlooked in the volume we have mentioned: a complete study of language facts, from the point of view of the emitter and the receiver. The psychological theory — or theories — presented in the same volume do not appear to have the same validity as the linguistic one; in fact, it is easy to understand why it was impossible to put forward only "one" behaviouristic doctrine

I. THE BEGINNINGS OF PSYCHOLINGUIST1CS

29

and we are presented with several theories which have brought amendments to "behaviourism". However, this foundation of the theory is not accepted by all American psycholinguists, and the French review made by A. TabouretKeller expresses the same rebarbative attitude towards this "narrow behaviouristic interpretation" and regarding this "anticipated distorsion of facts" 37 . The initiators of American psycholinguistics have explicitly proclaimed (and Sol Saporta in his Anthology38 repeats this statement) that their basis was the psychology of behaviourism in its various forms, grouped around two models; a) The model of classical conditioning, based on the repeated strengthening of a connection between a stimulus S and a response R ; the unconditioned stimulus US is followed by a characteristic response R x : another stimulus (this time conditioned, CS) is inadequate with respect to eliciting the response R x ; yet, a long series of repeated situations in which the US is always preceded by the CS determines CS to start eliciting the same response R x : C S X * Ra US— And b) The model of instrumental learning (or "by trial and error" or "operant" or "instrumental conditioning"), which descends more directly from E. Thorndike: the organism may give various answers, but the "correct" response is that which is followed by "reward", because it is appropriate to a certain need of the organism; after a number of rewarded attempts, the "correct" response appears with high probability because it has been "learned" (this response is therefore instrumental, it is a means for obtaining reward, and if the correct answer does not occur, the organism will not find its reward: here, motivation plays a more important role than in the first model). In both models — and this is pointed out in Psycholinguistics itself 39 — "the correct response must be in the behaviour repertory of the organism prior to conditioning". The theories regarding "learning", included in the above chapter (written by James Jenkins), are the theories of E. R. Guthrie, E. C. Tolman, B. F. Skinner, and C. L. Hull. 3.3. Our starting point is not at all the same as the one we presented above. First because this would mean that from the beginning we should build our theory on a contradiction: behaviouristic psychology, even if in some of its variants it does not state (or does not state today any longer) explicitly that it excludes consciousness from the study of psychic phenomena, it remains essentially a mechanistic conception (as J. Jenkins himself admits, when he presents the psychological foundation of psycholinguistics) 40 . This psychology considers the relations stimulus — response only from the point of view of "overt behaviour" 41 , it indicates the necessity for studying the relation between a stimulus objectively verifiable and a reaction objectively verifiable, refusing any intervention of variables which might develop "inside" the organism 42 , and even if some of the contemporary theories

30

I. THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

admit — says J. Jenkins — a model in which there are certain terms between S and R, these terms are commonly (if they are explicit) either of the nature of a "drive", of a "habit", or are defined in terms of internal chemistry, to some neural and muscular activity, which are not so much factors of integration of the stimulus in the same unit with reaction, but both remain somehow independent, as units incidentally connected. On the other hand, the models and theories explicitly exposed as forming the bases of psycholinguistics contradict, in the same volume, Ch. Osgood's theory set forth in the pages which follow the exposition of the fundamental principles: a theory which attempts to explain language facts, through a mediatory system, an intermediary between reception and expression (coded messages start from a central system from which the decoded messages originate as well). A contradiction, in the same work, which demonstrates the difficulty of relying only on behaviouristic theories in psycholinguistics. As A. Roback 4 3 remarked: if behaviourism were followed closely, psycholinguistics "would be non-existent". This conception cannot explain — and cannot group either — the entire complexity of homo loquens and at the same time the capacity for plastic flexible adaptation which is implied by langage. We should not forget that one of the postulates of this conception is that all answers must exist in the organisms and must be included tale quale in the activity of learning. But in that case it would be difficult to take into account and to explain the adequate adaptation to new contexts — including sequences which have never been learned —, it would be difficult to explain the capacity for combinative productivity which reflects itself in each fact of langage, as well as the original combinations of elements and the capacity to understand such novelty combinations. (Let us refer to one of J. Miller's arguments against the mechanist theories 44 . Simple English sentences can run on the average to a length of twenty words ; but in order that someone could hear all the admissible twenty-word English sentences, he would need a hundred million centuries — which makes it absolutely impossible for one and the same person to be able to hear all the twenty-word sentences. However, English speakers understand any sentence which is framed as a novel combination of morphemes. This means we do not learn to understand only sentences which teachers pronounce and explain. What we learn, concludes G. Miller, are not particular strings of words, but rules for generating admissible strings of words. Rules which, we should like to add, allow — and mean — an adaptation of behaviour to each particular context. I think that one of the most exciting attempts which will have to be made is that of building a solid bridge between psycholinguistics and transformational linguistics or generative grammars. But to this purpose behaviourism is not what would help most 45 ). The pre-eminently human phenomenon which is langage — a complex and specific phenomenon — cannot be assimilated, as the behaviourists do it following their own confession, with no matter what "variety" of human behaviour, as for

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31

instance "the fact of opening a door" 46 : langage is governed by consciousness — a typical human phenomenon which has nothing of the character of a deus ex machina, but which makes us understand just this capacity of plastic adaptation, voluntary as the case may be, intentioned if the case may be, which moulds itself after the dynamics of reality. Langage, in order to be understood in its complexity, must be studied and explained by social determinism and at the same time in relation with the dynamic ensemble of psychic life — in which thought plays a very important part and which implies at the same time the activity of an anatomo-physiological basis capable itself of functional plasticity. Psycholinguistics needs an ampler theoretical basis and not a mere theory of learning and in any case it needs a more comprehensive vision of human learning, as a process of integration in which the whole human person is involved. In the spirit of this conception of man considered in his totality and complex determinism, we shall try to set forth a methodology which we deem consistent with this conception. 3.4. I should also like to underline the fact that studying linguistic facts in connection with psychology does not mean today any longer having recourse (as some linguists were afraid it would when speaking about "psychologism") to the explanation of these facts through the individual (we should not forget that general determinism also interferes in the individual, — and first of all social determinism). In any case, there is no question of our referring to the psychology of a certain individual, but of interpreting facts through the general laws of human psyche. This may also offer an explanation to the fact that there are systems or structures in the language and to their correspondence with certain human algorithms. Certain aspects with which linguistics is now concerned and which even sometimes constitute its dominants could find an objective supporting argument in psychic reality in which research work is more advanced. Certain attempts were made, for instance, to find a bridge between mathematical or transformational linguistics and psychology: V. Yngve, for instance, has developed a theory ("depth hypothesis") based on the psychological law of the restrictions of memory set forth by the psychologist G. Miller 47 . N. Chomsky 48 also expressed the idea that the human organism enjoys the capacity of using and identifying the structural regularities of language49. 3.5. Thus the psychological conception on which we understand to found psycholinguistics differs radically from the conception proclaimed by certain psycholinguistic currents and especially by behaviourism. a) First, our conception considers man as a whole — that is, endowed with consciousness, with thought (which plays an important role in human communication) — and generally achieving, in this wholeness, a rational balance (we therefore do not accept as a general rule the hypertrophy of a certain side: the unconscious or the subconscious, etc.). b) We shall take into account the interrelations between

32

I. THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

the psychic processes, and the connection between psyche and the physiological (the functioning of the cortex of the brain, of the articulatory organs, of the auditory ones, etc.). c) Our psychological conception has in view the fact that it is impossible to discuss the human psyche without taking into account social determinism as well. Man is what he is, owing to the continuous influence of life among other people and his existence in a historical chain (within this process thought is developed, language is learned, adaptations required by communication take place, knowledge transmitted by society is taken over, etc.). d) We consider man as an active, dynamic being, suffering permanent changes, acting upon himself, upon nature, upon other men. In general we have in view — and this will have great influence on the orientation of psycholinguistics — the psyche of a man who, far from being static, contemplative (in the sense of absolute stasis, as even human contemplation normally implies a dynamics of thought), is in permanent activity (the child's activity during its development, the adult's professional activity, etc.). This activity influences communication deeply, e) Lastly, we advocate the methodology of a scientific psychology, based on facts and not on sterile speculations, reaching generalizations founded on collecting data (chiefly through observation and experiments) and benefiting from all exact experimental techniques, mathematical procedures for processing data, etc. 3.6. As regards the linguistic theoretical basis we favour the adoption of the structural conception (which is a general characteristic of modern linguistics, in spite of all the differences regarding details, between the different currents), regarding language taken as a whole, as an ensemble, the components of which are not independent and are connected by mutual relations within a system. I should also like to add that I refer to what I call a contextual-dynamic structuralism: systematizations cannot be considered fixed, eternally the same; on the contrary, relations can be modified, dynamically, while on the other hand each component may be considered as a system, as a context of a smaller unit, which in its turn plays the role of a system, of a context, for a smaller component (word, sentence, paragraph, etc.). The third component of the theoretical basis of psycholinguistics, mentioned by its initiators in the book Psycholinguistics (1953), namely the theory of information, cannot be considered as a particular theoretical foundation, but as an auxiliary of psycholinguistics as it is involved both in modern psychology and linguistics, and is therefore included in the conception exposed above. 3.7. What consequences do these psychological and linguistic thereotical foundations have for psycholinguistics? Details will be discussed later on. For the time being and summing up the essence of the guiding lines we should like to state that: a) we shall continuously consider the contextual environment and the reflecting of the whole into each detail (the human psyche, the personality of each partner, the ambiance — situation, milieu, etc.) ; b) We shall understand language both

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33

from the point of view of emission and that of reception, as well as of the relations between these hypostases of language, c) We shall consider communication in its dynamics — in connection with man's life and activity —, studying the modifications of the messages in various fields of activity, d) We advocate a psycholinguistic science founded equally on psychology (a scientific psychology) and on linguistics (a balanced and dynamic-contextual structural linguistics), e) We believe that psycholinguistics should propose also to serve a certain purpose and in first place to serve linguistics (both theoretical and applied). 3.8. In order to finish, one more question regarding the problem of relations between psycholinguistics on the one hand, and linguistics and psychology on the other: should a psycholinguist be a linguist or a psychologist? I would like to answer: both, if he is to specialize in psycholinguistics. This double training would be necessary for specialists in psycholinguistics50. I would also like to add that one should not have only psychological or only linguistic training or propensity, but both at the same time, in order to be able to carry out useful, original and independent research work in psycholinguistics. I am convinced that the future road of science leads to thorough interdisciplinary specialization. As we already underlined in the Preface, psycholinguistics will bear only sad consequences by following amateurism or collaboration — factitious, temporary and subjected to haphazard, depending on the talent of the collaborators — between specialists only in psychology or only in linguistics. On the other hand it is however enough — and in our opinion it is even useful — that someone should continue as a specialist in semantics, in dialectology, in Romance linguistics, in phonetics etc., and apply to the relative fields these new principles, this methodology which helps one see more clearly even in one's own field. I also think that it is enough for someone to be trained as a psychologist or a linguist in order to understand the spirit of psycholinguistics, its special utility in order to solve certain problems and its general utility in order to renew linguistics. And — last but not least — it is enough in order to collaborate with specialists in psycholinguistics in research work, which could benefit much from the contribution of the "pure" psychologist or the "pure" linguist, on condition that the former or the latter should have the necessary understanding of the matter, in order to be able to apply the principles of psycholinguistics.

Notes 1

At the XVIII th International Congress of Psychology (Moscow, 1966) Jean Piaget delivered a lecture on: La psychologie, les relations interdisciplinaires et le "système des sciences", and at the X t h International Congress of Linguistics (Bucharest, 1967) Roman Jakobson

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I . THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PSYCHOLINGU ISTI CS

presented a report on Linguistics and adjacent sciences as well. The present chapter partly includes the contents of lectures which I delivered both in the framework of The Burgundian Society of Philosophy (at the University of Dijon, France) and at the Institute of Phonetics of the University of Grenoble (April 1966), entitled: La naissance et la place de la psycholinguistique, domaine interdisciplinaire, dans le système actuel des sciences. 2

Cf. La Grande Encyclopédie, Paris (1885—1901), Préface, Positivisme, Sociologie, Linguistique, Science, and: Enciclopedia Italiana, Roma. Treccani, 1949, s.v. Scienza.

3

A. Comte, Cours de philosophie positive, Paris, Baillière, 1869 (and Paris, Delagrave, 1920 — Extrait, Tableau synoptique du cours) ; see also the criticism of A. Comte's system in H. Spencer ( Classification des sciences, Paris, Baillière, 1881, pp. 1 and foil.), who among other things gives a special place to psychology among the other "concrete sciences" such as geology, sociology or astronomy (p. 6).

1

Linguists are vaguely and generically called "les érudits" (A. Comte, op. cit., ed. 1869, vol. IV, p. 352), and when he suggests the idea of a book on "ambiguous words" he calls it a work on the "philosophy of langage" {ibid., p. 351).

® E. Goblot, Essai sur la classification des sciences, Paris, Alean 1898 (he seems to think vaguely about interdisciplinary groupings, as for instance by adopting a name as : bio-psychosociologie, p. 293) 8

F. de Saussure, Cours de linguistique générale, Paris, Payot, 1922 (Und edition), pp. 25 foil.

7

H. Steinthal, Grammatik, Logik und Psychologie, ihre Prinzipien und ihr Verhältnis zueinander, Berlin, Dümmler, 1885; H. Paul, Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte, Halle, Niemeyer, 1886; W. Wundt, Völkerpsychologie, vol. I, Die Sprache (1 and 2) Leipzig, Engelmann, 1900.

8

J. Van Ginneken, Principes de psychologie linguistique, Paris, Rivière, 1907; see also O. Dittrich, Die Probleme der Sprachpsychologie und ihre gegenwärtigen Lösungsmöglichkeiten, Leipzig, Meyer, 1913, Grundzüge der Sprachpsychologie, Halle, Niemeyer, 1903. E. Cassirer, Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. I. Die Sprache, Berlin, B. Cassirer, 1923, Le langage et la construction du monde des objets, "J. de psychol.", 1933, no. 1—4, pp. 18— 45; E. Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, ed. 4 Halle, Niemeyer, 1928; Κ. Bühler, Sprachtheorie. Die Darstellungsfunktion der Sprache, Jena, Fischer, 1934; J. Stenzel, Philosophie der Sprache, München—Berlin, 1934; F. Kainz, Psychologie der Sprache, 5 vol., Stuttgart, Encke, 1941—1965. A. Gemelli, G. Pastori, L'analisi elettroacustica del linguaggio, Milano, Vita e pensiero, 1934. G. Guillaume, Langage et science du langage, Paris-Québec, Nizet Presses Univ. Laval, 1964; R. Valin, Petite introduction à la psychomécanique du langage. Québec, Presses Univ. Laval, 1954, p. 39; G. Moignet, Vadverbe dans la locution verbale. Étude de psychosystématique française, ibid., 1961, p. 4. Ch. Osgood, Language universals and psycholinguistics, in J. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of language, Cambridge-London, M. I. T. Press, [1963, ed. IV, 1966], considers that B. Whorf was in fact interested in psycholinguistics, in the "relations between linguistic and psychological processes". When we wrote— in 1948 — a work such as Langage et contexte (continuing a purpose which we had proposed to ourselves to attain a few years earlier, that of combining psychology and

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35

linguistics), we knew only a few names of authors having a double training and carrying out a double activity, that of psychologists and linguists at the same time. 14

Ch. Osgood and T.Á. Sebeok, Preface in Ch. Osgood, T.A. Sebeok (ed.). Psycholinguistics. A survey of theory and research problems, Indiana Univ. Baltimore, Waverly Press, 1954; Und ed. 1965, with: A. R. Diebold Jr., Survey of psycholinguistics research 1954—1964, and G. Miller, The psycholinguists.

16

N. Pronko, Language and psycholinguistics : A review, "Psychol, bull.", 1946, 43, no. 3, pp. 189—239.

16

Ch. Osgood, T.A. Sebeok (ed.), op. cit., p. 4.

17

Ibid., p. X.

18

S. Saporta (ed.) Psycholinguistics, A book of readings, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston [1961], See for instance also Sh. Rosenberg (ed.) Directions in psycholinguistics, New YorkLondon, Macmillan-Collier [1965],

19

See supra, note 14.

20

See infra, part II B.

21

See also : Sh. Rosenberg (ed.). Directions in psycholinguistics, New York-London, Collier-Macmillan, [1965]; J. Lyons, R. Wales (ed.), Psycholinguistic papers, Edinburgh, University Press, [1966]; H. Rubinstein, M. Aborn, Psycholinguistics, "Annual rev. psychol.", 1960, pp. 291— 321 ; S. Ervin-Tripp, D. Slobin, Psycholinguistics, ibid., 1966, 17, pp. 435-^74.

22

J. Berko, R. Brown, Psycholinguistic research methods, in P. Müssen (ed.), Handbook of research methods in child development, New York-London, Wiley, [1960], p. 517.

23

The situation remains almost the same today: after the enthusiastic application of generativist-transformationalist models in psycholinguistics, incertitude and even delusion have appeared. A "third generation" in psycholinguistics (an expression used by J. B. Carroll, Toward a third-generation psycholinguistics, 1970 — preprint) has perhaps to be more theoretically bent, towards an evaluation of the object and objectives of psycholinguistics, and more realistically oriented towards facts found in the communication situation (NEV).

24

Problèmes de psycholinguistique, Paris, P.U.F., 1963.

25

For instance, in the framework of the International Seminars for Applied Linguistics (France): F. Bresson, Problèmes de psycholinguistique (July, 1965—-1966), and ourselves: La psycholinguistique et quelques problèmes de linguistique appliquée (July, 1966). See also: F. François, Notions de psycholinguistique appliquée à l'enseignement du français, langue étrangère, Paris, B.E.L.C. (1965), roneotyped.

28

For instance in the U.S.S.R. at the Institute of Linguistics in Moscow (1966), or in England (where the Conference of Psycholinguistics organized by the University of Edinburgh was attended only by specialists from England and the U.S.A., three of the six papers being presented by research workers from the latter country — cf. J. Lyons, R. Wales (ed.) Psycholinguistic papers, cited ed. — or in the U.S.A. (for instance a lecture on "The development of child language": F. Smith, G. Miller [ed.], The genesis of language. A psycholinguistic approach. Cambridge-London, M.I.T. Press, [1966]), etc.

27

E. de Felice, Per una definizione della sintassi nei suoi aspetti psicologici, Roma, Accademia dei Lincei (fase. 3—4, series Vili, voi. 17), 1962.

36 se

28 80

I. THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

R . Titone, La psicolinguistica oggi, Zürich, PAS-Verlag, 1964. In Italy again, G. Flores d'Arcais delivered a course of lectures on this subject at Padova in 1963—64 (cf. M. Battacchi, Introduzione, in J. B. Carroll's Psicologia del linguaggio, Milano, Martello, [1964]). R. Titone, op. cit., p. 7. We especially refer to the book Langage et contexte, which was written in the years about the war: in 1942 a first manuscript work was drawn up, in 1948 the first form of this book was ready and in 1954 we published our first article expressing our conception onf psycholinguistics: Principiul adaptar ¡i la context (The principle of adaptation to context) ("Studi! çi cercetäri lingvistice", 1954, no. 1—2, pp. 201—245 in "Révue roumaine de linguistique", in French, in 1956). The book appeared in Romanian in 1959, in a French version in 1961, in a Spanish one in 1970. Later, several other works in the spirit of psycholinguistics appeared especially in the last years we dealt with defining the methodology and problems envisaged by this discipline. Among others we should like to mention the presentation of psycholinguistics for Romanian linguists and foreign Romance languages linguistics — offering also a number of principles — on the occasion of the first national Conference of Romanian Linguists (Bucharest 1964): La méthodologie psycholinguistique et quelques-unes de ses applications, "Rev. roum. linguist." 1965, no. 1—3, pp. 309—316 (published in extenso in "Studii çi cercet. lingv.", 1965, no. 1, pp. 131 —147, and in "Linguistics", 1966, no. 24, pp. 51—72).

81

A. Tabouret-Keller, no. 1, p. 96.

82

M. Coyaud, Le problème des grammaires de langage enfantin. C.N.R.S. Section d'automatique, docum., 1966, mimeographed.

33 84

Ccmpte

rendu à: S. Saporta (ed.) Psycholinguistics,

"Word", 1964,

R. Titone, op. cit., p. 57. J. B. Carroll, for instance (cf. M. Battacchi, loc. cit., p. X), considers that the psychology of langage and psycholinguistics are equivalent; on the other hand, the statement of A. R. Diebold Jr. (see p. 205 of the work referred to supra in note 14), that psycholinguistics is a niche in psychology linguistically-oriented, and in linguistics for psychologically-oriented research is a paradox which does not show in fact what is the real object of these studies.

85

A. R. Diebold Jr., op. cit., p. 206.

86

Later various authors refer to other linguistic theories as a basis for psycholinguistics: for instance J. Fodor, J. Jenkins, S. SaportaYPsycholinguistics and communication theory, in F. Dance (ed.), Human communication theory, New York, etc., Holt, Rinehart and Winston, [1967], pp. 160 foil.

" A. Tabouret-Keller, op. cit., p. 94. 88

S. Saporta (ed.) op. cit., p. V.

*· Ch. Osgood, T. A. Sebeóle (ed.), op. cit., p. 23. 10

Ibid., p. 33.

41

Ibid.

12

Ibid., p. 27.

48

A. Roback, Clossodynamics and the present status of psycholinguistics, logy, New York, Philos. Library, 1955, p. 901.

in Present-day

psycho-

I. THE BEGINNINGS O F PSYCHOLINGUISTICS 44

37

G. Miller, The psycholinguists, see supra, note 14.

46

Meanwhile, "the bridge" has been achieved between the two fields, but I do not think it could be considered a "solid" one (NEV).

48

S. Saporta (ed.), op. cit., p. V.

47

V. Ingve. The depth hypothesis, in R. Jakobson (ed.), Structure of la nguage and its mathematical aspects, "Proceedings of the X I I t h Symposium in applied mathematics", American Mathematical Society, 1961, pp. 130—138.

48

N. Chomsky, Formal properties of grammars, in R. Duncan Luce, R. R. Bush, E. Galanter (ed.) Handbook of mathematical psychology, New York-London, Wiley, 1963, vol. II, p. 330.

49

And, later, he arrived even at an (excessive, I think) integration of linguistics into psychology ("the particular branch of cognitive psychology known as linguistics", N. Chomsky, Language and mind, New York, Harcourt, Brace and World, [1968], p. 1) (NEV).

50

A. Tabouret-Keller, op. cit., p. 97.

CHAPTER II

The object of psycholinguistics and some of its problems

1. In order to define psycholinguistics as a science — or as a "field" or independent discipline —, it is necessary to define its object (and concomitantly its purpose or objectives), its methodology (in the meaning of the totality of procedures of knowledge concerning the object), as well as the results or conclusions which are being reached in the cognizance of the object and which form properly speaking the body of the respective "science". These what, why, how — of psycholinguistics —, as well as the answers to the questions which they presuppose, will be discussed in the following chapters. 2. First it is essential to specify the object which is subjected to our knowledge: the object, in the methodological acceptance of a phenomenon, the essential characteristics of which will have to become known, the details of the existence of which will have to be stated precisely and lastly, whose laws, governing its existence, will also have to be established. This forms the ensemble of problems raised by the study of an object in any field of science. If psycholinguistics has an object, its existence as an autonomous discipline is justified, it has the right "to exist" in spite of certain sceptical attitudes or the tendency to assimilate it to one branch or another of psychology or linguistics, or to consider it as a "mere name" for a fictitious field or as another name — unsatisfactory to many, among whom also ourselves — of the psychology of langage or of linguistic psychology etc. What is the object of psycholinguistics? What are the problems which it can (which it must) study? 2.1. The object is usually implied in the definition of sciences. What is the definition of psycholinguistics? There are a few — almost all considered by their authors as "provisional" — or "working" definitions. We shall present a first definition (the one which is at present the most widespread — although A. R. Diebold Jr. calls it "a broad working definition" 1 : it is retaken and discussed in R. Titone's 2 course, or by A. R. Diebold Jr. in the work already mentioned). The definition we are speaking about is 3 : psycholinguistics

I I . THE OBJECT OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

39

"is concerned in the broadest sense with relations between messages and the characteristics of human individuals who select and interpret them". I think that this definition — which has the merit of having indicated the crucial feature of psycholinguistics, these relations between messages and interlocutors — removes the attention of the research worker from what should be the object of this discipline. First: what are these "characteristics of human individuals" —, or even — as we are told there again — "the states of communicators" ? Does this mean "psychological states" in the sense of "états d'âme", or mood? The same word — "states" — is used also for messages (but in that case the phrase "states of messages" becomes ambiguous and even inadequate). We could speak further about "situations of the messages" and "situations of the interlocutors", or we could also speak about "relations" in a wide sense and even without adding anything: "relations between messages and interlocutors". But, more than that: should psycholinguistics deal (and in fact it has dealt in various studies made until now) with the relations between messages and the subjects? Should it show specifically what these relations might be? Is the "subject" of this sentence: relations, or should it help us understand what are the particularities of the messages, due precisely to these relations between messages and interlocutors? It is more important, I think, to place the messages under a lens, in order to show their changes depending on the states of the interlocutor rather than speak only about the type of relations between these two terms. In fact, what is shown as a paraphrase of the same definition (given on the same page in the volume Psycholinguistics) shows another object for psycholinguistics: "psycholinguistics deals directly with the processes of encoding and decoding as they relate states of messages to states of communicators". The object would therefore be the processes of encoding and decoding (a fact which could lead to confusion with the object of psychology, in spite of the preciseness brought by the definition) 4 . But even in the same volume of the second edition of the work A. R. Diebold Jr. gives another definition (see supra: psycholinguistics is psychology linguistically oriented or linguistics psychologically oriented) 5 . The definition at the end of the short preface written by Paul Fraisse for the volume Problèmes de psycholinguistique states that: "La psycholinguistique est l'étude des rapports entre nos besoins d'expression et de communication et les moyens que nous offre une langue apprise dès le jeune âge, ou plus tardivement'' ('psycholinguistics is the study of relations between our needs for expression and communication and the means offered to us by a language learned in one's childhood or later') 6 . This definition shows the clear inclination of the French school regarding psycholinguistics towards psychology and, at the same time, it presupposes that the phenomenon langage "language", which the subject will use, is sufficiently known by the scientists. But: what do these "means offered by language" represent? Are they a language completely external to the individual? And can we

40

I. T H E O R E T I C A L AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS O F PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

speak of "means" — external — acquired once and for all? An ampler discussion, made by the subtle and well-known French psychologist, would have been very useful — but unfortunately it is absent from this very short preface. R. Titone proposes the definition given in the volume by Ch. Osgood — T. A. Sebeok: "The relations between messages and the characteristics of human subjects who select and interpret them [...], those processes by the intermediary of which the intentions of the speakers are changed into signals belonging to a certain code accepted by a certain culture, and by which these signals are in their turn changed into the interpretations of the listeners" ("relazioni tra i messaggi e le caratteristiche dei soggetti umani che li scelgono e li interpretano [...], quei processi mediante i quali le intenzioni dei parlanti sono trasformate in segnali propri di un codice culturalmente accettato e mediante i quali ancora codesti segnali sono trasformati nelle interpretazioni degli uditori") Psycholinguistics should be "dentro la psicologia" ('within psychology'): from a material point of view, psycholinguistics would appear as a linguistic study, while formally it would be a psychological study: in a more categorical statement, R. Titone in fact identified psycholinguistics with the psychology of langage and linguistic psychology 8 . George Miller, in his article published in 1964, on the "psycholinguists" — reprinted in the second edition of 1965 of the volume Psycholinguistics edited by Ch. Osgood and T. A. Sebeok — does not come with a terse definition (he underlines in fact that psycholinguistics is a descriptive term like any other and shorter than it would be necessary 9 ; he states that in his opinion "the central task of this new science is to describe the psychological processes that go on when people use sentences" — i.e., he adds, especially not when we refer to words. On the whole, the aim of his article is to show what are these processes (but only from the receptor's point of view) at various levels: hearing of an utterance, its being repeated, its acceptance as a sentence in terms of the listener's knowledge of grammar, its interpretation as meaningful in terms of his semantic system, its understanding in terms of contextual knowledge and, lastly, its being believed as valid, in terms of its relevance to his own conduct (i.e. in conformity with reality). It is a perspective from the field of psychology (and restricted only to reception), a very interesting perspective, but which, as a defining programme, could keep off the real tasks of psycholinguistics (certainly not George Miller himself, but the average research worker in psycholinguistics). It is certain that, as two recent commentators 10 notice in a Pirandellian manner, psycholinguistics "is a field in search of a definition", and the points of view in his respect are varied and even contradictory. That is why we are obliged to define our point of view, too, because a definite establishment of the boundaries of the field in which we are interested is not optional but compulsory. 2.2. The object of psycholinguistics must be looked for in the message, considered from the point of view of the relation between it and the emitter (or his

II.

THE OBJECT OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

41

state), or the receptor (or his state). A more complete definition — or one which would not avoid precision — would indicate as the object of psycholinguistics the study of the modifications appearing in the message during the concrete act of communication, owing to the relations established between emitter and receiver, with everything these two mean, such as psychic lability, mutual influences, influences of the general context to which the message belongs, etc. The maintaining of Saussure's classic trilogy — langage, language, speech (langage, langue, parole) —, through its ambiguity and its too rigid delimitations which have followed, has caused many inconveniences; but it has become a traditional element of the code, of the linguistic metalangage, and therefore we shall refer to it in order to state precisely that psychology studies langage, linguistics — language, and psycholinguistics — speech or anything connected with the concrete realization of language, owing to its functioning or its implications regarding the psychic process of langage, within communication. In our opinion, psycholinguistics must study language in its concrete achievements — therefore speech (parole) — , but also the other forms of "messages", in relation to emitters or receivers, as well as to the various situations in which these interlocutors are situated. Speech as the core of the object of psycholinguistics (not a mere systematic description of speech — the future aim of linguistics — , but the tracing of its modifications "in various situations" and their explanation), the purpose, the main target of psycholinguistics, will thus become, we think, more specific and, at the same time, more apt to serve linguistics. On the other hand, if we consider the relation message—subject, we shall come to speech not only if we refer to time axis and to the level of its achievement — i.e. the present, hence the actualizing of language — , but also if we refer to the relation between particular (or individual) and general. For neither in this case do we find any coincidence between what is called langage and the speaker of it (or receiver), or the individual level (in exchange speech is just the phenomenon which includes that, as it is the concrete and particular realization of language). The general, necessary in any science, will be the result of a generalization of individual facts, but in its first stage psycholinguistics must take into account individual facts. There is no question, certainly, of giving a pragmatic definition, or of fixing an object which should have in view only this practical interest — utility for linguistics —, but this is where our desire to give this discipline a specific object leads us. The psychic processes are the object proper of psychology, and psychology of langage fails if it does not take also into account the facts of language, if it tries to study processes for their own sake and not those processes whose material is the concrete facts of language and which lead to these facts; while the concrete realization of language, messages, speech indeed (and even less idiolect, individual speech) do not find their actual place as object of linguistics. At most, a "Unguis-

42

I. THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

tics of speech" 11 has been advocated, but not even that has been achieved. The fact is surprising that in the book Psycholinguistics, edited by Ch. Osgood and T. A. Sebeok, the linguist Joseph Greenberg has written, in order to define the field of linguistics, that the first object of the linguist is spoken language and that written language (sometimes confusion is made between "writing" and "written language") is considered by the linguist as a secondary system 12 . But what has been the "matter" of linguistic studies in their great majority (if we except the dialectal enquiries or the study of languages for which there is no written form yet, as well as the few studies on the spoken language in the systems for which there is also a written form), what has supplied the facts analysed by linguists if not the written language ? On the basis of this language (the language of the "authors") have been drawn up the majority of dictionaries, grammars, studies of general linguistics, etc. 3. Having reached this point, it would be good to specify what psychology and linguistics usually study (I have emphasized usually), that is in their methodology which has become classical. 3.1. Langage is the notion generally used by psychologists: a complex totality of processes — the result of a certain psychic activity profoundly determined by social life — , which favour learning, acquiring — "the acquisition" — and concrete utilization (and normal: see pathological cases, aphasia, etc.) of a certain language, and which has made at the same time possible also the creation of language as a general phenomenon. The study of the psychology of langage — object of psychology — is interested in the technique of langage (the so-called "mechanisms of langage", of the past), the psychic factors — and their physiological bases —, the psycho-social conditions which contribute to achieving speech and understanding it. The psychology of langage will therefore have to study the processes proper which play when emitting or receiving, the mechanisms of learning, and necessary for the creation of signs, elaborating and using a certain system of signs. It will also deal with the psychic substratum common to the verbal system and other systems of communication. In this case will psychology not deal with messages? Yes, it will: from the point of view of the psychic mechanisms which for instance facilitate the perceiving or learning of messages, or from that of the contents of messages which refer to thought, concepts, understanding —, or from that of identifying the processes which enable the elaboration of generative rules, or from that of the modalities for mutual influences between the partners of the communication itself (the problem of the "networks of communications" as such), etc. It also refers to border studies, which just because of the necessity of having recourse now to one field and then to another, cannot be achieved in good conditions except if the research worker has a complete training and has always at hand enough knowledge both of [psychology, as well as of linguistics and psycholinguistics.

II. THE OBJECT O F PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

43

Language is, as is commonly said, the object of linguistics. It is formed of the grammatical, lexical and phonematical systems, as well as (for a number of linguists) of a few "extralinguistic" auxiliaries with their various aspects in space and in the course of their historical.development; it is the common standard used by a certain community and, at the same time (as long as it is the common work of a whole society) it is an objective creation, external at the same time to the person who appropriates or uses it. Language is a creation, but at the same time it is also the material of langage, which could not function without it; it is the instrument and at the same time the result of man's activity of communication. Langage, on the other hand, cannot exist, manifest itself or develop except owing to the fact that a certain language is being learned or used. The most frequent, but not the only manifestation form of langage — built up of a complexity of processes, mechanisms, expressive means — is the spoken langage, concretized in speech, that is, the verbal achievement of the process of communication. Speech is one of the aspects of langage — the most important although not the only one, see gestures etc. —, but at the same time it is the concrete form under which language manifests itself13. Speech is therefore the act of individual and concrete use of language in the framework of the complex process of langage. The three terms discussed — langage, language, speech (langage, langue, parole) — in fact designate three aspects, different but closely connected, of the same unitary and complex process (see also infra 4 and Appendix). 3.2. But what has been done with the study of these phenomena in psychology and in linguistics, if we refer to what is "usually done", to the generally spread procedures, wheather they are traditional or "modern"? In psychology, what has chiefly been studied is langage, without having recourse to concrete facts of language, and, even more frequently without a linguistic training helping it with at least a linguistic terminology. But without having recourse to concrete facts of language, and without constantly relying on such the psychology of langage runs the risk of falling into factual speculations; even Henri Delacroix's book Langage and thought — which was at a certain moment, for many of us, a "fundamental book" — includes or uses very little linguistic material (although H. Delacroix states that "il n'existe pas une psychologie du langage sans avoir recours à la linguistique" ['there is no psychology of langage without having recourse to linguistics'])14. Other authors reduce langage to thought, confuse verbal categories with conceptual categories, etc. This was one of the sources of resistance — justified to a certain extent — of linguists against the introduction of "psychologism in linguistics". On the other hand, however, there have been linguists, both in the field of traditional linguistics and in that of structural linguistics, who have advocated the necessity of considering language — and of studying it — as an abstract phenomenon, outside individual or social contingencies (the remark is often true also for cases when, declaratively,

44

I. THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

the necessity is underlined for relating the linguistic phenomenon to the social, historical, etc. context). It is also common in general to analyse especially the language concretized in its written forms (dictionaries, for instance, are almost exclusively based on examples taken from written texts). It is also common to work on "fragments" (certain research works based on traditional experimental phonetics still continue to examine sounds in isolation, grammars usually operate on phrases or sentences taken out of their context, etc.; even structural linguistics used to examine chiefly the relations within the paradigmatic system, and not so much the uncomfortable syntagmatic sequences and very little the more extensive contexts, usually having recourse to "microcontexts"). Beginning with the rejection from the "field of linguistics" of certain aspects such as intonation — considered until recently by quite enough linguists as an "extralinguistic phenomenon" — and ending with the statement of certain structural linguists that language is completely independent from the consciousness of the individuals or that in general it is an "autonomous entity"16, the same tendency was in fact manifested for protecting language from such so-called "impurities" as the particular, individual, concrete, connection with context in general or only with the connotative context, even with psyche, indeed with everything connected more intimately with what has produced and is producing language: man, the human being. The fact is significant that usually, in linguistics, the following precision is also avoided in such cases (starting with de Saussure and continuing with L. Hjelmslev or other linguists): who is to study the phenomena which are connected with speech — parole — (often called today according to the terminology of the theory of information, message or sometimes, in French, discours)16. F. de Saussure's position has created from the beginning an equivocal situation: there could also be in his opinion "une linguistique de la parole. Mais il ne faudra pas la confondre avec la linguistique proprement dite, celle dont la langue est l'unique objet" ('a linguistics of speech. But we should not confuse it with linguistics proper, the sole object of which is langage')11. (See also infra, Appendix). L. Hjelmslev's definition 18 — seemingly so clear, that "c'est la langue et non la parole qui constitue l'objet spécifique de la linguistique structurale" ('it is langage and not speech which is the specific object of structural linguistics') does not indicate however what will be the discipline which will have speech (parole) as its "objet auquel on vise, l'objet qu'on se propose de dégager" ('object which is aimed at, object which we propose to extricate') 19 . In their turn, many cyberneticians, mathematicians, technicians in telecommunication have currently studied a language abstraction being made of "meaning", and some authors have even had the tendency of imposing upon modern linguistics a methodology of its own, which often preferred constructions created by completely a priori deduction, sometimes distilled language and eliminated everything

II. THE OBJECT O F PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

45

that is "meaning" (for instance B. Mandelbrot) 20 in order to obtain "pure" forms. I shall also have to add that this tendency has now started to attenuate and there is even a strong trend towards basing on facts. However there have remained certain difficulties regarding full understanding, from the part of mathematicians and cyberneticians (sometimes even from certain linguists), of linguistic phenomena as phenomena depending on human psyche. These difficulties arise from the specific training of the research workers in the respective fields, which leads to the creation of certain operative schemes, certain heuristic patterns difficult to do away with in the absence of interdisciplinary education —.bivalent or even trivalent, etc. — which should enable direct understanding of phenomena depending on human communication. On the other hand, there are still missing mathematical instruments more supple than the existing ones, more dynamic, more apt to take into account the mobile facts of linguistic realities and to enable us to establish mathematical relations between them. 3.3. The phenomenon of communication appears truncated when considered uniquely in the perspective of each of these disciplines — when each of them acts in isolation and sticks to its rigid approach already discussed above —, and somebody who would like to obtain a general image (which is aimed at when "collaboration between sciences" is advocated) would score a failure; the result would be a shapeless image or a mosaic composed of disparate and incongruous pieces. Certainly the solution is not the creation of a new discipline — let us say, psycholinguistics — with the purpose of completely replacing the others. However, it is necessary that each of these sciences (or currents within the latter) should not consider their own methodology to be the "justest" and even the only useful one, "the best" for studying the phenomenon of communication (L. Hjelmslev, for instance, asserted even that structural linguistics "denies the right" of studying language in another manner) 21 . On the other hand, it should be observed that there have remained certain aspects which — at least at the present stage — none of these sciences could study adequately and firmly (without the risk of running into contradiction with its comprehensive methodology). Although we think that at present linguistics is at an impasse (from which it will not be able to come out without revising its methodology and stating precisely its object, abandoning a certain schematism and eliminating at the same time its contradictions), we do not deny the necessity for linguistics — traditional or structural — to study language also outside contingencies, to specify its so-called "internal laws", to isolate certain facts and analyze them in vitro and possibly even look for the "system" of a language through arbitrary and comfortable constructions (excluding, as L. Hjelmslev22 was asking, "facts which do not serve to illustrate [...] the utility of the structural method"). However, it is essential that linguistics should not consider that language consists only in this. It is also probably necessary that mathematical linguistics or cybernetics should create, when having

46

I. THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

in view the automatic translations, models sometimes excluding meaning: the danger (even for achieving automatic translations) appears when in the whole methodology of linguistics meaning and context are ignored or, moreover, when the creators of these "models" do not limit themselves to using them only for various practical purposes from which they started, and they try to propose even to linguistics or "psychology of communication" these models as the final reality (I would say the "real reality"), and propose them to become an object to be studied in se, per se. The fact that something indeed remains unexplored, when only the study of abstract and "independent" language is carried out by means of current methodology, has become quite obvious to some present-day linguists. Some authors have recommended and even tried studying language in connection with social life, with psychology and even with particular-individual contingencies (R. Jakobson, A. Sommerfelt): by referring to context, by dissociating the emission aspect from that of reception, by recording certain phenomena of concrete language (oral, etc.). Even some of the structural linguists state plainly not only that the phenomena of "discourse" ('discours'') (which are "l'emploi de la langue" ['use of language']) "are an integral part of linguistics"23, but also that the connotative aspects (connected with the extralinguistic context and the experience of the interlocutors) "are very important" 2 i , and consequently they must be taken account of in linguistics. However, these principles are not unanimously accepted in linguistics and such writers who propose one of them or another are not wholly consistent with themselves : first, because, as they do not achieve a general revision of linguistics, their principles contradict the old methodology which continues to be used, and, on the other hand, because they have produced up to now very few practical applications regarding the study of linguistic phenomena. This well-intentioned and justified effort contributes to stressing the hybrid, shapeless, inconsistent and contradictory aspect of the picture offered by linguistics today. Certain linguists — noticing the intimate and explicative relation between language and psychological phenomena when they deal with identifying generative rules — foretell that "the absolute distinction between language and langage" ("la distinction absolue entre langue et langage") will become "a caduque hypothesis" 25 ("une hypothèse caduque") and will disappear. However, for the time being we can notice that speech (parole) is not the specific and essential object of linguistics and that, in any case, present-day linguistics is not "equipped" to study it adequately (see also supra, 3.1., 3.2.). On the other hand, we must specify that if we find it natural to discuss the psycholinguistics of speech {parole), we do not consider it justified — at least within our conception — to discuss the "psycholinguistics of language" (as G. Francescato was inclined to think in an intervention at the X t h International Congress of Linguistics, 1967)2®. If we hold to the sense which modern linguistics gives to lan-

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guage, speaking about the "psycholinguistics of language" would contradict the definition given by us to psycholinguistics, as "language" is on a level of abstracting, of detaching itself from concrete individuals and from the particular variations of every moment of their messages, while on the contrary psycholinguistics studies the concrete messages, the individual modifications, due to particular circumstances 27. We could say that linguistics, owing to its object, language, deals with phenomena which are at a higher level of abstraction and generalization. But this does not mean that psycholinguistics is interested only in particular facts. On the one hand, as in any science, it also has to reach generalizations — which are made possible to a great extent by collecting a great number of concrete facts, which next enable a statistic treatment, in order to establish frequencies, and then make possible generalizations. On the other hand it is possible, starting from particular speech phenomena — just because the human psyche possesses certain constants in space and in time — to come to "universals", common to all communication phenomena at the level of the human species. At the present stage, at least — up to the moment when linguistics will revise its general methodology and will state more precisely even its object (either the language itself or the concretizing phenomena too, and in this case it will have to bear all the consequences) —, it becomes necessary that by setting up a border discipline (or perhaps only an interdisciplinary approach) having a specific methodology, such aspects should be studied which neither linguistics (or the respective currents) for the above shown reasons, nor psychology proper — which has to continue studying the psychic process as such (the developing of skills, mechanism of speech, etc.) — can study them adequately and firmly, without the risk of contradicting the all comprehensive methodology of each of them. 4. We shall try now to have a closer look at what psycholinguistics has to study and, at the same time, what the phenomena are which it has to take into account, what the fundamental features of the process of communication are, in which we find again the notions which we have already discussed: langage, language, speech (langage, langue, parole), etc. To these we should also add the specification that language (which is made up of a system, formed in its turn — as a complicated architectural building — by various sub-systems or structures) becomes, when learnt by any individual, an individual linguistic system, which can be achieved, as it appears under the form of the messages of each moment, or the concrete realization (or externalized or objectivized) of the individual system or the act of speech and the individual linguistic facts of each moment28 (see also infra, Appendix). 4.1. Communication is a social fact not only from a genetic point of view (as society is the propulsory force which develops this phenomenon), but it is a social fact also from the point of view of its nature, of the conditions in which it de-

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velops. It has a social purpose and it is influenced by society: social finality and social determinism, from which the distinctive characters of this complex phenomenon result. Any fact of langage implies mutual contact, implies relations between at least two persons, one of whom expresses a psychic content with the intention of communicating it, while the other person adopts an attitude of reception. The "inner speech", the monologue too are nothing but secondary developments, in which we virtually find, as a sketched act only, this attitude, this essential particularity. The relation which is established between these two people by means of langage is therefore a communication, and Shannon's diagram has become its classical one (see fig. 1). source ol channel — Ψ - receiver — » • destination informatransmitter tion message signal received message I signal source of noise Fig. 1

Langage plays the part of a "social lever": the same as the physical lever, meant to modify immediately the state of an object, langage is, for the speaker, a means for acting directly on the other people, by means of signals. The extremities of this lever are the emission and the reception (in fig. 1 : the left side and the right side). Langage has therefore a bipolar aspect, characteristic of it, which should never be lost sight of when langage is studied or it is spoken of. Emission includes the totality of phenomena connected with expression, while reception is the general process which leads to the understanding of what is expressed. The two aspects are correlated, they interpenetrate and influence each other: one of the persons manifests himself in a certain manner in order to communicate to his partner-receivers a well-defined contents; he therefore performs an action which is meaningful both to himself and his partners. The person who "transmits" has therefore a definite intention: that of producing a certain effect on the other persons, that is of making himself understood by them. Even if the receiver does not act following the communication, even if, for some reason or other, he did not "receive" the contents transmitted, the act of langage is still achieved if the intended expressive manifestation of the first partner exists (as I have already said, the inner speech, the monologue are facts derived from the primary and fundamental attitude of langage). This primary fundamental intention — of communicating a personal psychic contents — may have diverse motivations according to individual necessities and

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the dominant traits of the respective society. Having originally appeared out of more complex necessities of social life, of work in common, langage has developed only later following other impulses; its various supplementary functions: that of "expressing oneself" (expressive function), cognitive function, etc. are very probably ulterior. As we therefore consider communication as aiming at social co-operation as the fundamental function — originary and propulsory — of langage, the criterion for identifying facts of langage is that of noticing all the manifestations the intended purpose and the subsidiary effect of which are communication. We therefore consider acts of langage (that is manifestations or behaviour which determine a langage activity) the psychic process by which, with the intended purpose of communication, a person informs another person about a certain psychic contents and the act by which the latter understands "the message" of the former. 4.2. Let us return to the first diagram (fig. 1) which we have indicated and add now that it has to be completed and at the same time adequately interpreted (we should not forget that it was proposed by a great mathematician who did not take into consideration the specifics of psychology, of psycholinguistics or even of linguistics either; originally the schema diagram of communication reflected the concern of specialists in telecommunication, being interested in studying the modality of obtaining a good transmission of signals by means of various technical means). The tale quale application of this linear schema and especially of the conception which interprets it may lead, in our opinion, to errors, arising from the fact that it does not take into account the changing of the conditions when the schema is transposed to the human plane of langage', for we are referring to langage proper, and not to the transmission of messages by technical means as for instance the telephone. In order to define a few terms more precisely: communication is the phenomenon (activity, or process, or sometimes function) which consists in transmitting information or making it circulate. It has a wide enough meaning and a wider sphere than langage : communication may include also mechanical means of transmission, it can use as means human langage, but also means which are proper to animals, for instance (and which are only pseudo-Zongage). Communication may also consist of involuntary signs, purely emotional expressions, etc. Langage is a means of communication proper to man ; it has a more limited sphere than communication and it is one of its possible means. But we should also add the fact that it has acquired, in the course of the evolution of mankind, other functions too (as the cognitive function — of fixing —, of organizing knowledge). By communication information is carried (an ensemble of data, either part of the whole of which is completely unknown to the receiver before the communication). It is important to underline a fact which is often neglected, namely that the information or the amount of information required to bring something new has a relative value, depending in each particular situation, as the amount of knowledge varies accpr-

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ding to the receiver. Information is in fact a contents which is conveyed by being presented as a message', this represents the coded transposing of information, in sensible forms, the value of which is to be justly interpreted by the receiver, depending on the knowledge of the code (the system of concrete forms, that has a differentiated semantic value which is known and used according to the general context, common to both partners). Although the codes may be, virtually, multiple (various languages, various systems — verbal, gestural, etc.), however in each situation there can be only a definite code, the same for the emitter and for the receiver (only in that case the process of decoding, of the understanding of the message by the receiver, can take place without difficulty). a) Firstly — and, applying mechanically the mechanical schemes of cybernetics, this is often forgotten —, both the receiver and the emitter are human beings having co-ordinates which must be taken into account by each partner (in order to express himself, to understand); and, especially, they have no rigid and invariable position within the established relation. The theory of communication 29 considered that the "receiver" can notice only what comes through the channel and not the whole of the relation, which only an "external observer" could know; and on the other hand the "external observer" could not be aware of the hypothesis emitted by the receiver and, indeed, of the exact meaning which a certain signal has for the receiver. Such reserves overlook the fact that in langage, considered as a psychic process, the relation between emitter and receiver is not irreversible as in the mechanical scheme (where there is at most a mechanical reversibility). The relation is bilateral (each partner represents, virtually, the possibility of playing the other part too, a fact which influences communication profoundly, first by achieving self-control); the relation also is reversible, the man-receiver being able to become, in his turn, on the whole (and not only owing to certain predominant parts), an emitter. This double and alternative attitude is fundamental for langage. It favours, on the other hand, empathy, in usual communication or in art. Receiver

Emitter

Emitter

>-

\

Receiver

Fig. 2

The problem of expressing or emitting and of understanding or receiving may be analysed from two points of view: a first aspect is the relation between the person who speaks and the one who listens (the relation speaker-hearer: A—Β in fig.2); the second aspect arises from the fact that the same person may, virtually, express himself and understand what another person expresses at that moment: A may be a

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receiver and the following moment an emitter (reversibility — a temporal feature — derives from the bilaterality, of essential feature, of the same person, A or B). In this capacity, since receiver A also (the same as B) may express himself intentionally, it is possible that he should be known by objective means. For the same reason the receiver — who is virtually at the same time an emitter — cannot only know the proper signal transmitted through the channel but also owns a series of adjacent means which help him interpret it in the most correct manner and in order to re-establish the complete background from which it developed. At the same time, once he has become an emitter he does not express himself carelessly and always in the same manner, but he adapts himself to the new receiver. Expressing is preceded by some information, even if it is brief, concerning the receiver (see arrows in both directions, represented by dots in the diagram in fig. 3).

Fig. 3

b) Another particularity of human communication which is not shown (or taken into consideration) in the schema in fig. 1 is the fact that the message is received as a bearer of meaning which is, in its turn, linked to a fact from reality and which leads to a cognitive act, of knowledge, or to some kind of action. This relation between message and human knowledge, this part played by meaning in human communication is a fact which bears important consequences for psycholinguistics. c) What is also overlooked when the diagram in fig. 1 is applied is the fact that the suppleness of adaptation to situation in the case of human communication is infinitely greater (maybe there is even a great qualitative difference), than that of the mechanical phenomenon. However perfect an electronic machine might be, its "initiative", its possibility of adapting itself, its capacity for storing "experience" means nothing in comparison with the plasticity of the human psychic process, in comparison with the amount of experience and at the same time with the capacity of assimilating it in order to interfere in behaviour showing initiative, which

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are qualities proper to man. In the act of communication the emitter and receiver adapt themselves to each other, adapt themselves to the general situation, to the general context — in order to transmit the meaning and the general sense of the utterance (as far as the emitter is concerned) and in order that the latter should be re-established (as far as the receiver is concerned) in the course of transmitting and in the framework of a very complex activity of information made of successive probings, which lead to the final moment of "decoding". d) The fundamental hypostasis of langage is a dialogue situation with all it implies as a bilateral, reversible relation, etc. But in concrete reality, where there is no single emitter and single receiver, this relation is not unique and it has no individual nature; it appears multiplied, complicated from the quantitative as wel as the qualitative point of view: it has an ample social nature. The relation between emitter and receiver — noticed in the course of the analysis carried out by an external observer at a certain moment — is found integrated in reality within a multiplicity of "networks" (within which the "external observer" can be sometimes integrated,-together with all that he implies as metalangage: let us think of the professor who explains a grammar lesson and starts a dialogue with his pupils, or of the dialectologist who, as an external observer, takes notes while he asks his informant questions in the usual language). Communication is deeply influenced by the existence of complex and extensive social relations. In the mechanical models much is said about network, and attempts are made to establish the best networks for transmitting information. But just because the exact nature of the networks of human communication was not taken enough into consideration, authors rather have discussed about networks fixed beforehand (in the form of "fork", "wheel", etc.), as if speakers were incapable, in reality, of modifying any network, choosing their own interlocutors, changing the direction of vectors in the course of communication, etc. We shall resume this discussion when we deal with langage and work {infra, Part II A, Ch. IV). CONTEXT

(information) emitter | "

encoding

(information) receiver

message

(CODE)

decoding

Fig. 4

e) We must also underline the fact that the schema of communication cannot be cut off from the environment proper in which communication takes place. What is around the schema (and which does not play the part of a mere physical "channel"), the situation, the context (fig. 4) in which the partners of the relation find themselves, the modality of the activity which they carry out at the time of

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communication — or even at other moments —, lastly the complex historical and social context in which the relation emitter — receiver is included, influence the communication profoundly in each of its concrete moments (but it also places its stamp on language itself, acting by generalizing on the code constants too, owing to a number of mechanisms the study of which was to a great extent abandoned, even before they were sufficiently known). f) If these particularities exist, they are due to the fundamental character of human communication, namely that of being an act guided by consciousness — in its general aspects —, an act characterized by intention. If we think of communication by langage (and not of emotional, involuntary communication), man transmits — in general — what he wants, when he wants, in the manner which is his own and he uses the verbal materials which he has acquired fundamentally by personal selection. Langage presupposes, in its complex form an intention of communication, and also the possibility of achieving this communication by means of a specific technique, in order to be able to express and to understand it. This technique will be discussed in the following chapter. 4.3. Psycholinguistics must have in view all these particularities of the act of communication. It must discern the reflection in messages of various situations in which the emitters and receivers find themselves (the situation, in the sense of a psychic state, of intervention of thought, motivations, capacities of storing in memory, temperament, general conception, pertaining of receivers and emitters to a certain milieu, etc.). The problems studied by psycholinguistics — which it will still have to study — derive from the objective mentioned above. Psychology studies the organizing of emitting and receiving processes, of coding and decoding, as well as the relations between processes or psychic phenomena in general, which contribute to produce langage, as well as the psychic effects of relations between individuals or social groups 30 . Linguistics, on the other hand, has as a field of investigation the general system of the code, the components of the message and their paradigmatic organization in a code, as well as the modalities of combining sequences, syntagmatically, and lastly the dynamics of the system, the evolution of language. Consequently, psycholinguistics will deal neither with language as such — at most, it will deal with the contact between language and the individual —, nor with the mechanisms for producing langage, but with the modifications of messages (and their reception), in various situations, trying to establish their causes too, in connection with the psychological processes, and to reach generalizations. In any case, if the problem is raised of defining the object of psycholinguistics through the prism of distinguishing between "competence" and "performance" 31 (a distinction which indeed seems to be based on an artificial severing of the external act of speech from all internal implications), these concepts should be well specified32.

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The problems which form the object of psycholinguistics are placed under the sign of "relations": a) first, the relations between the psychic state of the interlocutors and the message (or the capacity for perceiving and understanding message), in the act of communication (in other words, psycholinguistics will be able to investigate relations between messages and psychic states, such as thought, memory, affects, etc., regarding the particularities of messages, in relation to perception or fundamental activities such as work, or the contents of the expression, etc.); b) the relations between the sequential particularities of messages and the psychic processes in their various relations (the influence of psychic dynamics on the sequential framing of a sentence, etc.); c) the relations between social groups and the modification of messages, or between the evolution of a subject and its langage (factors of the learning of the mother tongue or of a second language, relations between language and culture or contents of the expression, relations between the essential vocabulary and knowledge acquired, etc.). Some of these problems or their particular aspects will form the object of a more detailed exposition further in this work. 5. What does indeed, this study mean? — advocated but not sufficiently explicated by the authors of the first volume of Psycholinguistics either — and which is concerned with messages in relation to interlocutors using them. In fact, it deals with the study of language in function, in the phenomenon of communication, it is the study of language — crudely expressed — in the mouths and ears of man. It deals with facts of language as a living reality, with particular messages, in which the potentialities of language are achieved: it is indeed speech (parole) about which we said above that it remained on the borders or even outside linguistics. It constitutes a fundamental aspect of the object of psycholinguistics. 5.1. We must point out, however, that speech is only one of the objects of psycholinguistics. First, it is only an aspect, as it represents messages, and psycholinguistics also refers to the relations between facts of speech and the situations in which the subjects find themselves, that is, it will have to explain at the same time the facts of speech (and not only to describe them), connecting them with the individuals (with the individual linguistic system, etc.). Second: if the classical meaning of "speech" is considered only as the realization of language in the sense of system of verbal signs (hence in "articulation"), and if it is considered that in the process of communication other codes can also interfere, then the meaning of speech should either be extended, or some corollary terms added to it. At any rate, psycholinguistics will include in its object the other forms of messages, too, which forms belong to other codes (the gestural system for instance), but studying them from the same perspectives, and not only from that of the psychology of langage (see also infra, Part II A, Ch. IV). In other respects, maybe one of the causes why gesticulation — for instance — has been profoundly studied very little up to now as a coded means of communi-

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cation 33 lies also in the fact that linguistics has ignored it — as well as other codes 34 , as being an extralinguistic phenomenon, and psychology has studied it with its traditional means or chiefly as an affective, spontaneous expression. Besides the descriptive study of these codes, it would also be interesting to examine the part which some of them may play even in the course of predominantly verbal communication, since components of various codes may be substituted for elements of the verbal code (a gesture may replace, in the syntax of a sentence, a word 35 ). Similarly, a relatively new aspect is the study of the part of verbal mimicry in perceiving langage. 5.2. However, as speech (as "verbal articulation") is an essential aspect of psycholinguistics and — as a realization of one of the codes, even the most important of them — it could constitute a typical case for discussion, we shall dwell longer perupon it. What are the consequences of studying speech — especially as oral achievement — with the help of psycholinguistics (and with that of linguistics also, if the latter accepted, in a revolutionary élan, to touch this phenomenon considered as "impure")? 1) That linguistics will obtain more data on the spoken language —which are so much needed also by applied linguistics. 2) That it will also obtain data on the "annex means", forgotten by linguistics for a long time, such as intonation, gestures and their function as substitutes or complements of speech proper, situational correlatives, context, etc. 3) Lastly, it will be able to make use of data concerning the dialogue — an aspect almost forgotten by linguistics. Let us return to points 1 and 3. We think that the study of the "spoken (oral) language" — rather neglected by linguists — should form the object of extensive research work carried out thoroughly by adequate interpretations, not only for practical purposes but also in order to complete the theoretical knowledge of linguistic phenomena. But if psycholinguistics undertakes the study of the spoken language, this very action will touch upon the problem of how language is realized, its actualizations will be brought forward, and this leads to messages, to speech (parole) with all that it implies (the necessity to take into account the situation, the relation speaker—listener, the so-called extralinguistic auxiliaries, etc.). From the point of view of applied linguistics (for instance for the necessities of education), if a language is taught in its spoken hypostasis, with its characteristics of spoken language, and if it is studied as such, the general conception should also be modified, which considers language as a "pure" phenomenon, and an attempt should be made to understand better the other phenomenon, the so-called impure, the pariah one. And in this case it is useful — and necessary — to make good use of the contribution of psycholinguistics, which, far from rejecting the study of speech, even undertakes to make it an integral part of its own objective. 5.3. As regards the consequences for the study of dialogue, if psycholinguistics includes in its field both the emitter and the receiver and studies the modifications

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brought about by the change of attitude (of emitting or receiving), as well as the mutual influences which this relation presupposes, it should certainly contribute to a more thorough knowledge regarding such aspects about which linguistics today possesses but little data: that is on communication as such, studied in its real dynamics, in its dialogued form. What is, in fact, a dialogue? So little has been said about it in linguistics that it is not even defined: except for a few studies — those by L. Spitzer, W. Beinhauer — on the means of conversation in various languages, there are very few others in the field of general linguistics proper 36 . In psychology there are especially some mentions or studies on social psychology, on "conversation"; or, sometimes, writers have supported the thesis of "the dialogue having no direct and immediate utility" 37 . In the last years, the spoken language has started being studied by a number of linguists — in many cases for practical purposes —, due also to the development of the technique of tape-recording: dialogues have been recorded too. In many cases, such recordings were* chiefly made for practical purposes (e.g. those made by the school of St. Cloud in order to determine the fundamental vocabulary needed for the teaching of French 38 , or, by Ch. Fries, in order to draw up a structural grammar of English 39 : the presentation of the method — recording of conversations — points to the existence of the dialogue). First, the dialogue is signalled by the real and active presence of at least two partners, who alternately play the parts of speaker and listener and who, by means of their utterances, determine the quantity of information transmitted through langage to increase, even to a small degree and irrespective of the form used to convey. The dialogue is also based on the fact that each of the partners is oriented in the direction of the other one, it is based on the interest which each has for what the other one says, and, at the same time, on the adapting of each partner to the possibilities for understanding of the other one. The function of communication can also be achieved even if the utterance is intended for another person — real or fictitious (that is by the mere fact of addressing somebody, a situation which may take the form of a monologue or a soliloquy; while a dialogue implies the reply, therefore the fact that the situation of interlocutor is accepted, of "active listener", who answers or replies to his speaking partner). This situation creates the dialogue relation, of "speech between" two or several persons, starting with the simplest form, that of addressing and answering, up to the complex conversation, in a group, among more than two partners. The mere addressing of somebody, even if the address is not followed by an answer, has to be considered as an element and even a promise — on genetic plane — of the dialogue; the mere fact of addressing somebody — without this being followed by an answer — virtually belongs (owing to the intention of the speaker) also to a dialogue situation. Certainly, however, the dialogue proper, with its complete structure, contains both the element "addressing" and the element "answer-retorting".

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The dialogue also presupposes a proportional use of answers: if one of them exceeds a maximum limit of length, the dialogue may become a monologue with possible dialogued interludes. Between monologue and dialogue there are 40 differences not only from the point of view of content but also formal linguistics. The characteristic feature of dialogue is — as pointed out by L. Jakubinski in an old article 41 — the answer, i.e. the alternate speech of the various partners closely tied to a common theme. From a linguistic point of view the answers of the partners may be linked to one another to such a degree that they often form a single syntactic unit. There is a connection both regarding content and form, a logical and natural concatenation between the questions and answers of the partners of a dialogue. Dialogue is therefore characterized by: the active presence of the two partners and therefore the orientation of each of them towards the other one; alternating answers — the length of which remains balanced, so that it should not degenerate into monologue — ; exchanging (relatively) information", a specific linguistic form — which is usually perceivable; and especially by a syntactic-contextual concatenation of cues and replies. Certainly the speeches of each of the partners — his "messages" — will be influenced by the contents (and also the form) of the answers of the other partner. The relation between messages and the situation of the speaker is here, in the case of the dialogue, even more complex than if we consider only langage as monologue. The message is influenced by the state of the speaker himself, and by that of his partner, whom he answers. Dialogue situation is a specific field of research work — extremely interesting too — for psycholinguistics. 6. What are, in conclusion, the research areas of psycholinguistics? It has to show, firstly, what is in general the influence of the situation of communication on messages and to determine the typical consequences of this influence. While examining this complex influence, we should not overlook the rôle played by the mutual relations between emitter and receiver, either as we should not lose sight of the psycholinguistic approach of the manner in which the message appears when it is received (the influence of the state of the receiver — knowledge, perceptive capacity, fatigue, etc. — on the manner in which the message appears at the "decoding" end of the communication). 6.1. One of the most important and typically psycholinguistic aspects — although as yet almost overlooked as such — is that of the influence of the affective mood, conceptions, thought, etc., on the mode of expression of a writer (and, in reverse order, on the mode of receiving the message in terms of linguistic expression, by the reader). Stylistics will gain enormously from psycholinguistic analyses and even experiments. 6.2. The relation between the "subject" examined by dialectologists and language; the consciousness of language and its influence on the mode of expression of the

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"subject", as well as the manner in which his consciousness reflects itself in what he relates — in "metalanguage" — ; his possibilities regarding perceptive discrimination and the value which can be consequently given to his statements; the relation itself between the research worker and the "informant" ; as well as the methods and procedures used to obtain valid information from the part of the informant: these are some of the problems which psycholinguistics may deal with in the field of dialectology. 6.3. As regards the contribution of psycholinguistics to research work in the field of phonetics and phonology, it is enough to mention, for the time being, that certain aspects, such as the study of intonation or of pauses in speech, the distribution of accents, rhythm, modifications of certain sounds 4 2 , etc., cannot be elucidated without having recourse to psychic determinations (such as affectivity, temperament, etc.). 6.4. Psycholinguistics, again, will have to study profoundly the problem of relations and mutual determinations, in the consciousness of the speaker and the receiver, between the verbal code and other codes — which may influence verbal expression (supplementing its gaps, replacing a verbal element by a gestural one, etc.) or its reception — and, in general, interference within diasystem 43 . 6.5. Age — especially from the point of view of the evolution childhood-maturity — is an important determiner for the "mood" of the speaker or the receiver and, as such, for the message itself ; the capacity for thinking, perceiving in general, for auditory discrimination in view of controlling one's own emission, for articulation, etc. varies according to age and especially when the adult is compared to the child, determining modifications in the emission of messages as well as in perceiving (understanding) them. "Childhood" is not, however, a static and uniform moment, and it develops within an evolutive dynamics which, in its turn, creates a transformation of messages in the sense of "developing" them, in order to reach the standard required by the state of "adult". The aspect which psycholinguistics has to study, as distinct from the psychology of langage, is not the mechanism itself for learning linguistic forms, nor the manner in which the function of communication etc. develops, but the particularities of the messages themselves, in relation to the specifics of thought, perception of the child, the maturing of his possibilities of imitating the phonological realizations of the language, etc. These data are of interest not only for the pedagogy of language teaching, but also for linguistics as the former can help understand the stages of the genesis of certain forms, trace the road of building generative rules, find the elements of "universale" (of the typical forms in various languages), find the road to explaining certain facts difficult to understand in the language by comparing them to similar phenomena in the speech of children, etc. By this evolutive study, and by the analysis — possibly even experimental — of the procedures of the dynamical structuration of elements or by the analysis of generative rules,

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etc., psycholinguistics may contribute to substantiate or invalidate certain theories, certain models, as for instance generative-transformational grammars44. The effect the mood of the pupil (and in general of the person learning a language) has on the message in the course of the learning of a foreign language (and of one's native language too: see, for instance, the learning of the orthography of the mother tongue in schools) is an aspect of both theoretical and practical interest. Motivation (interest, internal necessities, drives — which determine, to a certain extent, one attitude or another), momentary disposition, affectivity, thought, typological particularities of the individual (such as aptitudes), his capacity of perception (degree of auditory acuity, etc.) and other psychic aspects influence the emitting and receiving of messages in language learning and therefore, bear influence on drawing up methods or means for teaching languages. In this field psycholinguistics can also contribute to the drawing up of tests for linguistic knowledge (which should not aim at finding out so much the intrinsic "aptitudes" of an individual for learning a language, as rather the progress scored in using a certain method, etc.). 6.6. The pathological states also determine certain changes in drawing up or receiving messages which psycholinguistics can establish both for a diagnostic characterization of various diseases and in order to contribute to a step by step tracing of the effects of medical treatment on communication, on messages. 6.7. The influence of knowledge of a language on the manner of expressing and receiving in another language — therefore, contact between languages in the consciousness of speakers — may be studied in the perspective of psycholinguistics, both for clarifying the problem of foreign language teaching, or that of translations, or of elucidating the difficult problems of bilingualism. On the other hand, mutual influences between communication and culture or way of life, customs, level of civilization, interhuman relations in which an individual is involved (and on a general plane we may refer to a whole collectivity) creates interesting relations between psycholinguistics and anthropology, ethnography, folklore, sociology, etc. (see also 6.8.)45. 6.8. The influence of human activity — under any forms — on messages has still been studied very little, even with the procedures of linguistics (maybe just because only this relatively inadequate approach has been tried almost exclusively). Establishing the particularities created in messages owing to a certain activity, the field of linguistics can on the one hand be enriched, and on the other hand optimum messages could be drawn up (such as those which are more easily emitted or received) in certain situations of work, codes, systems of expression sequences or technical terms, the optimum distribution of economy and redundancy, messages "resistant" to distortions (i.e. such as can be correctly received, even in case of "noise" in the ambient milieu of the communication), etc.

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6.9. Connected with these problems is that also of translations, either within its human hypostasis or its automatic models: what psychological conditions determine a g o o d translation, what modifications take place in decoding the message and recoding it — in difficult situations or because of the permanent "balancing" (simultaneous or consecutive translation) or of the transposing (which a translator is bound to make) from one language into the other one — are some of the psycholinguistic aspects of this problem. 6.10. After the above introductory considerations on the place of psycholinguistics, and on its object and the problems which it will have to study, we shall endeavour to analyse in detail the situation in which • influences on the message take place, in order to state more precisely the conditions which give birth to the object of psycholinguistics and require a certain methodology to study it.

Notes 1

2 3 1

A. R. Diebold Jr., A survey of psycholinguistics research 1954—1964, in Ch. Osgood, T. A. Sebeóle (ed.), Psycholinguistics. A survey of theory and research problems, Indiana Univ. Baltimore, Waverly Press, 1965, p. 205. R. Titone, La psicolinguistica oggi, Zürich, PAS-Verlag, 1964, p. 56. Ch. Osgood, T. A. Sebeok (ed.), op. cit., p. 4. This definition is adopted by Sh. Rosenberg and J. Koplin, Introduction to psycholinguistics, in Sh. Rosenberg (ed.). Directions in psycholinguistics, New York-London, Macmillan-Collier, [1965], p. 4. They state that, although psycholinguistics is not a field belonging only to the psychologist, in the respective volume they will lay stress only on psychology (ibid., p. 3).

e

A. R. Diebold Jr., op. cit., p. 205. M. Battacchi (Introduzione, in J. B. Carroll, Psicologia del linguaggio, Milano, Martello, [1964], p. X), who reproduces this definition, separates the psychology of langage from psycholinguistics more definitely. • P. Fraisse, Préface, in Problèmes de psycholinguistique, Paris, P.U.F., 1963, p. 5.

7

R. Titone, op. cit., p. 56.

8

Ibid., p. 37. However we cannot say that the material studied by psycholinguistics is linguistic proper, first because language realized in messages, "speech" (parole) is not (at least at present) the material of linguistics or in any case it is not its basic material, according to most contemporary linguists.

• G. Miller, The psycholinguists, in Ch. Osgood, T. A. Sebeok (ed.), op. cit., p. 294. G. Miller's conception corresponds, in fact, to the dichotomy, presented in another work regarding the "theories on language" and "theories on those who use language" (G. Miller, Language and psychology, in E. Lenneberg [ed.], New directions in the study of language, Cambridge, Mass, M.I.T. Press, [1964], p. 93). 10 S. Ervin-Tripp, D. Slobin, Psycholinguistics, "Annual rev. psychol.", 1966, 17, p. 435. The two authors propose a definition of their own (which is in our opinion on the one side

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too restricted, and on the other side, which does not show — or does not suggest — its implications, completely): it would be the "study of the acquisition and use of structured language" (ibid.). 11

V. Skaliíka, The need for a linguistics of "la parole" (1948) in J. Vachek (ed.), A Prague School reader in linguistics, Bloomington, Indiana Univ. Press, 1964, pp. 375—391. 12 J. Katz, P. Postal (An integrated theory of linguistic descriptions, Cambridge Mass., M.I.T. [1964], p. X,) also state that in a wide sense linguistics deals with speech too, but, in order to study more deeply the phenomenon language, linguists have narrowed by tradition their field and deal only with language. In any case structuralism, within most of its currents, deals exclusively with language (see' also V. Skaliíka op. cit., p. 376).

13

In Romanian, as well as in English, vorbire (respectively speech) has ambiguous meaning, as the term also includes the idea of mechanism of articulation (in fact "the spoken langage"), besides the meaning which the term parole has in linguistics, consistently enough following De Saussure.

14

H. Delacroix, Le langage et la pensée, Paris, Alean, 1930, p. 25. L. Hjelmslev, Essais linguistiques, Copenhague, Nordisk Sprogog Kultur Forlag, 1959 (the respective study is from 1948), pp. 21—23.

15

18

F. de Saussure, Linguistique de la langue et linguistique de la parole, in Cours de linguistique générale, Paris, Payot, 1965, pp. 38—39.

17

See, more recently: Code levels, interdisciplinary approach, and the object of psycholinguist ics, "Revue roumaine des sciences sociales — Psychologie", 1970, no. 1, pp. 87—96, and Éléments de la communication, niveaux du code, et la triade langage — langue — parole, in Linguistique contemporaine (vol. dedicated to E. Buyssens), Bruxelles, Ed. Inst, de Sociologie, 1970, pp. 11—25 (NEV).

18

L. Hjelmslev, op. cit., p. 24.

19

Ibid.

20

Β. Mandelbrot, Structure formelle des textes et communications. "Word", 1954,10, no. 1, p. 21.

21

L. Hjelmslev, op. cit., p. 23.

22

Ibid., p. 22.

28

Β. Pottier, Syntaxe et style, in "Actes du Ville Congr. Fédér. Int. Langues et littér. modernes— Liège", Paris, 1961, p. 404.

24

B. Malmberg, Structural linguistics and human communication, Berlin-Göttingen-Heidelberg, Springer, 1963, p. 155.

28

J. Dubois, Problèmes de linguistique transformationnelle. Modèles précorrecteurs d'erreur dans la transformation passive, "J. de psychol.", 1966, no. 1, p. 55.

28

See: G. Francescato, discussion of the paper of T. Slama-Cazacu, La méthodologie de la psycholinguistique et l'étude de la parole, in Actes du Xe Congrès International des Linguistes (Bucarest, 1967), Bucarest, Ed. Acad. R.S.R., 1970, vol. Ill, p. 220 (NEV).

" Another aspect, revealed by G. Francescato again, deserves mentioning however: is the process of learning a language not a problem of "psycholinguistics of language"? We are inclined to say no: any individual finds in his own experience only acts of speech (parole)·, he operates generalizations, but in this way he succeeds in building up his own "individual system", which is different from language itself. In any case, however, this is a problem which may make someone think.

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28

These concepts correspond somehow to the terms "norma individual" and "habla concreto" in E. Coseriu's terminology, Sistema, norma y habla, in Teoría del lenguaje y lingüística general, Madrid, Ed. Gredos, [1962], pp. 96, 101. 29 E." Colin Cherry, On the validity of applying communication, "Brit. j. of psychol.", 1957, no. 3, pp. 176, 186. 80 If the various psychic processes which are implied in the act of langage — as well as learning proper — were studied in psycholinguistics (as it appears, for instance, from the listing of its problems in: Sh. Rosenberg, J. Koplin (eds), Introduction, in Sh. Rosenberg (ed.), Directions in psycholinguistics, New York-London, Macmillan-Collier, [1965], p. 4), psycholinguistics would be confused with psychology. 31 J. Fodor, M. Garrett, Some reflections on competence and performance, in J. Lyons, R. Wales (ed.), Psycholinguistic papers, Edinburgh, University Press, [1966], pp. 135—154. 32 The identification of "competence" with "mechanism", made by J. Fodor and M. Garrett (in op. cit.), is criticised by N. Sutherland (ibid., p. 156), in the discussion concerning the paper of the above authors. But if, as stated by N. Sutherland (ibid., p. 162), the linguists were to study "competence", and the psycholinguists "the mechanism which gives birth to this competence", what would be left to psychology proper to deal with? 33

Among the few studies in this direction, we shall mention some works dealing with details, which describe gestural systems in various countries, e. g.: G. Meo Zilio, El lenguaje de los gestos en el Rio de la Plata, Montevideo, [without name of publishing house], 1961, S. Kishimoto, A brief note on the language of gesture, in "Mem. Osaka Gakugei Univ.", [1964] A, no. 13, pp. 62—67; however some studies are necessary to present general aspects as well, to elaborate syntheses and discuss problems less known, as for instance the concatenation of gestures in sequences, their rôle in the dynamic structure of a message, the way they combine with verbal signals, etc.

34

For instance whistling; see, for example, P. Ostwald, When people whistle, "Language and speech", 1959, 2, part 3, pp. 137—146. We have discussed these aspects also in: Comunicarea in procesul muncii ('Communication in the process of work'), Bucureçti, Ed. jtiinjificä, 1964, pp. 240—260, where besides the description of some of the components of gestural codes we have tried to trace also the functional side, by stating precisely the rôle of gestures in various activities, or in the process of work carried out in certain situations.

35

8

' For example an old article by L. Jakubinski, O dialogiteskoy reti, "Russkaja reíi", I, Petrograd, 1923, pp. 96—195; Ν. Svedova, Κ izuíeniiu russkoj dialogüeskoj reti, "Voprosy jazykoznanija", 1956, no. 2, pp. 67—83. " G. Tarde, L'opinion de la foule, Paris, Alean, IV' h ed., 1922. 38 See G. Gougenheim, R. Michéa, P. Rivenc, A. Sauvageot, L'élaboration du français élémentaire, Paris, Didier, [1956]. 39 40 41 42

Ch. Fries, The structure of English, New York, Harcourt Brace, [1952], N. Svedova, op. cit., p. 68. L. Jakubinski, op. cit., p. 139. As well as the problem — considered of great interest at present — concerning voice recognition (see for instance: K. Stevens, Sources of inter- and intra-speaker variability in the acoustic properties of speech sounds, report (ms.) at the VII t h Int. Congr. of Phonetic Sciences (Montreal 1971) (of which the author of this book was to be one of the discussants: she underlined the psychological determinants of the enormous variability noticed by K. Ste-

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vens). Then the problem of the relationship between psychological and linguistic units where the problem of some "metalinguistic" units may also introduce special artifacts (T. SlamaCazacu, Expériences sur les rapports entre unités psychologiques et unités linguistiques au niveau phonétique, paper prepared for the congress mentioned above [ms.]; abstract in the volume VII Congressus Phoneticus. Programme, Abstracts, Montreal, 1971, p. 155 (NEV). 43

Hence, relations with Semiotics (NEV). In fact, it did not prove to bring many arguments in favour of these hypotheses; one might even say the contrary (NEV). 45 We are developing today a "socio-psycholinguistics" which may perhaps be a consistently developed "psycholinguistics" proper (see: "Psycholinguistique pure" — ou "Socio-psycholinguistique'"? Un faux dilemme — paper for the XI t h Int. Congress of Linguists — Bologna 1972, and: Is a socio-psycholinguistics necessary ?, paper for the Conference of the European Association of Experimental Social Psychology—Louvain 1972) (NEV).

44

CHAPTER III

Emission, reception and message

1. In order to clarify the problem of the object of psycholinguistics and of its methodology in general, we shall analyze the fundamental components which are involved in this interdisciplinary field. 1.1. Psycholinguistics is interested in modifications taking place in messages during communication, that is in the relation established between emitter and receiver in a certain situation. Why do these modifications take place: why-is not always one and the same message invariably produced, why do multiple messages appear, having forms and values extremely varied, what determines the selection of certain elements in various circumstances, their arrangement in a certain manner, their being received with various nuances, proof of a certain capacity for plastic adaptation which the strictly mechanical model is not capable of? The main function of speech — communication — is achieved by the finality of its two aspects, emission and reception. The moment emission, on the one hand, does not represent a gratuitous effort of expressing, but has a definite purpose, that of changing a psychic content into an objective fact, in order to transmit it to the interlocutor through the intermediary of the message (with all that the latter contains as explicit and implicit elements). Reception, on the other hand, manifests itself by an active attitude, reflecting not only an interest in what the emitter expresses, but also an effort for understanding, which tries to make good use of what was exteriorised and what is implicit. The two partners must therefore solve the problem of adapting themselves to each other for the necessities of communication, that is, they must achieve a final balance, represented by agreement and understanding between them, on the basis of conveying the message. In order to be really useful to communication, langage must therefore submit to the necessities implied by a social relation, the one which links together the emitters and the receivers. It is not enough that something should be expressed: the expression also has to be efficient, hence intelligible; similarly, it is not enough that the partner should direct his attention to what somebody tells him, without taking into consideration a number of circumstances, the only ones which can state more precisely the meaning of the contents expressed. The bipolar character of

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speech requires therefore that the expression should be intelligible to those who receive it and that understanding should be adapted to the manner of expressing of the emitter. 1.2. The external means by which agreement between speaker and listener is achieved is the use, for building up the message and decoding it, of a common instrument, that is of the language known by both interlocutors. This condition is not, however, sufficient: and this is not enough taken into account by linguistics. First, the emitter and the receiver operate a selection in the system of the language, re-elaborate continuously novel sequences, original in their totality. Moreover, used in the activity of langage, at the moment of expression, language becomes a concrete fact which receives all the nuances or characteristics adequate to the various circumstances in which it is used and, at the same time, is completed by various auxiliary means. We might speak about the existence of a "technique of langage" which uses certain "materials" (the psychic contents which will be transmitted and will form the core of the message); these materials must be prepared, elaborated, adapted — and then interpreted — by "various procedures" (which belong to various mechanisms or psychic processes such as perception, thought, skills, etc.), and with the help of various "tools" (included in the "code" which will offer the exterior form of the message). The present moment of "communication" requires a number of antecedents which are indispensable for its achievement, among which the existence of the code, of the system of signs acquired by the subject; it also needs the existence of certain normal physiological bases, which should enable analysis of this code, as well as general psychic conditions which create the "attitude of langage". In order to achieve langage, an individual has to learn a language — at least one — which should be able to offer him the possibility of "coding" psychic contents intelligibly, so that they could be transmitted. The acquiring and systematization of linguistic tools by individuals start as early as childhood, but they continue all throughout one's life (we shall have the opportunity to discuss this problem at more length later). 2. What does the act of communication by langage consist of? Of several various moments — which follow each other so quickly that they give the impression of simultaneity. 2.1. Langage is a vaster phenomenon than the "moment" emission, but emission in its turn is vaster than expression proper. Emission is not only the exterior aspect, the articulation which produces the message received by the receiver, it also includes the whole inner activity preceding speech — to a great extent imperceptible to the interlocutor — all the stages which precede the exteriorization and during which the interior organizing of the material to be expressed is achieved. We shall discuss here less about emission as articulation or exteriorizing proper. It seems important, however, to underline that in the act of communication any

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articulatory movement represents (with the exception of emotional expressions, or certain "parasite" emissions, etc., which may interfere at the same time) a certain emitter's intention of signification, encoded with the help of a certain system of signs. The message is not only composed of the materialized forms (for instance sonorous) which can be directly perceptible by the receiver or of the mere movements of articulation which the emitter seems to produce automatically and without intermediary "stations". A succession of sounds is not a "message" carrying information to the receiver, except if it implies certain significance for him, that is if it can be completely decoded. Therefore, we think that a just conception about message and the act of transmitting must consider that meaning is not "added" by the receiver, that the material forms which are transmitted are not only afterwards significantly completed by the latter: the message is constructed materially in such a manner that it "carries" with it signification, too, therefore the receiver receives the embryos producing meaning. That is why the process of emission is much more complex than a mere articulation, and reception exceeds the mere perceiving of some stimuli. Even in the process of articulation as such, the intention of signification interferes, with everything it implies. The problem which confronts the emitter is not that of articulating indifferently and at random, but of selecting, from the system of phonological skills, the components necessary to build up a certain significant sequence. This requires not only permanent feed-backs of perceptual nature (selfregulations by perceiving one's own articulatory movements and sonorous productions), but also selection and regulation which belong to much more complicated internal processes carried out at superior levels. If the oppositional disposal of phonemes and corresponding sounds or even of certain sequences enters the patrimony of the automated skills of an individual (owing to their being repeated very frequently), in exchange there are in articulating sounds multiple aspects which cannot be completely automated and require a flexible adaptation every moment. The drawing up of the chain of speech (with its significative melody, its correct distribution of stresses, from the beginning of the articulation of the first elements of a segment) implies the interference of signification elements, therefore of the higher levels, even in the articulation of each sound or groups of sounds. So much the more higher integrative processes interfere when we refer to organizing signs as such, to producing chains of meaningful segments, to arranging them in accordance with generative rules, etc. 2.2. It is said that a clear thought brings about an adequate expression easily. But in order to think clearly, to make articulations of thought clear, we need langage. The practice of langage helps the organization of thought, without which it could not possibly exist. Langage puts order into thought and thought in its turn enables the organization needed by langage : this reciprocity manifests itself while somebody is preparing to express himself, at the stage which will lead to the

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choice of lexical and grammatical forms that are the most indicated for expression. The preparatory operations take place all throughout the process of expressing and often manifest themselves externally by pauses, by hesitations, which are nothing else but the concrete form of crossroads for more difficult deliberation, for choosing an alternative, for discriminating and selecting expressive means. These internal processes influence directly the course of speech, not only by introducing pauses which correspond to the moments of deliberation, but also by the anticipatory nature of preparatory operations. These operations enable a permanent control on expression, which is not therefore produced as an absolutely mechanical improvisation or due to haphazard; it represents the achieving of aplane, of an internal programming. The intention of communication implies the fact of giving sense to the expression and of perceiving it and giving it meaning; it presupposes that the subject is aware of the value of the expression and that he can operate with signs in view of a definite purpose. Therefore, the characteristic of langage is not only exterior expression but also the possibility of giving value to a sign, of using it as such. If a person does not succeed in expressing himself, it does not mean that he is not in the course of langage activity. 2.3. The fact of speech at the moment of emission is the result of three stages. Let us start, for example, from the perceiving of a mountain covered with green trees and its top with snow. Stage I: this mountain causes in the speaker a certain psychic state — that of a proper perception, or of scientific interest, or of aesthetic satisfaction — and he wants to communicate his state, to change it into) information for his partner; he will try to express it having recourse to a certain "technique". Stage II: the material which will have to be expressed (the psychic state) is processed, elaborated, is adapted by the intention of communication, which draws up a general plan for elaborating the contents of the message. Stage III: the speaker uses, in order to build up the expression, tools that are isomorphous, to a certain extent, with the material: he selects the adequate signs and arranges them in a certain order — he gives the message a coded form. If the appearance of the expression proper is needed in order to complete the fact of langage, if the intention of communication is an essential condition to this purpose, only the possibility of finding an adequate form of expression for the psychic contents, therefore only the real relation and the harmony between the three stages can lead to langage proper that is interesting for communication. Let us penetrate more deeply into the intimacy of these stages and chiefly into the third one. Expression presupposes firstly, at the interior stage of its organisation, preceding speech, the analysis of a totality, of a "whole", which is the psychic contents. This continuum or rather this lump, syncretic, in which the components are simultaneous and sometimes inextricably mixed, will have to be decom-

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posed, analysed and then organized, ordered, in view of creating the expression that has a discontinuous character (that is, composed of separate elements), an expression that is sequential in any case. Once the analysis of the interior material is achieved, by having recourse also to the tools of language (which help to operate cuttings, découpages somehow uniform, standardized, hence socially intelligible), what will have to be achieved is synthesis, the selection of all necessary components, and the grouping organized into a whole, which will form the message. Thought, as it is reflected in the inner speech, is rapid, elliptical, it proceeds by leaps and does not use words for all its stages ; analysis often takes place but it lacks all exterior means for exposing the contents in organized forms. The expression proper, the exterior enunciation, the utterance that is successive, imposes the choice of the material of signs that are the most suitable to translate integrally and in intelligible forms the interior contents. The phenomenon of choosing the words, which seems simple and elementary, represents in fact a complex process of reflecting and expressing relations existing in reality. Its basis is far from being, as it might seem, a mere act of memory (of appearance of words due to some connection established and fixed much earlier). It is chiefly a superior intellectual activity, of thinking, which may discern new actual relations between objects, an activity which could therefore also discriminate the new relations between words, meant to apply the meanings to each concrete case. Consequently, the connection of the word with the object which it has to represent in a certain situation is not made mechanically and directly — by a mere association word-notion —, but one must first reveal the relations between that object and the whole situation in which it appears. The operation of choosing words is at the same time a selection from various alternatives; therefore it presupposes a refined differentiation. The words are chosen taking into account their mutual relations within the language (which reflect relations existing in physical reality or in social cognitive storage), the relations between synonymous, antonymous, derived terms. At the same time, differentiations are operated between significative nuances and between words having related spheres, grouped around the same integrative notion (colour — and red, green, etc.) ; lastly the choice is made of the most adequate significative nuance (pink, cherry-coloured, etc.). Any selection is first an actualization of a significative nucleus; then there follows within this actualization a "creation": the nuclei are completed in order to come to the present meaning of the sign x . The most important thing in langage is not to "express oneself" : as you express yourself for somebody and in order to communicate, the expression must be made intelligible. Hence the need for organizing the expression, so that the words, which seem uniform, should become, by their concatenation, capable of expressing reality, with all it contains new every moment, but, at the same time, so that what

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is general in these words should be preserved, as landmarks universally valid in the same language. The operation of choosing the linguistic tools does not, therefore, limit itself only to learning the necessary signs; it is also characterized by a discrimination carried out regarding these signs, giving them various roles and hence, various forms and specific places, in accordance with the function which they will have to fulfil. The rôle attributed in relation with the whole confers on each sign a function — and a form and a place — in relation with its significance within the "whole". The complete synthesis immediately precedes the expression proper, which reveals indeed, in the exterior, successively, the parts of the interior synthesis. The expression is organized in the interior, that is at the stage immediately preceding its concrete realization, the signs having the form and the rôle with which they will appear in the exterior (one of the proofs is offered to us by the collections of "slips" of lapsus linguae — in which a word at the beginning of the sentence is contaminated by another one which will appear much later; for instance, notices Rudolf Meringer 2 , someone says: "Bla... bravo Greti!", instead of Bravo Greti I; or: "The Batterico", instead of: The ôafttle of Wa]tterloo (the beginning is contaminated by what will follow). The expressive whole is signalled by the possibility of detaching a sense as a whole and in conformity, as far as possible, with the intention of the speaker; in other words, it is signalled by the existence of a certain modality of expression, which should enable its correct reception, that is its adequate understanding. 3. In the act of langage, expression is neither independent nor complete if it does not fufill the purpose which is implied in it, namely a correct reception, that is the understanding of the sense of the expression by those who are at the other end of the relation — that is the receivers. 3.1. This second moment of the technique of langage, reception, is not less complex than the first and it resembles it in many respects. The relation is reversible, as we have already pointed out, and there are relations of profound interdependence between the two moments. Reception consists in considering the manner in which the expression is organized. Reception is a dynamic process, active and complex, and it requires a rich and conscious activity, an unfailing attention and even an effort — generally unnoticed, it has become so banal —, in order to collect all the data needed, in order to understand an expression. The receiver must pay attention to all the information which he could collect from around himself, he has to select the message proper (isolating it from the other surrounding stimuli); he must also have recourse to supplementary cues (offered by voice, gestures, mimicry, etc.). We underlined above that, in the conception which we advocate, reception is never considered (as emission is never considered either) as a process essentially

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simple, as a perceptive act of any kind. Moreover, even if we refer only to the perceptive moment as such, leaving out "understanding" or "interpreting" proper, the perception of the message as a phenomenon of human communication (and especially of the verbal message) is in itself a complex process and sui generis too. 3.2. In general, perception has to be understood today differently from how it used to be even in psychology two or three decades ago. Numerous research works carried out in the last 10—15 years 3 , as well my own more recent as research work 4 , show that the act of perception is a complex one, that in it we may discern moments of reactivity, moments of interior verbalization, that there interfere appreciations from the part of the subject, predicative judgements (concerning, for instance, the certitude about the occurrence of a stimulus), evaluations depending on personal preferences, familiarity of stimulus, etc. We also notice — both in natural situations and in the case of laboratory experiments — a great variability regarding perception, in relation to numerous factors which can modify it5. If the perception of any stimulus does not depend only on its intrinsic nature — therefore on a mechanical impact of the stimulus, in the activity of cognition — but also on multiple factors®, there results the importance of the conditions within which the act of perception takes place, its contextual environment in a wide sense. So much the more one has to understand, as a very complex process, the perception of verbal stimuli (complex by their very nature), whose intensive study, carried out by modern scientific means and differentiated from that of the nonverbal stimuli is, indeed, only at the beginning (see also the discussion contained in our above mentioned articles). Future research work extremely important for linguistics7 will have to show, by using a psycholinguistic methodology (that is, indeed, by taking into account the modifications of the perception of the message in relation to the situation of the receiver or of the emitter), the degree to which various factors influence at a certain moment the perception of a message, as well as the manner in which the message is transformed into a perceptive act 8 (the trajectory between the message as an objective external phenomenon and the message as a subjective fact, the percept). The research work carried out in connection with the "models of speech perception" — and which are carried out to a great extent on a phonetic plane9 — will not be able to lead to useful and authentic results for linguistics if they do not respect in modelling, the complete analogy with the human act of perception; and to this purpose, psycholinguistic methodology may supply necessary data. The problem of "acoustic-verbal signals perception" in phonetics does not allow even the discussion under question, of the opportunity of also having recourse to the psychological perspective (therefore a psycholinguistic methodology), as the latter is implicit in the problem itself, as perception is a psychological act. The acoustic-verbal stimuli are therefore implied in complex situations, which put their stamp on their perception as in any perceptive act. Moreover, as they

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are by their nature exceptionally complex stimuli, their perception has specific characters. The complexity of the verbal stimuli included in the act of communication — i.e. in the normal situation in which they must appear — results on the one hand from the fact that they do not appear as simple and isolated units but under the form of sequences in which only the general sense produces a certain discontinuity — by distributing pauses, accents, the melody of the whole, etc. ; on the other hand, their complexity results from the fact that if we compare them with the nonverbal stimuli (which also have meanings, depending on the system of "associations", of knowledge of the subject), the verbal stimuli are doubled by much more complicated meanings — as these belong to a higher level —, but much more precise, more fixed (because they are included in the framework used with the help of which the associative link is imposed between the sonorous form — or graphic — and meaning). The receiver does not, therefore, perceive the sounds corresponding to isolated phonemes from the linguistic system in which encoding takes place, but he perceives sonorous groups organized as such by the emitter (therefore he will have to discern even in the moment of perception the various "supra-phonemic" cues, we should say). He himself will however contribute to their being organized even on the plane of perception (by connecting them with the knowledge he possesses, by appealing to the extra-verbal, situational correlates, etc.). 3.3. In present-day phonetics there is controversial discussion — among many others — around "the articulatory (or "motor") theory" of speech 10 , a theory which places on first plane the rôle of articulatory movements in perceiving verbal signals: speech is perceived by referring to the receiver's own articulatory movements and by a feed-back, mediator between the acoustic stimulus and its perception (therefore the perception of speech includes reference to the capacity of the receiver of being an emitter too)11. In connection with this theory the problem of the "distinctive features" of the phonemes has also been raised: are they univocal, and do the sounds correspond to certain invariable mental forms exactly, or can the phonemes realize themselves in variable and complex substances 12 ? Some authors suggest that the "distinctive features" do not act independently from the context in which they are perceived 13 , do not impose themselves mechanically in the sense of "one to one" correspondences (one phoneme — one achievement or one feature only), but "one to several"; probably there is a common productive model, which is the basis of perceptive decoding 14 . We think that if we take into consideration the psycholinguistic perspective (and at the same time the basic idea which we shall state in connexion with the context — of the balance between variability and constancy —), one can see more easily that what is important are the articulatory skills of the receiver, the audio-kinesthetic feed-back and the mental structures regarding certain invariant features. But, firstly, in order to explain the reception of verbal signals, one cannot ignore the material

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reality of the sounds heard. Certainly, sounds have their particularities which are different in various contexts, and their action in the moment of perception cannot be omitted; their variability is however reported to an invariable system of reference, which is given by the mental forms, on the basis of which "habits" have materialized in the proper system of articulation of the receiver. The more compatible (corresponding to, and not contradicting the object) is the scheme which meets the moment of perception, and the more complete this scheme is, the better the perception is facilitated, the more correct it is. The articulatory amelioration brings with it a perceptive amelioration, and the other way round. (We must add that this progressive movement implies both the perception of the verbal sounds of other people .and the proprioceptivity — the perception of one's own articulatory movements.) We can obviously notice, in the ontogenetic development — during the evolution of langage, during the development of the phonological system with children, etc. —, a number of phenomena which confirm the link between perception and articulation. It also seems that on the phylogenetic plane the relation audition-phonation has been established during the evolution of the human species 15 . We must also take into consideration the circuit perception — articulation — perception (which may be called a "cyclic progression"). The articulation — perception connexion, or the other way round, is one of the aspects of a fundamental law of langage. Perception is, at the same time, a dynamic process, of gradual adjustment, of step by step acquisition of consciousness concerning acoustic and proprioceptive verbal phenomena. The percept is not the immediate result and correctly achieved from the beginning of a perceptive moment which could be studied by being immobilised in a static instantaneousness. The analysis — which will be helped by future psychological investigations — may discover in perception moments which succeed one another rapidly and in the course of which the percept outlines itself, defines itself more accurately, is completed, and even modified. That is why the articulatory movements may influence perception, considered as a dynamic process. But, on the other hand, the mechanism of perception cannot be completely identified with that of articulation. They are two processes having their own obvious specific16, even if they can mutually determine each other. A certain interpretation depending on the new situation also interferes, to a great extent, even if the stimuli perceived do not coincide with either the pattern fixed in the articulatory skills or with those created by the frequency of their appearing as auditive "patterns". Within perception the articulatory skills, the auditive schematic representations — the "productive principles" or mental models — are confronted with the real datum as such, with the phenomenon perceived and the environment in which it takes place. Variation is interpreted with the help of some schemes which lend constancy, but by the intermediary also of certain interpretative adjustments, of establishing relations with the other data of the verbal sequence, i.e. of a contextual adaptation.

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3.4. If today we must place special stress on more neglected aspects and namely on speech (parole) as an oral (respectively acoustic) phenomenon, we cannot leave out its graphic aspect (respectively visual), which implies specific problems. Without exaggerating, as Raymond Queneau 1 7 did when stating that oral French and written French are wholly different, are two different languages, we must still underline that the oral and written systems are distinct. The relation between the structure of oral messages and the system of signs which represents them in writing is an aspect which can be studied from either a linguistic or a psychological point of view. But the causes which have led to forming two different systems, the variations of this relation, its reflection in messages, the modification of the emission and reception following changes in relation — depending on the situation of emitters and receivers — are aspects which psycholinguistics may discern and study. The graphic expression is a complex phenomenon, little enough approached on a psycholinguistic plane. If we are less interested here in the strictly motor aspect of the building of letters through a discriminative muscular activity (under cortical control), there are also aspects which could fall within the jurisdiction of psycholinguistics. One of these refers to the relation between grapheme and phoneme, and especially to its interpretation and modifications depending on the psychological factors. Within the history of various languages, for instance, we come across, various writings for the same word, writings whose interpretation leads to various controversies 18 . Our intention is not to present a personal point of view regarding these controversies, but to point to an aspect even from the history of a language, in the analysis of which we could discover new facets by psycholinguistic interpretation 1 9 ; in any case, the facts observed are often difficult to explain if one does not also have recourse to the psycholinguistic perspective. Another problem is that of the analysis of the structure of various graphic signs created by man, of revealing specific features — distinctive regarding others and at the same time common to all the variants of the same system —. This is a fundamental stage for establishing the programmes of computers "for reading" (which could therefore "find" the constant factor, belonging to a code, of the letter S for instance, in the multitude of graphic individual variations). The modelling aimed at computer construction should not overlook the specific of the human model, that is the essential elements which constitute the motor stereotype connected with each letter and which allow the human receiver "to read", although the individual realizations of the letters are countless. Important psycholinguistic problems are connected with the structuring of certain skills for each letter and in general with the forming of the motor stereotype required by "writing" as such — a first step in graphic verbal expression. Here also is included the difficult aspect of establishing the optimum orthographies from the psycholinguistic point of view (an aspect rather neglected when the pro-

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blem is discussed concerning the modification of an orthography, when either only linguistic criteria — etymological, etc. — or only pedagogical criteria — easiness of teaching, etc. — prevail in controversial discussions. In any case, we very seldom see a preoccupation, when the various orthographic norms are established, for the auditive-visual-motor feed-back. It certainly is easier to learn such orthography which enables the visual-motor control (of writing as such) with the help of the auditive skills of the person (when the auditive image of the word pronounced by the respective person may superpose itself more or less exactly on the visual image — a case more seldom found, for instance, in the orthography of the French language, where elements from oral speech are not always represented in the same way in writing: vers, vert, verre, etc.)20. But graphic expression also implies the aspect of its reception, i.e. that of the visual perception of verbal signals: in practice this refers to "reading". At the level which we are discussing at present — i.e. that of perception proper —, "reading" raises in the first place the problem of a perceptive deciphering of the graphic signals. From this point of view, psycholinguistics must certainly have recourse to the data of the psychology of perception — for which there are at present only little incontrovertible data, as the study of the perception of graphic verbal stimuli is as yet in the beginning. Experiments made by us have shown that verbal stimuli are perceived faster (or, in any case, they produce a more rapid verbal reaction, hence they are more efficient from this point of view than nonverbal stimuli — irrespective of the situation, however complex — as for the last a subsequent decoding in the verbal system is also necessary, which lengthens the reaction time; see infra, part II B, Ch.V.). Research work will have to decide, among others, precisely what is the optimum quantity for the perception of the verbal stimuli. G. Miller's formula, which has become classic — "the magical number seven", i.e. approximately seven ( ± 2 ) elements tachistoscopically presented can be well perceived, etc.21, is applicable to the verbal stimuli too. But various experiments have to show more precisely the part played by the grouping of elements, by the interval between units 22 , by the relation between the length of the stimulus and its degree of codification (for instance the comparison of abbreviations with the words — in the experiments which we carried out more recently —, etc.)23. But the perception of graphic verbal stimuli which appear in speech in the form of unitary messages — and not of isolated and meaningless stimuli — necessarily presuposes a verbal decoding in the inner speech too, or a stage of building or oral reconstructing of the written message24, that is recoding of the written message in its articulatory-auditive form. But a difficulty which is raised by decoding at this stage immediately following perception is the lack of perfect correspondence between the graphic signals and the oral expression. From this point of view, be-

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sides the aspects connected with the orthography of words we shall keep in mind the paragraphemic elements — such as punctuation, printing with various kinds of letters (italics, roman, etc.), writing with majuscules, division into paragraphs, etc. —, which only in the case of silent reading ("in mind", to oneself) may be decoded as signals: having no direct correspondence in oral expression, the reader tries to translate them while he is reading them aloud, especially with the help of intonation. In the subsequent stage, the recognition of the written message as such — which is realized by reconstructing oral — spoken words — is followed by the grasping of the meaning. These stages certainly succeed one another — with the normal adult who has a certain culture — very quickly, so that the perception of words means in fact the recognition as form and meaningful contents of certain verbal structures or "patterns". 3.5. Even when a message — oral or written — was perceived and "deciphered" in each of its component elements, we cannot say that its total understanding was also implicitly achieved. The most specific and difficult problems of speech reception appear chiefly after the strictly perceptual stage has been surpassed, that is, for the reconstruction by the receiver, of the meaning aimed at in the act of emission. At the moment of reception (as it happens also at the moment of expressing), the required meanings are selected depending on their possible relations within the lexical systems, the receiver relying on a contextual interpretation (which corresponds to the contextual organizing achieved by the emitter). He consequently takes into account the fact that each of the words depends, as concerns its meaning, on the other words of the actual context; at the same time, what is also taken into account are the virtual meanings implied in the semantic microstructure of the respective word and the virtual meaning relations with the other words pertaining to the same systematizations to which the respective word belongs and, indeed, its relations with all the other words. Reception implies a continuous creation — by the attempt itself of re-creating around a nucleus the sense intended by the emitter; the reception does not consist in accepting passively an "associated" value by virtue of the authority of the dictionary or a fixed relation due to the simultaneous occurrence, repeated and mechanical, of the sign and the object. To understand the sign by reference to the situation in which it appears means to discover its new value, which is not due to adding something new to the word, but to the fact that the lexical plane has been exceeded and that relations of similitude, opposition and hierarchy among signs have been grasped. This also means that a reference to distaxies was also achieved, that is the organizing of the expression has been grasped by transcending mere unidimensional juxtapositions. This organizing imparts a certain direction to reception in order to facilitate the understanding of signs; it is guiding towards a certain nucleus, which it is enriching at the same time.

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In order to understand, a continuous reference must be made to the whole, a process which takes place so rapidly that we cannot even be aware of it. Owing to the dynamic character of reception — which is analogous to that of expression — succession becomes almost simultaneous: in this way, in reception the component emitted does not wholly disappear, and the one which follows is almost concomitant with the present one. Therefore this present is not an ephemeral instantaneous moment, a point grasped in isolation and which could be lost before the receiver could connect it with the rest and before it could indicate the direction which the meaning should follow. To understand, in speech activity, does not only mean to accept somebody's manifestation as a fact of langage ; its real value must be perceived as well: that is its correct organization, its explicit and implicit relations have also to be established. A sign is always emitted by somebody, at a certain moment. Understanding, in order to reach an optimum, goes beyond the expression proper, because it refers to the entire personality of the emitter. Reception implies therefore, besides perception and recognition of signs (which is based on knowledge of a certain language, on integration in the specific linguistic system), a fundamental operation which is the interpretation of the expression. This means to refer to the manner in which the expression is organized, and indeed to include it in a wider systematization, which is the whole context. Interpretation consists in a pendulous and rapid movement of reference — which passes unnoticed —, from the perceived sign to the complete organization (see supra, Ch. II, fig. 3), from the meaning which is only vaguely discerned in the beginning to significative nuclei. Understanding is a rapid act, by which words — with their significative nuclei — are related, as to a system of reference and in a continuous osmotic current, to the context, until the complete sense is established. In conclusion, the technique of langage consists in organizing expression and adapting reception to it — therefore in an interpretation. The expression contains much more than the emitter produces explicitly: an appeal to situational correlations, to common data possessed by the receiver too. Expression represents the total context and helps it to become transparent, the total context to which the receiver must refer in order to understand the expression correctly. As regards reception, it must take into account the respective expression (with all that it implicitly contains) together with its correlations, in order to reach correct interpretation. The law of understanding, in speech, is reference to contextual organization. 4. We have several times referred to the contextual phenomenon — to which we shall again refer when we discuss "the dynamic-contextual method". Therefore we think it necessary to dwell on this phenomenon, to which we grant a central place in our system — not only from a theoretical point of view, but also regarding its methodological aspects —, as regards the psycholinguistic perspective, as well

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as the linguistic or proper psychological one. We shall therefore briefly present our conception based on the notion of context. 4.1. We think it useful first to make a definition 25 . The problem of context and its rôle — because of the frequent pointing out of its importance by certain linguists in the past — appears to some authors as very well-known and solved since long ago. But if the term "context" has often appeared in various older works 2β , there have been fewer studies dedicated to an exact definition — and its various implications — of this term, the multiple aspects of the rôle of the context have been analysed rather little and there have been almost no attempts to draw all the conclusions which result from the asserting of its importance 27 . On the other hand, interest in the part played by context has come to the fore again, in the last years, both in general linguistics — chiefly in theoretical structural linguistics, where context is given a much more important place, than it had been given earlier —, and in the field of practical applicability of automatic translations, where it was noticed that it was necessary to have recourse to this phenomenon essential for the problem of langage28. And it was noticed, at that moment, that the keeping of this problem at a distance from the centre of preoccupations did not serve any purpose. In the field of automatic translations it has long been considered — by applying the exclusive principles of certain research workers in the field of the theory of information — that meaning on the one hand and the contextual variability on the other could be neglected. It was noticed however that at a given moment translations achieved as a direct consequence of certain theories which ignore meaning or context were rudimentary enough, while sometimes it was even noticed that it was difficult to create judicious programmes for the computers without taking into account the complex problems which are raised when the context is considered 29 . 4.2. We have spoken about the bilateral relation, essential for communication, for langage — which connects the emitter and the receiver. Psycholinguistics must first raise the following problem: what is this human receiver, what is this human emitter? It is not indifferent to the messages emitted and to the possibility that they should be correctly decoded, what the nature is of these emitters and these receivers, what are the essential features of the sources from which messages come and of the points where the messages arrive. Each of the partners — both the emitter and the receiver — represents a unit created by the junction of several various actions: on the one hand the internal co-ordinates (the organic particularities, the physiological personal means, the characteristics of psychic organization, the data depending on the temperament); on the other hand the external co-ordinates (socio-historical ambience, which imposes a certain linguistic system, for instance, and, within this ambience, the personal moment, which causes an emotional change, a succession of perceptions, etc.). The internal co-ordinates are modified and interpenetrate with the external co-ordinates. Emitters and receivers are animated by the same interest, that of achieving the

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purpose of communication — of understanding and making others understand the fact described. The relation is not established directly however, but by means of a code formed of signs having a constant and general value for the members of the same community but also having a variable value, capable of expressing the dynamics of reality. In the act of communication through langage, the ensemble function of which the meaning of the word varies, the ensemble which determines and attributes a specific shade of meaning to each component of the expression is, in the last instance, the entire system of co-ordinates pertinent to the situation of that moment. This ensemble impresses a specific organization to all means of expression, so that the act of reception should be achieved in good conditions. This is the first ensemble which we must have in view. 4.3. On the other hand, in expression (as well as in reception) certain signs are used, organized within a system which exists in the consciousness of every person and which is characteristic of every individual ("the individual linguistic system" 3 0 called, sometimes, "idiolect"). We do not consider this system as developing from the crossing of "the system" with "the norm" 3 1 , but rather we consider it necessary to introduce a fourth notion — the individual linguistic facts — (besides language or system of language, speech, and the individual system), or should we better say to dissociate between concrete realization of every moment ("individual linguistic events, of facts, or acts), the individual system, and "speech" proper (parole) as a phenomenon having the character of generality to a certain extent. The individual system is based on selecting, it is in fact a selective organizing of the components of the integral system of language, having therefore as a foundation the common system of invariants — with all their virtual possibilities, — and it varies only within the limits allowed by the necessities of communication (which make it impossible for the individual system to deviate too much from the common system), but it gives the possibility for an individual, particular-concrete variation (in its turn disciplined by being included within a system). 4.4. But in the language itself there is a systematization which precedes not only the moment of expression, but also that of the genesis of the individual system. The individual finds in the language which he gradually learns — by a process of selective learning — a systematization which will form the basis of his interior organizing of his individual system and, which, at every moment of the communication, will also be the basis of organizing of the concrete act of langage, proper to that moment. If we analyze the linguistic material (sounds, words and sentences) used by langage, hence the components of language, to which both speaker and hearer have recourse when they communicate, we shall notice that these various components have relative value, their wide variability being well-known in linguistics. The variation of components takes place in the framework and owing to the ensembles in which

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these components are included: the linguistic phenomena analysed (to which we have also added a number of facts collected with the help of various experiments and which we shall present somewhere else in this book), consequently the observations and experiments enable us to formulate a "law" — or at least a "principle — of the determining by the whole". The analysis of the existing ensembles in language shows that the former do not have the aspect of conglomerates formed by mere additional juxtaposition of certain sounds, words, syntagms, but that they are groupings characterized by mutual relations between components and chiefly by a concentric determination, exerted by wider and wider ensembles, on groups which play towards them the rôle of components 32 . The profound motivation of each part, due to its correlations but especially due to the ensembles within which it is integrated, creates an internal logic of the phenomenon "language" in general which can be exemplified by particular facts collected from various "languages" In the general system of language there is an interdependence between the various lines of organization, a close connection which manifests itself by mutual influences (the lexical system may influence the phonological system, etc.). In modern linguistics various terms are used, which we should like to define more accurately for our discussion: organization, systematization, structure, structuring. The most widespread are: the term system — especially connected with de Saussure's conception — and the term structure, spread by the structuralist currents (one of the sources of which lies, to a great extent, in the successes of the Gestalttheorie of the German psychologists). Because of its more descriptive and more explicative meaning at the same time, but because it is also more suitable as a name for the general process, I think it is preferable sometimes to use the term organizing, of language; however, we must have in view the fact that the result of this organization is a unitary ensemble of various relations: the system or various systems of the language (phonematical, lexical, grammatical). Systematization implies therefore a unity due to certain definite internal relations and to a certain persistence in time of the organization achieved. Structure would be an organized ensemble, only partly however, in the sense that it is formed by the establishing of relations among a few components considered from a certain point of view, and which is in fact reflecting, at a certain moment, a part of the total systematization, that is a systematization on a reduced particular or temporal plane. 4.5. Between emitters and receivers there are therefore the signs contained in the system of the language. Every individual has integrated them in his own individual system during his lifetime, his personal experience (see also supra, 4.3.). However the signs are "almost" the same, the network of relations which connects them in the individual system is also almost the same. What the meaning of this almost is we shall define more accurately further on. In the act of communication new relations between the chosen signs are created so that they can express this particular moment, quite novel up to now: it is

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a particular among the particulars represented by individual systems. How can the same signs serve to express what is particular for each moment represented by a specific crossing of co-ordinates? In each word, such as it is taken from the language, there is a basic significative nucleus, acquired in the framework of social experience, which impresses upon the word a certain constancy, obstructing at the same time its arbitrary use 34 . In langage, however, in the concrete mechanism of communication, the meaning is individualized, made precise, completed, and even modified — within certain limits —, in order to allow thus the word to represent actual reality, at the moment of speaking. Alongside the integration of the sign in the concrete ensemble, the characteristic dualism of the sign — its constancy and its lability — finds a solution for itself. Thus the function of communication of langage is achieved, by the balance between the necessity of expressing personal contents with the help of signs having relative constant values (but which contain multiple significative potentials) and a necessity for the receiver to understand correctly this content. 5. The technique of langage, about which we have already spoken, is adequate to this very practical necessity of achieving mutual understanding and cannot be correctly studied if the relation emission-reception is not continuously borne in mind. The emitter and the receiver adapt themselves to each other; the former organizes his utterance for his partner and in accordance with what he knows about him, about his system of co-ordinates, while the receiver will understand the manifestations of the emitter by a specific activity of understanding — by "the interpretation" which we have also spoken about. 5.1. The act of langage is not a fragment of psychic life isolated from the other functions. Any langage manifestation presupposes the activity of the whole organism and of all the aspects of psychic life, organized in the attitude of langage, the exterior effect of which is the expression. The inner activity which precedes expression is as important as its exterior result, in which the signs divide the emission into fragments, depending on the necessities of succession in time and space. By the organization which the emitter imposes on his expression, therefore by the organization altogether different from the general organization of the language — because it takes place on a plane completely different from that of the concrete moment of the communication —, by this organization created by the emitter, the signs acquire values adequate to the situation and they succeed in representing the intention of the transmitter. The relations established at that moment between signs: oppositions (in which are included also the rhythm, phonological and semantic oppositions, which through their "collision" contribute to setting off meaning), the various means for denoting hierarchy (such as stresses, eliminations — by ellipses — of what may be superfluous, various positions, selected in accordance with the importance of each part in the ensemble) — all these converge towards the

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achievement of an expression that includes fragments having unequal importance or aspects, the meanings of which are specified and sometimes even created by the whole sense of the respective ensemble. The signs are chosen, as I said, by virtue of a certain constant, conventional nucleus, which is preserved in order to offer landmarks to the partner; but this significative nucleus is enriched by the ensemble in which the words are used. The emitter has recourse to nonverbal auxiliaries, in order to specify also his intention better and at the same time to define it more accurately and rapidly (and economically also): gestures and mimicry, nonarticulated vocal manifestations, signs created out of extra-bodily movements. But the emitter chiefly profits from the situation in which he finds himself, from what we call "situational correlatives" (the receiver knows where the emitter is — in a house, for instance — and therefore the emitter takes the liberty to say "here", without defining the situation any further by other means). This made us determined, when we tried to specify the field of facts of langage, to include among them all the means used in order to communicate intentionally, and to underline the fact that their hierarchy is relative (if, in most cases, in the present-day highly-developed society, the verbal form is the most important and is the most frequently used — the other forms becoming only indispensable auxiliaries —, at other times however, in certain circumstances, one of these forms — as for instance gesture — may pass on the first plane; we shall see this better when we discuss the problem of relations between langage and work). 5.2. Every expression cumulates a great wealth of signs: the interior connections which establish relations between one word and the others, the oppositions between the hierarchies — which give the word a certain form, a certain intonation, a specific stress within the general rhythm of the sentence which guides the listener towards a certain sense; lastly, the addition of gestures, mimicry, situational correlatives, direct emotional manifestations — integrated, however, by the same intention of communication. All this explains why the expression does not have the aspect of a mere concatenation in time, but each of its units acquires countless notations which give the expression the aspect of a pluridimensional ensemble. 5.3. In all this activity of organizing his expression, the emitter is guided by the intention of adapting himself to the receiver; he chooses the signs out of the linguistic system known by his partner, prefers the significant values which he knows to be familiar to the former, and he uses situational correlatives that he shares with the receiver. He continuously — sometimes perhaps without noticing it — avails himself of the common circumstances, of the fact that they both belong to the same historical moment, to the same profession or, on the contrary, he takes into account the fact that he and his partner belong to different communities.

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I have said that langage does not mean only expression, as it is commonly considered; but neither is it only an expression independent of the fact that langage is a "lever", therefore that it has a bipolar aspect, the partners influencing each other (this fundamental particularity has been, generally, neglected for a long time). 5.4. The receiver in his turn refers himself, (in order to understand his partner's expression), to the manner in which this is organized. The signs are not understood

Fig. 5 in isolation. Understanding, as we have already seen, is a rapid act in which the signs and their significative nuclei are related to a reference system, to context (a notion which we introduce at last), until when at a given moment the complete sense appears as a new step in the activity of understanding. Therefore, understanding is indeed an interpretation — corresponding, at the other end of the "lever", to the organization of the expression. The receiver adapts himself to the emission, renouncing to a great extent the values which he might attribute subjectively to the signs and tries to determine everything in accordance with the system of co-ordinates represented by the emitter: this is the ideal of the moment "understanding". In reception the meaning is not "impersonal", or strictly denotative: the receiver always refers (or tries to do it, or is obliged to do it, in order to understand the sense of the message) to connotations as well, to subjective, personal, emotional shades of meaning 38 . Reception presupposes in most cases an amplification of the data offered by the explicit expression, and a reference to a total context (fig. 5).

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6. We shall now discuss more extensively the notion of context. 6.1. In a certain meaning, we can say that all the ensembles which we have found during our analysis at various levels (the general level of language, the individual level, the level of the particular moment of communication) are contexts. We mean organized ensembles, which concomitantly play the rôle of a reference system for the components they consist of, or for minor ensembles subordinated to them. These ensembles allow each sign to vary, depending on the particular orbit in which the sign is integrated and to remain, at the same time, invariable, because it is connected with the system. If, on the other hand, the sign, virtually significative nuclei that may be different and sometimes even contradictory, in exchange the present real ensemble, the context of the utterance, of the whole fragment of speech (with its possibilities of potentiating, of giving nuances or sometimes even of creating) is the one which delimits meanings, actualizing one only, which it then completes, conferring on it a specific value, due to the co-operation of all the other components of the actual expression. Language, speech (parole), langage, communication could not be conceived without the existence of these ensembles which constitute the basis of their functioning. What are these "ensembles", whose role is essential? They are specific organizations in which the virtually expressive elements (the signs) are grouped in a certain manner, and which at the same time imply the establishing of relations — between components themselves and between components and the system (which plays the part of a system of reference too). A component can be in its turn a system subordinated to another vaster system. We call all these ensembles contexts, therefore including in the latter term also the meaning of "system of reference". In a certain sense, the system of language is also a context (as in the common notion of context we include the characteristic of being an organized ensemble and also a system of reference, and as we do not consider the context as only a linear syntagmatic concatenation, but also made by the confluences of vertical paradigmatic axes; the individual systems of the language, the lexical fields, etc., are also contexts). Still, we shall use here, for the time being, the common terminology for the latter ensembles and continue to call them "systems", etc. We shall consequently deal here with contexts as ensembles formed at the moment when communication occurs. Let us start from what is known in general and possible to be known — because it is the most perceptible aspect, in the order of linguistic perception: the linguistic (discoursive or verbal) context, formed by the linear — or seemingly linear — concatenation of words, or we should better say formed of the other parts of the message, which surround a certain element (from this point of view the word is the first context of the phoneme, the sentence is the first context of a certain word, then there follows the ensemble of sentences, then all the "statement" or the whole fragment of speech [discours]). But we must digress from the traditional notion which considers context only as the linear sue-

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cession of the words in a statement. We must also underline that there can be verbal-oral or verbal-graphic contexts, or contexts formed of images, etc. We have spoken about the co-ordinates of emitters and receivers, about the factors of variability at the level of signs (factors among which there are non-linguistic data, too). When speaking about context, all these determinants should be included in it as well. One can speak about the existence of several contexts, which form rather contextual levels and which are embedded, included in one another. Consequently, coexisting along the linguistic context and including it, there is the context formed of the whole expression, which contains also gestures, mimical auxiliaries, situational correlates, etc.: it is the explicit context (composed of verbal components — orderly enough itself, well enough organized, so as to be possible to consider it as a context — and from the auxiliary components). The hearer however refers continuously to the wider context (to which the emitter himself sometimes has recourse in order to express himself by ellipses or allusions); the implicit context, containing everything known by the receiver about the emitter (the latter being in a certain situation, at a given moment). This context is not represented in the exterior by a certain sign, but it marks each sign which was selected by the emitter and modulated according to the context (as a variation on a certain theme). This implicit context is in its turn included in a total context, which may be known only by the emitter or by the receiver and corresponds to the whole system of co-ordinates of the emitter, a system the result of which was the expression. It is a real organization, often discovered by the receiver, who relates the entire expression to it. The real context of the fact of langage is therefore an organization, only a part of which is linguistically explicated; this part must then be interpreted by the receiver, relating it to what remains implicit and without which the expression would not be correctly understood. 6.2. What is the rôle fulfilled by the context? Certain experiments — about which we shall be speaking in detail further (infra Part III, Ch. IV) — have enabled us to discern several aspects of the way it functions. a) First the context imposes certain limits to the possibilities of variation. It determines the choice of a certain word (for instance in order to say "there, in the middle of the forest", the context determines the choice of the word middle and its general meaning as well as its grammatical form: in a certain place and a certain combination there can be used a noun, or an adverb or a verb, etc.). But the context specifies the sense (chiefly regarding nouns, verbs, adjectives, sometimes adverbs, which are in general polysémie); it indicates in the first place the direction which the interlocutor must follow in order to understand, that is it "draws", one of the consecrated meanings and chooses, from among these semantic directions, the one which corresponds to the necessities of the moment (in the present case, the choice of a certain meaning makes the word middle become part of a prepositional phrase in the middle of). From a certain point of view, we can say about

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context that it is diacritical, as it decides on the direction in which the meaning of a certain word must be looked for. b) Second, context individualizes meaning, selecting that particular note from the generality of the notion which fits the object or particular phenomenon implied in that situation (in the present case, in the middle of the forest is : "in Vläsia forest [ = an ancient forest in Southern Romania]"). Context contributes, thus, even more to specifying the sense. This process takes place in the case of all words, even of those which may sooner be considered monosemic (as the numeral adjectives or certain pronouns), and even of prepositions and conjunctions which, expressing only relations, acquire their precise determination only within a context. c) Lastly, the whole context completes the meaning, by means of the various nuances, created by the particular applications of the word to a certain particular object placed in a specific environment (there, in the middle of the forest, means a certain distance, more or less related to the size of the respective wood, etc.). The sentence to which the word belongs, the paragraph, a discussion or a whole book, the situation, the customs of the respective community, as well as those of the emitter himself — everything contributes to tinting each word and to outline its meaning and the general sense of the statement more precisely. d) Moreover: the context itself — at any one of its levels — may often also create a meaning to a word in the cases when context is the only means which makes a correct understanding possible. This is the case: a) When the utterance contains a seldom used phrase, the meaning of which is vaguely known by the receiver, but which he succeeds in understanding with the help of the context, β) When the statement contains a completely unknown phrase or idiomatic expression or compound word (the phrase Battre froid à quelqu'un 'to give somebody the cold shoulder' presented in isolation was not understood by people who did not know French well; in a context, the same persons could determine its meaning precisely, γ) Context also has a creative rôle when the speaker uses a word the meaning of which he has completely changed (certain experiments which enabled me to ascertain that Romanian words acquired a quite different meaning, in contexts drawn up by me), δ) A context also plays a creative rôle, when it has to make up for a lacuna or a very economically constructed expression, or ε) when an utterance is mistaken (and it can be corrected by the context). Thus in the course of our experiments we have noticed for instance not only that "mutilated" texts — which offered gaps — were perfectly understood, but the context may even "attract", may fill in the gap with the missing word. It was also noticed (case under ε) that texts which contained mistakes were corrected, even without the subjects noticing the mistake. For instance, given a number of subjects whose mother tongue was Romanian and who spoke French, the following sentence: Quand vous connaîtrez bine ma mère (the Romanian word bine replacing the French word "bien"), out of 24 persons, 22 read the sentence pronouncing bien and not bine (the context

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created a sense and a systemic orientation — of French — which determined the correcting of the word without the subjects noticing the mistake). We shall present other experiments later. e) Lastly, the context may (when, by storage, it plays the rôle of a "set", of the "semantic load" of a word) change a meaning, or even f) direct the word towards a wrong meaning (sometimes, by repetition with different individuals, this may even penetrate into the common language too). We should however add that, even if the context plays an essential rôle in the technique of langage, it is not almighty in guiding expression and understanding. Its action is circumscribed first by the limits within which meanings may vary, that is, its action stops before that differential barrier which is imposed by the basic significant (semantic) nucleus. At the same time, the capacity of action of the context depends on the extent to which the expression — the texture of words and phrases — is organized, i.e. it depends on the force with which this organization imposes itself, on the meaningful value of the general ambience, as well as on the knowledge the interlocutors have as a common background with the emitter. It also depends on the will of the partners not to allow themselves to be guided only by a few univocal meanings, which they know better, or not to look only for the stereotype in certain formulae. In that case, the attempt to introduce a new meaning or new shades of meaning strikes against the force of stereotyped systematizations. Besides such conditions which determine the rôle played by context — but, in fact, in connection with its degree of organization —, we must mention the length of the context and especially the importance of the contextual position of a component. Experiments concerning the solving of homonymy — which we shall describe in further detail (infra, Part III, Ch. V^ — show that in any case the length of the context plays a certain part and that, therefore, when we work with "microcontexts" we must operate prudently, in order to determine the necessary length in each situation; one cannot decide absolutely and generally on an optimum length for a context, as it depends on the receiver (his knowledge, etc.), as well as on the degree of organization of a context, that a context should be "too short" or "long enough" or "redundant as length". "The length" of the context is not only a relative, but also a labile enough notion, as besides the verbal context or the explicit one, other adjuvants — situational, implicit, etc. — also interfere. The place which each component holds in the context also determines a variation in the importance of the length of the context in relation to each component (a component situated in a privileged place will not need a "long" context, in order to be well determined). The contextual position is a notion which is still little used and which also has psycholinguistic implications. It is correlated with the manner in which the emitter organizes the context, with the knowledge which a certain receiver possesses up to a certain moment in the development of the verbal sequence, etc.

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6.3. All these actions of the context which we have been speaking about, are possible owing to the complexity and fineness, at the same time, of the technique of langage, which could be called a "contextual" technique and in which the principle of adaptation to context is acting. When we could formulate the exact and, to a certain extent, even quantifiable conditions of the action of the context (owing to mathematical procedures which could be suppler than the present ones and apter for expressing a dynamic complexity), this principle will certainly become one of the laws of psycholinguistics (and why not even of linguistics?): the law of adaptation to context. The intention of communication, inherent to any fact of langage, the active attitude, determined by the new situations which give birth to it, the need for referring to the modality of organization, of projecting the component parts on systems of reference, of connecting the explicit with the implicit contribute to outline the conviction that human langage is a qualitative fact which differs from the exterior manifestations of the animals, as well as to delimiting the moment when one can speak about langage proper in the evolution of mankind or in ontogenesis, and it suggests a way to explain pathological cases such as aphasia, and also to impose a firm attitude regarding preparatory work for automatic translations and generally for model constructing for computers. Langage evolves toward the possibility of creating new organizations and of interpretation of novel organizations, that is, of synchronization with the dynamism of reality, by the adaptation to the context. We are far from the old conception of a "mechanism" attributed to the achieving of langage (an explanation specific to mechanistic ages or ages frozen in dogmatic statements, indifferent to the dynamism of reality), when we speak about this mechanism, about this subtle technique. This is a technique based on a principle of productivity, on the possibility of answering adequately in situations, owing to the functions of commutation and systematization proper to a plastic nervous basis, not at all independent or rigid regarding the action of circumstances (its physiological activity could perhaps, in the future, be noticed during these various forms of adapting to context, by dynamic investigations "in vivo", by electroencephalography for instance, if it could ever give us — as a technique for recording and as possibilities for tinted interpreting — more than it gives us today). 7. Facts of langage have their roots in the various co-ordinates and in their endless possibilities for coupling. The lack of immutability and isolation of any fact of langage, the mobile balance of the facts of langage appear as a consequence of these endless variations of the action and the meeting place of the emitter's coordinates, a phenomenon complicated by the meeting with the receiver's system of co-ordinates. Once the complex dynamics of the fact of langage are noticed, it cannot appear any longer either as a phenomenon isolated, or dominated by phenomena having

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an absolute character, or functioning as an independent creation or as a means for "informing" one's partner with the help of certain forms lacking lability. Langage is, in reality: a) a phenomenon linked with the whole person and with the exterior moment which determines it; b) it is a process based on the necessity of bringing into accord the ends of its bipolar axis — emission-reception — by a contextual organization of the expression and of the interpretation; c) and it is above all a phenomenon connected with reality, life, society, and therefore a dynamic phenomenon. a) Langage activity presupposes a technique applied to an interior material — the psychic state — and an exterior one — the system of signs of language —, in order to make them apt to communicate adequately at a certain moment. Langage attitude is one of the aspects adopted by the whole person at a given moment and is one of the most complex human manifestations and the most efficient means for carrying out common activity. b) When everything is in continuous motion, when nature and life which are to be expressed evolve continuously, the individual is still obliged to found his langage on a répertoire of signs, containing in itself a principle of invariability (necessary however in its turn, for mutual understanding and also necessarily reflecting the constant aspect of phenomena). Yet, langage succeeds under the impulse of the real necessities of social co-operation, to bring to accord the principle of constancy — indispensable to offer points of support to its understanding — with the necessity and obligation of expressing dynamic reality. The masters of language are not those who use uncommon words, nor those who apply formulae and clichés, but those who know how to express as completely as possible their intentions, in the common words of everybody, using all the means of an expressive organization. The contextual organization and interpretation on which the technique of langage is based tolerates the coexistence of a minimum of conventional fixity alongside a continuous variation corresponding to the evolution of reality. Consequently, langage could be considered as a technique of communication which uses for its two moments — expression and understanding —, significative nuclei completed, defined, adapted with the help of certain organization and interpretation procedures. c) Language must be analyzed — by procedures aiming at its identification in statu nascendi — in its development as a process and not as a static fact. Even the appearance of the epithet "contextual" in designating the method which we shall present later indicates just the underlining of the necessities that langage should not onl y be studied in its flow, in the succession of its moments, but also defined by its essential characteristic, of being an activity moulded by the evolution of reality itself. We have consequently tried to consider langage as connected not with an abstract theoretical individual but with a concrete person, as a member of a certain community; hence, the need to state precisely the procedures used by the techni-

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que of langage — without fixing langage itself in descriptive patterns — and of underlining its essential principle, which is adaptation to context both by the emitter and the receiver, that is the fact that one has to adapt himself to circumstances and refer to such in order to be able to understand. Living langage, supple by virtue of its dynamism, must be accepted with all that is by passed, rejected or even refuted by a psychology and a linguistics which remain dogmatic, speculative and secluded into absoluteness and rigidity; with everything that is relative, arbitrary, ambiguous in it, and yet constant, universal and sure, having the certitude that any amphibology is solved in practice by the reference to the context. Such are the conclusions which may be reached by the attempt of studying all the aspects of langage by a preponderantly inductive method at the inception, of langage the fundamental elements of which are systematizations, organic connections between ensembles and components, of langage as a dynamic phenomenon determined by the person situated in its specific social framework. Language exists outside the moment of communication, it is an objective fact, but it becomes a complete psychological reality only when it is used in a real act of langage, that is once it becomes speech or "individual linguistic facts" or generally a message. "There is nothing in language" — said W. von Wartburg, changing Locke's well-known formula — "which should not have first been in speech (paroleJ "3β. "Language" and "speech" complete each other for the psychologist and even for the linguist, and in any case for the psycholinguist — who cannot consider one outside the other and especially outside the general process of "langage". The various practical consequences of this point of view concerning langage may surpass in certain aspects and certain fields theoretical importance. It would be of great use to include in pedagogy and especially in the methodology of teaching the mother language and foreign languages a more intense preoccupation than the existing one for phenomena of context (in learning foreign languages, in the study of organizing expressions, in view of a more correct understanding or of indicating the manner in which an act of langage can be more adequately received, etc.). Besides the other applications (as for instance in the methodology of translations, of proof corrections, in computer construction, etc.) or besides its applications in general linguistics, we can foresee countless other applications of this principle in the field of grammar, phonetics, stylistics, literary criticism37, etc., aspects which we shall discuss in other chapters.

Notes 1

Therefore, from a certain point of view, B. Pettier (Les mécanismes supposés par le passage des catégories de langues à la syntaxe du discours, in Méthodes de la grammaire. Tradition et nouveauté. Colloque Int. Liège, 1964, Univ. de Liège, 1966, p. 98) is right when he states

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that when encoding we pass from language to message; but we cannot consider that "tout ce qui arrive au niveau du discours est déjà conditionné au niveau de la langue" ('all that takes place at the level of discourse is already conditioned at the level of language'); in encoding, a certain activity of creation also interferes, which is needed by the adaptation to context. * R. Meringer, Aus dem Leben der Sprache, Berlin, Behr, 1908, pp. 91—93. 8 See T. Slama-Cazacu, M. Voicu, Privire crìtica asupra studiului performanfei la diferiti stimuli verbali ¡i neverbali, iη psihologia experimental contemporanä a percepfiei. "Revista de psihologie", 1965, no. 2, pp. 247—271. 4 T. Slama-Cazacu, Problèmes théoriques et méthodologiques de l'étude des facteurs de variabilité de la perception des stimuli verbaux et non-verbaux, et de leur efficience, "Revue roum. des sci. sociales — Psychologie", 1965, no. 1, pp. 3—15; see the other mentioned articles, too, infra, Part II B, Ch. V, note 36. 6

See T. Slama-Cazacu, op. cit.

• See bibliographical discussion in T. Slama-Cazacu, M. Voicu, op. cit., and the other articles mentioned. ' We should like to mention, for instance, that the theme of the Vlth Congress of Phonetics, Prague 1967, was "The acoustic signal and its perception". (Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress of Phonetic sciences —Prague 1967, Prague, Academia, 1970J. 8 See, for instance, J. Greenberg, J. Jenkins, Studies in the psychological correlates of the sound system of American English, "Word", 1964, 20, no. 2, pp. 157—177. 9 See also: XVIIIth International Congress of Psychology (Moscow 1966). Symposium 23. Models of speech perception, Leningrad, 1966. 10

Cf., for instance, the discussion in H. Lane, The motor theory of speech perception. A critical review, "Psychol, review", 1965, 72, no. 4, pp. 275—309; see also in: Models of speech perception, cited, pp. 81—88, and other communications. 11 Cf. also G. Fant, Introduction to: Models of speech perception, cit., p. 13. "Ibid., p. 11. 18 See also L. Bondarko, L. Zinder, Distinctive features of phonemes and their physical characteristics, ibid., p. 40. 14 Cf. also G. Fant, op. cit., p. 13. 15 R. Chocholle, Relations entre audition et langage, "Rev. g-le des sciences", 1966, no. 3—4, pp. 99—101. 16

17

18

H. Lane, On the necessity of distinguishing between speaking and listening, paper presented at The VI411 Int. Congr. of Phonetical Sciences, Prague, 1967 (read in manuscript). R. Queneau, Entretiens, Paris, Gallimard, 1962 (apud H. Andries, Quelques considérations sur l'enseignement du français seconde langue, in "Études de linguistique appliquée", 3, Paris, Didier, 1964, p. 157); "le français écrit est une chose totalement différente du français parlé [...]. Ce sont deux langues différentes, presque aussi différentes que le français et le latin". In the Romanian texts of the XVI t h century, for instance, there are double spellings or "alternative spellings", as — in the Latin alphabet transcription —: leage and Iságe, lege (Al. Rosetti, Istoria limbii romàne, vol. IV, V, VI, Bucurejti, Ed. çtiinjificâ, 1966, pp. 159 foil.), a fact which raises certain questions regarding the pronunciation of the respective words: were they really differently pronounced, or are they instances of carelessness, or the result of lack of attention from the part of some scribes, or are they motor stereotypies of the

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authors (although the normal way of pronouncing the word was lele in their time, they sometimes continue to write, as in the older spelling, l(áge) etc.? 18 For instance, the phenomenon named "orthographical tradition" (Al. Rosetti, op. cit., p. 161) may be more correctly understood if it is interpreted with the help of its substratum, namely the motor stereotypy of a certain spelling, without the latter being a proof of the manner how the respective person pronounces the word ; for instance, there are people who sometimes write in Romanian, using the old orthography — owing to some stereotypy — sunt, although they pronounce sint synt (as is recommended by the new orthographical norms). 20

See E. Higginbottom, A study of the representation of English vowel phonemes in the orthography, "Language and speech", 1962, V, pp. 67—117, Cf. also J. B. Carroll, A psycholinguistic analysis of reading behavior, "English teaching forum", 1966, vol. D, no. 1, p. 4; and: E. Gibson, J. Gibson, A. Danielson, H. Osser, M. Hammond, The role of graphemephoneme correspondence in word perception, "Amer. j. psychol.", 1962, 75, pp. 554—570. 21 G. Miller, The magical number 7, plus or minus two : some limits on our capacity for processing information, "Psychol, review", 1956, 63, pp. 81—97. 22

J. Michon, Temporal structure of letter group and span of perception. "Quart j. exp. psychol.", 1964, 16, part 3, pp. 232—240. 28 See: T. Slama-Cazacu, A. Dabija, Perception time and motor reaction time for verbal stimuli of different lengths (words and "abbreviations"), "Revue roumaine des sciences sociales — Psychologie", 1970, 14, no. 2, pp. 119—137 (NEV). 24 Cf. also J. Carroll, op. cit., p. 3. 2t

Which is valuable also for this work, as well as for our previous book Limbaj .¡¡context (Bucureçti, Ed. $tiinfiflca, 1959 and the French version, Langage et contexte, The Hague, Mouton, 1961, and the Spanish one, Lenguaje y contexto, Barcelona, Grijalbo, 1970; the first exposition was published in the article Principiul adaptärii la context, "St. çi cercet. lingv.", 1954, no. 1—2, pp. 201—245 and Le principe de l'adaptation au contexte, "Revue de linguistique", 1956, no. 1, pp. 79—118 — also in Russian).

28

See Limbaj }i context, cited, pp. 9—44 (Spanish edition pp. 11 — 50), and Langage et contexte, cited, pp. 217—231. The bibliography given in the quoted books will not be repeated here; we shall only make a few additions regarding recent works or the mentioning of which we consider absolutely necessary for the present discussion.

" An example among others: in his inaugural speech at the Belgian Academy, in 1938, the philologist Servais Etienne expressed a truth which had been stated by many others as well: "Un mot a plusieurs sens dans un dictionnaire, mais dans un contexte donné il n'en a qu'un" ( Ά word has several meanings in a dictionary but in a given context it has only one*), cf. G. Desonay, Notice sur Servais Etienne, Bruxelles, "Annuaire de l'Acad. Royale de langue et de littér. française", 1958, p. 2. But without sensing the contradiction — as it happened in this problem, in countless other works—, we read also that: "Lire c'est obéir au pouvoir significatif des mots" ('Reading means obeying to the significative power of words') (ibid.). But if the reader is merely submissive to "the significative power of words", how does context act? It is one of the problems which we have tried to solve —in first place by underlining its existence, and then analysing the relation between the action of the context and "the force" of the word. 28

As such, the taking into consideration of contextual phenomena (which we do not call a "theory", as it is a general and necessary principle for linguistics), which today is far from being a position out-of-date or "destroyed" by extremist polemists (see L. Antal) is, on the

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contrary, of great interest (among others see also the report presented by L. Hirschberg, in Actes du I-er Colloque Int. Ling. Appliquée, Nancy, 1964, Nancy, [Université de Nancy], 1966, pp. 37—65), and ignoring these phenomena is dangerous. That is why we could not even represent "l'ultima voce" ("the last voice") (as L. Rosiello thought, in Significato e uso, "Lingua e stile", 1966, no. 2, p. 222); we have only expressed opinion which makes itself heard louder and louder today. 28

Thus, at the International Colloquium of Applied Linguistics of Nancy, in 1964, an insistent enough preoccupation for context was expressed: J. Gardin underlined, in his report, that "la méthode contextuelle est en effet la seule qui s'offre à l'esprit pour fonder les règles d'interprétation sémantique dans les cas ambigus" ('the contextual method is indeed the only method which offers itself to our mind in order to set up the rules of semantic interpretation in ambiguous cases') (J. Gardin, L'information sémantique en documentation automatique, in Actes du I-er Colloque Int. Ling. Appliquée, cit.); also J. Dubois, in his report on Résolution des polysémies dans les textes écrits et structuration de l'énoncé, ibid., or L. Hirschberg, etc.

30

A. N. Leontiev, A. A. Leontiev, Cu privire la problema "sistemului lingvistic individual", "Revista de psihologie", 1960, no. 4, pp. 7—20 (and Social and individual in language, "Lang, and speech", 1959, 2, part 4, pp. 193—204). 31 Cf. A. N. Leontiev, A. A. Leontiev, Cu privire la..cited, p. 15, in accordance also with the notions in E. Coseriu's conception (Sistema, norma y habla, cited,). ?2 Recently, J. Vachek (On the integration of the peripheral elements into the system of language, "Travaux linguistiques de Prague", 2, Les problèmes du centre et de la périphérie du système de la langue, Prague, Academia, 1966, p. 23), discussing this "integration" of the elements into the system, also underlined the special degree of integration, that is of "participation" in the relations, of the various elements. 33

More recently, this phenomenon of the relation between system and components (named by one of their aspects ¡centre and periphery) is analysed as a "language universal", by P. Danes (The relation of centre and periphery as a language universal, in "Travaux linguistiques de Prague" cited, pp. 9 foil J .

34

We should like to point out here, again, to this fundamental aspect of our conception, omitted by a polemist (L. Antal), who made himself known especially by the manner in which he rejected other authors' opinions. In our conception, context is not "almighty", as the word having is also functioning on the basis of a principle of constancy, crystallized in "its basic significative nucleus". [See also, more recently: The power and limits of the social context of language behaviour, "Cahiers de linguistique théorique et appliquée", VII, 1970, pp. 31—41 — NEV].

85

See Langage et contexte, cited, pp. 190 and others; even the scientist uses the daily way of speaking, laden with "overtones", of connotations — as S. Kapstein also observed (Expository prose — an analytic approach, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Co., [1955], p. 112).

36

"Rien n'est dans la langue qui n'ait point été auparavant dans la parole": W. von Wartburg, Problèmes et méthodes de la linguistique, Paris, P.U.F., Il^d e d., 1963, p. 213. 3 ' K. Uitti, for instance, has shown this recently, for the last two decades, in a lengthy review of our book Langage et contexte ( Context in language and literature, "Romance philology", 1965, 18, no. 3, 300—316j.

CHAPTER IV

Psycholinguistic methodology (Collecting and interpretation of facts) The dynamic-contextual method

1. In presenting our viewpoint concerning psycholinguistic methodology, we started by trying to delineate its object. We showed that psycholinguistics studies language in its concrete achievements, in messages — in fact speech (parole) —, in relation to emitters and receivers, and with the various situations in which they find themselves. 1.1. An object does not become the content of a science by its mere mechanical mirroring. Indeed, we cannot say that the "scientific" object is offered as such by reality, as it proceeds from a certain cognitive attitude, from a certain optics by which one differentiates in the extremely complex reality certain aspects and by which they are at the same time connected in a uniform synthesis. The development of knowledge concerning a scienti ficai object depends on the methods by which a certain aspect of reality is delimited. "Facts" exist independent of the research worker, and his tendency should be to come as close to them as possible with the help of the methods he uses. We do not consider that these facts are "beyond" a scientist's possibility of observation 1 : by an adequate methodology, the established "data" can draw much closer to the essence of the fact. The instruments adopted — methods (the fundamental means with which science works in order to have permanent control on the object), procedures (the concrete or auxiliary details of the method) and technique (the particular manner of using a method), terminology itself (the code in which the object is described) — play an enormous rôle in grasping the facts regarding an object. That is why it is surprising that the proper methodological preoccupations are scarce in psycholinguistics, as they are not too common in linguistics either (where the methodological discussions are carried out especially in certain modern currents, based on formalization procedures, often without special care for making "data" suit "facts" and, after establishing a certain point on the "surface" of the latter, the whole effort is dedicated to logically organizing such judgements which seem to be aprioristic). 1.2. The problem confronting the study of the object of psycholinguistics is not indeed that of creating a new "science", but of defining an adequate methodo-

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OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

logy, which should achieve a deeper knowledge of this object which has common aspects with the object of linguistics and that of psychology. The adopting of the term psycholinguistics does not exempt us from making personal methodological precisions; as we have mentioned, the setting up of a clear methodology, defined in a special study, was belated even after the name of the discipline appeared. What are the means by which psycholinguistics must carry out its investigations ? What are its methods, procedures and techniques, and firstly the methodological principles which preside over the drawing up and application of its methods? (We shall not deal with terminology for the time being, although it is an important point of methodology — partly discussed supra, Ch. III and others). The methodology of psycholinguistics must on the one hand indicate the methods which serve to collect facts connected with concrete situations; and on the other hand it must help to interpret these facts first by the manner itself in which they are collected and then recorded. 1.3. We shall first present a few general methodological principles referring to these two methodological tasks. We must specify that, in our opinion, the methodology of psycholinguistics is destined to contribute, on the one hand, to the development of its own field (psycholinguistics). On the other hand, it has to contribute to the development of linguistics itself, with the light it can cast on certain parts of the object of linguistics, as well as — perhaps — by the innovating spirit which its own methodology brings along (in other words, it can contribute to the accumulation of linguistic facts by renewing the general methodology of linguistic studies). Lastly, it offers its services to applied linguistics, either by research work which can reveal new facts of the spoken language (therefore offering materials: it will thus help to elaborate materials for the teaching of languages, for preparing programmes for automatic translations, for establishing particularities in langage disturbances) ; or, it will serve applied linguistics by its research work — chiefly experimental — which can contribute to define the methods for learning and teaching languages, for therapeutics in the pathology of speech, etc. 2. Let us start, to this purpose, from linguistics, in order to try and see what psycholinguistics could accept from the methodology of the former, what it cannot accept and what it has to achieve by its own methodology (a good part of which will be — as it is natural in the case of an interdisciplinary field — adopted from psychology too). 2.1. The fact is significant that linguistics refers very seldom to methodology and especially to the methods of collecting facts — with the exception of dialectology and lexicography, and, more recently, sometimes, for practical purposes, in the field of language teaching. Because linguistics tends to keep itself aloof from the phenomena of speech (parole), and also because of the unilateral application of the deductive method, countless aspects of the language are so far unknown or have not been studied yet, so that before achieving the knowledge of various ob-

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jective linguistic facts, before having a complete knowledge of how a language is organized or even what a language or, in general, the phenomenon "language" is, speculations have been started in linguistics around an abstract "language", or studies have been carried out on linguistic "samples" considered, more or less wrongly, "facts of language" (in fact these so-called "facts of language" are anatomic in vitro preparations, mummified by using a different procedure from the neogrammatical one, but having a no less lethal effect). In other words, more and more work has started being carried out by using a method which operates on material taken out unilaterally from a certain language, hypostasised in static forms — in which the character of "system" (but not the "system" itself, which is real in language, but which is much more complex than it can be illustrated in its complete reality by such a method), this character of "system" can be more easily observed : not because language has been thus grasped in its essence, but because this artificial procedure isolates, easily enough, a certain moment of a dynamics the whole essence of which escapes this rough manipulation. There are in present-day linguistics certain currents which proclaim deduction to be the sole method and they refuse to have recourse to the inductive method (see, for instance, the well-known statements of L. Hjelmslev — who rejected induction 2 and, contradicting himself, wanted an "empirical and deductive" method3). However we must open a parenthesis: L. Hjelmslev underlined 4 , contradicting his principle of denying the utility of induction, that structural linguistics is based exclusively on facts (using therefore the same old facts collected by the usual methods). We should specify, on the other hand, that even in applying the inductive method there can appear certain differences — often fundamental : it depends, among others, on the stage when the use of induction begins (induction may mean, for instance, as with P. Garvin 5 , "a simple method of linguistic analysis", of classifying certain elements of the language leading to an "inductive description" of the latter); it depends also, on the point where the research worker knows how to stop using induction. We have not mentioned yet, on this way to dehumanizing language, the tendencies for extreme formalization or excessive mathematization — and adopted as a purpose in themselves (we underline this because formalization and interpretation from the quantitative point of view are most necessary in certain moments or in certain fields). We should not like to be misunderstood: the contribution of mathematics becomes today more and more necessary in certain fields of applied linguistics (and sometimes mathematics may be useful even to theoretical linguistics, if we think of thé possibility of obtaining precise data, too — for instance by statistical means or formal models —, which avoids observations having an impressionistic character and certify, by quantitative guarantees, the legitimacy of certain

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generalizations, or allow synthesis and predictions). For automatic translations, for compiling dictionaries with the help of automatic machines or in order to allow the machine to recognize the structure of sentences, for drawing up "the documentary thesauri" in a certain field, for all these the mathematical expressing of certain linguistic laws becomes legitimate and necessary. On the other hand, formalization becomes necessary to establish also algorithms, etc. But mathematization cannot cover the whole field of linguistics — where there are aspects which reveal themselves better by qualitative analyses — , and quantitative analysis must be considered only as a means and not as a purpose. On the other hand, even in applicative fields, in which mathematization is necessary, the rôle of mathematical interpretation stops at a certain point, which must be traced precisely and respected. It should be also mentioned that the most important things are to know the value of the "data" on which mathematization is applied, to adapt the form to the contents, and first of all to start from facts and not only from deductions when creating models, when formalizing, etc. It should be added to these exaggerations, that in the application of mathematics the special humanistic perspective is not taken enough into consideration. And this perspective in which the research worker who refers to phenomena depending on langage, language, etc. must situate himself is different from that which the mathematician is used to. The insufficient mathematical training of certain linguists also makes them adopt an uncritical attitude in their co-operation with mathematicians and, on the other hand, it narrows the possibilities of achieving by themselves the quantitative processing, limiting it to some elementary statistics, incapable of tracing facts in their dynamics, in their contradictions, in their complex variability e . In any case, there are currents which give up "collecting" facts, or at least reconstructing the environment from which "the preparations" — the linguistic data — have been extracted and reintroducing them into the living texture out of which they have been snatched. The research worker operates with this material, with these "samples" of which we were speaking — supplied by dictionaries, grammars or even only by his own linguistic knowledge, by his own idiolect, which is often taken for metalangage (and vice-versa!). Perhaps that is why so little is said in linguistics about the method of collecting facts. On the other hand linguistics is based to a great extent on what linguist research workers "think" or "feel", or on their introspection: in other words, if we refer to the three persons who can be included in the act of communication (emitter, receiver, external observer — of whom only the first two are in fact essential for this act), it is the custom, in linguistics, to manipulate data obtained introspectively by the external observer who is the linguist, and what takes place between the emitter and the receiver is often omitted, i.e. the achieving of communication by message.

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Generative linguistics — or transformational — has made of this "custom" a methodological rule or in any case it gave it an explicit justification. With the aim of establishing fundamental rules which generate various structures of language, the respective currents are approaching psychological perspective, not only because by the "deep structure" is cognitive psychology involved in these theories, but also due to the proper procedure for obtaining facts; the necessity for showing what is the knowledge on the basis of which the speaker/hearer san produce and understand an expression is underlined, and as a procedure of checking various data with which one operates, one proposes the use either of the personal opinion (the "linguistic intuition") of the research worker or that of a "native speaker" (a speaker who uses his mother language). The premise from which this procedure starts is just, to the extent to which it is understood in all its implications: every speaker possesses (consciously or not — this is one of the points which is usually not taken into consideration) the rules on the basis of which he speaks, or certain principles which lie at the basis of the grammatical structure he uses 7 . The interest, however, is not shown in the reality of communication as such, in the way the speaker effectively uses this knowledge regarding the production and understanding of sentences 8 . The problem is not even that of arriving at real "facts" of language — but at "linguistic data" e , and as such the purpose of research work becomes limited. The awareness of the difficulty of working in this way is sometimes confessed and we can often see that the lack of certain clear methodological principles in this respect leads to a deadlock, or to contradictions regarding the principle of ignoring the real fact. Thus, sometimes the necessity is asserted for having recourse to oral speech or to "a native speaker" instead of written texts (because expressions can be repeated, forms can be controlled, etc.) 10 . Or it is stated that the ideal source is not that of a questionnaire which is divorced from context, but of conversation 11 (although somewhere else Z. Harris asserts that it does not matter how data are obtained : with the help of a questionnaire, texts or recording of conversation) 12 . Or it is asserted that it is not "easy" to extract data from a speaker — but that they must be used 13 . Or it is stated that there are models which cannot be accepted, because they do not agree in the least with reality, as they are not real procedures, used by a speaker, or they do not agree with what the latter could do: some of them are, for instance, extremely uneconomic so that for a sentence of twenty words the brain would have to perform operations for the whole of one's life 14 . Besides "psychologizing" attitudes there are statements which infringe the principles of consistent psychological explanation, or alongside the explicit wish for ignoring the real substratum there is criticism against non-concordance with it. Indeed, the scientific modality of "collecting facts" is not a preoccupation, or when it appears, it springs out from the necessity of a justification or often coincides with a contradiction or with perplexities,

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The problem of validation of certain rules by establishing their generality — on the basis of a certain frequency of the cases when they may be applied or of collecting a certain number of facts — is not usually raised or it is even excluded: the possibility is accepted of continuously obtaining different results on the basis of the same material 1δ . It is essential — says Z. Harris again 16 — that every linguist should explain what he has chosen, that is to give a valid explanation in the framework of the system, and not in accordance with the real fact. In other words, behind this omission of the principles for establishing data and for verifying them, behind the intentional neglecting of scientific norms concerning the gathering of facts, behind this explicit ignoring of corroboration with reality, one can discern not only a regrettable convenience or the pleasure of juggling comfortably with constructs, but also an egocentric or solipsistic attitude in the end: the final control is made by the opinion of the linguist himself. The rigorous collecting of "facts" and the formulation of principles which should enable the obtaining of new methods of discovery are no more necessary. A number of questions raised by works on generative grammars ("How do we know it is so?", "How was this established?", "Does this rule scientifically prove its validity?", etc.) can find their answer by an experimental confirmation of the hypotheses carried out on a sufficient number of cases or by collecting facts in vivo and establishing their frequency. Only by this method and by detailed psycholinguistic procedures, could generative-transformational grammars receive valid foundation, scientific validity, and could they have eliminated contradictions inherent in a methodology which starts from psychological premises, but which further ignores the psychological perspective or in general permanent scientific confrontation with reality. Still there are today many linguists who continue with sagacity and patience (but not always placing themselves within wide theoretical perspective) to collect "facts" which are still unknown. Unfortunately, the gaps existing in the knowledge of "language" cannot however be filled up, in spite of their efforts, because of the method which is taken over from generation to generation by linguists and which seems to be difficult to be given up, as one sometimes finds it hard to part with an old tool one has got used to, but which is very much worn out and of no practical use any longer. In the field of dialectology, static collection is still continued, according to the method which has been crystallized long since in the slogan "Wörter und Sachen", whether it uses questionnaires, or conversation, or mere observation, or recording of "texts", after which it arrives at a delimitation of isolated facts again. Lexicography prefers written texts, and automatic statistical processing of such materials consequently becomes a useful but incomplete work. Attempts for a methodological "renewal" appear from time to time; but many of them have in view especially the operations for collecting material out of written texts or its later processing: in other words, it does not refçr so much to collecting facts "in vivo" as to syste-

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matizing the same facts (the same, because they are collected with the help of the old procedures), from new viewpoints which tend to better reveal their interrelation, dynamic structures, etc. (In this sense, we can mention the interesting application of some new procedures for a structural description of the lexis, by taking into consideration the systematic conditions for the use of words, as made by J. Dubois) 17 . Experimental phonetics, whether it uses the old technique — palatograms, recordings on the kimograph — or it uses modern techniques — from the oscillograph or röntgenograph to the sonagraph — often preserves the same spirit concerning the optics of the human observer, which spirit represents in fact a fragmentary vision: the phenomenon that is recorded, analyzed, interpreted, discussed — and on the basis of which conclusions are then reached — is a sound (or isolated sounds, which is the same thing) or it is at most a word or, in happier cases, it is also a sentence, which is almost drained of the sap of the living texture out of which it was abstracted. Even the present equipment and technical devices are still insufficient (a fact for which not only the technicians are to be blamed for not improving them, but also the linguists who have not asked for these improvements systematically) for the recording of living phenomena, in their totality, and characteristic of true communication (for instance for the melody of speech, for the analyses of intonation, etc.). Although attempts have been made to abandon the routine of accumulating insolated facts and to study language as a living phenomenon, in oral achievements (we have referred to the recordings made by the school of Saint-Cloud, by Ch. Fries, etc.), yet very little has been said about a methodological renewal (certainly we leave out here the fleeting opinions or statements, uttered in private conversations, between linguists, or the minor changes — as certain techniques or new procedures adopted in lexicography, etc.). What lacks, indeed, is the awareness of the necessity of a change in the general methodology of linguistics. It is generally accepted that linguistics must take also into account concrete achievements (B. Malmberg) or "discourse" (B. Pottier) 18 , while some linguists insist on avoiding speaking about a "super-individual" language and ask that the object of linguistics19 should be language "as an individual phenomenon". Various attempts are also significant, to come out of the deadlock to which a certain manner of applying the theory of information can lead — that is making "abstraction of the persons who use the signs" 20 —, and the difference is underlined "between a language as an abstract system and the way real human use the system" 21 . B. Pottier also refuses "(des) études uniquement formelles [qui] ont montré, par leur échec, que la langue était autre chose qu'un simple mécanisme de combinaison [...] La linguistique est, qu'on le veuille ou non, une science humaine" ('exclusively formal studies which have shown, by their failure, that language was some-

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thing else than a mere mechanism of combinations [...]. Linguistics is, whether one wants it or not, a human science')?2. We must also recall the fact that at the International Colloquium of Applied Linguistics held at Nancy in 1964, H. Eggers and others have underlined the necessity of knowing real language facts, obtained objectively ("Des exemples inventés ne nous servent ici à rien") 23 , or (as in L. Hirschberg's report) limits to formalization were indicated 24 . However (the opinions quoted here, which are a protest, indicate the real situation), we can find very few consistent applications of such ideas when carrying out linguistic research work, and such justified assertions contradict practical reality of linguistic research, in which concrete phenomena, connections with the ensemble, with gesticulation, speech (parole) or idiolect, etc. phenomena are too little or unsystematically studied, without adequate methods. The old methodology subsists whether as a corollary of the conception which considers language to be an "ideal", abstract phenomenon, independent of contingencies, or subsists as an unconscious avatar, as a ballast which many linguists cannot get rid of — or they do not "see" why they should get rid of it (even those who conceive language as a complex and living phenomenon). 2.2. Conception and method are closely linked however and determine each other — priority being given, naturally, to the conception from which we start. If language is conceived as a phenomenon which has a social function and determination, what becomes implicitly necessary is a method capable of grasping this phenomenon such as it is, therefore which should offer a dynamic and complex perspective for studying it. But this methodological principle, which considers that the essence of language, its fundamental function is to be a means of communication, makes the levels language — speech — langage (langue — parole — langage) impossible to appear any more in reality clearly dissociated, and difficult to be dissociated in scientific research. Methodology could thus complete itself under the influence of conception; and the latter could develop, become more precise, concretize itself with the contribution of methodology. We think that following this inversion of methods and changes regarding perspectives, present-day linguistics will increase its scope, its capacity for deeper investigation, its knowledge of complete reality; this will be responsible perhaps in the beginning for the partial loss of the illusion that one possesses already a precise knowledge of a few facts or components of little importance — obtained by means of the other methods (knowledge probably misconstrued because of the artificiality of situations) — or for losing something of the possibility of a more rapid and apparently more confident generalization (which is deceptive by this very fact). If we have made this inroad in the methodology of most of the studies in present-day linguistics it was not with the intention of criticizing it as a whole. We

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cannot deny that linguistics must follow its course once started by its evolution itself, to formalize its object as much as it is necessary. Even exaggerations will no doubt generate advantages — at least through the reactions they arouse. We have made these remarks — which have to be taken as such and not as mere criticism —, in order to show what is incumbent to psycholinguistics to contribute to linguistics today which it still lacks. And we have underlined perhaps exaggerating, caricaturing certain aspects, in order to show, on the one hand, the exaggerations, and on the other hand in order to make more obvious the features which build up psycholinguistic methodology. At the same time we must realize that although applied linguistics will partially benefit from the tendencies for extreme formalization of some of the research work in present-day linguistics and from the efforts of abstractization — which are absolutely necessary —, linguistics — theoretical or applied — also needs concrete facts, and their interpretation from viewpoints which could enable the grasping of "reality", in its particular elements which lead to the typical: it also needs correctives brought by another perspective, in order to arrest itself in time in front of sterile exaggerations. It is important to know the extent to which an abstract model may be useful, the limit to which its applicability could be extended, how much it would be "mathematized", where a statistical formula could be applied and where it could not, etc. 3. Psycholinguistics will therefore be able to contribute to invigorating traditional linguistics, "ankylosed" in certain methods of collecting dry, dead leaves — and in any case it may make suggestions for the changing of the general methodology of linguistic research. It may also offer protection against the extremism of certain tendences of dehumanising languages, against the inauspicious influences of a formalism which is very useful when it is used where it is necessary, but which becomes very dangerous when it tends to become an intransigent dogma or beatifies itself as the "only" method. Psycholinguistics can contribute, with its methodology, to explain various linguistic phenomena — including that of generative rules —, and can make suggestions concerning the general methodology of research work in lexicology, semantics, dialectology, phonetics, etc. Lastly, its methodology can also serve applied linguistics directly — by the explanations which it can give concerning the relation subject-message — for language learning pathology and therapeutics of speech troubles, etc. 3.1. That is why part of the activity of psycholinguistics should be dedicated to the knowledge (which will be useful to linguistics too) of a reality ignored to a great extent. This means that an important task of psycholinguistics lies in the collection itself of facts as living reality, as various particular messages, by which the virtualities of language are achieved (in order to come later to generalizations and general principles). We must add, however, that psycholinguistics cannot propose an exhaustive recording — in fact impossible — of all linguistic facts; it must aim chiefly at extract-

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ing, on the basis of the facts it collects, certain general principles. Psycholinguistics, in the meaning we give it, reinstates the inductive method in its due place, but it considers that both the inductive and the deductive method are equally useful and must be used completing each other. The attention paid to the concrete achievements of language does not mean anchoring to the level of the particular. We shall discuss further about the phase which follows after the recording of facts and especially about their interpretation, their explanation, about the synthesis which will lead to the formulation of the principles and laws of psycholinguistics. An important task of psycholinguistics — by which, as we have said, it will also serve linguistics directly — consists therefore in collecting by the inductive method the facts of language as a living reality, in recording linguistic reality in various particular messages, in order to arrive at certain rules, maybe even at laws. 3.2. If psycholinguistics must establish a relation between subject and message, it follows that it has to take into account and therefore to know the situations of the interlocutors. Its methodology imposes a complex investigation where everything or almost everything regarding the interlocutors and the situation of communication could be known, in order to explain the messages (the methodology certainly includes the other direction too: starting from messages, it will give explanations regarding the interlocutors — an interesting consequence for stylistics too, for instance). What means will psycholinguistics use in order to attain this purpose? By analyzing the written text and the particularities of the person who wrote it? Certainly yes; or: maybe. But more precision will be achieved in the analysis, a more direct knowledge will be attained by the research worker, and experiment (which is indispensable in psycholinguistics) could be used, if the study is made in vivo, during the act of emitting or receiving a message. This presupposes the analysis of the present act of emission or reception — therefore the use only on the second plane of the texts written before the moment of investigation. Psycholinguistic analysis may also refer to the written texts — and in any case carry out experiments on written expression —, but it will succeed in better revealing the relations between subject and message in the proper act of emission or reception, and chiefly during oral communication. The consequence of this orientation will be the studying of language in function : therefore, the complex phenomenon of communication. Psycholinguistics must include in its field of vision both the emitter and the receiver, even in the circumstances in which it watches each member of the communication acting separately, and must record the modifications caused by the change in attitude (emission or reception) as well as the mutual influences which this relation presupposes. But when the present moment of communication is studied, what is noticed is just speech (parole) — and in first place its most frequent form: the oral one.

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Therefore psycholinguistics will contribute, by examining communication as such, studied in its real dynamics, to know its oral and dialogued forms. In collecting materials regarding various aspects of the oral-spoken language, psycholinguistic methods can bring a very useful contribution—and can even replace the still hesitating procedures that are often used in linguistics — for the studying of such phenomena as: intonation, speed, pause, tempo, "parasite" forms of expression, preferential selection, in oral expression, of certain lexical, morphologic-syntactical means, their combination with mimicry and gesticulation and even the replacing in the verbal utterance of some components by non-verbal means, the particularities of technical language, those of bilingualism, etc. The fundamental problem is that of using adequate methods, in order to record these important aspects and especially of applying an adequate methodology to the studying of dialogue. 3.3. Psycholinguistics studies language in the act itself of its dynamic realization. This presupposes research work concerning the concretization of language in real situations. Hence the study of sequences developing in time (and, as a corollary inherent to human nature, in the course of a certain activity — physical, intellectual, etc. — and also in the ensembles which constitute the expression as such). Even in the laboratory experiments in which psycholinguistics will analyse fragments fixed in a static moment, its methodology implies the observation of this principle, operating integrations in the real syntheses and reaching conclusions on the dynamics of the ensembles. 4. The method we are presenting is, therefore, a dynamic-contextual method. Though specific and compulsory for psycholinguistics, this method can contribute also — and especially by certain of its aspects — to change the general methodology used in linguistic studies. 4.1. Owing to its object — a phenomenon in which the development of life in movement is involved —, psycholinguistics replaces by a dynamic method, the static method — which collects fragments, which takes fragmentary instantaneities (we saw that an integrative attitude is necessary even when we are obliged to use such procedures) 26 . «) What does this first methodological particularity mean? It becomes possible by this method to trace the phenomenon of communication in its development, the mutual exchange of answers in dialogue, the gradual framing up of sentences, the changes appearing because of modifications of situation or in the condition of the partners, etc. β) Dynamic study also means the tracing of langage phenomena during various activities — and among these, man's fundamental activity: work. Langage itself has appeared and developed as a means of communication, in order to enable co-operation in the course of routine activities, and it appears unnatural to study it, almost continuously, separated from its very reason of being. The study of langage in connection with work — man's most important and speci-

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fically human activity — enables one to notice facts of language which have often been overlooked by linguistics. A more extensive study, carried out in order to reveal the relations between communication and work (which we shall examine more extensively in another chapter), demonstrated that in the process of work certain particularities appear not only in the vocabulary (in which we find a good number of terminological particularities specific to work in general or crystallized in the special vocabulary of each profession), but also at the phonetic, morphological and syntactic levels and even as regards the choice of the system of communication. From this point of view, what is extremely interesting to study is the rôle of gestures, which is given great importance during work, whether as an independent means of communication, or — a fact very significant for linguistics and which has been very little studied — as a component of the sentence, in which it can replace the verbal component, the proper linguistic one. γ) The methodology which advocates the study of the phenomenon of communication in its dynamics leads, on another plane, to increasing the interest in the genetic or generally evolutive dynamics of langage', for language-learning studies or for studying the changes appearing in the use of a language ("linguistic changes") 26 . One of the fields which psycholinguistics can study more adequately than linguistics or psychology separately is the learning of language by the child', the appearance and development of the phonological system in relation to the age peculiarities of the child and to the maturation of its possibilities of imitating the phonological system of a language, the ontogenesis of the assimilation of the form and meaning of words in connection with the same principle of a "selective echo" (a psycholinguistic notion we have introduced in a study to which we shall refer later) as well as the relation between the grammatical structure of language and the dynamics of its learning by a child, etc. — are some of the aspects of this field, which can offer suggestions or data for general linguistics and even for the study of the various languages. On the other hand, the field of foreign-language learning — that is of the dynamics of acquiring other languages besides the mother tongue —, which is arousing today an ever-growing interest and which has led to much discussion around the various methods proposed (as the contrastive studies, or the audio-visual methods), raises important problems to the solving of which psycholinguistics can contribute by studying the dynamics of the processes involved in the acquisition of a language. 4.2. The second principle of the dynamic-contextual method sets, forward the necessity for studying the various aspects of communication in connection with context 27 , whether the context is considered as a general social-historical ambience, or as a concrete situation in which the speaker is acting, or as the discoursive, sequential and syntagmatic ensembles in which are integrated the various components (without omitting to connect any component with the whole system of the

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language, which in our conception is also a context, for the emitters and receivers). The principle of the connection with the context does not apply only — as it is usually understood — to interpreting linguistic facts, but also with regard to how the latter are collected. Facts must be recorded not in isolation, artificially separated from their context, but together with the whole real situation in which they are to be studied, therefore recording the whole situation (both the ambience and the linguistic situation proper). As communication develops in time and, as such, the discoursive ensembles are sequential, the contextual method implies as a corollary, in order to be consistent, the recording of facts within the process of discoursive dynamics. From the two axes of the system of language — paradigmatic and syntagmatic —, the axis which appears explicit in the concrete situation is the syntagmatic plane, while the paradigmatic plane is implicit: if structural linguistics, which distinguishes between these two planes, has preferred to study the implicit, paradigmatic system, this is probably due to the fact that authors have quite often advocated estrangement from concrete achievements, which manifest themselves indeed as syntagmatic structures. Psycholinguistics, as we understand it, does not overlook the implicit s ystem which any speaker or receiver possesses and to which they relate the events presented in the sequences, but it grants the necessary importance to concrete discoursive ensembles, therefore to syntagmatic structures. On the other hand, we must remark that, from this point of view, psycholinguistic methodology differs, to a certain extent, also from the general methodology — or even from the methods or the procedures — used by certain linguists who have undertaken in the last years the studying of languages in their spoken-oral form, and who do not underline the essential necessity of recording the whole situation, with all that it implies (the behaviour and chiefly the gesticulation of the person, concrete situation, dialogue, linguistic context proper), as well as its use in interpretation. The dynamic-contextual method could find a field for useful and direct applications in linguistics itself, in gathering facts of language, among others, for dialectology. The substitution of the static traditional method of "Wörter und Sachen", or even the substitution of conversation with the informant in artificial situations, in order to obtain "the naming of the object" —, methods which are connected with an old static vision and at the same time with a certain methodological "commodiousness" —, the substitution of these, by recording facts in natural situations (especially activity situations), in which they appear, as well as by recording the whole context — in the psycholinguistic sense, which we have spoken about — would facilitate not only the obtaining of new data (which exceed the mere terminological inventories), but even of data which could correspond to reality better (we shall return to this problem further on when we present our remarks regarding communication in the process of work).

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The dynamic-contextual method has even more specifically psycholinguistic implications with regard to the necessity of recording and interpreting facts of language by reporting them to the psychic state of the person (emitter or receiver). Remaining within the limits of the general, we certainly approach here the individual also, that which is more intimately connected with style. Affectivity introduces very important modifications in communication, modifications which are generally considered as "stylistic" particularities; but the study of intonation, for instance, and in general the study of the melodic particularities of langage cannot be made in vitro or outside real affectogene situations, as it is generally done in phonetics 28 . On the other hand, the influence of "motivation" (drives, interests, needs — which determine a behaviour or another, to a certain extent) on communication, the influence of the temperamental type, and in general of the specific character of a person, as well as of the momentary state (tiredness, sadness, etc.), all these play a role in the momentary choice of the means of expression. They are aspects which psycholinguistics cannot ignore while it is simultaneously the only discipline which can study them adequately, in their specific. Ignoring the fact that the psyche determines the phenomena of communication has often led to conclusions which distort the knowledge of language itself, We shall find one example later, when speaking about drawing up the inventory of the phonemes of a language with the help of "the experiment of prediction" (or "the guessing game"), a procedure presented by CI. Shannon (see infra, Part III, Ch. V) without taking into account the fact that the results of this experiment vary according to the state of the subject (weariness, personal capacity of grasping meaning more quickly, the gradual understanding — as the subject advances in the experimental task — of the general sense of the respective text, training itself in this task, etc.). In other words, this procedure cannot be carried out by using a strictly mathematical methodology, inadequate in the case of the human phenomenon, in which psychic variables, neglected by the creator of the procedure, interfere. Here are some of the problems to which psycholinguistics could contribute interesting data from this point of view (that is of applying the dynamic-contextual method in recording the influence produced by the psychic state of the individual — affectivity, motivation, etc.): «) The study of selecting certain means of expression (selection, which does not always belong to the field of stylistics); for instance the use, at a given moment, of a synonym and not of another one — not only by an individual, but also by the whole community (it is a matter of establishing the causes of this selection too), β) Another problem: the studying of hesitation phenomena (which should not be omitted when we speak for instance about pause or about parasite-words, etc.); γ) Another problem would be that of establishing the semantic field with various writers, in connection with the features of their personality — or, in various professions, in relation with the particularities of the

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respective work, etc.; 8) The psycholinguistic interpretation of phenomena connected with bilingualism or in general with "linguistic changes", etc.; e) The wellknown phenomenon of the variation in the perception of a message in equal physical conditions — due to the state of human receiver — is also a psycholinguistic problem which has not yet been scientifically enough studied and whose linguistic implications are not yet taken enough into consideration (we mean especially the problem of the influence of the receiver — that is, in fact, of his psychic state too — on the emitter, and at the same time the influence of the perception of his own langage on the emitter's manner of expressing himself, φ) In this connection we must add another important psycholinguistic problem and of much present interest: the establishing of the optimal messages, of the amount of information needed in certain situations (in industry, telecommunication, advertising, etc.), for certain individuals (a problem to which we shall return later). The connection with thought is one of the most important aspects of this perspective, which takes into consideration language in its relations to psyche (we shall come back to this aspect later, too). The connection with thought does not mean an estimation, an evaluation proper (there is no question of "intelligence" but of connecting language with the process of thought, with its categories and operations). This means, first of all, to place the problem of meaning on first plane — that is that very aspect which certain linguists or cybernetic-mathematicians have overlooked, by passed or intentionally omitted 2e . If there are linguists who assert that nothing "contingent" should be included in the studying of meaning, there are also others who, as we have seen, consider connotations as very important. In any case psycholinguistics cannot ignore the role of thought in meaning processing, both from the point of view of intellectual operations that contribute to the creating or understanding of the system of notions (which also lies at the basis of the system of meanings), and from the point of view of the contents as such, i.e. of knowledge implied not only in the concrete sense of a message, but also in the meanings involved in the system of language (from these points of view we can speak about a connection between language and the general outlook on life, on social and individual plane) 30 . As for the moment we have given the study of the phenomena of communication in connection with thought a greater extension especially as regards children, we shall deal more extensively, in another chapter, with this aspect. Replacing the mere inventory of the lexical and grammatical forms by a permanent reference to the particularities of a child's thought, we have established, for instance, the mode of assimilation — in a continuous development — of the words' meanings, as well as the manner in which certain grammatical forms and grammatical structures in general are assimilated depending on the development of thought (for instance, the use, at the beginning of child language development, of "syntagmatic blocks", which do not have the grammatical value which they have in the adult's

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language) 31 , and lastly the genesis of the "style of child's speech" and its modification in the course of his development, etc. 5. We have discussed up to now, chiefly, the general methodological principles — as the necessity for collecting facts —, mentioning certain general methods of scientific cognition, which can be used by psycholinguistics (for instance the inductive method). We also discussed the necessity of studying the complex phenomenon of communication, of oral expression, of dialogue, as well as the necessity of dynamic and complete studying of langage, during activity and within its specific ensembles (with the help of the dynamic-contextual method), giving a few examples showing the data which this method can offer, and the phenomena it can reveal. What are the more specific methods proper, the methods in the sense of instruments of work in our field? Psycholinguistics may use the methods used by other sciences as well — especially by psychology and by linguistics (preserving, for certain aspects, the particularities which these methods have in psychology or linguistics, but making the necessary changes for other aspects, depending on the object of psycholinguistics). The main methods in the restricted sense, which can be of use to psycholinguistics, are observation and experiment. 5.1. Observation — as well as other methods, as, for instance, the questionnaire — has been used in linguistics for a long time, but certain correctives are absolutely necessary, in accordance with the methodological principles that have been mentioned. Besides the exact recording — which benefits from the use of the tape-recorder today —, psycholinguistics requires the complete recording of comprehensive enough contexts. Tape-recordings should necessarily be completed by detailed written protocols (describing the situational ensembles, gesticulations, disposition of the person) and contingently by the use (especially for the study of the affective aspects of langage) of pletismography, pneumography, etc. Psycholinguistics should use various means by which the modern technique adopted today in psychology and even in physiology ensures the objective and very precise recording of various aspects studied. 5.2. The experimental method, which we shall discuss again later (Part III, Ch. I), is one of the most important contributions of psycholinguistics to the study of the facts of language. We refer here to experiments which surpass the phonetic aspects (for the study of which "experimental phonetics" has been created). We also refer here to the application of the experiment on a wide scale and in an organized manner, to all the aspects of language. We must point out that at the X I t h International Congress of Linguistics, of 1962, greater importance was given to the experimental method than before, but the experiments presented — illustrating especially the bibliography in English — still reflected quite specialized preoccupations The experimental method — the intentioned provocation of certain phenomena and their recording in controlled conditions — may reveal new aspects not only

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regarding langage, but also language. The use of the experiment has helped us to reveal less known phenomena or to verify previous hypotheses or observations. For instance, the use of the "verbal-association experiment" has enabled us to study the relations between language and thought or it proved useful to the understanding of the phenomenon of contamination; experiments concerning "word inversion" have enabled the addition of a new argument in favour of the thesis maintaining the independence and unity of diphthongs in Romanian 3 3 ; various experiments have offered results which contribute to the understanding of the role of the context 34 ; the application of the "experiment of prediction", on the basis of the principles of psycholinguistics, has enabled not only the observing of the role of the personal experience of the speaker and the human receiver in the use of language, but this procedure has also proved itself very useful for the study of synonymic selection, too, or, more recently, it has helped us to understand the role of the contextual position for solving homonymy 36 . Numerous other aspects may be studied with the help of the experimental method, and we shall only mention a few of them. The associative-verbal experiment as well as other experiments may be also used in order to establish the basic vocabulary or the lexical fields or the probability of occurrence of certain words depending on the particularities of the person, of the situation, etc., in a certain group, or depending on the grammatical category of the word-stimulus, etc. A parameter as reaction time can be used not only in order to establish the degree of knowledge or the mastering of certain words (their familiarity, disponibility, in the individual or a certain group), but also for various other purposes that will be discussed in other chapters. The manner of transmitting information function of various channels (noise, type of "network", etc.) may be studied experimentally, a fact which may contribute, among others, to establish the optimal messages for the respective situations. Various psycholinguistic experiments may also be useful for attempts to improve methods of foreign language teaching, for improving automatic translations, etc. 6. Psycholinguistic methodology does not, however, limit itself to collecting facts but — we have already mentioned this — it also includes their interpretation·, it is in the first place an explicative methodology. Psycholinguistics — as we conceive it — is trying to give an explanation to linguistic phenomena as well, and not only a mere description of the latter. In any case, it attempts to interpret facts; it attempts, for instance, to interpret facts of structure or system by their true causality — avoiding a false explanation, by means of intimate relations within an "autonomous system" (there is no question of avoiding abstractions, but of considering lucidly whether they have any connection with reality, if they are a quintessence of the latter or they are just purely mental constructs, without any connection with the reality of language). Psycholinguistics will be also able to help, among others, a better understanding and explanation of the so-called "internal factors" of language

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(which are indeed, probably, the reflection of a psycho-social determinism) or of the generative rules, etc. We must also add, that the interpreting of the materials collected does not exclude, in the least, the use of new procedures — statistical or deriving from the theory of information —, borrowed both from present-day linguistics and modern psychology. (The contact with psychology does not mean any longer today, as long before — when linguists were afraid, and their apprehension was well justified, of "psychologism" —, giving up the precise, objective processing "of results). Interpretation is not only a final supplement: it interferes at the very moment when a fact is signalled, by relating it to the conditions in which it was noticed 3β . At the interpretation level, the same dynamic-contextual method can be applied, whose first aspect, the recording of facts, is thus completed by understanding them. (We shall not insist on various aspects of interpretation, as they result from the principles we have stated and on the other hand we have discussed and we shall also discuss this problem in some other chapters.) The collecting and interpreting of facts are intermingled and help each other (and here we consider that we can achieve a happy combination of the inductive and the deductive method): they form a whole which should not be dissociated. The two aspects (we do not call them "stages" purposely) exist, dependent on each other; therefore, we think that it is necessary (and in accordance with the principles which we have stated) that the same person who collects facts should interpret them as well.

Notes 1

As stated by N. Chomsky, referring to the linguist, in H. Allen (ed.), Readings in applied English linguistics, New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Und e d., [1964], p. 173.

2

L. Hjelmslev, La structure morphologique (1939), in Essais linguistiques, Copenhagen, Nordisk Sprog-og Kulturforlag, 1959, p. 122.

3

Ibid., p. 130.

4

In his programmatic article on: Linguistique structurale (1948), in Essais . . ., cited, p. 22.

8

P. Garvin, A study of introductive method in syntax, "Word", 1962, no. 1—2, pp. 107 foil.

6

See also H. Spang-Hanssen (Sentence length and statistical length, in A. Ellegard, H. Karlgren, H. Spang-Hanssen, Structures and quanta, Copenhagen, Munksgaard, [1963], pp. 58—59), who show that many studies are not sufficiently based on linguistics and that incorrect conclusions are easily drawn from quantitative data. ' N. Chomsky, Some methodological remarks on generative grammar, in H. Allen (ed.), op. cit., p. 179.

8

J. Katz, P. Postal, An integrated theory of linguistic description, Cambridge, M.I.T., [1964], p. 166.

' N. Chomsky, op. cit., p. 174,

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Z. Harris, Structural linguistics, Chicago-London, Univ. of Chicago Press, [1951, VIth ed. 1963], p. 12.

11

Ibid., p. 114.

12

Ibid., p. 1.

13

N. Chomsky, op. cit., p. 179.

14

J. Katz, P. Postal, op. cit., p. 167.

15

Z. Harris, op. cit., p. 2.

18

Ibid.

17

Cf. R. L. Wagner, Lexicologie et morphologie du français, d'après les thèses de M. Jean Dubois, "J. de psychol.", 1966, no. 2, p. 222; or, on the same line of establishing the lexical and semantic fields: L. Guilbert, La formation du vocabulaire de l'aviation, Paris, Larousse, 1965, p. 9.

18

See supra, Ch. ΙΓ, Notes 23, 24.

19

See, for instance, Martin Kloster Jensen, Sur l'objet de la linguistique, "Ztschr. f. Phonetik u. allgem. Sprachwissensch.", 8th year, H. 5/6, p. 391; he even states: "Les linguistes semblent avoir tort de vouloir écarter tout ce qui n'est pas commun dans les formes d'expression. Nous croyons qu'on y perdra". ('It seems that linguists are wrong when they want to eliminate all that is not common in the forms of expression. We think something will be lost in this way').

20

R. Wells, A measure of subjective information, in R. Jakobson (ed.), Proceedings of the 12th Symposium in applied mathematics (1960). American Mathem. Soc., 1961, p. 237; see also H. Curry, Some logical aspects of grammatical structure, ibid., p. 59. C. Hockett, Grammar for the hearer, ibid., p. 236.

21 22

B. Pottier, Sur ία nature du cas et de la préposition, in "Mélanges de linguistique et de littératures romanes — I. Frank", Saarland, 1957, p. 551.

23

Actes de Ier Colloque International de Linguistique Appliquée (Nancy, 1964), Nancy, [Université de Nancy], 1966, Report of H. Eggers, p. 144.

24

Ibid. Report of L. Hirschberg, p. 60: "L'homme développe des raisonnements permettant un adressage autrement complexe que celui que peuvent donner des démarches uniquement déductives et limitées en nombre". Prof. Favard has also underlined, in an oral statement, that statistics must not be used as a purpose in themselves but depending on their efficiency.

25

Although our conception does not derive from that of G. Guillaume, we mention here his remark, that passing from language to speech (discours) implies the crossing of a threshold, which is in the act of langage and which only a dynamic conception can identify (cf. R. Valin, Petite introduction à la psychomécanique du langage, Quebec, Presses Univ. Laval, 1954, p. 39).

28

An area which is called "diachronic psycholinguistics" in Ch. Osgood, T. A. Ssbeok (ed.), Psycholinguistics. A survey of theory and research problems, Indiana Univ. Baitimors, Waverly Press, Ilnd ed. 1965, pp. 6—7, 126 foil.

27

About which very little is said in the volume Ch. Osgood, T. A. Sebeok (ed.), cited.

28

With a few exceptions, as for instance: L. Kaiser, M. Allard Van der Wal, Quelques réactions phonatoires à divers stimuli, "Revue de laryngologie", 1959, no. 7—8, pp. 582—-595.

21

A few years ago, when very little was being said or very sceptically, in structural linguistics, about the semantic system and in general about the character of system of the lexis, we have

Psycholinguistics,

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tried to analyse also by means of psycholinguist« methodology the structuring of significations from a dynamic point of view (T. Slama-Cazacu, La structuration dynamique des significations, in Mélanges linguistiques, Bucureçti, Ed. Acad. R.P.R., 1957, pp. 113—127). εο For instance, the manner of understanding — of interpreting — and knowledge as such represent (as we have tried to show in the articles which describe some research work carried out by us) one of the fundamental causes of the phenomenon of folk etymology or of linguistic contamination. 81 See infra, Part II B., Ch. I. 82 See L. Lisker, F. Cooper, A. Liberman, The uses of experiment in language description, "Word", 18, no. 1—2, pp. 82—107 (Linguistic essays on the occasion of the P"i International Congress of Linguists). 38 See T. Slama-Cazacu, The experimental reversed speaking, with special view to diphthongs, in Al. Rosetti (ed.), Recherches sur les diphtongues roumaines, Bucarest, Copenhague, Ed. Acad. R.P.R. — Munksgaard, 1959, pp. 123—134 (Rom. version, in "Foneticä çi dialectologie", vol. I, 1958, pp. 63—73). 84 See T. Slama-Cazacu, Limbaj context, Bucurejti, Ed. $tiin{ificä, 1959 (Experiments briefly presented also in the French version: Langage et contexte, cited). 85 T. Slama-Cazacu, Un modèle expérimental pour la résolution des polysémies dans la chaîne discoursive, in Actes du Ier Coll. Internat. Ling. Appliquée, cit., pp. 100—109, and: Despre studiul omonimiei in lanful discursiv, in Omagiu lui A. Rosetti, Bucureçti, Ed. Academiei R.S.R., 1966, pp. 343—347, and The study of the resolution of homonymy by means of the experiment of prediction, "Revue roumaine des sciences sociales — Psychologie", 1964, no. 2, pp. 225—241. 86 G. Guillaume (Langage et science du langage, Paris-Québec, Nizet Presses Univ. Laval, 1964, p. 25) has written down in a lapidary form this deep connection between recording, grasping and understanding of facts : "On explique selon qu'on a su comprendre. On comprend selon qu'on a su observer. Compréhension et explication sont en toute science où elles sont recherchées, tributaires d'une observation qui devra, pour susciter pleinement l'une et l'autre, être fine et complète".

A. PSYCHOLINGUISTICS AND RESEARCH WORK IN CONNECTED FIELDS CHAPTER I

A few applications of the methodology of psycholinguistics (with special reference to the dynamic-contextual method)

1. In the present chapter we shall discuss a few possibilities of general application, in some of the branches of linguistics, of the method which we consider of central importance for psycholinguistics (but which also has facets which are adequate to linguistic investigation) namely the dynamic-contextual method. In order to discuss these exemplifications more profoundly, we shall dedicate four chapters (section A) to detailed applications concerning: stylistics, research work in the field of dialectology, and the relations between work and communication. In the other chapters (section B), we shall present some results of research work regarding the development of langage, in which the methodology of psycholinguistic investigation and interpretation has been used — namely for the study of the langage of the child and its development, or for studying the dynamics of relations between thought and langage, and on the other hand we shall discuss the psycholinguistic aspects concerning the problem of foreign-language learning. 1.1. Applied psycholinguistics may have a wide field of action. It includes in first place the aspects to which applied linguistics also refers (or it should refer to), that is a discipline, in its turn, insufficiently defined and having a variable sphere (going even so far as to be sometimes exclusively confused either with foreign-language teaching or with formalized or mathematical linguistics). Therefore, although our objective is not directly this field — to which we shall however often allude — we shall make a few precisions about it. Applied linguistics, which is a wide field whose necessity has been imposed by the present-day development of modern life, presupposes inter-relations with other disciplines, using for the practical field (that is for useful purposes, or which implies a certain activity) of linguistics, various data, not only from linguistics but also from pedagogics, medicine, psychology (so much the more the data of psycholinguistics will be welcome), cybernetics, etc. Its sphere refers to the development of langage, to problems of foreign-language learning and teaching, to pathology of langage and therapeutics of various speech disorders, translations by man and by the computer, relations between langage and productive activity — which raise problems or special encoding, within the language proper or paralinguistic (selec-

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tive functioning of technical codes, etc.). All these are as many fields of application, the study of which forms also the sphere of psycholinguistics as anything concerning the verbal activity of man. On the other hand, we understand applied linguistics also as an application of the data of theoretical linguistics and of other disciplines — and first of fundamental studies — to linguistic research work itself. There are branches of linguistics which can be better understood or studied only if they are connected with the psyche of the emitter (whether he is a writer or a common speaker) or the receiver, and if adequate research work methods are used. Therefore psycholinguistics may serve research work in the field of linguistics or related disciplines, both on a theoretical plane — owing to the fact that it can throw some light on certain aspects —, and on the methodological plane proper. It can also offer "models" for research work — for instance, for simulating the psychic processes of learning or of translation, etc. The application of certain psycholinguistic principles or procedures may help research work in stylistics, poetics and literary criticism, lexicography, semantics or general semiotics, phonetics, studies regarding grammar, dialectology (as well as ethnography or anthropology, etc.). We may say that to a certain extent psycholinguistics is one of the disciplines which offers data from the so-called "fundamental research work", for the direct applicative field which is applied linguistics. However, applied linguistics must not be taken to be an empirical routine branch, of strictly applicative narrow technicality; in any case, it implies an objective and complex approach to linguistic reality. 1.2. In general, present-day preoccupations for discussing theoretically, in a wide perspective, the methodological aspects of linguistic research work are amazingly few, although on the one hand their necessity is obvious, and on the other hand partial expositions concerned with intimate procedures of a certain theory (see, for instance, the methodology of generative linguistics) or with detailed investigation (a field questionnaire — in dialectology —, the manner of drawing up a lexicographic study, etc.), are not missing. Therefore we shall pass directly to a synthetic exposition of the possibilities of applying psycholinguistics and we shall start by recalling the basis of the contextual principle, closely connected with our psycholinguistical methodology. 2. Psycholinguistic perspective enables a more profound study of the notion of context — and on the other hand the analysis of context facts leads to realizing that there are inevitable aspects which cannot be interpreted without the aid of psycholinguistics. Context, however, does not only play a part in speech (parole) or at the level of connotations, but it is also implied in the existence of language. The determinant value of context is a general principle, which presupposes systematizations including complex hierarchical connections within language and, at the same time, it imposes the replacing of a static contemplation by an analysis of successivity, of

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the connection between various levels and moments even on the plane of language. Therefore, if various applications will be envisaged here in terms of psycholinguistics, they could have an echo in the field of linguistics proper as well (including, of course, in this discussion, the other possible codes or semiotic systems too). Psycholinguistic methodology brings into light the bipolarity of langage, the existence of communication — which cannot be ignored, in any case, by psycholinguistics —, the dynamics of alternation between expression and understanding — therefore of questions and answers, therefore of the dialogue —, the particularities which a message has during communication because of its being transmitted to a certain interlocutor, placed in a certain situation, and, at the same time, the importance of the phenomena of meaning, of thinking, etc. This perspective makes it necessary to create an adequate method of study — which, for the time being, we have proposed to call the "dynamic-contextual method" (using as general methods — of secondary importance, on another plane — the experiment, observation, conversation, etc.). The dynamic-contextual method enables precisely the study of bipolarity aspects of langage, of the achievements of its function of communication, in the emitter's/receiver's attempts to organize expression and, respectively, to interpret it. 3. We have pointed out somewhere else the fact that collecting facts is in general necessary in linguistics, in lexicography or phonetics, in dialectology or for grammar studies, etc., and the suggested psycholinguistic theory and method can be useful to alt these fields. We shall deal more closely in other chapters with applications concerning stylistics or dialectology, and the discussion in connection with language-teaching will also touch problems generated by the adopting of this special perspective in the studies on grammar or in phonetics or in the lexicalsemantic analysis, as well as problems concerning the development of langage, etc. We should like to point out that in branches which examine phenomena apparently far from psychic influences — and we shall refer for instance to the history of language — there are situations in which having recourse to psycholinguistics may bring novel solutions (for instance, comparing facts of language depending on various levels of mentality, or interpreting certain language facts in old texts through the psychic particularities of the various scribes). 3.1. As we shall dedicate a special chapter to the problem of foreign-language learning, we shall not insist upon this problem here. We can, however, anticipate this discussion, stating that the analysis from a psycholinguistic point of view of the methods of language learning and teaching may contribute both to offer a basis for the validation of this or that method, as well as to critically revise other methods. It becomes ever more obvious that a radical modification in the perspective adopted for discussing language teaching (both regarding the native and the foreign languages) 1 is necessary. Stress should be laid (and in such a way as to be better

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established theoretically and better organized regarding concrete application of certain principles) on developing langage as an instrument of communication, in its complex bipolar dynamic aspect, as a real fact, connected with the profound motivations of the necessity of communication. Hence the necessity to treat langage not only as a monologued form (which implies the placing of the accent on expressivity and not so much on communicativity), but as a process which takes place in a real situation, and in which are involved human beings in groups, with their contexture of interests, knowledge, linguistic habits, with all that makes the particularity of each individual and which, at the same time, connects him with the general, the typical. The problem of the development of the communication function of langage, and of the development of langage as dialogues, the contextual perspective2, the modification of the methods in the language teaching go hand in hand, are problems having mutual implications. They lead, essentially, to the necessity of introducing in a more intensive, and especially better organized way the contextual analysis for studying the manner of organizing the expression — first in the mother tongue — so as to make it be more correctly understood by the interlocutors, and of the manner in which a message can be more adequately received. We must underline that in general in linguistics, but chiefly in pedagogics (where the preoccupation is especially directed towards grammar lessons with an informative aim, the important aspect of continually and integrally developing the mother tongue as a whole is neglected. First, many linguists know only too little about the way language is learned by the little child. Hence, probably, the genesis of certain exaggerations and wrong conclusions regarding the discussion whether the teaching of the second language must be similar or not to the way in which the little child learns his first language. In any case a preconceived idea as the one stating that the process of native language learning by the child is achieved at an unconscious level — an idea which hinders the discussion regarding teaching methods in general — is contradicted by various phenomena which can be noticed in child's langage and in his behaviour in general. Special research work on the aspects which reflect an "awareness concerning language" (French "conscience linguistique") with small children should contribute to the renouncing of such old clichés — connected with erroneous theories — as that of "the feel of language". If we apply the dynamic-contextual method up to its farthest psycholinguistic consequences, we must start from the necessity of developing the function of communication 3 in the langage of very young preschool children. The stress laid on developing dialogue in children means not only the effort of contributing to establish normal social relations of co-operation among them, nor the addition only of conditions favouring the development of conversation or educating the alternate attitude of emitter and receiver (difficult to create, because it is necessary to achieve a fair relation between voluntary inhibition and the drive for expression). An

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important aspect is also the forming of linguistic skills characteristic of dialogue (and their analysis is not very much developed even in linguistics !) 4 , both with younger children and later on with school children, and further on, in a continual education, with grown-up people. Besides the aspects which have been given more consideration until now — as correct pronunciation, the learning of a number of words and grammar rules or, before going to school, mere reinforcement of correct utterances and opposition to the incorrect ones —, it is important, in the process of speech education, to teach in an organized manner, the lexical forms necessary for a dialogue as well as the morphological ones — for instance the vocatives —, the syntactic ones — contextual economic concatenation, etc. — ; it is also necessary to enhance the education concerning correct reception (how much is this aspect of communication taken into consideration in preschool institutions, or in schools, how much children are taught — otherwise than empirically — how to listen to a partner, how to make good use of contextual means on one's own initiative, how to interpret a word which you "have misheard"?). 3.2. Indeed, the development of speech in the process of communication is an aspect in which not only pedagogics should be interested, in connection with teaching children their mother tongue, but also the disciplines involved in the problem of improving the speech of adults, in various fields of activity (to which we should add the general necessity, for social life, of achieving communication — especially, an "integral" communication — in good conditions B). Very few works — except manuals of "recipes" for "social success" — deal scientifically with this aspect of improving communication as such using the mother tongue with adults e . 3.3. On the other hand, a modification of the methods could also be attempted in the therapeutics proper of speech (means for curing deficiencies or langage disorders 7, in terms of insisting on the relation emission-reception in constructing (and understanding) messages 8 . A new and efficient direction could be set up: neuro-psycholinguistics (the specific of which would lie in the fact that the neurologist would not work separately with psychologists or linguists, but with psycholinguists — or would himself adopt a psycholinguistic perspective). Aphasia itself — and also other langage disorders in various pathological states such as schizophrenia, etc. — could be studied more adequately by taking into consideration modifications of the individual linguistic system really possessed by the patient before the disease appeared (and not comparing his present state with "language" in the abstract), and depending on the situation of the patient (ambience, mood, possibility of establishing a spontaneous dialogue relationship with his partner, etc.). In this manner the real relation between "competence" and "performance" could be established depending on various situations. The langage of the aphasie — his expression and his capacity for reception — could be more efficiently studied (and subsequently, this could be a basis for the-

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rapeutics as well) if the communication proper were observed, in natural conditions (in various contexts, in the common activity of the patient, in dialogue — not rendered artificial by questionnaire-forms, etc. — with various partners, etc.), the research worker or therapist writing down in each case absolutely everything constituting the "context" of the communication. 3.4. For the moment, certain attempts to establish the connection between the therapeutics of langage or psychotherapy in general and psycholinguistics proceed to a great extent from the field of psychoanalysis ; as such, a unilateral — at the same time dangerous as long as it is unilateral and wrongly understood — association between psycholinguistics and psychoanalysis 9 is established. 4. Besides the aspects mentioned above there are also other fields of applied or theoretical linguistics, or of disciplines connected with linguistics, in which the methodological procedures already referred to could lead to useful results. 4.1. First, we cannot leave aside, not only in linguistic sociology or sociolinguistics (a field which is developing ever more today), but in sociology as a special discipline as well, the application of data and methodology of psycholinguistics. If social determination of communication is a fundamental fact which must be taken into account by psycholinguistics, on the other hand the study of human groups, of interrelations inside the group and between groups, of the role of communication in the community, of the effect of "stratification" on communication, etc. cannot be complete without having recourse to the results, the methods of study and interpretations which can be offered by psycholinguistics. There are numerous aspects which can be better made clear by having recourse to a psycholinguistic approach, especially in sociological investigations "in the field". This is a new field of research, which has to be developed in future. 4.2. The relation, which is usually less referred to, between ethnography or ethnology or anthropology on the one hand, and linguistics on the other 10 , has psycholinguistic implications as well (besides sociolinguistic implications which are certainly more marked). In a recent work, G. Calame-Griaule describes the practice and "the theory" noticed with the African population of Dogon concerning speech, mentioning also the necessity for a psychological analysis of the thought of the respective tribe 11 . Interdisciplinary relations with psycholinguistics can be deepened and generalized on a theoretical plane which could give suggestions regarding the general methodology of ethnography: it is important, for instance, to analyse from a psycholinguistic point of view what is — in a certain community examined ethnographically — the interference between general behaviour and langage, the relation between customs and the linguistic system depending on determinants such as motivation or mentality, the capacity for a conscious justification of this relation (which maintains itself finally at a very weak degree of awareness, the reflecting of certain specific procedures of thinking, of mentality in general in the linguistic

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system, or the reflecting in the manner of building up messages, of the conception concerning speech, etc. The relation has also to be established between psycholinguistics and "linguistic anthropology"12 or in general the various fields which deal with relations between culture and langage. In a very wide sense this relation may be also looked upon, as shown by R. Jakobson 13 , in terms of the mutual influences between interlocutors, as langage is an integral part of social life and therefore langage and culture imply each other mutually. The area of these interdisciplinary studies is very wide. In a recent work L. Jakobovits 14 suggests, for instance, the drawing up of a "World Atlas of Affeciive Meanings" 15 . The aspect from which he starts is altogether special and unilateral, as he suggests intercultural studies in order to find "a polycultural form" of Ch. Osgood's "semantic differential", in communities having different languages and cultures. The establishing of relations based on the general context between each of the partners of the communication and the cultural ensemble to which he belongs, in which he lives or where he is at the time of the communication, that is the application of psycholinguistic methodology in its dynamic-contextual aspect as well, could be of use in this field too. In any case, comparative psycholinguistics, chiefly developed in the United States and rather by the anthropologists, is a field which may be of interest both to linguistics and anthropology and to psycholinguistics as well. 4.3. Other applications of the conception and the methodology we have discussed belong to the field of the activity of proof-readers and translators. We shall not insist here on the first aspect. We shall only mention the importance of the fact that upon examining a context from which a clear enough sense can be finally obtained, the "corrector" runs the risk of overlooking the mistakes, as various elements of the text are completed by the sense of the whole. Experiments as the one we shall mention further (infra, Part III, Ch. IV) — in which for instance bine is read bien16 —, alongside others, proves this, as well as the role played by the manner in which the context is organized: in our experimental model, when the general sense is grasped with difficulty — as the text has many mistakes —, the "corrector" reads more attentively and notices a greater number of mistakes than if the sense is easier to perceive due to the fact that the text contains few mistakes. 4.4. The problem of translations has become very important, on the one hand, owing to the development of the theory of information, of cybernetics and the appearance of possibilities to construct and improve the electronic translation machines; and on the other hand, owing to the frequent large international meetings, which require "consecutive interpretations (translations)" (which also imply a special short-term memory), "simultaneous interpretation (translation)" (several translators translate into various foreign languages a speech while it is delivered).

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As the oral translation is made, in this case, almost simultaneously with the hearing of the text by the translator, very difficult situations occur, on the one hand connected with the particularities of the process of translation itself, complicated by the necessity of achieving it very quickly; and on the other hand, in connection with the difficulty of performing the activity of listening to — of auditive reception of another speaker — and of speaking at the same time (which imposes a process of listening — for checking purposes — to one's own emission). Very interesting experiments in connection with "delayed speech feed-back" (B. Lee, 1950)17 show the appearance of an effect that troubles the emission: the receiver can only work with a limited quantity of information in a certain interval of time and if one of the tasks requires the recepting of more information, the other simultaneous task has to suffer 18 . The message may therefore be profoundly troubled (and a "stress" may occur in the translator himself) because of the special situation in which the emitter-translator finds himself. But translation itself, as an old problem of transposing a message from one linguistic system into another 19 , shows certain aspects in which psycholinguistics is directly interested, concerning the existence of the two systems in the consciousness of the person and the necessity of finding their correspondences 20, as well as concerning the personal possibilities (and the general ones, as a "technique" of reception) for understanding or interpreting the message. A fact which is usually forgotten, is that in the case of translation too, a number of general problems concerning reception and emission also interfere, and the translator, as any receiver, has to "interpret" messages 21 . Old experiments — in which the experimental model was based on a wrong principle, as it included isolated words or s e n t e n c e s — were not able to reveal the role played by context in the interpretation needed by translation. Various experiments made by us 2 3 (and which we shall describe partly, infra, Part III, Ch.IV) also illustrate certain aspects linked with translation. Psycholinguistic studies are still necessary however, in order to specify differential details concerning the process of translation of a word in absolute isolation or that of a sentence without any context, and the translation in the conditions of knowledge of contexts and the existence of a well organized context, as well as concerning details on the interfering of the translator's own system of co-ordinates, or concerning the skills a translator acquires in the case of replacing the mechanical learning of "all the words" of the dictionary by the procedure of using them in contexts, etc. In any case, one fact is sure — although the practice of translations made hastily does not enable us to notice it always : in order to make a good translation it is necessary that one should know and take into account the ensemble of the co-ordinates of the expression. Only in this way can the activity of translation avoid becoming mechanical or representing a "betrayal" of the intentions of the author, and the translator will state precisely the various shades which indeed the former expressed

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(the same as a good actor or a stage director will not be able to understand the real sense of the expression of the dramatist — "the subtext of the play" —, without taking into consideration the whole context of every word). 4.5. Translations with the help of computers have created, however, new problems, regarding the optimal code necessary for programming, the finding of the basic patterns which should enable the computer to recognize various variants of the expression, the finding means for comparing translations made by man with those made by the machines, etc. 2 4 . As long as the theory of information, in general and in linguistics, has ignored the importance of meaning — stating that one can operate with "models" which do not take into account meaning 25 —, a standstill was noticed in the development of automatic translations or even failure in the attempt to improve them. If today practice has demonstrated that this position has been damaging and meaning has regained a place among the preoccupations of specialists in that field, there are, however, certain attitudes which show that not all logical conclusions are drawn which are absolutely necessary for the achieving of a real progress. Among these are certain tendencies for extreme formalization — beyond the limits within which the model still has analogies with reality — in mathematical linguistics, or experimenting with "compressed languages" that are artificial, deprived of the complex nuances of the natural languages. One of the most difficult problems — which has moreover appeared after a period in which minor importance was shown to meaning in this field — is that of solving the polysemy of words 2 6 . How could such a programme be created, so that the computer should be able to interpret exactly the adequate meaning, not only of homonyms, but also of the polysémie words in general? Obviously, here appears implicitly the problem of the context: the machine must become capable of interpreting by adaptation to the context. However, how long mast the context chosen for programming be (hence, the preoccupation for establishing "microcontexts")? What determinants are absolutely necessary for deciphering meaning, or which of them represent a necessary redundance and which of them are completely superfluous? How much plasticity is needed and how much dynamism characterizes the process of adaptation to context (an aspect which has to be specified first on the humane plane, in order to offer a precise objective to the mathematicians, who should find afterwards adequate procedures — plastic themselves — for mathematical processing, or should show all the possibilities regarding existing procedures) 27 ? The various questions which have been suddenly raised by the necessity of obtaining correct automatic translations and therefore of creating adequate programmes, have enabled the observation of new aspects, which linguistics or psychology had not noticed yet. Thus, it can be noticed that, after all, we do not know yet either the manner in which the human receiver proceeds when translating 28, or what

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are the particularities of drawing up a message which make it less difficult for translation than another one. In order to improve automatic translations good models of the human activity of translation should be formulated ; but this activity itself, in its turn, is not known enough and is to be better known only from now on. Therefore, various psycholinguistic experiments are extremely necessary, which should put into relation the message and the receiver: consequently, this less studied aspect of language, which is reception, should be focused now. (We shall present further — infra, Part III, Ch. V — one of these experiments, with a human model of homonymy solving, which shows that in interpretation it is not so much the absolute "length" of the context that is important, as its degree of organization and the place where a certain component finds itself, that is its contextual position.) 5. Owing to its interdisciplinary character, psycholinguistics has, therefore, several correlations with other fields and a wide area of application. On the other hand, the initial phase in which it is now, makes the majority of the roads which we sketched, to be unbeaten as yet and some of them even untrodden. We shall try and make a few steps on some of them.

Notes 1

We shall discuss the details of this problem later; see Part II B, Ch. V. The necessity of having recourse to situational context is mentioned, as a "particularly fecund" ("particolarmente feconda") position by E. Arcaini too (Alcuni fondamenti linguistici nell'insegnamento delle lingue, "Lingua e stile", 1966, no. 1, pp. 93, 98), but briefly and without supporting it by any personal contribution.

2

Cf. Langage et contexte, The Hague, Mouton, 1961, p. 230.

3

An aspect which we shall discuss further and to which we have also dedicated our study Dialogul la copii (Bucurejti, Ed. Academiei R.P.R., 1961), therefore we shall not insist on it here (see, in French, the article: Le dialogue chez les petits enfants, sa signification et quelques unes de ses particularités, "Bull, de psychol.", 1966,19, no. 247/8—12, pp. 688—697).

4

See also Dialogul la copii, cited, pp. 6—7, 36 foil.

* An idea developed in one of the author's more recent studies : Comunicare pentru educate, Si educaiie pentru comunicare ('Communication for education, and education for communication'), Symposium on "Education and langage", Bucharest, october 1970 (NEV). 6

Besides the panacea-books which we have mentioned, there are in this sense either works on sociology or social psychology concerned with "conversation" — which also give certain indications on the education of communication, such as: R. Bach (ed.) Communication. The art of understanding and being understood, New York, Hastings House, [1963]; J. H. Janis, Writing and communicating in business. A comprehensive guide to effective communication at all levels of industrial activity, New York-London, Macmillan-Collier, [1964]; L. Dexter, D. White (ed.), People, society and mass communications, London — [New York] Collier-

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Macmillan, [1964], etc. —; or works of applied linguistics, useful enough but which are intended for a wider public and have no original or thorough theoretical foundation (for example, E. Abernathy, Fundamentals of speech, Dubuque (Iowa), W. Brown, [1959, 1961, 1964]. There are very few works in which the problem of communication is treated on the theoretical plane of psycholinguistics, and in which the practical aspects are solved with the means of a scientific applied linguistics. 7

Whether it is the matter of aphasia, or of disorders in the development of langage, classified by H. Hécaen, R. Angelergues (Pathologie du langage, Paris, Larousse, [1965], p. Π) such as: deficits of integration of langage (deaf-muteness, etc.), retardation in its development or speech disorders such as stammering. In general, psycholinguistics is as yet deficient from this point of view, as there are very few detailed applications to the pathological field, for the time being (see also H. Rubenstein, M. Aborn, Psycholinguistics, "Annual rev. psychol.", 1960, p. 308: "studies in the field of langage disorders have been completely unsatisfactory from a psycholinguistical point of view").

8

J. Dubois has proposed more recently a useful scheme for an examination, based on a similar taking into consideration of the ensemble of the act of communication; but he discussed it as a "linguistic examination", therefore this should be completed from a psycholinguistic perspective too (Approche d'une neurolinguistique, "Études de linguistique appliquée", 3, Paris, Didier, 1964, pp. 6 foil.); the scheme does not include the psycholinguistic aspects proper (as dependency of the message on the situation, etc.).

9

For instance Th. Thass-Thienemann, Psychotherapy and psycholinguistics, Proc. J" 1 Int. Congr. Psychotherapy (Wien, 1961), Part II, New York-Basel, Karger, 1963, pp. 37—45; or J. Meerloo, Unobtrusive communication, Essays in psycholinguistics, Assen, Van Gorcum, 1964. See also the discussion infra, Ch. II.

10

See, more recently, the well documented work: G. Calame-Griaule, Ethnologie La parole chez les Dogon, Paris, Gallimard, 1965.

11

Ibid., pp. 11 foil.

12

H. Hoijer, Anthropological linguistics, in Trends in European and American linguistics 1930— 1960, Utrecht, Antwerp, 1961. See also Cl. Lévi-Strauss's works (for instance, in La vie familiale et sociale des Indiens Nambikwara, Paris, Soc. des Américanistes, 1948, pp. 113 foli, he discusses "the features of langage" in connection with social life and psychology, logic, etc. ; see also La pensée sauvage, Paris, Pion, [1962]); or the older studies by F. Boas (as Language, in Race, language and culture, New York — London, Macmillan-Collier, [1940, ed. 1966], pp. 199—242).

13

R. Jakobson, Essais de linguistique générale, Paris, Ed. de Minuit, [1963], pp. 27—29. L. Jakobovits, Comparative psycholinguistics in the study of cultures, "Internat, j. psychol.", 1966, 1, no. 1, p. 26.

14

et langage,

15

Ibid., pp. 15—19.

16

See also Limbaj ji context, Bucurejti, Ed. Çtiintificâ, 1959, pp. 328—329 (the experiments are only presented in extenso in the Romanian edition) (NEV).

17

Cf. D. Broadbent, Perception and communication, Pergamon, [1964], p. 327.

18

Ibid., p. 31. One of the fundamental questions is if we can find absolute correspondences or perfect equivalents, or whether we can only reach very close equivalents (E. Nida, for instance, inclines towards the latter hypothesis, Principles of translation as exemplified by Bible translating,

14

Oxford — London — New York — Paris,

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in R. Browner (ed.), On translation, Cambridge Mass., Harvard Univ. Press, 1959, p. 19; on this lack of perfect equivalence see also R. Jakobson, On linguistic aspects of translation, ibid., p. 238). 20 Recent experiments, made by P. Fraisse (La durée de la traduction — thème et version — de mots isolés, "Bull, de psychol.", 1966, 247, XIX, 8—12, pp. 592—602;, with single words, shows for instance, that if the matter is about a written word the translation is lengthened when one translates from one's mother language into a foreign one, but when the translation is made orally, the time for translating from the foreign language, into the native one is lengthened; however, unfortunately, a confirmation of these interesting data is lacking, for words integrated in contextual ensembles, that is in the real situation of translations. 21 "Like any receiver of verbal messages, the linguist acts astheir interpreter", R. Jakobson, op. cit., pp. 233—234. 22 For instance, G. v. Wartensleben, Beiträge zur Psychologie des Übersetzens, "Ztschr. f. Psychol.", 1910, 57, pp. 89 foil. 23 See also Limbaj fi context, cited, pp. 343 foil., 350 foil., a.o. 24 In this last direction see: J. B. Carroll, Quelques mesures subjectives en psycho-linguistique : fréquence de mots, significativité et qualité de traduction, "Bull, de psychol.", 1966, 247, XIX, 8—12, pp. 585 foil. 2Í See, for instance, Β. Mandelbrot, Structure formelle des textes et communication : deux études, "Word", 1954, 10, no. 1, p. 2. 26 Considered also "a primordial problem" ("question primordiale"): A. Janiotis and H. Josselson, La polysémie dans la traduction automatique, in "Traduction automatique et linguistique appliquée" (Papers at the Intern. Conf. of mech. trans, and analysis in applied linguistics", Teddington, 1951), Paris, P.U.F., 1964, p. 168. 27

For instance, N. Weaver (Recent contributions to the mathematical theory of communication, in C. Shannon and W. Weaver, The mathematical theory of communication, Urbana, Univ. of Illinois Press, 1949, p. 117J underlined that the theory regarding the Marcov processes is suitable for "one of the most important and the most difficult aspects of meaning, namely the influence of the context". 2 « See also A. Janiotis and H. Josselson (op. cit., p. 158; : "we do not know exactly how man is "programmed" in order to be able to identify a meaning".

CHAPTER II

Stylistics and psycholinguistics

Contemporary psycholinguistics has dealt very little — or perhaps has not dealt at all 1 — with the relation between stylistics and psycholinguistics, although the latter interdisciplinary field has profound implications concerning stylistics, poetics, literary criticism in general. 1.1. The dynamic-contextual method also implies the relating of facts of language — in their concrete aspect represented by messages — to the psychic state of the person who emits or receives them. We think it is meaningless to try and isolate artificially the message from its producer: and the latter is, in human communication, an emitter experiencing a certain psychic state, which is the source of the message (the same reasoning can be made for the receiver as well). The affective ensemble (momentary or characteristic of a person), the motivation which determines a behaviour or another, the temperamental type, thought, momentary moods (irritation, suffering, glee), etc. constitute the internal context which plays an important role in selecting means of expression and through which, in any case, all the external influences are filtered (beginning with that of the code which is taken over — language as an objective phenomenon and so-called "supra-individual" phenomenon). A psycholinguistic problem (with contextual implications) is also the well-known phenomenon — though often overlooked and insufficiently studied in its depth and consequences — of the variability in the perception of a message, in similar physical conditions, owing to variations in the state of the human receiver (who may be the interlocutor in a banal communication, or the linguist — who records a fact of language isolating it from the environment, delimiting it according to the means it possesses or according to his conception, etc. —, or the reader, or a literary critic) 2 . 1.2. As we have seen, the psycholinguistic approach and the method we presented as a basic means — the dynamic-contextual method — suppose a study of the aspects of bipolarity of langage, of the way its function of communication is carried out, in organizing the expression and in the receiver's attempts of interpreting it. This approach enables the deepening of the notion of context — the same as

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the analysis of context facts leads to identifying important aspects which cannot be interpreted without the help of psycholinguistics. Determination by context generates systematizations with complex hierarchical connections in expression, and their deciphering in the interpretative act of reception. At the same time, the external observer — in the present case the literary critic for instance — is supposed to substitute a static contemplation by an analysis of successiveness, revealing links between various levels and moments3. 2. The situation of the second term of the relation examined here, that is stylistics 4 — a discipline of long standing and having its traditions —, is advantageous enough, from a certain point of view (psycholinguistics, since it appeared under its present name and as an acknowledged interdisciplinary field, may be considered today as a young discipline, still on the way to being defined, and having various gaps inherent to any beginning), but it is also disadvantageous, from other points of view. Disadvantages arise from the same source as those concerning psycholinguistics — for although, in general, it is not considered as a recently developed discipline, present-day stylistics wishes to be a "new" discipline — : it creates confusion 5 by including a variety of opinions — which even become contradictory currents —, owing to the absence of a precise methodology or even of an agreement on defining its object, style. 2.1. The multitude of definitions (often representing completely different or contrary points of view) regarding style is characteristic of 20 th century stylistics. At the same time, it has had at least one happy consequence: that of unfettering the notion of style from the normative chains of the old rhetorical stylistics. The present-day notion of "style" has a less rigid and different configuration as compared with the image of the old normative stylistics, but at the same time a more labile and less clear configuration. The contents and sphere of this notion have widened, going so far — even at symposia having interdisciplinary character, but concentrating around stylistics as to discuss style as a specific manner of behaviour 6 or as "a way for expressing thought by means of langage"1. In any case, in the notion of style there are now also included oral8 and non-literary aspects (the journalistic style, conversational style, etc.) 9 , and it has been agreed that aesthetic evaluation or prescribing norms or rules are not necessarily involved when style is concerned 10 . An idea which contributed greatly to shattering the normative conception on stylistics was that first put forward by Ch. Bally (who considered style to be "the organization of langage from the point of view of the affective contents") 11 and which afterwards became more and more widespread: that of expressivity as a predominance of affectivity 12 or as manifesting the whole personality of the emitter 13 . Lastly, the concept of selection (usually considered as an intentional act, at other times unintentional, and in general as a personal capacity and latitude for manipulating the means offered by language), as well as, more recently, the stress laid on analysing the linguistic facts included in style, have contri-

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buted even more to widening the notion of style 14 and to the difficulty of finding the common threads in a field in which it seems that complete liberty is granted to personal manifestations (both as regards literary creation and therefore regarding the object under research — that is style — and the manner of studying it). 2.2. However, in the present chapter we shall refer to the notion of style in a more restricted meaning than the theme discussed now (that is the relations between stylistics and psycholinguistics) would suppose it. We shall only refer to artistic production and operate with the notion of style used by most of the modern stylistic currents: as a component of a literary work 1 5 , constituting "a specific case of linguistic communication" 1β , therefore of using language in a sui generis17 manner (which implies personal selection 18 , usually with a "striking" character) 19 . Selection (genus proximum in this definition, as it is presupposed by any act of coding) is an essential element (which will lead us necessarily to taking into consideration the psycholinguistic approach as well), and at same time the element through which the differential aspect in literary creation is reached: the selection is made by the writer-emitter (and this source of the poetic message is a human being, with a certain psychic, which we cannot ignore), in view of creating an artistic message. The specific difference lies therefore in the artistic purpose of this selection, as well as in certain details connected with this purpose (such as the more or less striking originality of expression)80. Selection is presupposed in any act of encoding: speech as such (parole) implies a selection from among the means of expression and it also implies a variability in the features of the code 21 . Style is not a fact of language, as some stylists consider it inconsistently enough; it is an aspect of speech 22 (parole may as well be oral and written). The specific difference in the act of emission in a literary communication consists in selecting in an original manner, otherwise than this is done in common speech. A concept often neglected — because almost only selection is spoken a b o u t is combination23, which must also be original, of the selected elements (combination does not necessarily mean new constructions, but new "connections" of elements). Speaking only about "selecting" one may imagine that the activity of the writer consists only in selecting elements and their combinations such as they are found in the language; and in that case, it should be stated precisely how far the limit should be established (as length of sequences) for these "combinations" found in language as such. One could say at most — and only in this sense the term "selection" could be preserved as applicable to combination means as well — that the writer makes a selection among the virtual means of language and that everything created in art, all stylistic facts, existed beforehand in language as a potential. (But are we absolutely sure that this always happens and that some great writers are not the source of ulterior introducing in language of such sequences which would

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have never existed, even virtually, in it?). Probably the most important role of selection usually manifests itself in the paradigmatic axis, while the syntagmatic axis is the one where the operation of relatively new combination 24 (or for actualizing potentials) must concretize itself; and this may also influence the selecting of paradigmatic equivalences (for instance, by combining the noun smell with the epithet blue, an original choice for adjectives which can accompany the above noun has been determined). The fact of style cannot be appreciated by the isolated analysis of a single element (therefore of a mere paradigmatic selection) : the personal intervention of the writer can be observed only by noting combinations, groupings, collocations — by which we do not understand only the achieving of the proper syntagmatic axis of the language, in the meaning of grammatical constructions, but also collocations the novelty of which may be evaluated by reference to the lexis 26 . Selection and combination are mechanisms (or operations) by which an element (and no other element: therefore a certain element, selected), is placed iti a certain place in the chain of communication (therefore in a certain combination). Style consequently implies a specific "constructing" in the sequential chain, an original collocating of the lexical elements 28 in the sui generis organizations we were speaking about and which are the stylistic contexts. The position in these contexts (what we have generally called the contextual position)27 is a criterion seldom used in stylistic analysis, although it may be very useful. In the most "nude" style a personal selection and combination are implicated, manifesting themselves, in this case, by an appreciation of what has to be eliminated and by the combination, pruned of anything exceeding a certain degree of redundance, of the components. These constructions are also characterized by the effect they produce (which is in fact intended by the author), the artistic effect. Certainly, the appreciation of these effects (see also note 20) depends on the criteria of aesthetic evaluation common to an epoch. Probably even in the present-day so-called non-normative stylistics there are, however, criteria and even norms: there are no more the rigid norms of ancient stylistics 28 , maybe there are other norms determined by present-day society 29 . In any case, there can be even a norm of "apparent non-existence of a norm", just as the apparent "non-style" or "style of zero degree" 30 is, however, a style: but evaluation (and norms as such), cannot be excluded. 2.3. In defining the stylistic phenomenon and that of literary creation in general we take into account the personal modality for building an expression: we speak of a sui generis message, in the sense that it is typical for the respective writer. That is why, the stylistic phenomena have only indirect relations with linguistics, if the latter has language as its object. Stylistics refers in fact to the concrete achievements of language — therefore to acts of "speech" (parole), or messages: moreover, it deals with the sui generis achievements of language, trying to identify the really intimate particularities of this specificity. For this reason, we think it is too much to state that "literature depends on its medium, language" 31 . Language is a medium,

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indeed, but literature "depends" on how a writer selects both its material and its contents, themes, etc. (We must however point out that by message we do not understand here the contents as such, which is often called, in literary criticism, the "message" of the author — and which in fact represents the author's informational intention or the information itself —, but the expressive ensemble, with its linguistic form and its informational contents, as it exists in any act of communication.) 2.4. Another necessary clarification is that any literary creation — even pertaining to the most extremist expressionist proclamations — has a communicative purpose: that of directing the message to a receiver ("the reader", "the public", etc.). Therefore, in this case too, we find the components of any communication situation: the emitter and the receiver, and between them the message. The difference from a usual communication, in the case of a literary work, lies firstly in the "artistic purpose", in the fact that the emitter elaborates the message with a specific "care" — both as regards the information transmitted, and its form —, making it appear as an organized structure which bears, in the synthesis which is the writer's work, the stronger and more obvious stamp of his personality because the activity of selecting the elements of contents and the means of expression has intervened more intentionally, more deliberately and with a certain force of original creation (see "talent"). The writer, certainly, uses a medium expressive in itself: langage contains in its "own material", endowed with symbolic value, a power of representing, concentrated in economical means, easy to produce, which the media of the other arts do not own (from this point of view, E. Benveniste has discovered a happy formula — even if he somehow exaggerates — when he says: "Aucun pouvoir n'égalera jamais celui-là, qui fait tant avec si peu" ('No power will ever be equal to this one, which achieves so much with so little') 32 . However, a writer makes an effort, in order, to turn to account the potencies of these means and, while expressing himself in what his personality has more specific, to communicate to others a message which carries artistic values both in the information as such and in the form in which he encodes it. Unlike the usual communication, in literary works the emitter communicates in the form of a prolonged monologue (certainly, without forgetting that it has an obvious addressing character, counting, finally, on a dialogue with the reader — who remains however "dumb", at least at the moment of the emission, that is in the communication proper). 3. Consequently, it would appear necessary that stylistics and literary criticism, in general, should apply an optics permitting to analyse, with the help of adequate methods, this act of communication — specific from a certain point of view, but also typical from other points of view not less important —. In other words, it should grasp the relation between the message and its creator (showing what

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makes the specific of that message, by connecting it with the emitter), but without omitting to trace the fate of the message in its transmission, relating it to the possibilities of reception, hence showing the way how it can be understood by the receiver (also by the receiver who is the linguist or the stylist or the literary critic 33 : because for the common reader, the reading of a work of literary criticism is an act of "recepting a reception", as he learns how the work has been received by another reader — who is supposed to have more experience, special means of interpretation, etc.). 3.1. The various trends and polemics in stylistics or in present-day literary criticism arise from different attitudes towards the three elements of a literary communication, but most often from the hypertrophy of the role of one of them. A stress is put either on the aspects concerning the contents of messages (trying to detach "the themes" from the proper form, as if the expressive channel through which they are transmitted would not represent "specific" facts in the style of literary creation) ; or, on the contrary, the formal aspects are underlined (forgetting that the inventories of forms cannot signify anything without the "information" which they carry, and with which they form a specific unit). A perspective which marks a current in present-day stylistics is that of exclusively taking into consideration the message, either in order to reveal its unique character, "what is extraordinary" (that is, having in fact recourse to certain criteria, varying in accordance with the norms of a certain aesthetics), or in order to apply to it quantitative procedures (statistical, etc.), or to carry out analyses free from any contingencies, regarding the relations of "internal" systems, the formal structure 34 (especially in the case of stylistics developing from certain structuralist linguistic currents and chiefly those applying models of generative grammars). This last attitude is usually met with in stylists (in fact, in linguists), who want to identify the analysis of style with linguistics (or who confuse the planes — style and language — without noticing the contradiction) 35 . Other trends hyperbolically accentuate the role of the emitter — whether it is supposed that the latter imposes himself as such, irrespective of the possibility of being understood, or the analysis of the literary work is attempted only through the prism of its creator (hence, the interpretation of the work exclusively through psychology, and in general the genetic stylistics 36 ; and in the extreme, the "psychologism") 37 . Or, on the contrary, other trends emphasize the role of the receiver 38 (in this case, the literary critic). Moreover, the latter may — and he must, according to some — have a subjective attitude, not only as a personal interpretation of the message, but even as a satisfaction of his "desire" of expressing himself, his own self ; "Passer de la lecture à la critique, c'est changer de désir, c'est désirer non plus l'oeuvre mais son propre language." ('Passing from reading to criticism means to change one's desire, it means to desire no longer the work, but one's own langage.'')39. An extremist conclusion — drawn from the premise that one cannot speak about a single sense of a work, but on

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the contrary about a plurality of possible significative values — and which is true either in the case of completely unclear, unintelligible messages, or, normally, only if we refer to the "completing" of the message, which certainly leaves suggestive possibilities of evocation 40 . 3.2. Any unilateral attitude offers only a fragmentary vision and — owing to its insufficiency — its adoption must (if it is however adopted) be accompanied by prudence. However, when such an attitude is declared as the only possible one, it may create a danger for science and for knowledge in general. Psychologism (chiefly understood as the unilateral analysis of a work of art exclusively through the psychology of the writer) deprives stylistics of a series of aspects which are connected, on the one hand, with the receiver and, on the other hand, with the internal structure of the message 41 . It loses its utility so much the more, as the psychological analysis is unilateral even from the viewpoint of psychology, or when it is made with the help of questionable criteria from the point of view of modern psychology, in general of scientific psychology (for instance, H. Morier's typology — presented with subtle and original means as concerns its "artistic expression"). The introduction of psychologism — inadequately, by psychologists who did not know well enough linguistics and who represented, at the same time, a non-scientific, associationist psychology, etc. — in the older linguistics has led to the discrediting of the collaboration between linguistics and psychology, to the lack of confidence of linguists in the help which they can obtain from psychology and, indeed, to mistakes or deadlocks which linguistics could avoid if that lack of confidence did not exist (we could call it justified, if we think of the precarious help which could be given by the respective psychology). A similar situation appears somehow in the case of attempts to bring linguistics closer to psychology. We shall resume this discussion further, as the relation between stylistics and psychology is wider than it is usually considered and it exceeds the strict perspective of "emission". The stylistic analysis made only from the point of view of the emitter is also insufficient, as the other terms of the triad of communication are omitted. On the other hand, the stylistic fact is not exhausted by only stressing the rôle of the receiver (whether we speak strictly about the perceiving of the work or of the grasping of its stylistic "effects", etc.). A literary work does not exist only as a subjective phenomenon, owing to the psychical state which each receiver experiences in connection with it. The intimate structure of the work, the manner in which the writer has conceived each message have objective existence and as such have a value which cannot be overlooked in stylistics (especially because the emitter has in view a certain psychical state, the "living" of the work in the receiver, has made a certain predictive judgement envisaging how the work will be decoded — interpreted, understood — and in fact appreciated). Suggestion no doubt plays an important role in art, and in the act of decoding a literary message there is

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a wider place for "interpretation" than it happens in usual communications (see also note 40). But this suggestibility, this ambiguity are not the only features of style (intelligibility is one of the features as well, but this does not mean that the work is "a photographic copy" or a faithful recording of clear and precise speech ex cathedra). On the other hand, "suggestion" is also controlled by the emitter (or at least this happens in the case of the great creators, masters of their means), it is combined with elements of intelligibility, it is driving towards a certain effect, anticipated by the writer. The so-called "open structure" is a stylistic device, the accomplished effect of which is more difficult to achieve, just because it has to be well mastered, well used by the writer in order to give optimum results. The fact that it is not useful to emphasize only one of the two poles of communication (emission or reception) receives a supporting argument also from considering a feature which is often forgotten, that of the reversibility of the relation E-R (in this case the writer-emitter may also be a receiver, and in the act of creating he can transpose himself in the hypostasis of reception, he may imagine the manner in which the effects of his style are produced, etc. ; the readerreceiver may also be an emitter, even if this hypostasis has not always an aesthetic value or its aesthetic value is minimal). It is from this reversibility, from this virtual osmosis between E and R, that the possibility of empathy 4 2 — of sympathetic living in somebody else's situation — derives, which plays an enormous role in creating and receiving a work of art and which present-day stylistics almost completely neglects. Nor the taking into consideration unilaterally and exclusively of the message as a stylistic fact — as it is much advocated in present-day stylistics, especially in linguistic stylistics and chiefly in the direction of transformationalism — is a justified position. If we refer to exclusively statistical investigations, we should bring as the only argument the sceptical opinion expressed by one of the best known psychologists — specialized in problems of langage —, George Miller, who has pushed his specialization in the application of mathematics so far that he has become a creator in the field of mathematical psychology: "Ten years ago I would have regarded style as a problem in statistical inference. [ . . . ] Today I feel there is vastly more to style than we can catch in the statistician's net" 43 . The study of the facts of style only from the perspective of language, the confusing of stylistics with linguistics are not only unilateral perspectives, but they contain the mistake of identifying two phenomena which belong to different planes (see supra, note 22). Every word and the combination of various words reflect complex systems of values (which in their turn can be elements belonging to other systems of signs, having profound significances and the analysis of which shows psychic structurings of the personality of the writer). G. Bachelard's subtle analyses, for instance, illustrate this osmosis between words (as serpent, racine, labyrinthe, etc.) and more

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profound substrata, concerning contents ("Ainsi se manifeste l'existence d'un doublet psychique qui réunit, d'une part, l'image visuelle longuement commentée et, d'autre part, une image d'intimité mystérieuse, riche d'une puissance affective") 44 ; these substrata can be revealed by psychological prospections ("Toute doctrine de l'image se double, en miroir, d'une psychologie de l'imaginant") 45 . Considering the message only as internal relations, enclosed in their own structure, leads to a sterile turning round and round and makes it difficult to find a criterion for aesthetic evaluation. And in case one aims at discovering certain elementary structures, certain generative atoms, what can such an investigation add, if other procedures of analysis are not used too, which should enable the correct application of generative models to style and the interpretation of these transformations? The message — whether it is a common fact such as in any communication, or an "extraordinary" fact with a stylistic-artistic value — is still somebody's product (this is a truth which cannot be denied) and it is directed to somebody (a truth which can be deduced from the behaviour of any writer). The stylistic fact is included in a living situation — the communication —, having determinants which cannot be omitted by being metaphysically separated from the ensemble. "Functional criticism" is perfectly right when it wishes to consider style not as a "psychological document"; but adding that it wants to study it as "a component of a literary work" 4β , it does not argue why this study will have to exclude everything that surrounds it and if this is possible. Such authors who oppose the introduction of psychology into stylistics often contradict themselves flagrantly: as they themselves deal with psychic facts or use a psychological terminology (and it is natural to be so, as they refer to real phenomena, which are produced by the psychic). M. Riffaterre, contradicting L. Spitzer, proposes a "clear separation of the psychological process" from the stimulus (the stylistic fact) 47 , but he asks that the study should not be "focused on the author", but on the receiver 48 , he uses psychological terms such as "perception", "reactions to the text", "stimulus", etc. 49 , he underlines that the relation between the sign and "its psychological effect", should be considered and not the relation of the sign with "its psychological motivation" and even proposes the use of a number of "informants" who should supply reactions to the text 5 1 — that is a psychological method by which psychological facts are obtained. (By this we do not intend to diminish the value of the method suggested by M. Riffaterre, but, on the contrary, to show that one cannot ignore psychological facts, terms and interpretations and that they recur even in structural linguistics or stylistics). 3.3. Psycholinguistics is not supposed to give only a causal explanation (why selection is made in one way or another) — which descriptive stylistics may state that it has no need o f — , but to help to establish the complex connections between message, writer and receiver, that is not only between who selects, who receives and the message, but between all the components of the complex of factors which

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determine in the emitter the choice of language elements and their combining into a specific message, and which decide upon a message being considered or not a fact of style (and this takes place only at the pole reception and only because there is a receiver). The psychological element is not an exterior aspect 52 of the stylistic phenomenon, it is implicit of it: for in stylistics we do not deal with "language" as a phenomenon exterior to the individual, but with its concrete realization, by a certain individual. However — we return here to what was discussed earlier regarding the deficiencies of psychologism —, one should not apply either a personal or a truncated "psychology" 63, or non-scientific psychological knowledge, nor should one advocate a pan-psychologizing of stylistics, nor use psycholinguistic analysis only in order to reveal the emitter (or only the receiver), hence fragmentarily — that is inadequately, while the act of communication is a whole. a) First, it is absolutely necessary to underline that we do not deem it useful to make only a psychological analysis or even an exclusively psycholinguistic one. Style, art, literary works (artistic in general) are structures having various aspects 54 — among which the psycholinguistic one must not be neglected —, and which must be studied with adequate means 55 . The knowledge of the whole structure cannot be achieved by fragmentary analyses — neither psychological, nor linguistic nor of any other kind. But if the psycholinguistic approach should not be the only one adopted, it should neither be rejected once it is considered necessary that a complete and complex analysis should be carried out for the scientific study of style 5e . Second, we repeat the remark made by certain stylists 57 , namely that the relation between psyche and word is more elastic than one generally thinks. We should also like to add: more complex. Indeed, it does not limit itself to establishing a simplistic connection between the psyche of a writer or a trait of his character, etc. — and a fact of style. b) Second, we understand the psycholinguistic analysis to be a comprehensive analysis, which refers to all three components of the triad of communication. Psycholinguistics may help to observe better the specific message by analysing the author's specificity; it can contribute to an adequate and scientific (that is opposed to the impressionism of a dilettante psychologist or linguist) investigation of the personality of the writer in various situations and in continuous connection with the messages achieved. But psycholinguistic analysis must continuously have in view reception, too, both by referring to the writer (who had in view the reception, who anticipated certain effects, the extent to which they have been achieved is what remains now to be established), as well as by direct reference to the receiver. The fact is commonly forgotten that the same message is interpreted — and evaluated — differently, according to epochs or individuals. The evolution of stylistics itself shows that

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reception is modified, depending on how it is guided by the principles of an old "poetics" or on how it is determined by a linguistic current, etc. Stylistic criteria influence profoundly the reception of the facts of style. On the other hand, the possibilities (even the intellectual one, connected with thought) of understanding a fact of style varies according to receivers. We cannot analyse and appreciate a fact of style without taking into consideration the viewpoint adopted by the receiver who is himself the respective critic or stylist. Besides this, the message as a fact of style can be also analyzed from the point of view of the "effects" proper, of what it arouses in the receiver, of whether it succeeds or not in evoking, of what it lacks to make itself intelligible. Lastly, psycholinguistic analysis can contribute to understanding the fact that there are various levels in the reception of a work: the linguistic aspects may be understood or turned to account at various degrees (some remain misunderstood — for a time, or by some persons, or at a certain moment by the same receiver —, others are only superficially understood, etc.). c) This last aspect is in fact essential in psycholinguistics. Indeed, what is interesting for a detailed analysis, which could really discover the essence of style, is not only the general type to which the writer belongs (or for instance his intellectual particularities) but the manner in which he adapts himself to various circumstances. It is not essential to establish a static picture of what the writer is, but to trace the dynamic connections of the message in relation to various situations in which the author finds himself 88 . What could we understand from reducing J. P. Sartre's work — or a certain fact of style — to his "psychological sculpture", that is, to a certain static scheme? For instance, the frequent images which appear in some of his novels (in which the crab 59 motif dominates in facts of style), must be compared not so much with the general personality of the writer as with a certain episode of his life, which influenced for some time his behaviour (as Simone de Beauvoir relates, he asked a doctor to give him an injection with mescaline, in order to have hallucinations). 4. Starting from the consideration of literature as a variety of langage (in which, in our opinion, the function of communication excels even unconfessed) and taking into consideration "the triad of communication" 40 — included in a dynamic process in which subordinate ensembles function which permit the interpretation, the releasing of everything potential and the coexistence of a suggestive expression and of a correct interpretation —, we think that the application in general of psycholinguistic analysis and the dynamic-contextual method favours a better division of the rôle of the three elements β1 , so that it should correspond to reality (that is, it should correspond to the purpose or propensity or wish of the writer-emitter, of the reader-receiver or the critic, and the objective specific of the message — which is here the objective datum, perhaps difficult to be justly known, but for the correct knowledge of which the receiver in general and in any case the critic must strive). At the same time, the structure of the

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message can be understood by having continuous recourse to points of reference. 4.1. Although literature addresses itself to somebody (otherwise writers wouldn't publish their works!) — therefore it has a definite function of communication —, there have also existed tendencies to stress "pure" expressivity and so-called "indifferent" expressivity with regard to the capacity of the receiver for understanding correctly the message. The hyperbolical development of the expressive function has led to the exacerbation of certain tendencies of egocentric aestheticism, becoming in the end sterile, which leads to non-aesthetic hermetism. As a matter of fact, the great writers were those who achieved communication, establishing an organic link between the components of the triad we have spoken about, because they have organized their expression, their message, so that it should offer the receiver the necessary landmarks ®2. On the other hand, the reader also must be able to "participate" interestedly in the communication act, to be able to experience the satisfaction of creation, which is given precisely by the act of interpretation. A disorganized message does not contain "a plurality of meanings" : in fact, it does not contain any; but a message completely outlined, the contents of which are expressed as in a textbook of botany, well defined, having its terms well defined with the help of numerous contextual aids and having such a well organized syntactic form that it becomes a model for grammatical precepts, does not leave place for the pleasure of participating and the modern reader does not accept that his possibility of understanding should be underestimated by the writer. The writer-emitter has greater recourse to context than it was noticed or, should we better say, than it was attempted to be shown in detail. Stylistics should have recourse to more analyses with the help of which one could establish not only the relation (for which it needs a psycholinguistic approach) between the particularities of the emitter and the message, or between the particularities of the receiver in various epoch, situations, etc. and the understanding of the message, but also the manner of structuring or organizing the message — linked again with the three components of communication. That is, analyses concerning the contrast between the constant norms and the variation which the author allows himself within the limits of the context, or concerning the contextual hierarchies, the harmonious distribution between the economical and the redundant procedures — in relation with the possibilities of the receiver to establish by means of context —, the balance between suggestive and finished structure procedures, etc. 4.2. What do we understand by context in the framework of stylistics in contrast with stylists like M. Riffaterre and others? We mean, as in the usual communication, structures of various levels and at the same time having certain degrees of organization. Or, considering the problem from another point of view, we shall refer to the (organized) structure of the work and the connection between components (to which the work also belongs at a certain level) and the ensemble, the general context.

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a) The context which stylistics has to take into account is therefore both the macro and the microcontext (which can go down as far as the elements that are the closest in a fact of style, coming before and after the element analysed). b) As we have already said, we consider it necessary to take into account, in the analyses, the various possible contexts from the widest to the narrowest, with various inclusions which are implied in this conception. Each superior context is determined by the subordinate ones, but also by the superordinate contexts, and, at the same time, it reflects itself in those existing at inferior levels; finally, the whole reflects itself in the microcontext, therefore it determines it. In order to understand the stylistic fact better, it is useful to refer both to the microcontext and to the superior ones (as the common receiver proceeds, too, in interpreting any message). The other aspect on which we have insisted — and which is also relatively particular to our conception — , the contextual organisation, implies also these inclusions. They could explain that relation of "contrast" of an element to the others, which is underlined by M. Riffaterre β4 , but the "organizing" is much more comprehensive and complex than the mere "contrast". Contrast is also only one of the cases of relations which are established between a component and the others, between the component and the context, between the contexts 6 5 ; the effect does not appear only from the contrast, but from all the other modalities of relation, mentioned by us, in Part I, Ch. II, III and in Langage et contexte. The contextual organization on a stylistic plane can be discovered at the end emission (and, of course, in the product of the latter, i. e. the message); but contextual organization determines the manner in which reception is made, therefore it can be identified or in any case observed also through the interpreting (by the receiver) which is related to this organization and which, in fact, depends on it. The reference to context interferes automatically in reception (and it is natural that it should become an operation which is made conscious, intentional and directed by various criteria in the case of the critic-receiver or stylist). But it interferes in emission too; and this phenomenon, which creates the contextual organisation, must be analysed stylistically. c) The third characteristic element in applying the dynamic-contextual method in stylistics is the analysis by observing dynamically the stylistic fact. The context is not a static structure and the various contextual inclusions themselves create a certain dynamics in contextual organization. Stylistic contexts are not immutable, they modify permanently (due to the inclusions and finally due to the psychic modifications of the person who emits the message as well as to those of the person who receives it). Dynamics must be noticed also in the microcontext, in sequential concatenation: the combination of selected elements, collocation, contextual position are aspects which belong to this dynamics, in which modifications in the situation (in the state) of the emitter are also reflected.

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IN CONNECTED FIELDS

4.3. We cannot and we did not intend to propose dogmatic criteria for a stylistic analysis, by this establishing of relations between stylistics and psycholinguistics. But a systematizing of our conclusions is perhaps necessary. a) The stylistic fact is integrated into an act of communication. None of the components of the triad of communication (emitter, receiver, message) must be neglected: the three components are linked together and they mutually determine one another; however, each of them has its own specific, which has to be taken into account in a stylistic analysis. b) Having recourse to means used by psychological analysis or psycholinguistics is not the same as advocating psychologism in stylistics: it does not mean to have a unilateral attitude, of exclusively psychological analysis, nor turning to unilateral aspects of an outdated psychology. Psycholinguistics may be one of the means of penetrating better into the stylistic phenomenon, making use of the data of a modern scientific psychology and observing the links between the message and those who produce it (or receive it). c) The application of a psycholinguistic analysis does not refer only to the emitter — but also to the receiver. The message is determined by the situation of the emitter (affectivity, thought, his general conceptions, momentary mood, etc.) but also by that of the receiver (each receiver may receive differently, reception may vary according to various contextual reasons, etc.). d) The message as a stylistic fact must be considered as a whole, included in its context and analysed in its turn as a context, from a dynamic perspective. e) Speaking about context we showed somewhere else that we have in view various levels: both macro- and microcontexts included into each other. f) Analysing the context in the perspective of stylistics, we should like to stress that we consider it as an organization, created with a certain purpose, intentional, and having a specific objective — intelligibility (which usually adopts the aspect of suggestive intelligibility in literature) — and its own original, sui generis form. Organizing consists in relations between various contexts, between context and component, between various components, which create the characteristic specificity of style in general and the novelty or the aspect of something "unusual" — or of a fact on which the receiver is compelled to dwell — of each stylistic unit. g) Context is not an impersonal phenomenon (if we mean wider contexts, these determine certain persons, which are integrated into the contexts; if we refer to microcontexts, they are the work of one person, etc.); and it is not an "indifferent" phenomenon for the stylistic fact (the appearance of which it determines) either. h) Context should not be considered to be a static structure in stylistics either: there are continuous movements in it (or we should better say that it consists of movement), which have to be observed in the stylistic analysis. Its organization is in itself a dynamics, in which a certain role is played by sequential concatena-

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tion, contextual position (which represents both a spatial and a temporal dimension in the graphic — as well as in the auditory — discoursive chain). i) In stylistics too, contexts may be discovered both at the end emission (where the organized structure of the message has to be analysed), and at the reception end (the interpretation referring to the contextual organization of the message). j) There are various levels of emission (of creating a stylistic fact, of organizing a message), as there are various levels of reception (various possibilities of interpreting the stylistic fact, of understanding it, of appreciating its value, etc.). Literary criticism or stylistics must take into consideration this real fact — revealed by psycholinguistic analysis — in order to be protected against the excesses of dogmatism and to understand the phenomena of style with flexibility.

5. The literary critic is, no doubt, sometimes, a good creator of literature ; in such a case, his message is received as a literary work about another writer. But we must not forget that a scientific literary criticism must help to perceive the link between the procedures and the stylistic effects, or starting from effects it should reach the causes which produced them 66 — that is, precisely, the understanding of the relation between emission and reception —. It should enable the knowledge of the particularities of the message in connection with the author, should define the specific features of this unique organization, should discover a truth having objective existence, independent of the receiver (and for this reason what has to be known is, exactly, what the receiver brings new in comparison to the message as an objective fact). Even if the receiver has in general a creative contribution, his creation can maintain itself within the limits of a contextual adaptation which respects the structure of the message : the elements of this creation must be given by the writer in his work, and they must be looked for by the receiver in the work too, his interpretation consisting of referring the elements to the contextual ensembles — in the wide sense which we have given to these terms.

Notes 1

An aspect which was not given due consideration even in the comprehensive anthology published by S. Saporta (Psycholinguistics. A book of readings, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, [1961]), which includes even studies which do not belong to psycholinguists or are not written in a psycholinguistic spirit. The small number of studies published by the psychologists J. B. Carroll, Ch. Osgood, J. Jenkins in the volume T. A. Sebeok (ed.), Style in language (Cambridge Mass., M.I.T. Press, [1960], pp. 281—292,293—306, 307^329) whether they do not really show what the relations between psychology and stylistics consist in,

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or present very special aspects or consider style in a too wide psychological sense, to be of direct use to linguistics; T. A. Sebeok and V. Zeps's study, in the same volume (pp. 236 foil.), refers to the use of electronic computers in psycholinguistic research work. R. Titone (Lapsicolinguistica oggi, Zürich, PAS-Verlag, 1964, pp. 244—245J presents in fact the analytical psychology of style of A. Zancanella. Other studies are outside psycholinguistics (as for instance S. Ullmann's older article, Psychologie et stylistique, "J. de paychol.", 1953, no. 2, pp. 133—156, or the studies mentioned further — especially infra, note 37). See also our article, Sur les rapports entre la stylistique et la psycholinguistique, "Revue roumaine de linguistique", 1967, 12, no. 4, pp. 309—330. 2

The linguist or the literary critic may be considered also as "external observers" of the communication act. But they are in fact "receivers" as concerns the linguist in very many cases and in most cases the literary critic.

3

We consider that the primary function of human langage with the normal adult is that of communication. The expressive function (with derivatives such as the ludic one), the artistic or poetical one, the persuasive, the cognitive (for fixing knowledge, for marking out the operations of thought, etc.) or the connative one (R. Jakobson, Linguistics and poetics·, in T. A. Sebeok [ed.], Style in language, ed. cit., p. 355) or the metalinguistic function, etc. are, however, subordinated to the central purpose which is communication to somebody, in an intelligible form (see also infra, 2.4 and 4). It certainly depends on the situational objective of langage, for any of the secondary functions to be amplified or even become predominant regarding the others, a fact which justifies the various "attitudes" of science, that is the various disciplines, such as linguistics, stylistics or "poetics", logic, etc.

4

We shall discuss here especially stylistics (preferring to use this term instead of "poetics" which is narrower in our opinion), but many remarks refer to literary criticism too, although the latter includes also aspects of another nature — especially those regarding contents — besides those on which we concentrate our discussion here (we have purposely not considered that we are introducing problems of "contents" in the argument). We do not identify stylistics with criticism (A. Schiaffini — in his preface to: L. Spitzer, Critica stilistica e storia del linguaggio, Bari, Laterza, 1954, p. 3 — certainly makes a much too wide generalization, stating that today the two fields — i.e. "linguistic examination" and "literary examination" — cannot be any longer distinguished from each other).

• Hence, probably, the impression of disorientation and confessed confusion which a wellknown psychologist had experienced (G. Miller, in the commentaries he made at the symposium on "style in language", in T.A. Sebeok [ed.], op. cit., p. 386). • Style of life: J. Jenkins, Commonality of association as an indicator of more general patterns of verbal behavior, in T.A. Sebeok (ed.), op. cit., p. 308. 7 A perspective which we may sooner consider psychological, and which is considered by P. Guiraud (La stylistique, Paris, P.U.F., 1954, pp. 6, 8) — a fact which surprises us — to be "universally accepted". 8 Ch. Bally, Stylistique et linguistique générale, in Le langage et la vie, Zürich, Niehans, 1935, p. 102. • See also E. Riesel's classification, Abriss der deutschen Stilistik, Moskow, Verlag für fremdsprachige Literatur, 1954, p. 10; cf. also V. Murat {Ob osnovnyx problemax stilistiki, Moskva, 1957, Izdatelstvo Moskovskogo Universiteta, in Probleme de stilisticä, Bucureçti, Ed. $tiin(ificä, 1964, pp. 12 foil., 28), on "the functional styles of language". However, for many the concept of stylistics is limited to the literary language (see, for instance, B. Terracini, Analisi stilistica, Milano, Feltrinelli, [1966], p. 51).

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S. Ulimann, op. cit., pp. 135 foil.; and I. Iordan, Stilistica limbii romàne, Bucureçti, Institutul de lingvisticä romanica, 1944, pp. 12 foil. See also R. Wellek, A. Warren, Stil und Stilistiki in Theorie der Literatur, [Berlin], Ullstein, 1963, p. 157; J. Cohen (Structure du langage poétique, Paris, Flammarion, 1966, pp. 14—\Ί) sum up a typical point of view for modern attitude: 'All normative perspectives should be eliminated' ("Eliminer toute perspective normative"), "the abnormality of a poet's langage is what confers him a style".

11

Ch. Bally, Traité de stylistique française, Genève-Paris, Georg-Klincksieck, III r d ed., 1951, vol. I, p. 16. 12 Cf. also L. Spitzer, L'interpretazione linguistica delle opere letterarie, in Critica stilistica e storia del linguaggio, ed. cit., p. 67. 13 A step in this direction was probably made by Ch. Bally himself (Stylistique et linguistique générale, ed. cit., p. 90^ who taking into consideration thought expressed in style, too, mentioned that thought expressed in the latter is almost always affective to a certain extent. 14 As a consequence, we have considered ourselves justified to state that one can speak about a "style of child's speech", which we have identified by means of these various criteria; we think that in any case this term is often more correct than that of "langage of the child" (see Aspecte ale stilului vorbirii copilului, "Studii ?i cercetäri lingvistice", 1957, no. 3, pp. 275—297, and infra, B, Ch. II). 15 See P. Delbouille's definition of the fact of style, as an "element of langage considered from the point of view of its use for literary purposes, in a work" (cf. S. Ulimann, Language and style, Oxford, Blackwell, 1964, p. 126). " M. Riffaterre, Criteria for style analysis, "Word", 1959, 15, no. 1, p. 174. In another place M. Riffaterre speaks about the "anomaly of the verbal sequence", as an element of stylistic structure (Vers la définition linguistique du style, "Word" 1961, 17, no. 3, p. 321). 17

What is "linguistically extraordinary", underlines H. Hatzfeld (Questions disputables de la stylistique, in Communications et rapports du Ier Congrès Int. de Dialectologie Générale (Louvain—Bruxelles, 1960), Louvain, 1964, p. 7), is looked for by both the old and the new stylistics.

18

The idea of style implies "the fact that the various words on a page could have been differently arranged" (by another writer, who would have said the same thing "in another way"); it is the defining quality of style, according to R. Ohmann, Generative grammars and the concept of literary style, "Word", 1964, 20, no. 3, p. 427.

19

L. Spitzer also stressed the "striking element" ("l'élément frappant") which indicates a removal from "zero style" (cf. H. Hatzfeld, op. cit., p. 15). M. Riffaterre ( Criteria. . , ed. cit., p. 159,1 also insists (sometimes, see infra, note 38) on the effect, underlining that a mechanism specific of style is "the control of decoding". P. Guiraud underlines "the langage of singularity" too (Pour une sémiologie de l'expression poétique, in Langue et littérature (Actes du VIIIe Congr.Fédér. Int. Langues et Littér. Modernes), Univ. de Liège, 1961, pp. 186—187).

so

These "details" cannot be included in a definition, as they vary in relation with the artistic credo, the aesthetic dominant in an age or a current, etc.: the appreciation of the propriety of terms or their adequacy, or extreme originality may interfere as a criterion (a certain originality is implicit in the relation between genus proximum of the definition and the specific difference, but it depends on the writer for this originality to take various forms, to manifest itself in various degrees), etc.

21

The ignoring of this fact has been the target of one of the criticisms brought by R. Jakobson regarding some psychologists, who presented communications at the symposium "Style in language" (in T. A. Sebeok, [éd.]), op. cit., p. 330).

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22

See also G. Devoto, Studi di stilistica, Firenze, Le Monnier, 1950, p. 28. The confusion between style and language may lead to erroneous applications of transformational models or to "inadequate analyses" of the work, which separates "the language of the writer" (an improper phrase, we think), from his "style"; see, for this second criticism, M. Riffaterre, Problèmes d'analyse du style littéraire (Francis Jammes : Étude de langue et du style, by Monique Parent), "Romance philology", 1961, 14, no. 3, p. 218.

23

Which R. Jakobson underlines too (Linguistique et poétique, in Essais de linguistique générale, Paris, Ed. de Minuit [1963], pp. 48, 220). We should like to underline that if we refer to language and to speech (parole) selection is applied almost to an equal extent to the paradigmatic and to the syntagmatic axes (a selection of the means of concatenation is also made). But if we refer to style, to a certain achievement of the language, we notice that the putting of elements together raises problems of originality which also influence selection proper, that is "substitutions". From a certain point of view R. Jakobson's criticism (in T. A. Sebeok, [ed.], op cit., p. 330) regarding Ch. Osgood (who maintained that stylistics deals chiefly with "structural selections, rather than lexical") is justified: certainly, lexical selections, from synonymic series, offer very great interest for stylistics; but these selections receive their significance only due to the combinations in which the selected elements are used.

24

55

That is why we suggested, somewhere else (La structuration dynamique des significations, in Mélanges linguistiques, Bucharest, Ed. Acad. R.P.R., 1957, p. 127), the application, with writers, for instance of the experiment of continuous verbal-association (the presenting of a word, which the person is asked to answer by all the words which come to his mind in connection with the given word) in order to study the lexical or semantic field (or stylistic), cf. P. Guiraud, Le champ stylistique du mot "ombre" et sa genèse chez Paul Valéry, "Orbis litterarum", 1962, pp. 12—26). 2,1 See also M.A.K. Halliday (Categories of the theory of grammar, "Word", 1961, 17, no. 3, p. 276), who spoke about "syntagmatic associations of lexical level"; and our work, Langage et contexte, The Hague, Mouton, 1961, p. 161. 27 We should like to refer to : The study of the resolution of homonymy by means of the experiment of prediction, "Revue roumaine des sciences sociales — Psychologie", 1964, no. 2, p. 240; see also infra, Part III, Ch. V. 28 R. Wellek, A. Warren, Stil und Stilistik, cited, 1963, p. 157. 29 S. Ullmann, Language and style, cited, p. 130. 30 R. Barthes, Le degré zéro de l'écriture, Paris, Ed. du Seuil, [1964], p. 75. 31 R. Hall Jr., Introductory linguistics, Philadelphia— New York, Chilton books, [1964], ρ 410. 32 E. Benveniste, Problèmes de linguistique générale, Paris, Gallimard, [1966], p. 29. 33 As M. Ralea vehemently stated once [Despre critica ¡iterará, in Scrieri din t reçut, I, Bucharest, E.S.P.L.A., [1957], p. 129), while defending the critics: "The critic is also a reader. A reader, however, who is used to shout his impressions to everybody loudly." 34 E. Stankiewicz (Poetic and non-poetic language in their interrelation, in Poetics, Warszawa — The Hague, Panstwowe Wydaw. Nauk — Mouton, [1961], p. 14); "poetic language is the message oriented towards itself; the message is an autonomous structure" (however, he makes a concession, requiring that the literary studies "must move outside towards the totality of literature and of culture" — p. 23). 35

From such a unilateral attitude, of identifying stylistics with linguistics, also derive explanations of the present situation in stylistics — dispersing of trends, imprecision of methods, etc. — through a similar situation in linguistics: stylistics is in a state of disorganization, states

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R. Ohmann (Generative grammars and the concept of literary style, cit. p. 425), because this is also the state of linguistics on which it depends; he is right, however, when he states that it is difficult to establish "the use" of a linguistic system if one does not know well what that system consists in (the solution, according to R. Ohmann, is that stylistics should make transformational analyses). 1

Generally, preoccupied with the psychological and socio-cultural genesis of the work (cf. J. Mitterand, La stylistique, in "Le français dans le monde", 1966, juillet-août, pp. 13—28). ' Psychologism is only one of the aspects of genetic stylistics. For instance, the modes of expression are attributed to certain psychological types (H. Morier, La psychologie des styles, Genève, Georg, 1959), or to certain psychic processes considered as fundamental (imagination, affectivity, reason: Dámaso Alonso, Poesia española, Ensayo de métodos y limites estilísticos, Madrid, Gredos, 1950, pp. 511—529); in general, authors tend to establish types of style based on psychological aspects (see also A. Zacanella, Psicologia analitica dello stile, Ferrara, Taddei, 1948, cf. R. Titone, op. cit., pp. 245 foil.). At other times, the link with psychology is made via psychoanalysis: Ch. P. Mauron's "psychocriticism" (Des métaphores obsédantes au mythe personnel. Introduction à la psychocritique, Paris, Corti, 1963) —which the author does not pretend to substitute to "total criticism" — is an exclusive relevance of the unconscious side of the personality of the writer (see pp. 12—13). We should like to point out that the approaching of the problem of style also from the point of view of the connection between the psychic of the author and his style (as it was made for instance by L. Spitzer, Stilistische Studien, München, Hueber, [1961], cf. also S. UUmann, Language and style, cited, pp. 122 foil.) must not be confused with psychologism (a unilateral explanation from a single extremist perspective), nor with a mere attempt of explaining a psychological contents (as stated by H. Heckhausen, Ober psychologische und literarische Analyse poetischer Texte, "Poetica", 1967, Bd. 11, H. 2, p. 255). "The first knowledge of the work" is that "of the reader", "the work starts only at the moment when it arouses the attention of the reader" (Damaso Alonso, op. cit., pp. 31, 34, and: Saggio di metodi e limiti stilistici, Bologna, Il mulino, [1965], pp. 14 foil.); see also M. Riffaterre {Vers la définition linguistique du style, cited); "The psychological study" centered on the author and not on the receiver "will be without stylistic pertinence" (p. 340), and : "Stylistics is the part of linguistics which studies the perception of the message" (p. 339); cf. also Criteria .. cited, p. 159 and p. 157; the reaction is the criterion of the existence of the stimulus; in another work of the same author {Problèmes ..., cited, pp. 226—227) there is a contradiction: the analyses which do not refer to the fact of style, but to reactions elicited by it and to the effect (of a psychological nature), are metastylistic; he advocates here not the studying of effects but a stylistic description at the level of "stimulus" irrespective of the reactions aroused. We shall stop however at the position of ensemble, in order to underline a contradiction in certain directions of the new criticism or of structuralist stylistics on the one hand the study proposes to use methods of structuralist linguistics regarding style, as a system of internal relations (what would suppose a strict reference to the text as such), on the other hand the stress is laid on the fundamental role of the receiver, who may have a creative attitude in connection with the work, perhaps find new meanings out of the existing plurality, etc. (what would suppose even reference to a subtext). R. Barthes, Critique et vérité, Paris, Ed. du Seuil, [1966], p. 79. That relative "ambiguity", which R. Jakobson requests as a "corollary of poetry" (Linguistique et poétique, cited, p. 238J. Some authors are inclined to think that this plurality of meanings

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exceeds the intention or will of the author, and that "a work is always much richer than its creator thinks it is or wants it to be". (M. Ralea, op. cit., p. 128). 11

The "the cit., tend

42

We should like to mention, brie.ly, that contemporary psychology is interested in this process (known in German as Einfühlung), brought again into actuality through scientific investigation.

43

G. Miller, Closing statement (From the viewpoint of psychology), in T.A. Sebeok (ed.), op. cit., p. 393. An opinion expressed in other works too (regarding other problems), after carrying out the mathematical research work already mentioned.

44

G. Bachelard. La terre et les rêveries du repos, Paris, J. Corti, [1948], p. 179.

psychologist is entitled to be interested in "the genesis of the act of stylization", in functioning of the fundamental mechanism of linguistic expressivity" (R. Titone, op. p. 243), but this does not exhaust the stylistic fact, and stylistics has the right to premore from the psycholinguist or even from the psychologist.

" Ibid., p. 9. 46 S. Ullmann, Language and style, cited, p. 126. 47 M. Riffaterre, Criteria.., cited, p. 163, and Problèmes. .., cited, p. 226. 48 M. Riffaterre, Vers la définition.. ., cited, p. 340. This strange distinction appears in E. Buyssens too (Signification et stylistique, in Linguistique historique, Bruxelles — Paris, P.U. Bruxelles— P.U.F., 1965, p. 109): the taking into consideration of the speaker would represent "a psychological viewpoint", and the taking into consideration of the hearer would mean "a sociological viewpoint" (although the author mentions — p. 110 — the "mental work" caused by the text — the "discours" — in the hearer!). 48

M. Riffaterre, Criteria...,

60

M. Riffaterre, Vers la définition cited, p. 325. That is, in fact, the link on the psychological plane is made with the reception and not with the emission.

cited, p. 163.

" M. Riffaterre, Criteria. . . , cited, pp. 162 foil. 52

As L. Rosiello considers it (Struttura, uso e funzioni della lingua, Firenze, Vallechi, 1965, p. 18), without explaining however why, even for linguistics, the relations between the linguistic system and the poetic message represents the "internal motivation" and those with psychology constitute the "external motivation": language is for style at least as "external" as the psyche. In this case we cannot even speak about a difference of "angle of sight" for stating that a phenomenon is an "interior" or an "exterior" in relation to the point of reference: the question is not to confuse a phenomenon (language) with others (speech, style).

H

For instance, to understand psychological analysis exclusively as an attempt of reaching a typology (which does not even reflect the whole psyche of the emitter), [through the old "faculties" (A. Zancanella) or through qualities — which are named subjectively, as in H. Morier's work (the names given by him to types are so suggestive that they may constitute stylistic facts in themselves, but from the viewpoint of scientific psychology they are altogether impressionistic: for instance, the type "caractères délicats" includes styles as "pastel" or "angélique", the type "défectueux" includes styles as "pachyderme", "tarabiscoté", "code civil", e t c . — s e e op. cit., pp. 135 foil., 332 foil.).

14

Cf. also H. Hatzfeld, Questions disputables de la stylistique, cited, p. 9 : a structure has linguistic aspects from the point of view of the material used, psychological from the point of view of motivation, aesthetic from the point of view of the external form of the contents. However, we do not agree with the definition of these aspects, especially with the psychological one, which is vaster than motivation.

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" Ch. Osgood (Some effects of motivation on style of encoding, in T.A. Sebeok, (ed.), op. cit., p. 295) has tried to indicate the existing differences between some of these methods, as the idiosyncratic method — the description of the singular features required by a certain style—, or the nomothetic method — by which the relations are discovered between the indicators of the message and the variables existing with the communicators (unfortunately, however, the author did not develop the last idea, and the application of the method — made with the help of letters from people committing suicide — cannot be convincing for stylisticians). " An "interdisciplinary" analysis noticed also by L. Rosiello (// messaggio poetico come oggetto d'indagine interdisciplinare, a chapter from op. cit., pp. 11—22), without showing however what it consists in and what are the real relations between various disciplines (his study having been made not from the perspective of the object under discussion — style —, but from the particular viewpoint of the author of the article, that is in his capacity of a linguist). 57 M

R. Wellek, A. Warren, op. cit., p. 162. As a methodological idea, Ch. P. Mauron's (op. cit., p. 35 foil.) procedure is interesting, namely the "superposing of the texts" of the same author: unfortunately, this procedure, which includes the dynamic examination of style is applied unilaterally, to "unconscious" phenomena.

*' S. Ullmann (Language and style, cited, p. 188) makes this connection between the respective images and the episode in J. P. Sartre's life, which is revealed by S. de Beauvoir in her memoirs. ,0 We shall not expand here an analysis — which K. Uitti has attempted to present more extensively (Context in language and literature, "Romance philology", 1965, 18, no. 3, pp. 300—315), applying to stylistics and literary criticism the conception expressed in our work Langage et contexte, cited. 61

The three elements are, in their strictest sense, the components of literary communication (writer, work and reader), which have a concrete existence and in which other elements can be dissociated, analytically; we shall refer here to these components and not to the functions of langage or to detailed qualities of each of these components, or to other elements which can be differentiated in the act of communication, etc.

12

J. Tardieu (in Un mot pour un autre, Paris, Gallimard, [1951], pp. 52 foil.) imagines — with satirical intentions — a comedy in which the characters use a very great number of newly coined words or which are given new meanings; however, the contextual organization makes the word intelligible and at the same time makes the symbol acquire a great stylistic effect (for instance — one of the ladies speaks — : "Mes trois plus jeunes tourteaux ont eu la citronnade, l'un après l'autre [...]. J'ai passé des puits à surveiller leur carbure, à leur donner des pinces et des moussons... ", p. 56).

,s

This precision is necessary, as authors have talked about "structure" in stylistics (in the sense of "Gestalt", see also H. Hatzfeld op. cit., p. 16) or about contexts (chiefly as micro-context — see especially M. Riffaterre, Stylistic context, "Word", 1960, 16, no. 2, pp. 207—218), but they were given another meaning, or only certain levels were chosen. M. Riffaterre prefers to refer exclusively to micro-context (op. cit., p. 209J, although he accepts that the macrocontext has an influence as well (ibid.). In another sense, too, references are made to "contextual criticism" (as equivalent to stylistics) :E. Vivas ( Contextualism reconsidered, "J. aesthet. and art. criticism", 1959, 18, pp. 222—240, cf. H. Hatzfeld, J. le Hir, Essai de bibliographie critique de stylistique française et romane (1955—1960), Paris, P.U.F., 1961, p. 28). Although he did not use the term "context", L. Spitzer set forth, as he himself stated it, a structuralist çriticism, asking the question: "does this particular part of the poem fit the ensemble, of

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not?" (L. Spitzer, Sviluppo di un metodo, "Critica neolatina", 1960, 20, voi. 2—3, p. 125); however, as it can be seen, he equated this "ensemble" only with "the poem" in its totality. ω M. Riffaterre, Criteria.., cited, pp. 169 foil. See also Stylistic context, cited, p. 210. ·* Including here the "subtext" too; T. Vianu (Atitudinea stilistica, "Steaua", 1958, 9, no. 6, pp. 75—79) suggested its study by stylistics. ** A wish expressed by G. Antoine too (Stylistique des formes et stylistique des thèmes, Université de Bucharest, Cours d'été et colloques scientifiques, Sinaia, 1966, p. 7).

CHAPTER ΠΙ

Psycholinguistics and the application of the dynamic-contextual method in dialectology

1. Dialectology has numerous points of contact with psycholinguistics and we think it strange that, however, on the one hand within the framework of this branch of linguistics almost nothing has been discussed about its possible and necessary relations with psychology or psycholinguistics, and, on the other hand, presentday psycholinguistics has not shown interest in these relations. 1.1. The points of contact appear even when confronting the objects of the two fields. The object of psycholinguistics is language in its concrete achievements, speech at the moment of communication, the messages; it can study its object by analysing the act of communication, and it discerns it better in the course of oral, dialogued communication. At the same time, psycholinguistics, interested in the individual linguistic system, tries to discern the manner in which the latter develops from the system of language, how modifications take place in the former, owing to influences — permanently possible — from the latter, how the partners confront each other regarding the "codes" which they own. Dialectology, of course, comes to define certain dialects as extraindividual systems; dialect becomes in the end a concept, an abstraction, which — although it is "a variant of a language" \ or a variant associated with a geographical area —, exceeds the particular of each individual owing to its general character 2 . It is a relatively fixed variety or an abstract unity of the variable3. Certainly, the conception which lies at the basis of dialectology has not only methodological implications but it can determine the whole of the research work in this field. A schematic understanding of the application of structuralism in dialectology seems to lead, sometimes, to the distortion of the collecting of data. G. Redard pointed to the difficulty of distinguishing immediately, "in the field", the pertinent contrasts and combinatory variants 4 , so as to achieve generalization at the proper stage of recording facts: most often such a generalization is fallacious. In order to maintain itself at the level of an objective scientific study, dialectology should establish first a correct contact with individual facts of speech (parole) and record them during the enquiry as such, in the forms in which they were per-

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ceived, without making any arbitrary selections. Later, however, it is necessary to reach certain generalizations which should enable the outlining of the "dialect" ; but in order to achieve correctly this step, it is exceptionally important how the first stage of direct contact with facts, is carried out. In our opinion, it is wrong (being contrary to the norms of scientific generalization, which is not allowed to be achieved starting from one or a few "cases" or particular facts) to make inferences regarding a certain dialect on the basis of the data obtained by investigations carried out regarding a single speaker. Generalization is not founded even in the case of establishing by self-analysis one's own dialectal system, transferred into metalanguage by the linguist who is making the respective study — although this procedure may invoke the method used by many linguists who work in the field of generative or transformational grammars. But the necessity of reaching generalization does not exclude that of an initial contact with the particular. (The problem is only that of selecting the "number of cases" having statistic valability, which could legitimate the leap to generalization). In order to reach the knowledge of a dialect, in order to establish the features of the system, perhaps more than in any other branch of linguistics (with the exception of stylistics) it is necessary to come into contact with at least a few individual systems, with facts of speech, with oral facts, with the emitter whose individual dialectal system or knowledge of the general system must be studied in vivo. We are in the stream of psycholinguistics — and, perhaps, even more, in the stream of psychology, which imposes some elementary conditions for research work of this nature. The dialectologist must collect his facts from direct contact with the informant, who is used both as an emitter and a receiver (the manner how he himself receives the messages in dialect or in the literary language, etc.). Various problems are raised in connection with eliciting real speech (not distorted by the presence of the inquirer or by other factors) in dialect, with "catching" the really used and frequent forms, or the forgotten ones, those less frequent, less available, less "at hand" ("disponibles") for the respective informant (and to establish that they have this value). Problems arise regarding the penetration into the inner speech and the individual linguistic storage of the informant — where the various systems which the latter masters and uses (or just "knows"?) confront each other — and the establishing how one of these systems may sometimes change itself into meta-language, as well as problems regarding the tracing and establishing how the message modifies itself, how the account of the informant of his own speech modifies itself too, depending on a change of situation. The dialectologist must notice the variables and "control" the situation, must isolate only the dependent variable — the fact submitted to observation, still unknown —, separating it from the factor ambiance, as a proper psychologist who arranges the compulsory conditions of the experiment. Besides its object, dialectology comes consequently close to psycholinguistics also through

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the methods which it has to use, as well as through many problems which it studies or which it should study. 1.2. Dialectology will certainly never merge into psycholinguistics, although it deals with speech (parole) : it will have to come, in fact, to establish structures "deprived of internal variability" 4 , relatively uniform 6 , and proceeds by collecting messages, in order to collect "thesauri", collections, inventories according to various territories, with a view to establishing their distribution. Dialectology will only tangentially deal with what the psycholinguist is directly interested in, in this field of research (the modifications of the message due to the relation of communication, the phenomena of interference of the systems in the consciousness of the speakers, the interpretation which the latter give to facts of language, etc.). There are, however, aspects of the dialectological theory and of the research in this field which have direct psycholinguistic implications — and which have to be taken into account —, or to which psycholinguistics may offer useful solutions. 2. The collecting of facts is in general necessary in linguistics, but in dialectology it is the condition for the existence of the respective field. Research work "in the field" e , the direct contact with the dialect, its studying as a system "in function", the continuous sounding of its spatial dynamics and in the consciousness of the speakers too — essential aspects in dialectological research — make the contact with the "bearers" of the dialect be necessary: the speaker-informants (or one should study more seriously this hypostasis too — the hearer-informants). 2.1. However, in general, the methodology of dialectology 7 has adopted a line which has become traditional and the fundamental principle of which is the "questionnaire" (around which most of the discussions are carried out, aiming at improving it as such) 8 , applied in the conditions allowed by the use of a "list of questions", that is, usually, outside the real situations, of spontaneous communication, elicited or determined by certain circumstances 9 . If we refer even only to this aspect, the psycholinguistic approach can serve to improve the usual method of collecting facts, that is, in applying the "questionnaire". Even in the cases when modern dialectology tries to eliminate the inconveniences resulting from the use of the questionnaires, by collecting "texts" (drawing up "Phonogramic archives" or collections of dialectal texts — meant to complete the data, "especially as regards morphology, syntax, lexicon, word order and, in general the spoken style") 10 , certain methodological aspects still remain which, on the one hand, have not yet received a satisfactory solution (the modality itself of placing the informant in an optimal situation of communication), and on the other hand they will always have to presuppose the taking into consideration of psycholinguistic principles. The means of establishing an efficient contact with the informant, the attitude of the inquirer towards the former, the organizing of the conditions of recording (placing the informant in a natural condition, in which he should not feel embar-

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rassed by the presence of some people who listen to him "critically", or taking into consideration his "mood", etc.) are methodological aspects in which the linguist-dialectologist — whether he is making an inquiry for "Atlases", or he is recording "texts", etc. — cannot ignore the contact with psycholinguistics. An essential aspect is the modality of the contact with the informant, the way in which communication with him is better achieved and the inquirer receives better the information. "Perhaps this moral factor, which still conditions to a great extent spontaneity and authenticity of results, has not been enough taken into consideration up to now". 1 1 The problem of the relation between the dialectologist — inquirer and the informant is firstly of a psychological and psycholinguistic nature; of a similar nature is also the technical procedure by which this contact is achieved: that is by free discussion — or guided by a number of items, according to a fixed scheme, or by the eliciting a monologue (in which either the obtaining of some isolated form is forced or, on the contrary, its contextual development is left free) — or by provoking certain answers as elements of a dialogue with the inquirer?; by means of a dialogue with the latter (according to the "classical" method) or by a dialogue between the members of the respective linguistic community?; by a dialogue in artificial conditions — or by a dialogue in natural conditions of activity, of labour, etc. ? Each of these questions should mean one of the procedures of dialectological research without the excluding of the others, as each of them can reveal certain aspects of the dynamics of the modification of messages due to the situation, which are necessary to the ensemble of the dialectological theory and the thesauri which are created through investigations. The problem cannot be solved only by establishing a certain type of question12, or by the answer given to the question whether it is more useful when using the questionnaires, that abstract questions should be used or that there should be shown images of the objects to be named 13 . The analysis — sometimes critical — of various procedures (for instance, of the latter) omit the underlining or thorough discussion of the fundamental negative aspect: the provocation of certain answers in artificial situations, within a monologue, in a static attitude of the speaker and in the presence of some objects. The real langage is only rarely a monologued answer to concrete visual stimuli: the langage is usually achieved under the form of answers in a dialogue, as responses to the verbal stimuli that are the utterances of the interlocutors, in the living act of communication and very often during some group activity. 2.2. An important psycholinguistic aspect which cannot be neglected consists in the modifying of the message depending on the situation. And the fact that should not be neglected the dialectologist-inquirer obtains, precisely, messages, facts of speech, from a subject placed in certain situations. The variation of answers depending on the situation was noticed by some dialectologists (however without drawing sufficient theoretical and methodological conclu-

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sions), as for instance A. Horning, who underlined that the subject never repeats a word identically 14 . During research concerning the relation between communication and work, we have noticed this fact in numerous situations. For instance, recording on a tape recorder a spontaneous exclamatory indication of the foreman who was guiding the tractor-driver in the maize fields: 'Make the gauge smaller I' (Rom. «Micsoreazä ecartamentu[l]!»), I could not obtain the same intonation or word order, when I asked for the message to be repeated 16 . Facts are certainly distorted if the situation in which they are collected is artificial: if only an unnatural and embarrassed dialogue is carried out with the inquirer, if a term is obtained in a forced manner (by the questionnaire which does not enable to check also the frequency of a term in the speech of the respective person, or its functional value and the situations in which it can be used, etc.), if (in the case of questionnaires with "pictures" — see PLIM) the informant cannot even easily decode perceptually the image of the object which he is supposed to name, etc. Do the facts elicited through such procedures, really correspond to the true dialectal speech, and is it possible to finally draw up a correct scheme of the dialectal systems, with its functional degrees well outlined hierarchically? No doubt that the statistics establishing the occurrence of the same forms with several speakers may offer an argument in supporting a certain scheme drawn up on the bases of these procedures. But what is the value of this statistics, deprived of nuances, of real functional values, of exact indications concerning the signification which each form has in the present dynamics or in the dynamics of various situations? Even more than in the past, one feels today in dialectology the necessity of abandoning the method of mere inventories (especially when based on procedures of doubtful value), for a more thorough investigation of such problems as the interpenetrations and the role of various systems in the consciousness of the speakers, the dynamics of the osmosis between dialectal forms and those of literary language in informants of various ages, in various situations, the value of a dialectal form or of a form adopted from the literary language, etc. The psycholinguistic perspective on the problems of dialectology does not only mean the adopting of a special point of view in approaching them, which should enable to know certain sides of a deeper knowledge of them from another point of view too. In fact, in this case, psycholinguistics indicates an absolutely necessary way, a manner of proceeding in dialectological research, which cannot be ignored without distorting the facts under study. Since the dialectologist relys in his research work on the data collected directly from informants, since he comes into touch with the living phenomenon of speech and in fact with all the psychic processes which occur at the moment when he collects "the material" belonging to the dialectal speech (or the subjective appreciation — of the speaker — regarding the dialect), all consequences must be borne. That is, in carrying out research work he must take into account psychological data, he must take the same precautions

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as the psychologist when he studies psychic processes, he must, namely, consider the whole situation, which may determine changes in the message: all this and especially the last lead to psycholinguistics. Speech is certainly modified by the situation into which "the informant is placed", by the dialectologist who "applies" a questionnaire being more or less a stranger in the place, more or less "detached" from the theme of the communication as such ("the questions" are in fact a standard, an objective pattern extrinsic to the line of usual conversation), more or less skilful in knowing how to approach a partner, understand him, how to know him in the various determinations that could influence what he says. An essential change in the common methodology would be, if not the replacing of the "questionning" (which preserves its necessity as it offers a rapid, standardized means, comfortable owing to its fixity and capable of easily furnishing data which can be tabled in the usual inventories), at least the completion and the corroboration of its results with those obtained by procedures closer to normal communication. The recording of the dialect spoken in trivial situations in the life of the respective community, the recording of the terminology and forms which appear in the framework of a family dialogue, of the communication imposed by the activity concerned in real, everyday, common work 1 6 could contribute to collecting novel material or to a deeper knowledge of certain aspects. In the course of spontaneous speech one can notice ' more easily and more correctly the themes on which dialectological research must insist and which sometimes are either lacking 17 from the too general questionnaire (when it refers to a certain locality) or, on the contrary, they hold a too big space of it (certain questions — which mean loss of time — are not necessary for the respective locality). Moreover: this procedure becomes absolutely necessary as a corrective for certain artificial procedures, which risk distorting the data. It is impossible to create artificially the profound motivations which appear in living situations and which determine to a certain extent the messages and the selecting of certain terms and certain forms, or which direct the shifting of the various systems coexisting in the speaker's or the hearer's consciousness (the last being determined, in his turn, by other motives than when he appears in the former hypostasis). A dialectological research cannot be complete if it does not penetrate into the intimacy of this dynamics: but it is impossible to achieve this by means of the usual questionnaire and even by means of the inquirer's conversation with various informants. The study of spontaneous dialectal speech, in its natural contexts is indispensable; and in order to achieve it, the dialectologist must proceed cautiously, such as the psychologist who avoids troubling the natural development of the process pursued. On the one hand, a questionnaire could be applied, based on a radical principle different from the one usually used: not in artificial conditions (which preserve

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this feature, however many modifications one could bring to them), but in natural situations, in the course of real activities. The "Wörter und Sachen" method could be replaced by the method of "words and things during action" (understanding by "words" not only "terminology", but the whole discoursive ensemble — even if it is elliptical, represented by monorems, completed by gestures, etc. — which appears in the course of the respective activity). This would bring another corrective to the usual methodology: namely, a more complete study of the dialect, in all the complexity of its grammatical structure (difficult to discover by means of the usual questionnaires or even by recording "texts" that usually contain a narration made by the informant). On the other hand, complete recordings, within the dynamics of activity (or of everyday life), could be the corollary we mentioned before as absolutely indispensable in dialectological research work. The recording during work, for instance, of the whole contextual ensemble (not only the phraseological verbal context 18 but also intonation, gestures, behaviour, situation, etc., that are seldom included in dialectological notations) 19 may lead to the real knowledge of dialectal facts, of their function, their value, the manner in which they are selected, the situations which determine a form or another, the mutual influences between speakers, of the selecting within the diasystem and the osmosis between various systems (the dialectal — having various levels —, that of the literary language, maybe another local dialect, slang, etc.). In general, the wider understanding of the procedure of the dialogue could reveal interesting aspects. There is a fundamental psycholinguistic principle, which establishes the variation of the message depending on the situation of the partners. The linguistic system — explicit in speech, or which has remained implicit in the inner speech of the receiver — appears crystallized in various hypostases, depending on the situation when the speaker narrates a fact within a monologue or when he gives an answer, in a dialogue with a certain person or another, or according to how a person is a receiver or an emitter, or if he is in a group which discusses something — in which there can be interlocutors with varied linguistic systems — or carries a dialogue with a single partner, etc. Interesting results, not only for psycholinguistics but for dialectology itself could be furnished by the method of comparing the dialogue between partners belonging to the same dialectal communities, with that between an informant who commonly speaks a dialect and the inquirer who carries the discussion in the literary language or a person speaking a dialect slightly different (from another village for instance), or the comparison of the dialogue between people belonging to the same generation and that between people of different generations. 3. The dynamic-contextual method used for recording facts of language in their contextual ensemble or during activity, may serve for the interpretation of facts later too.

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Without having recourse to the various data or explanations which psycholinguistics can offer, or to certain methodological principles proposed by it, dialectology may become a mere operation of cataloguing, which risks becoming fallacious in itself, hiding the forms really utilized, etc. 3.1. In interpreting the collected facts, as well as in looking for the problems or approaching them, dialectology cannot exclude the connection between the consciousness of the speakers (or the receivers) and messages, or between the spontaneous messages, collected during communication and metalanguage. From this arises the possibility of studying various interesting problems: that of comparing the individual or the collective system, in a locality with the one used in another locality; that of studying the degree of consciousness concerning the coexistence of the regional system with that of the common language and the reflection of that coexistence in metalanguage·, or the influence of the situation of the speaker on selecting certain forms from one system or another; the evaluation of the forms heard in another locality or among the members of an older generation in the same locality; or "the forgetting" of certain terms or regional forms (in the case of moving to other regions or of integration into another environment of work or in an activity which implies the use of the literary language, etc.) or, on the contrary, their preservation even in cases of "transplanting" 20 ; or of studying the reasons of various changes, in the same locality, regarding the relation between the regional system and that of the common language (influence of age, of the particular manner in which knowledge is acquired in school by various individuals, etc.). A fundamental problem, in which psycholinguistic interpretation becomes implicit in dialectology, is that of the relation between what the speaker expresses and what he knows that he or other people express. Therefore what is important is both the situation in which the recording is carried out (and which must enable the natural eliciting of spontaneous speech and observations in metalanguage, as well as the possibility of differentiating between metalanguage and spontaneous speech), and the choice of the informant from this point of view. Some dialectologists (as for instance A. Dauzat and J. Séguy) expressed the opinion that the best informant could be the schoolmaster or the parson who know the dialect of the respective locality 21 . Maybe that indeed with such informants the knowledge of the dialect is sometimes at a higher degree of awareness, they may express themselves more easily in metalanguage and at the same time it is possible that they should have a wider lexical field, a richer vocabulary available. If such an informant may be considered "the most precise" ("le plus net") — as the authors characterize him — it is however doubtful whether he is the "most authentic too". Probably in spontaneous speech it is not he who will be "the most authentic", but, on the contrary, many of those who are inhibited (sometimes without looking it) in front of the questionnaire. Certainly the problem remains difficult: the relation between expressing oneself in dialect and

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the possibility of relating in metalanguage (probably, in its turn a metadialect) raises not only difficulties of conscious observation of one's proper speech and the speech of the others, but also difficulties concerning the capacity of mastering metalanguage. A corollary of this aspect is also the conception about language, speech, dialect (which sometimes is reflected in crystallized expressions), in the respective community — an aspect which may be deepened only with methods of psycholinguistic interpretation (without excluding the ethnological one — see for instance G. Calame-Griaule, supra, Part II A, Ch. I, note 10 —, or the sociological too). 3.2. The psycholinguistic approach may also suggest the studying of some problems which have formed only slightly the object of preoccupations in dialectology, connected with the dynamic individual evolution of the dialect (taking into consideration, however, the typical individual development in a community). In this way one would come to include the study of child language development in dialectological research: the stages of dialect and common language learning, the relation existing with children between motivation and the learning of the common language, the comparative development of the phonological systems in children who live in an environment having regional particularities and in those who learn from the beginning the system of literary language, etc. Within this ontogenetic dialectology could be included other research regarding the dynamics of the dialect according to age as well — not in the sense of mere inventories of the forms with various generations, but of discovering the conditions which determine this dynamics, the proportion and value of various forms with preschool children, school children, the youth (before and after completing military service, etc.), adults (who have various occupations, functions, who move or not to other places, etc. — that is, who are confronted with various situations, which change their living experience) and with old people (sedentary or not, living in isolation or together with the representatives of other generations, etc.). 3.3. Problems somehow similar (besides some others specific or in any case different) may be studied in connection with bilingualism as well (under the aspect of coexistence or interference of certain systems, and not of learning them, with which we shall deal somewhere else)22. From this point of view, an interesting psycholinguistic aspect is that of interferences — a psycholinguistic phenomenon — between the two parallel systems with the same speaker (whence, among others, phenomena of contamination 23 , or of integration in the system which proves to be stronger) 24 . In general, one of the most interesting problems in the psycholinguistic study of bilingualism is not — as W. Mackey also notices 25 — how well the respective person knows the two languages, but how he uses the two systems (therefore the importance of each system in the subject, the crossings between them, the level of awareness in mastering certain rules, or the degree of automatization of certain established patterns, etc.).

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The study of bilingualism with children proves the importance of the role played by equal importance of the two systems or by the higher degree of importance of one of them in the consciousness of the subjects. At a stage where none of these systems is definitely achieved, mutual contamination may easily take place 26 . J. Sadlo 27 relates, for instance, on the basis of a vast study, the case of the Polish children in France, whose linguistic system was influenced by that of French 28 . When the respective languages are spoken at the same time, in similar circumstances and by people of identical affective importance, certain authors maintain that the languages do not contaminate each other any longer, and are learned equally, in parallel, without preferences, or modifications. This is the case of J. Ronjat's child, for instance, whose mother used to speak to him in German and the father in French 29 , or the similar case of a Romanian child whose mother had spoken to him German, while the other people spoke to him Romanian (obviously, the greater affective importance of the mother was counteracted by the intervention of several people among whom the father, with whom the child was in contact less frequently than with his mother). In the latter case, it is interesting to point to the fact that surrounded by various people, the child always addressed his mother in German, while he spoke Romanian to the other people, without any foreign "accent" in either language. 3.4. Interesting problems, with similar implications, are also raised by the studying of argot; among others, it appears interesting to investigate on stratification at various levels in the consciousness of the speaker, of the various fragments pertaining to the argotic system and of those of the common language; or to investigate the situations which motivate the use of certain argotic terms, or changes in stratification, or the apparent obnubilation of certain forms, etc. There are also specific aspects, as that of the psychological causes of the use of argotic terms and at the same time of the mechanism by which they are created — aspects in which psycholinguistic perspective is also absolutely necessary. The connection between ethnography, or ethnology, or anthropology on the one hand and linguistics on the other, and its psycholinguistic implications, has been discussed earlier {supra, Ch. I). 4.1. The remarks presented above do not arise from the intention of criticizing all the methods and current procedures used in dialectology. At most, certain aspects have been underlined in order to emphasize certain gaps and especially in order to prepare the necessary ground to discuss the theme of relations between dialectology and psycholinguistics. It is essential, however, that any procedure should be correctly applied, well founded (or justified), and having the feeling that it is not the only one justified. 4.2. Today it is obviously difficult to exclude its interdisciplinary implications from any field of science. But it has not yet penetrated enough into the methodological skills of research workers in the various sciences, surpassing the declarative

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stage of recognizing the mentioned principle, and starting to apply it in research work and chiefly to identify precisely the place where interdisciplinary points occur and where more complex points of view which these approaches imply, can and must be adopted. The connexion with geography, sociology, history has been noticed for a long time in dialectology. However, the contact with psychology and psycholinguistics has been much less noticed, and even less has the necessity of this contact been noticed. Any dialectologist who carries out "correctly" his inquiry starts first with his initiation in the geography and history of the region, in the demographic and sociological particularities of the community. Sometimes the dialectologist — having to operate with a special terminology — becomes also a specialist in ornithology, botany or in the technique of processing hemp, etc. But he considers it superfluous to start a general initiation in psychology (in the problems of affects, motivation, thought, mechanism of langage) and even in psycholinguistics before any research work in dialectology is carried out. However, dialectological research work is the linguistic field which comes closest, as we have already mentioned, to research in psychology. The remarks we have made, concerning some contacts in the object, methodology, or problems do not aim at psychologizing dialectal research work, that is to impose psychology and only psychology on any aspect of dialectology: it would be an attitude just as wrong as that of completely ignoring its natural relations with psycholinguistics or refusing to accept the "normal" fact that in any research where man is involved and we work with man, there must exist, and therefore there must be taken into consideration, psychic phenomena. Wishing to exclude this is as if someone wished to drive a car ignoring its engine.

Notes 1

The statement that London, Univ. of if we consider its about "language"

2

Cf. also R. Robins, General linguistics. An introductory survey, [London], Longmans, [1964, IV t b ed. 1967], pp. 51, 57. Dialect is not to be confused with idiolect. Therefore, we consider as extremist L. Gauchat's viewpoint that dialectology would have "pour but essentiel, de découvrir la part de l'individu dans l'évolution du langage" (cf. W. Doroszewski, Le structuralisme linguistique et les études de géographie dialectale, in Reports for the VIIIth Int. Congr. Ling. [Oslo, 1957], vol. II, Oslo, Oslo Univ. Press, 1957, p. 245). The general and final objective of dialectology must not be confused with the stages through which research W o r k has to pass and in which the individual, certainly, plays a fundamental rolç,

dialect is confused with language (Z. Harris, Structural linguistics, ChicagoChicago Press, [1951], p. 9) is, however, forced; it can be justified only character of "generality" and of relative abstractedness, or if we speak in the sense of "code" in general.

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Lastly, one can also reach the desideration of structural dialectology, that of taking into consideration "the structural « units» and not the « variants»" (L. Heilmann, Per una dialettologia strutturale, in Communications et rapports du I-er Congrès Int. de Dialectologie Générale (Louvain—Bruxelles, I960), Louvain, 1964, p. 103.

4

G. Redard. Le renouvellement des méthodes en linguistique géographique, in Proceedings of the 9'" Int. Congr. Ling. (Cambridge, Mass. 1952), [The Hague], Mouton, 1964, p. 225; see also L. Heilmann, I rapporti tra strutturalismo e geografia linguistica, in Gli atlanti linguistici: problemi e risultati (Roma, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1967 [Bozze di stampa, PP. 6-7]). * Cf. J. Chloupek, Aspects of the dialect and its structure. "Travaux linguistique de Prague" (Les problèmes du centre et de la périphérie de système de la langue), Praha, Academia, 1966, p. 285.

• Cf. also S. Sapon, Contribución metodologica a la encuesta dialectal, "Buletin de filología", 1961, 20, no. 1—2 [Proceedings of the IX t h Int. Congr. of Romance Ling., Lisbon, 1959], p. 69, "la encuesta «en el terreno» es una fuente fundamental de nuestros actuales infermes lingüísticos". 7 Concerning which, in general — although some criticism concerning details has been exposed, more or less "in petto" —, there have been few discussions referring to principles (for example, this problem did not form the object of any communication of the section Dialectology and geographical linguistics, in the Actes du X' Congrès Internat, de Ling, et Philol. Romanes (Strasbourg, \962), vol. III, Paris, Klincksieck, 1965). 8

For instance: P. Gardette, Le questionnaire des atlas linguistiques régionaux de France (vers un nouveau questionnaire lexicologique), "Bull. Fac. Lettres Strasbourg" [Colloque dedialectol. romane], 1957, 35, no. 5, pp. 253—260; E. Schüle, Les enquêtes du Glossaire des patois de la Suisse romande, ibid., pp. 324 foil. Even in works in which the methodological problem is discussed more extensively and it receives interesting solutions (as A. Dauzat, J. Ségui, L'Atlas linguistique de la Gascogne, "Le français moderne", 1951, 19, no. 4, pp. 241—263), the authors do not go beyond the "method of the questionnaire".

® Besides other inconveniences as, for instance, the tiredness of the informant subjected to these questionnaires (cf. also E. Companys, À propos des questionnaires dialectologiques, in Communications et rapports du I-er Congrès Int. de Dialectologie Générale, cited, p. 43). 10

Texte dialectale din Oltenia (ed. Β. Cazacu), Bucureçti, Ed. Acad. R.S.R., 1967, p. XVIII. Various useful works raise the problem of the method necessary in recordings achieved for these "archives" : S. Pop (ed.), Instituts de phonétique et Archives phonographiques, VII, Louvain, Commission d'enquête ling., 1956; R. Brunner, Unsere Heimatsprache auf Grammophon. Ein Besuch im Phonogrammarchiv der Universität Zürich, Zürich, 1958; E. Zwirner, Das Lautdenkmal und die Lautbibliothek, "Muttersprache", 1959, pp. 326—331; A. Badia-Margarit, "La Voz de la Tierra", Langues et parlers d'Espagne en disques. Plan et méthodes, in Actas [IX Congr. Int. Ling. Romanica], Lisboa, 1961, pp. 43—49; H. J. Schädlich, R. Grosse, Tonbandaufnahme der deutschen Mundarten in der deutschen Demokratischen Republik, "Biul. fonograficzny" (Poznan), V, 1962, pp. 89 foli., etc. G. Redard (op. cit., p. 254) stressed the necessity that, in applying Gilliéron's principle — 'the direct inquiry' —, the questionnaire should be surpassed by recording 'spontaneous' materials, in order to 'actualize the latent vocabulary of the subject and record it in its free expression': but how, in what situations, etc. ? In general, the discussions about methods are limited chiefly to technical aspects or to the contents of "texts", while the psychic implications of such recordings are not enough stressed. In E. Zwirner's important statement (Le magnétophone au service de la recherche linguisti-

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que, in Tendances nouvelles en matière de recherche linguistique, L'éducation en Europe, Strasbourg, [Conseil de l'Europe], 1964, pp. 7—52), for instance, the author discusses problems of method and states precisely that linguistics should study individual variations; however, although the role of the situation is underlined, the psychic situation is not taken into consideration (for instance — p. 32 —, if the informants " t h i n k " of what they say or merely repeat a certain text). If sometimes attention is drawn to certain aspects empirically noticed, the solutions proposed are not always justified from the point of view of scientific psychology or psycholinguistics: for instance, L. Zabrocki (Buts et tâches de l'enregistrement de la parole humaine, "Biul. fonograficzny" (Poznan), III, 1960, pp. 3—14J reveals a number of factors which can disturb the recording —• and which are of psychological nature —, but he proposes, among others, to use "tired persons", because in such cases the most automatized system appears (p. 6). He omits to reveal however, the facticious and even dangerous character of recordings made in such circumstances. 11

A. Dauzat, J. Séguy, op. cit., p. 244.

12

The establishing of "objective standards" for collecting materials, for instance (proposed at the "Annual meetings of the Modern Language Association" — New York City, 1954 — cf. P. Läzärescu, Remarques sur l'emploi du P.L.I.M. dans les enquêtes dialectales, "Revue roumaine de linguistique", 1966, 11, no. 1, p. 85), does not solve alone the problem as such — formulated on the same occasion —, of the necessity of "developing an objective technique for collecting d a t a " (cf. ibid., p. 86).

13

For instance, S. Sapon, A pictorial linguistic interview manual, Columbus (Ohio), Ohio State University, 1957. See the application and discussion of this procedure b y P. Läzärescu, op. cit.

14

Cf. R. Gsell, Les enquêtes de dialectologie Strasbourg", cited, p. 307.

romane d'Adolphe

Horning,

"Bull. Fac. Lettres

18

Comunicarea

le

For the theoretical principles as well as for the method used and the results obtained in this respect, we should like to refer t o : Comunicarea in procesul muncii, cited, pp. 285 foil.; La méthodologie psycholinguistique et quelquesunes de ses applications, "Revue roumaine de linguistique", 1965, no. 1—3, pp. 309—316, and "Linguistics", 1966, no. 24, pp. 51 foil., 61 foil., 64. Let us also add here the title of a more recent study of ours in the field, in which sociolinguistic applications are especially developed: Dynamic-contextual method in Sociolinguistics, "The 7 t h Int. Congr. of Sociology", Varna 1970; also in "Sociological abstracts" 1970, devoted to the Congress; and in "Fonetica ji dialectologie", 1971, VII, pp. 233—244.

in procesul muncii, Bucureçti, Ed. Stiinjificä, 1964, p. 205; cf. also p. 23.

" Cf. also A. Dauzat, J. Ségui, op. cit., p. 250. 18 What has sometimes been achieved in the form of taking down sentences: E. Schüle (op. cit., p. 327J refers to them as "la partie la plus originale et la plus vivante du glossaire". " Even the recording of "phonogramic archives" (made b y Romanian teams as well as Austrian, German, etc.) do not usually record gestures, behaviour '(even if one intends, for instance, to note "situations" — Sprechsituation — : J. Schädlich, R. Grosse, Die Tonbandaufnahme der deutschen Mundarten . . , cited [Protocol of recordings], etc., and in a n y case the situation in which they are drawn up is still artificial; for instance, there are recorded narrations or "the description of some work activities and tools" [point 4], in any building non-representative for the activity in question. 20

S. Puçcariu ( Considérations sur le système phonétique et phonologique de la langue roumaine, in Études de linguistique roumaine, Cluj-Bucureçti, Monit. Ofic. — Impr. Nationals, 1957,

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21 22

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p. 235J related, f o r instance, the case of school-children coming to Cluj from the countryside, who pronounced t h e words they had newly learned in the town — such as geantä fdzanta] " b a g " — after t h e model of the system of their dialect: jeantâ t'5êanta], after jer ['5er] (rom. litt, ger ['dzer] " f r o s t " . A. Dauzat, J. Séguy, op. cit., p. 249. If some aspects of bilingualism are common with those studied by dialectology, other aspects imply relations with psycholinguistics in the field of language learning t o o (among others, in connection with the optimum age at which a child can be simultaneously put into contact with the two languages; in this respect, see also Part II B, Ch. V).

We have discussed this aspect more extensively in: Observafii ji cercetäri experimentóle cu privire la contaminan, "Studii çi cercetäri lingvistice", 1956, no. 3—4, pp. 207—233. 24 For instance, the Romanians who live in certain places in the United States often " R o manian"-ize English words: butcherie (Rom. mäcelärie + Engl, butcher's), grocerie (Rom. bacante + Engl, grocer's), etc., cf. H . Mencken, The American language, New York, Knopf, I I I r d ed., 1943, p . 654. 25 W. Mackey, The measurement of bilingual behaviour, "Canad. psychol.", 1966, 7, n o . 2, p. 76. 2β For instance, a little Italian girl, two and a half years of age, was speaking Italian with a Romanian "accent" whenever she lived a longer period of time, a few weeks, but the period of time had to be lengthened as the little girl was growing with a family where they spoke only R o m a n i a n ; t h e reverse phenomenon took place when she returned t o the Italian environment. 27 J. Sadlo, Influences phonétiques françaises sur le langage des enfants polonais en France, Paris, Picart, 1935, p. 141. 28 Cf. also, the case of the children studied by W . Leopold (Ein Kind lernt zwei Sprachen, "Sprachforum", 1957, H . 3—4, pp. 249 foil., Patterning in children's language learning, "Language learning", 1953—1954, 6, pp. 12 foil., Speech development of a bilingual child, Evanston, North-Eastern Univ. Press, 1949, p p . 174 foil., 183, 184) in which either one language (German) or the other one (English) was predominant. 2 ' J. Ronjat, Le dévelopement du langage observé chez un enfant bilingue, Paris, Champion, 1913.

CHAPTER IV

Work and communication. A few problems of psycholinguistics and applied linguistics

1. A field about which almost nothing is discussed in psycholinguistics — and in applied linguistics as well — is the one regarding relations between language and man's fundamental activity: work. The field as such is very wide and may offer an area for research not only for psycholinguistics, for applied linguistics, for psychology, but also sociology, ethnology, cybernetics, etc. On the other hand, this field refers to the complex relations between work and communication when the latter is understood not only as the so-called "language of work" or as "technical languages" or as "speciality languages", or what has been long called "professional vocabularies". The problem is more comprehensive: it also includes the particularities of the message, determined by work, of syntactic-morphological or phonic nature (for transmitting messages in a noisy environment, at a distance, etc.), the use of various systems of signs, the various modalities for circulating messages ("communication networks"), all that is modified or modifiable in messages because of their use during and depending on the aims of work. Moreover, it is also interesting to know — not only for a theoretical interest — what is the role of communication, of using a certain code, in the course of work, what effect can and must messages have from the point of view of the efficiency of this human activity. I should like to state that the problem refers both to physical or manual work or that carried out with the help of machines, for industrial production, as well as to intellectual or administrative, technical or artistic work. The problems of communication are raised as soon as work is carried out in group or as it supposes the existence of a team whose members carry out a part of the work (in this sense, even if a person works alone, isolated in a room — as, for instance, an operator in the operating room of an automated plant —, we must not ignore the complex and implicit networks of communication in which he is integrated and which keep him in communication with other persons during and for the purpose of his work). 1.1. A few years ago I undertook the study of this problem on a theoretical plane and, also, at "the place of work"

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Research work was founded on observations which I made in 1961 — 1963, at more than 75 various places, belonging to certain fields of work — from the fishing teams to forestry and agricultural work, from work in mines and in the oil industry to work in various plants (iron and steel industry or the specialized machinetool building industry, factories for the processing of timber, of chemical works, etc.), then work in railway transport, on building sites for blocks of flats and urbanistic works (installations of cables, of underground pipes), broadcasting, television, cinematographic work, etc. This kind of research was continued later, in automated industry, with the purpose of studying certain aspects more deeply (see next chapter). We can state that this kind of research work is one of the most exciting. Not only is this reality of the branches of activity in which the genius of homo faber, of man, the creator of tools, asserts itself a complex and relatively new reality for the linguist — while for the psycholinguist it is almost "untouched", unapproached. But it is also one of those research activities which enable us to see a little more that it is generally included in the "classic" concept of langage and, generally speaking, to discover — if not new truths — at least (and this means very much) new problems, raised by reality. 1.2. Anyone who would look for a bibliography in this direction would be shocked by the absence of special studies regarding the direct relations between langage and work, within the proper process or the latter. On a philosophical plane, are the well-known woik of F. Engels's 2 and some of K. Marx and Fr. Engels's expositions 3 which expand the thesis of the genetic relation between language and work (the common genesis and the interrelations between these two processes). Let us also mention some sporadic preoccupations in this direction. First of all, a book referring to work and rhythm 4, written by K. Bücher, who however considered langage a mere affective or rhythmic adjuvant of work, without noticing the essential role of langage during work. An egocentrical thesis was also developed by French authors who maintained the primordial rôle of egocentrism in communication. (P. Janet considered that langage has the egocentric substratum of "commanding" 5 and, before him, G. Tarde β stated that originally there was one individual only who may have held, only he himself, the "secret" of speech). L. Noiré 7 as well as G. Révesz 8 have drawn a mere parallel between the two processes: this did not allow them to study deeply enough the relation in all its complexity. On the other hand, the exaggeration of the role of langage in the activity of work has led sociologists or linguists influenced by behaviourism 9 to definitely pragmatist statements: langage would not be, at the same time, a means of thinking as well, it would only have the practical function of influencing the reactions of the other people, as if persuasion could be achieved without communicating ideas too. In psychology proper there have been very lapidary mentions. In modern works (published after 1950) regarding work 10 , this problem is not even mentioned, or

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communication in a group is treated from another perspective (mass communication — such as radio, television —, or the "language of business" — business communication — are aspects in which research workers, especially those working in the field of social psychology in the U.S.A 11 , were very much interested). Linguistics has also paid little attention to the relations between language and work, both from a general point of view 12 and from that of detailed research. Attention has chiefly been paid to the unilateral aspect of "professional vocabularies" of lexical inventories; the studying of this aspect — which has become traditional — has led to minute and useful linguistic monographs 13 or various theses 14 . These very laborious monographs are usually based on a unilateral point of view and have been carried out in conformity with traditional methodology, which takes into consideration the formal relations between objects or actions and the respective words, and is concerned with collecting a certain number of facts, without establishing any principles of general linguistics as well (so much the less regarding psycholinguistics, by relating the message to the psychological particularities of the work situation.) 1.3. This scarce information concerning an important aspect of human life, as well as the scientific interest of a socio-psycholinguistic approach to it has determined me to begin a direct study of these relations between work and langage, by making inquiries in vivo, at the time of work itself, hence observing langage in the act of its dynamic achievement during that fundamental human activity which is work. The dynamic-contextual method has found there a field of applications that will be presented further down. We shall not dwell too long on the methodological exposition, which has been made on other occasions. Let us only mention that I have protccolled directly or by recording on a portable tape-recorder or miniphone — on which records could be made for 2—3 hours — various complete messages (sentences, contexts) overheard in the course of work, in absolutely natural conditions, noting also the behaviour of the speakers. I have only seldom interfered, and then just in order to modify for experimental purposes a certain situation, in order to notice the changes which appeared in communication. I have also intervened, in order to ask for a certain expression to be repeated outside the moment of activity in which it had spontaneously appeared. This experimental procedure, which favoured a comparison between the spontaneous manner of expressing and the repeated one as a consequence of my intervention (having asked for it to be repeated), has also enabled me to observe the variation of forms, of concrete facts of language, and may also be an argument against the exclusive use of the strictly statistical and artificial method of the questionnaires which are answered "after" or "before" work proper. I also had recourse to conversation (in order to explain certain terms chiefly after finishing the operation which was witnessed or in order to learn about an older terminology, etc.), and sometimes to "natural" experiments, that is at the place

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of work. A helpful procedure was also the taking of a great number of photographs for recording gestures or other means of communication, or in order to record the situation, postures, etc. 2. The purpose of this research was not to establish the vocabulary of a certain branch of work or an exhaustive vocabulary in general, nor to establish a fundamental grammatical structure. However, the materials collected by this method could serve to draw up such inventories as well, so much the more as they contain, to a great extent, facts of spoken Romanian, recorded for the first time. But what I was chiefly interested in was the establishing of certain general principles with the help of this first inquiry. I had in view on the one hand the influence of communication by langage on work (langage -> work), and on the other hand the influence of work on communication by means of langage, and consequently on language too (work langage). The first aspect belongs chiefly to the field of psychology (the psychology of langage, the psychology of work) ; the other aspect — which we shall discuss here more largely — concerns psycholinguistics and linguistics (theoretical and applied). 2.1. I shall mention in short the first aspect. Communication appears, in the course of work, when a transmission or retransmission of information, must be achieved

Fig. 6

because: a) a person cannot perceive a whole situation at a given moment (a typical case is the communication needed to direct, on building-sites, the craner who sometimes can see almost nothing of the place where he will have lay down, for instance, a prefabricated panel or some other material : fig. 6) ; b) a person has (supplementary) knowledge regarding the whole process of the respective work or previous aspects

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or future ones, etc. (for instance, dispatchers in general, or the traffic regulator with the railways); communication appears also when a person has certain special, theoretical, technical, practical knowledge, etc. (in steel mills, for instance, the charge starts after the laboratory communicates the result of the analysis of the sample — for example: 'You have got 18 carbon and 26 manganese'); c) each member of a team has some partial knowledge, which another one has not, and therefore an exchange of information is needed; d) communication may be generated by the necessity of a synchronous action, or having a certain tempo (fig. 7), or having a certain intensity, or when a special arousal of attention must be achieved, when a general stimulation is necessary, caused by the stimulating action of certain signals. 2.2. What is the rôle, therefore, played by langage during work? a) Of teaching or instruction; b) of planning work, of offering it an anticipatory scheme; c) of appreciating, evaluating or checking the result of work ; d) of co-ordinating work

(here we must think of all the possibilities of synchronizing movements, actions, by means of langage: for example, with the teams of lumbermen working with the fapina (i.e. a special tool for manipulating big logs) (see fig. 7), there is a whole system of signals, which have the role of informing on the movements to be made and also of stimulating or synchronizing the movements of the team members,

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announcing the beginning of a certain action and then punctuating each of its movements: « Volta! Hohal hooi, hoo!» Langage used for communication plays, therefore, in the process of work an interregulatory rôle, of mutual influence achieved by mutual information, which leads, in general, to co-operation (the cases of deformed or supraabundant, noxious, etc. messages are exceptions, of minor importance). Owing to the informative and, in subsidiary, stimulating value of langage, a co-ordinated or organized activity in the general meaning is achieved with the help of communication. 3. We shall now discuss the second direction included in the relation to which we refer: the influence of work on communication. The influence of work manifests itself, on the one hand, in the choice of a certain system of expression-reception (that is on selecting the code itself, of a certain system of signs in general), as well as of a certain way of distribution of messages in communication, of a certain direction of circulation of messages. On the other hand, the influence of work manifests itself on the effective process of encoding (or of decoding), therefore on achieving emission or reception). Work may determine modifications which appear within the system chosen for communication and at the same time determines an adaptation of the receiver to this system (the problem is always about a choice, about the choosing of certain modalities existing within a certain system; sometimes, naturally, new creations may take place, about which we shall speak later). 3.1. The process of work implies a specific selection of the system of communication. The fundamental means of communication remains, in general, the articulated, spoken langage, or more exactly a certain "language". However, work sometimes imposes the use of various other means, either mimical-gesticulatory, or of other vocal means (such as whistling or the tyrolean "yodel" or various acoustic signals produced by physical means (a bell, or knocking on a metal object, or a horn, an electric bell, a hooter, etc.); or certain visual signals (certain movements made with a lantern or a flag; or graphic figurative signals, electric luminous signals, etc.). Gesticulation, especially, has acquired in the process of work a very great development, not only as an auxiliary of speech, but often as the only system used. Gestures and even pantomime have become exceptionally tinted and varied 1B , as well as, most of them, conventional — at least at the respective place of work —, and sometimes even intentionally codified (for instance, on certain building-sites, for directing cranes: see photographs in fig. 8). The gamut is large, from elementary gestures, made for drawing a partner's attention, up to gestures made in order to indicate an object or call somebody, or to cause the beginning of an action, to determine the modality — direction, intensity — of an action (for instance the directing of cranes), to describing an object or even a certain quantity or quality, and as far as gestures which become abstract stylizations or even symbols created ad hoc (for example, in the oil industry, at Moreni, a borer makes to the craner — who

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Fig. 8

manipulates the cable of the crane — a gesture of balancing the palm of the hand with spread fingers, meaning "more slowly"; or in a factory of agglomerated slabs at Bräila, the workers make a gesture with the finger turning round horizontally, in order to indicate "the moment when the engine has to be started"; or, in a rolling mill in Bucharest, the workers turn round a finger when a pipe "has to be polished", or they make a gesture with the palm on their neck, meaning "to cut the end of a pipe", or when the forge is too "cold", they blow at the tips of their fingers; on television, in order to make the actors look at one another, the director makes a certain gesture with her fingers, etc. (see also the photographs in fig. 9). Besides the gestural system, the other means of communication have in general the value of conventional systems — however less comprehensive — and they are sometimes based on precise codes (for instance, the system of bell signals in mines, or that of sirens in certain plants: in a rolling mill they ring the bell once in order to call the travelling crane, twice for the electrician, etc.). However, we must add that all these codes are reduced in the last instance to the main code, which is the language composed of verbal signs, as they are interpreted, "translated" into the signals of inner speech: therefore, both when encoding and when decoding, the (inner) spoken language intervenes. We cannot say

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Fig. 9 b that all these signals are mere conditioned direct signals; almost always we deal with whole situations, which, by introducing a certain particular detail, make the intervention of an "interpretation" necessary.

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3.2. Communication is not achieved only by the choice of signals, but also by the manner of distribution of messages, "the networks" in which the emitters and receivers are included during communication. Networks may have either the linear form of some "threads" which connect directly two or several partners (see diagrams in fig. 10), or the form of networks with centres of emission (having an emit-

Fig. 10

ter-receiver who is a "dispatcher" or "retransmitter"; see diagrams in fig. 11). These latter also include the special form — frequently found in certain situations of work — of mere "relay" or "retransmitting" network (the message is distributed Β

A χ B C D / E

J.

• C

-D

A

-b/b'

-c/c-

A Β —* Ε s * t C * D

A"*"*"

^ o

r

Fig. 11

"in chain", from "man to man", from "mouth to mouth"; see graphs 11 a, b). In the practical reality of work, these forms become very complicated, as — unlike what happens "in laboratory" 16 — there will interfere various unexpected factors, other new partners, sudden modifications in the trajectory of a message, "linear networks" mixed with "dispatcher networks", etc. 3.3. The selection, in the process of work, both of the various systems of signals and the networks of communication is not made at random. It is determined especially by the conditions in which work is carried out, by the situation, by the immediately surrounding environment. Certainly, in all kinds of work, the verbal langage — oral, and sometimes written — is the one which dominates virtually or in fact. But in certain conditions or at certain stages of a work, it can be completely replaced, or only strengthened by other systems of signals. Even within the same work — sometimes within ts same phase —, a system of signals or another one may be chosen, depending

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on the various environment conditions: during oil drilling, for instance, we have recorded communication by gestures, when an engine which produced additional noise to that proper to drilling, was operating, and by verbal langage when that engine was stopped. Amid intense noise (for instance in boiler building works or in the course of mechanized agricultural work, or in the traffic of small trucks at the surface of mines, etc.) or, on the contrary, when it is necessary to keep silence (in the T.V. studio for instance), or when the partners work at some distance from each other, gesticulation is used (see also photographs in fig. 9). Distance is also an important factor, which requires, for instance, an increased intensity of speech (shouting) or use of whistling, "yodel"-ing gesticulations, waving of flags, etc. (see also fig. 9 b, signaling of the person called, in Romanian, the "bridgeman", on derricks). When distance is very great or when it is complicated by other factors as well — as bad visibility, darkness, noise —, light signals or stronger acoustic ones (electric bells, sirens, horns) are used or means of transmitting verbal langage — from acoustic tubes or ear trumpets, to telephone or transistor devices for emission-reception. The complexity of the situations and the development of technique have imposed.the adopting of electrically produced signals and telephone or wireless transmission, and have next led to developing electronic communication systems, by means of machines as part of automated technique. The conditions of the environment, the manner in which work is carried out, also impose the choice of a certain more or less complicated network. The network by "relay", especially, is imposed by the situation : thus, when the area where work is carried out is very large, the message has to be retransmitted, from man to man (see graph in fig. 11 a; this happens, for instance, in certain situations in oil field work, and for similar reasons people called "postmen" in Romanian forestry work are used, i.e. men who as in a "wireless telephone", announce when there is danger along the gutters down which the logs are sent down from the heights). Relays are also used (see graph in fig. l i b ) when between the person who performs the action (D) and the one who communicates (A) there are some obstacles: intermediary persons are then used who take over the message from A and retransmit it further (for instance, the communication for craners loading materials on ships or lifting them on building-sites; see photograph in fig. 6). 4. Once a certain system and a certain distribution of communication are chosen, various formal modifications appear, owing to the manner of carrying out work. An aspect of these modifications is concerned with quantity (the general frequency of messages during work, flow of speech, length of a sentence or amplitude of a gesture, etc.). The frequency of communication, as such, may vary according to a well defined and acquired code, to knowledge of the activity performed, to previous directions (instructions), and also of certain conditions of the environment or of work itself (the rapidity of the rhythm of a certain activity may

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require few communications, and short and economically drawn up messages — — based on ellipses, etc.). Another aspect is that of qualitative changes : that is — if we refer to the spoken language — those regarding the vocabulary, the phonetic and morphological-syntactic particularities. We shall refer here to the changes which occur in the vocal system of communication, namely to the oral, spoken language. Certain particularities of the "langage of work" arise from the fact that it is an aspect of the spoken language — which has been studied very little 17 — and in which the function of communication has a precise purpose, generally fulfilling the role of facilitating work in common (a fact which requires efficient circulation of information influenced by the particularities of a rapid activity, etc.). Our observations enable us to state that activity during work impresses certain specific traits on speech, which may later give birth to certain changes in the linguistic system. Of course, some of these changes do not appear only in the process of work, but also in various circumstances of daily life — of dialogued speech in general —, but only future comparative linguistic studies will enable one to establish with certainty what is common to other situations too. No doubt, it would be interesting and useful to continue such research work both for Romanian and other languages. For the moment, we shall point to some of these particularities which appear to us more interesting, more characteristic, or which have, sometimes, entered or tend to enter even the common language, imposing themselves by becoming generalized in all circumstances. First, we shall proceed with mentioning certain formal particularities, in the compartments of language (lexical, morphological-syntactic), and then we shall discuss a few particularities concerning the ensemble. 4.1. Special terminology is a necessity in the process of work, in which people need — in order to fixate and differentiate knowledge, as well as to make communication more precise (for clearly distinguishing between tools, their parts and qualities, as well as the actions performed, with their various constitutive parts or nuances) — to establish the names of the components of reality which are embodied in a certain work. It is impossible that a new tool should appear — beginning with a small piece and ending with a complex apparatus — or some action in a new technological process, without being given some name or specification. Work in factories or activities in general where a mechanized or automated technique is used, have created the need for an even richer terminology, in connection with the diversity and complexity .of the objects and phenomena implied in the respective work. Certain terms denote machines, parts of them or even products of work, other (sometimes in syntagms or phrases) designate actions or particularities concerning the functioning of certain machines (e. g., in English: shaft, stud-

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bolt, bevel-wheel — as machine-parts — ; peep-hole, tilting-forehearth, slag-runner, sleeker, skimmer cove-box, cleanser — in iron foundry; furnace, top-channel, roller, tipping runner — in steel works; sound-engineer, tuning indicator, control knob, bandpass filter — radio. (The Romanian examples, in the original book, are however terms or whole phrases directly recorded by the author in work-situations). We should like to mention here the necessity for linguists to show more interest in a series of terminologies unstudied so far, created by work in fields which surpass elementary work (as fishing, forestry work, agricultural labour) in which interest has been shown almost exclusively up to now (for instance, in Romanian, the terminology has not yet been studied concerning work in various factories or on building-sites, in the oil-fields, on the railways, in television, broadcasting, cinematography, etc.). On the other hand, psycholinguistics will have to analyse thoroughly and in the details of the various specialized activities, the influence of working conditions on speech — hence, often, on language. The professional vocabulary which is included in the langage of work has often been considered as a separate and somehow peripheral field of language — "the special vocabulary". We consider, however, that the image of the special vocabulary should somehow be changed. Firstly, no definite line of separation can be drawn between the essential vocabulary and the special one, as between these two aspects of the lexicon of a language a continuous osmosis is taking place: words belonging to the special vocabulary may enter the essential one, while certain words of the latter constitute — a fact which is less taken into consideration as what usually strike are the "special" terms proper — a very large part of the "special vocabulary", with meanings modified and made precise for a certain work. Man does not change his personality according to how he is integrated in work or is outside it: therefore, it is natural that he should use during work the greater part of the lexicon he uses in his daily life, tending also to use the terms and meanings of his special vocabulary in other circumstances as well. Among the terms which are used often in the process of work and which have not aroused enough the interest of linguists in them are the numerals, the verbal expressions of figures (which, as we shall see further, often acquire the status and even inflected forms of nouns). Work (whether we are concerned with fishing, mining or work in up-to-date plants) requires their frequent use and also produces interesting and less known forms. Various interjections — which in certain activities become real systems 18 — are also very much used. These expressions hold an important place in the vocabulary used during work: beginning with almost meaningless shouts, which in fact reproduce emotional expressions (such as: Hei!, Hoi!, Oho!, Opa!, etc.) and which exist under various forms in all languages and ending with "commands" which have acquired interjectional value — but which, in fact, are words, borrowed from other languages in which they have meaning (such as in Romanian — of Italian origin, see note 21 — « Viva!», « Volta!», etc.).

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Some of them may be uttered in rhythmical chains (with lumbermen, for instance) or may appear, as refrains, in songs connected with various activities or which help work 1β . A less noticed phenomenon is that of making diminutives out of technical terms. I have come across this phenomenon not only in elementary activities (for instance a lumberman makes a diminutive from the command «paluga»20 — which has become an interjection — , probably in order to diminuate the impression of effort: «Saltä pälugufa!» ('Lift the little paluga!'), — Reghiu-Focçani), I came across it also in activities connected with modern technique, as for instance that of television (for instance, an operator at the control desk calls the operator of "camera number three", who was not attentive, using an attenuated form for his reprimand : «Treiujule!» [ = vocative of Trei 'three'] ('Threeling, little three!'). A fact which is heard today in everyday conversation, but which is of special interest in the course of work is the use of abbreviations, even in the oral language (for instance: «Trafo doi» ['Trafo two'== transformer of power], or «Emde-urile» ['The M.D. 's'; = Diesel motors, Diesel engines]). An important problem of professional terminology is that of the frequency of various terms. Besides the fact that in general words which predominate are those referring to actions and objects connected with work, in the concrete process of work hierarchy is established in each situation, in relation to the importance of terms, and a selection of these terms is achieved, reflected in the linguistic fields, characteristic of each profession. Within each profession there can be established linguistic fields, in which certain terms appear as having a greater frequency than in other professions, and having different meanings due to contextual relations. Especially in the most important moments of a certain activity, in its specific operations, and chiefly when a certain rapidity in co-ordinating the actions of the members -of a team are required, the absolutely necessary words are selected, the "central" terms of the respective profession or stage; and these, by a statistic operation summing up the representative lexical elements of the various stages, can build up the fundamental linguistic field of the respective profession. Moreover, depending on the situation, but chiefly at crucial moments, certain terms — the most important for the respective moment and sometimes for the entire process too, though terms that are not always "special terms" — are necessarily repeated, which leads to redundancy, to a cognitive saturation which is also affective-volitional. The concentration on a certain operation or a certain object determines an insistence on the respective word and, conversely, this repetition of the word brings in its turn a concentration of the mind on the respective operation. A less analyzed phenomenon in linguistics is the changing of terminology in relation to the evolution of technique. Once new tools or machines are developed, and new technological processes, new operations or new products appear — chiefly

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as industrial activity passes from elementary or handicraft work to work in factories, which are continuously improved technically —, the necessity also develops to name all these. This is achieved by adopting already existing words in the language — sometimes belonging to the old terminology of the respective profession and now used by analogical transfer —, or by borrowings, or, at other times, by creating a new term generated in fact by both sources. It would be interesting if linguistics showed more interest in approaching the problem of terminology and in drawing up terminological inventories in the light of the development of technique, considering the process in its dynamics, in the course of replacing or gradual disappearance of the old terminology — corresponding to the handicraft industry —, followed by the appearance of the new one, in factories or on the large buildingsites; then defining the present degree of usage of a term connected with the older technique, and noticing what happens when the immediately higher technical degree is reached. One of the most interesting phenomena appears to be the fact that older terms, connected with tools or activities which belong to the past, are gradually forgotten, even by those who have frequently used them. In passing from handicraft work of shoemaking, tailoring, joinery, to work carried out in footwear, clothing, furniture factories, etc., certain terms are preserved while others are not, depending on how they correspond to the new tools or machines or the new activities (or on how they can be transferred to these by analogy). For instance, in certain furniture factories I visited, even the older joiners did not use any longer the old terms which were specific of manual work. A joiner told me that the term « ma$ina de nivelât» ('levelling machine') has replaced the old word « abriht » (cf. Germ. Abrichthobel)·, and as the « (maçina de) frézate ('milling (machine)') with several knives has replaced the old « cheluiala » ('chiselling') — the cutting of a groove, by hand, into wood —, the former term has become more frequent although the old term « cheluialä » is still preserved (the same as «feder » ('feather'), « nutuialä» ('nutting') etc.). In a furniture factory (at Bräila), a foreman who remembered with great difficulty most of the old terms — of German origin (such as: « ftraihmas» < Germ. Streichmass ['marking-gauge'], replaced by « zgiriac ») — told us that he was the only person still calling the 'trying-plane' « roban (c)» ('profiled') (instead of cheluit ['chiselled'], which is no more used today), a.s.o. On the other hand, however, another interesting phenomenon is the preservation of the older terms (often polysémie) : sometimes a transposition — through analogy — is noticed, when machines or pieces connected with present-day technique have replaced certain obsolete tools or activities. For instance, on the present-day building-sites using concrete and pre-fabricated panels, one can notice old Romanian architectural terms, usually from the animal kingdom (in the old architecture such

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terms reflected, more or less metaphorically, the aspect or the functional role — for instance of supporting — of certain parts of the house): «cäluf» ('little horse'), «cäprior » ('he-goat') mean various'iron bars in the concrete construction, of various length, and bent in various ways'; «purici» ('fleas') are 'small pieces of concretesteel placed under reinforcing' (Bucharest). Oil-field workers still say «puful (sondei)» ('the well [of the derrick]'), although modern technique has nothing to do with the old "well"; we have also found many examples in the terminology of the modern furnaces (of Hunedoara), where «lingurä » ('spoon'), «οα/α» ('pot'), «troacä» ('trough') denote tools which are much more highly developed than those which they originally designated. The penetration of new terms into the language — as well as, in general, the adaptation of communication to the process of work — does not take place passively. The borrowed words, even if they penetrate at first — as a "scientific" influence (via books) — preserving the form which they have in the original language or in their international form, later undergo various formal or semantic changes. On the one hand, they are integrated in the morphological system of the language or build up phrases together with native words (for instance, in Romanian: «Trage vira!» or «Da vira!» ('Turn the capstan!') (ad lit. = 'give, or draw vira!'), is what the fisherman said a few years ago, on a lake, when they used to pull the net 21 . On the other hand, various phenomena may appear showing the tendency of innovation in language and, somehow, a better adaptation to working conditions. In this process, sometimes from foreign terms new forms are derived, at other times the borrowed terms are changed so much that new words or phrases develop, usually by contamination between the adopted terms and the already existing terms in the native language (from the foreign word marina!22, Romanian lumbermen have formed the verb a marina and the participle marinat-ä : «Hoo-marinäm lemnu » / ('Hey, we pickle the wood!'), «Acum tre[buie] marinatä [bucata de lemn]» ('Now, we m[u]st pickle [the piece of wood]' — at Rudari-Focsani). Quite often, contaminations take place not by a mere formal combination of various words, but they are based on a certain interpretation of the contents, by a process of folk etymology. At Moreni, we were told that out of the Germ. Flaschenzug 'crane', the oil-men have formed the word «fla$nif», and out of the English Rope-socket 'the piece in which the cable is introduced', the Romanian term « rup(ac » has been created. Sometimes the reason for creating certain forms or the cause of formal modifications is expressivity, therefore the pleasure for a certain form, preferred to another one (for instance, a technician in television told me that they use the term « tocluceà », meaning 'beam current' and coming from the Russian moK nyn. He was pleased that a three-word phrase (Romanian «curent de fascicuh) had been replaced by one shorter and more sonorous word, in expressions like these: «Umblä la tocluceà!» ('Switch on the current!'; ad lit.: 'Work at the tocluceà!') or «Mieforma to-

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cluceà!» ('Switch down the current!'; ad lit.: 'Diminish the tocluceà!'). In other cases, the reason for creating or preferentially adopting a word may be its capacity of offering a more concrete meaning, which facilitates the knowledge of an object, the understanding of the particularities or the manner of functioning of a certain apparatus, etc. One can continuously witness, in the process of work, the phenomenon of renewing language, either by borrowing terms or by the action of the innovating tendencies in language, combined with the necessities of work. In general, the use of many terms (of the kind of Rom. «purice, zgîriac », etc.) based on metaphorical procedures is a common aspect of both the "langage of work" and the spoken language in general (also popular language in special cases). "Langage of work" also approaches popular language by adopting certain regional lexical particularities (for instance with fishermen, lumbermen, etc.). On the other hand, however, in the "langage of work" very many terms have penetrated, having a scientific character, usually neologistic — especially in the technical fields more recently developed (television, broadcasting, automated plants, etc.). A similar use of educated terms, or at least neologistical can be also noticed in the older professions (in the evolution of which, work was carried out in common by Romanian and foreign workers). Therefore, we may say that in the "langage of work" a combination of the two types of oral communication is achieved: the opposition between popular and scientific is solved by using both kinds of terms and also by the creative integration of the "educated" terms or by the dynamics of the semantic adaptation of popular or regional elements, to the necessities of the evolution of technique. The new terms sometimes appear everywhere at the same time — usually, spread by circular letters, posters, booklets, radio, the press, scientific texts, etc. —, their generalization being favoured by work itself, the repetition of terms during work, their efficiency. In connection with this phenomenon of generalization we must point out that a generalization in the negative sense also takes place. Certain wrong, incorrect forms become wide-spread and may penetrate even into the common language. At other times, instead of generalization we may notice, on the contrary, doublets, fluctuating terms, having various forms or belonging to regional dialects, etc. 23 . 4.2. Although we can no longer deal here more extensively also with this aspect, we shall only mention that in the course of work certain phonetic modifications also appear, consisting either of various particularities of the tempo or intensity of speech, or the general intonation of phrasing or the melody of speech (the intensifying of rhythmical and melodious particularities, interfering of a special rhythm, the variation of rhythm), or by changing certain phonetic elements, often determined by the general melody (the disappearance or, on the contrary, the lengthening or accentuating of different sounds). These are due to the general condi-

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tions of work and to the relations which appear between interlocutors (the necessity for rapid expression or insisting on certain aspects, the distance between interlocutors — which leads to voice intensification or to a certain manner of articulation —, the effort made by the speaker, his mood in connection with work, etc.). Certainly, sometimes these are only temporary modifications, but it is also possible that some particularities should be gradually introduced into the language itself. 4.3. We shall point to a few more interesting morphological-syntactic aspects, noticed in communication during work. A particularity of the "langage of work" is the preferential selection — therefore a larger frequency — of certain categories of forms, namely of those which indicate actions, which bring precisions regarding action (verbs, adverbs), or which reflect an "imperative attitude" or in general "addressative" (expressions that are imperative by their nature, vocatives, the adding of an imperative value to the basic meaning of certain nouns, etc.). A phenomenon which seems very interesting is that of using certain words (numerous nouns, adverbs, adjectives, etc.) in order to express elliptical sentences (usually monoremes) 24 having an imperative value. Thus, during fishing by net on a lake I noticed very many situations in which a noun or an adjective, etc. — pronounced with an imperative intonation, contained the implicit invitation to carry out an action in connection with the object represented by the noun (or the adjective having nominal value); for instance: «CleceaJ» ('Hook!' [ = set the hook free!], «Masa » ('Board') [ = place the board between the boats !], «Paru » ('Pole !') [ = plunge the pole into the water, or take out the pole!], «Pluta, pluta!» ('Float!') or «Plutili, plut ili !» ('Floats!') [ = pull the floats of the net!] (on Lake Greaca); on building-sites: «Prafuu'» ('Dust!') [ = bring up the hydrophobic dust!]; or in a match factory: «Albastre !» ('Blue' — plural) [in the pasting department — where the paste is put on the match-boxes —, when badly pasted-boxes are seen at the end of the belt-conveyor, the deficiency is signalled in this way, in order to stop the belt]. Adverbs have also been recorded: for instance, on building-sites, [to craners] «Joos I» ('Doown!'), «Suus!» ('Uup!'). If in the examples given above we may consider that facts belong rather to the field of syntax, there are others which reflect a morphological change more clearly, in the sense of the changing of the grammatical function of certain words or of the substituting of a grammatical category by another. Sometimes, verbs in the present indicative acquire the sense of an imperative (in a steel-mill: 'Nicholas, you take a sample from the furnace!', 'You test just the hammer!'). At other times, numerals (figures), adjectives or even mere initials (or combinations of initials or abbreviations of certain words) receive the value of nouns and even their inflected forms — often in the vocative: (with the railways: 'Hallo, you eight!'; with television: 'Give me the orchestra, you two! [ = room number two]', 'Pay attention, four!'; in cinematography 'Both ten thousands on!' (in Romanian, this last exam-

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pie also shows that the form of a noun is given to the adjective, indicated by an unusual plural form: «Amtndouä zece miuri aprinde(i!»). Similarly, adjectives: in mining, workers usually say: 'Empty!' or 'Full!' (that is empty or full trolleys); for instance: 'To pit eight, fifty empty!', 'Take the full (ones)!'. Sometimes inflected nouns are formed starting from abbreviations or mere initials (with the railways: « Receule » [a vocative]!' ['You, R.C. = Rom. « regulator de circulafie», 'traffic controller'], the engine is coming from the marshalling y a r d . . . ! ' ; with the television: 'Test the microphone with dbeuh ['the B' = studio B]!'; with cinematography: 'Switch on the «erdeul» ["the ardí" = Rom. «reflectorul RDi> = floodlight RD] too!). The phenomenon is especially interesting in Romanian, because of the existence of synthetic forms in the declension (with enclizion of the article). Quite often interesting cases appear, in which the morphological aspect is extremely complex, especially owing to content values' (but also due to the new forms taken by certain words). Borrowed terms, which were originally nouns (paluga) 25 or verbs in the imperative (volta !)26 have become interjections 27 due to the way in which they are used, but having sometimes the form of nouns (inflected, with forms of diminutives, as for instance: «pälugufa !» (see above) and offering at the same time a more complex morphological value, owing to their verbal or adverbial meaning. Besides such diminutives derived from nouns — adverbs-interjections, etc. —, we can also refer to numerals — substantivized — from which diminutives are derived: [with television; the director, to operator of camera number three:] «Treiu(ule!» ('You, threeling!') (cf. supra). Perhaps more than in other activities, during work certain grammatical categories are replaced by other means of communication and especially by gestures or even by ampler movements. These phenomena, very little studied by linguists, are extremely important not only for the understanding of the "langage of work" and for interpreting certain phenomena already mentioned (replacing of some grammatical categories by others), but also by changing the general outlook on grammar. (Such phenomena, and others, at the syntactic level, have made us speak about a "mixed syntax", in which the verbal components are substituted for nonverbal ones — NEV 28 ). Thus, adverbs or verbs may be replaced by concrete actions of the speakers (for instance, with television, a director gives explanations to the operators during rehearsals: 'The cameras will be placed like that: for folk songs and music, two [ = camera number two], here [he goes to the place where the operator will stay] and four here [goes to another place, thus showing where the operator will stay]')] or even by the action of the receiver, the speaker referring to the receiver's knowledge of his own movements (with television again: the director from his cabin gives, through the microphone, certain directions to the operator, and while the latter is carrying out certain manipulations of the camera, he tells him: 'Enough! [ = he should not move the camera any further!]'

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Certain syntactic particularities of speech during work are especially significant. First, working conditions determine the selecting of strictly necessary elements, so that in most cases sentences do not contain absolutely all the "classical" syntactical elements. There are sentences made up only of two or three elements — and sometimes of a single element —, which are not always the grammatical categories looked upon as the most "important" (noun, verb). At others times, the sentences include two elements — without the latter always being the "fundamental" elements (a verb and an interjection, a pronoun and a verb, adverb and verb, adverb and pronoun, noun and adverb, noun and numeral, adverb and interjection, interjection and pronoun, etc.). Even if they consist sometimes of several elements, among which nouns too, sentences are, in most cases, incomplete (the verb is often missing and is replaced by the imperative intonation which was mentioned): «Hai, cu roaba!» (interjection + 'with the wheel-barrow!' [ = come here with the wheel-barrow!] (buildingsite); or: 'Four on one, three on two!' [ = camera number four is transmitted on line 'one', and camera number two on line 'two'] (television). A consequence of the fact that sentences are in general incomplete is their shortness, which is caused, on the one hand, by the necessity of saving time during work, and, on the other hand, it is based on the fixing of certain terms, on the existence of certain consecrated formulas, strengthened by common experience in work. In various activities, certain short stereotype formulas can be noticed, such as: 'Free I' (with the railways, in order to start the engine), O n e thousand [and] five!' = train no. 1005 has left station X] (with the railways) ; when a miner climbs up a narrow staircase, he shouts, in order to warn the others not to come down: «Stai a¡a!» ('Stay there!'). In work carried out in the conditions of modern automated technique, abbreviations used in the written languages play an important role (we shall discuss this further). There are also short sentences which are however complete: «Vine zgura ! » ('Slag is coming!'), «Sunä oala!» ('Announce the operator to send the "pot"; ad. lit.: 'Ring the pot!') (furnaces). We must also add that although sentences have a short verbal aspect and even elliptical, on the extralinguistic plane they may often be considered as much ampler messages owing to implicit reference to situations or owing to gesture or action which complete them. It is interesting to note the fact that sometimes monoremes complete one another, building up a syntactic ensemble which forms the respective message (on a building-site, a craner speaks to the workers mounting a panel: «Afa! Ferente! Gata!» ('Good! Take care! Ready!'). Another syntactic particularity are changes in word order, for various reasons (owing to tempo and rhythm, to concentrated attention in a certain direction during work, etc.). During the lumbermen's work, for instance, changes in word order

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may be noticed depending on rhythmical necessities (it is interesting to note, for instance, how the order changes in the same phraseological complex, depending on the general melody that is modified by introducing a new word : «Trägem lemnu' pàis la vale!», but «Trägem pàis la vale — oleacä lemnW !» ('Let us pull the log this way down!' and 'Let us pull this way down the log a little!') — (recorded at Rudari-Focçani). The rapidity of communication, required by work, as well as the attention concentrated on a certain moment, on an object, on a more important action during work, determine changes in word order, by granting certain privileged positions, in order to underline or "promote" the word which reflects the respective aspect of reality. 4.4. The interpretation of the material collected underlines certain ensemble particularities of the expression, the nature of which is determined by the specific of this complex activity which is work. a) The fact that work in common pre-supposes actions carried out co-ordinately, in a certain rhythm, having a certain intensity and temporal and spatial precision, bring to the fore the means of expression which stimulate and regulate action. Communication is therefore subjected to the necessities of dynamizing one's partners in view of common actions and at the same time for the necessity of achieving co-operation, by a preferential selection of the dynamic possibilities of the language. This explains the frequency of adverbs, verbs, interjections or special phrases, of imperatives and vocatives, of syntactical particularities, of the shortening of messages and in general of their adaptation to the tempo of work, to its difficulties, to its various stages. For this reason one has recourse to "extralinguistic" means of stimulation — such as intonation or gesticulation, which urge for a more rapid action, underline the success of an action, etc. (besides the intentional adopting of these means for communication, we must also mention their involuntary appearance, as an emotional reflection of the success or of the care regarding a certain action, etc.). b) Besides the general particularities of dynamic character or in any case referring directly to action, we can notice also some particularities due to shared conditions — the common context — in which collective work is carried out. These conditions firstly include the relation of dialogue itself, which is established between partners and which, in its turn, develops certain traits. In the process of work, fragments of communication having a monologued aspect also appear — "the orders" of the lumbermen, for instance. As a matter of fact, even this monologue is relative: it appears as a transitory, nonessential form, it is often interwoven with dialogues, and presupposes, in any case, an implicit answer from the partner. Work determines in fact — as an essential form, because necessary — a bilateral communication, the dialogue. Dialogue cannot be understood however without noticing the mutual influence — or even reciprocal determining — between the various interlocutors, which is, in its turn, profoundly determined by work. This fact gives specific poignancy to

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this form of communication, dialogue, in the course of work. The special syntactical particularities, noticed in the course of work, are due, to a great extent, to the situation of dialogue which is carried out in the conditions of rapid communication and in general of the various necessities of work (for instance, such answers which are incomplete — elliptical — or which are completed by the other partner are determined both by the working conditions and the dialogue situation as well as the common situation). c) Besides the particularities due to dialogue relations, other particularities also develop arising directly from the common situation (place of work, certain tools or machines which are used, the products achieved, other people in the neighbourhood, lastly "the context" in its ensemble), in which the interlocutors find themselves. Relying on the fact that not only does a background of common knowledge exist, or a common verbal context which is the dialogue proper, but also a well-known concrete ambiance — usually directly perceived —, speakers have recourse to this knowledge or landmarks from the concrete situation in order to facilitate communication — on the one hand in order to save time, and on the other hand to facilitate a better understanding of messages. During work, expressions which refer directly to context, by verbal deictic reference or plain gestures, are frequently used. Verbal expressions accompanied by gestures pointing to objects or people around are very often used (for instance, in a mine at the stopping, the foreman gives directions: 'Look—here [makes a gesture], correct the wall!' Monoremes, ellipses — phonetical or morphological and syntactical —, in general syntactic particularities which we have discussed earlier, are also determined not only by the dialogued relations, but also by this continuous support and reference to the common situation in which communication takes place. Understanding is based not only on the fact that by repeating the same situations during work strong associative links are created between action and the word — links which contribute to the efficiency of communication —, but it is also based on the fact that the receiver consents and can interpret, by referring to context, all these elliptical, messages or based on deictic means, etc. Work determines certain particularities of communication too, which may be considered of a quantitative nature: regarding the general frequency of messages, during work, or regarding the quantitative aspect of a certain unit of message (verbal speed, length of a sentence etc.). If the necessities of economy and rapidity specific of the dynamics of work usually determine particularities along the axis of "the economy" of means of expression (phonetic elisions, syntactic ellipses, etc.), there are other reasons too (first for facilitating the interpretation of a message by the receiver) which determine a certain redundancy — a surplus of information —, required by various conditions 29 (one communicates more or less, depending on the situation, on the mastering of the "code" and knowledge of the job, of direc-

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tions (instructions) received before a certain operation, of certain conditions of the environment or of the work itself). 5. The observations regarding the influence exerted by work on the verbal message refer to the general problem of social determination on language; and the conclusions which can be drawn from these observations enable a generalizing transfer to the ensemble of the problem. The results obtained by psycholinguistic investigations impose, we think, reflecting on various problems of theoretical and practical linguistics and may contribute to the thorough elucidation and examination of various aspects. 5.1. We should like to underline again the importance of study by linguists — and here, the help of psycholinguistics is indispensable and can be decisive — of the spoken language, and within it of the forms more or less specific of "the langage of work" (this study will help to know another aspect better, which is rather neglected, namely "the oral, spoken language"). It is necessary that the role of this aspect should be noticed — work itself representing the most important share in human activities — in the evolutive changes of language, in the generalization of forms that firstly appear on a particular plane, in the mechanism of osmosis between common language and the speech characteristic of a working situation in general and of certain professions in particular. 5.2. Another aspect we should like to deal with is the one referring to certain interesting fields of work which have not yet formed the object of research work for research workers who study the Romanian language (work in the oil-fields, steel mills and furnaces etc.) or in general fields not yet studied concerning various special languages (that of modern industry for instance). Most interesting would be such studies which would examine evolutively the terminology or the whole manner of expression in a certain profession, as well as the relation — therefore the study not in isolation but concomitantly, in its dynamic in the consciousness of the speakers — between the old terminology corresponding to handicraft work and the present one, in the large plants which have replaced the respective "trade" (for instance, the joiner's workshop and the furniture factories, the carpenter's workshop and the modern building of houses, etc.), or in the automated plants. 5.3. We consequently emphasize the need — even in linguistics, before drawing conclusions regarding the codes level — of completing the static study of isolated facts, by a complex and dynamic study of facts that are concomitant or are existing at various degrees in the consciousness of speakers. This field will not become exhausted by research work concerning the present moment; research will have to continue in future, as work carried out in the conditions of automated technique raises new problems, which we shall discuss further. It is necessary that one should take into account the fact that the relation between work and langage has not a static character and does not appear clearly when we adopt a viewpoint estranged from concrete reality, or, in any case, an artificial

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185

perspective: it becomes obvious in all its complexity only by direct contact of the research worker with the situation of work and chiefly of work in its development. This leads to the necessity of adopting, for discussion the relation between langage and work — in the framework of general linguistics — , not the deductivespeculative method, but that of observing concrete, particular facts. And this also leads — an even more important fact — to the necessity of adopting, for the studying of langage used in connection with work (consequently for making evident those aspects of language which are selected and potentiated in the course of work) not the method of the questionnaire applied in artificial conditions, but in the course of carrying out work in common, with its real objective. A s we underlined when discussing the dialectological methodology, it is necessary to replace the method "words and things" (Wörter und Sachen), by a method "words and things during action" (understanding by "words" the whole discoursive ensemble). In this way, language would not appear any longer truncated, studied unilaterally, only through words, but it would also be studied from the perspective of grammatical structure; it would appear represented not only by nouns, but by the other parts of speech too, not only by lexicon, but by the phonetic aspect or the morphologicsyntactic aspect too, by the particularities connected with contextual, dialogued, expression, by its specific elliptical or redundant forms, by melody or gestural completions, etc. In this case, interesting aspects could be studied, such as the dialectic relations between economy and redundancy, or aspects less obvious or more difficult to perceive in communication outside work. There could also be studied — in the real process of work — , much more easily and correctly, the mutual influences between speakers, the osmosis between dialectal or regional particularities and the common language, or loans between languages, etc. We consider that only recordings during work, of the whole contextual ensemble (understanding by the latter both the phraseological verbal context and the gestures, behaviour, and situation at the respective moment), as well as the analysis of all the aspects of language — lexical but also phonetic, morphological, syntactic —, to which an interpretative analysis of each form recorded should be added — relating it to the concrete conditions of the respective activity — , can lead to the real knowledge of the linguistic phenomena which appear in the course of work. We have called this method which records facts of language in their contextual ensemble and during activity, the dynamic-contextual method. It would be probably useful, for the general study of language too, to replace the method " Wörter und Sachen" — much too simple considering the complexity of speech and language phenomena — b y recording "words and contextual ensembles during actions" as well as the preoccupation for interpreting various forms. Lastly, linguistics could fill in one of its gaps, by bringing a practical contribution, not only by discovering certain language mistakes which can be easily generalized, but also — a fact which is possible in the process of organized work, if we take

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into account certain psycholinguistical principles — b y establishing, specifying, unifying terminology (a useful contribution to all fields, and especially to those which are more recent developments or where mechanized or automated techniques have recently been introduced. "Applied" linguistics could also contribute, with the help of psycholinguistics, to improving communication too, by studying the modalities for establishing the optimal messages in various working situations, both regarding oral, interhuman communications and the communication between man and the "automatic machine" in the conditions of automation.

Notes 1

The results have been presented in the book: Comunicarea Inprocesul muncli ('Communication in the process of work'), Bucurejti, Ed. Çtiintificâ, 1964, and in a few articles: Observations concerning language communication in the process of work, "Revue roumaine des sciences sociales — Psychologie", 1963, no. 1, pp. 63—89, and in "Rev, psihol.", 1962, no. 2, pp. 183—212, and in German, in "FORFA-Briefe", 1963, no. 3, pp. 3—27), Remarques sur quelques particularités du message verbal déterminées par le travail, "Linguistics", 1963, no. 2, pp. 60—84, and in "Studii çi cercetâri lingvistice", 1962, no. 2, pp. 227—245, (and, in German, in "Revue roumaine de linguistique", 1962, no. 2, pp. 269—288), Problèmes psycholinguistiques posés par les messages verbaux employés dans Vautomation, "Revue roumaine de linguistique", 1964, no. 2, pp. 119—130 (and in "Studii ?i cercetâri lingvistice", 1964, no. 2, pp. 135 —145), Verbal signals in automation, "Revue roumaine des sciences sociales — Psychologie", 1964, no. 1, pp. 89—99 (and in "Revista de psihologie", 1963, no. 3, pp. 519—545).

I

K. Marx-Fr. Engels, Werke, Bd. 3, Die deutsche Ideologie, Berlin, Dietz-Verlag, 1959.

• K. Marx-Fr. Engels, Werke, Bd. 20, "Anteil der Arbeit an der Menschwerdung des Affen", in "Dialektik der Natur", Berlin, Dietz-Verlag, 1962, pp. 444—456. 4 Κ. Bücher, Arbeit und Khytmus, Leipzig, Reinicke, VI«l> ed., 1924. 5 P. Janet, L'intelligeance avant le langage, Paris, Flammarion, [1936], pp. 99, 115,132—134, etc. • G. Tarde, L'opinion et la foule, Paris, Alean, IVth ed., 1922, p. 92. 7 Cf. R. A. Budagov, Vvedenie ν nauku o jazyke, Moskva, Gos. Uíebno-Pedagogiíeskoje izdatelstvo Ministerstva ProsveSCenija RSFSR, 1958. 8 G. Révesz, Origine et préhistoire du langage, Paris, Payot, 1950, pp. 99, 222. • L. Bloomfield, B. Malinowski, J. Kantor, etc., cf. E. Kainz, Psychologie der Sprache, Stuttgart, Enke, vol. III, 1954, pp. 499, 450. 10 As, for instance, the comprehensive treatise of applied psychology edited by H. Piéron (Traité de psychologie appliquée, vol. V, Le maniement humain, Paris, P.U.F., 1956J, or A. Ombredane and J. M. Faverge's book (Vanalyse du travail, Paris, P.U.F., 1955, pp. 113—197J. Other bibliographical indications in: Observations concerning language communication in the process of work, cited, and in Comunicarea in procesul mundi, cited, pp. 1—14 (see supra, note 1). II J. Janis, Writing and communication in business, New York-London, Macmillan-Collier, [1964] ; L. Dexter, D. White (ed.), People, society and mass-communication, London—New York, Collier — Macmillan, [1964]; R. Bach (ed.), Communication, New York, Hasting House [1963],

IV. WORK AND COMMUNICATION 12

13 14

15 1β

187

S. Hayakawa, for instance, does not even mention him in his book Language in thought and action (London, Allen and Unwin, 1952). For details please see: Comunicarea tn procesul muncii, cited, pp. 15—17. Especially French doctoral theses, as for instance those quoted in "Cahiers de lexicologie" (Paris, Didier), vol. II, 1960, pp. 152 foil. (Bibliography): E. Galliot's, on the language of advertising (Essai sur la langue de la réclame contemporaine, Paris, Didier, 1955), Papilloms on the vocabulary of the means of communication between 1915 and 1945, Clouet's on "the langage of business", etc. See material collected and photographs in Comunicarea in procesul muncii, cited. Where certain "types of networks" have been experimentally established and studied, based on artificial "restrictions", sometimes on unilaterality (see, for example, Leavitt's schemes, cf. G. Miller, Language and communication, New York—Toronto—London, McGraw-Hill, 1951, p. 255). See also the bibliography discussed by us in Comunicarea in procesul muncii, cited, pp. 112, 130.

17

In Romanian, the aspects of the spoken language have been very little studied ; among the works of greater proportions is that of I. Iordan, Stilistica limbii romàne, Bucureçti, Institutul de lingvisticä românâ, 1944.

18

Orders announcing the performing of certain operations in carrying logs form "a real system of interjections-signals" — remark V. Arvinte, N. A. Ursu, Al. Andriescu, Terminologia profesional ä in regiunea viitorului lac de acumulare al Hidrocentralei " V. I. Lenin" de la Bicaz, "Anal, çtiintifice Univ. AI. I. Cuza", Taçi, sect. Ill, vol. V, [1959], p. 76.

" K. Bûcher, op. cit., p. 245. 20

Interjection used to announce the lumbermen to lift the log with the "¡apiña" (cf. V. Arvinte, Terminologia exploatàrii lemnului ¡i a plutäritului, Iaçi, Ed. Acad. R.P.R., 1957, p. 158).

21

Vira ! is an Italian word used as an order to turn round the capstan, cf. H. and R. Kahane, A. Tietze, The Lingua Franca in the Levant, Urbana, 1958, p. 465.

22

Interjection and adverb used to announce the lumbermen to turn round the log (cf. V. Arvinte, op. cit., pp. 92, 155).

23

Linguists could contribute (at least to some extent or in certain fields) both to establish, specify, unify the terms in all fields, and to point to the incorrect, wrong forms and meanings, in order to stop in time their being spread.

24

We think that these forms, usually interpreted, in point of syntax, as "elliptical imperative sentences" (Gramatica limbii romàne, vol. II, Bucurejti, Ed. Acad. R.P.R., 1954, p. 40j, could be considered, in point of morphology, as modifications of the basic forms (nouns, adjectives, etc.) due to intonation.

2t

Cf. V. Arvinte, op. cit., p. 158.

M

Ibid., p. 175.

27

This is how V. Arvinte considers the above terms (loc. cit.)

28

Cf. our paper: L'étude du roumain parlé: un aspect négligé — "Vindicatio ad oculos", "Actele celui de-al Xll-lea Congres International de Lingvisticä çi Filologie Romanica (1968)", Bucurejti, Ed. Acad. R.S.R., 1970, vol. I, pp. 591—599 (NEV).

" We have discussed more widely this problem in: Economie et redondance dans la communication, in Cahiers de linguistique théorique et appliquée, Bucureçti, Ed. Acad. R.P.R., 1962, pp. 17—25.

CHAPTER V

Psycholinguistics and technical language in automation

1. We consider it necessary to concentrate our attention on a special branch of work too — the most modern one : that of work carried out in the conditions of automated technique, or in other situations in which automated devices are used —, in order to examine certain aspects of psycholinguistics in this field. Human activity, in the conditions of automation, raises, more than one may think, both psychological and linguistical and psycholinguistical problems thus opening before us a new field which offers the possibility for direct practical applications, and which may also furnish suggestions for new theoretical research work. Among these problems, an important rôle, which has not been sufficiently studied so far, is that played by the problem of verbal communication both in the framework of interhuman communication and of communication between man and the "automaton". 1.1. A common mechanistic conception, materialized in some dictionaries, takes the term "automaton" ad litteram, considering — illusively — that man could be completely eliminated. At the present stage of automation, man supervises the exchange boards, panels, control and signalling desks on which he can see the dynamics of the various paramétrés of the functioning of the machines and, in certain cases, he interferes in order to regulate controls, in order to interrupt connections or give commands by which disturbances are corrected, etc. The progress of automation will increase the possibilities of self regulation of the "automaton", probably diminishing the frequency of man's intervention and, by increasing the centralizing of the means of signalling and telecommand, will diminish the number of persons needed to control a "system"; but, in spite of the illusion cherished by some technicians, man will never be completely excluded in the future either 1 . The permanency of man creates therefore the necessity for studying from an adequate viewpoint the problems of this activity — not only in order to facilitate man's work, but even in order to create favourable conditions for the functioning of the technical devices and, at the same time, to offer the data by which "the experimental model" nearest to automated machines could be achieved. Such

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189

are therefore the conditions in which psychology, applied linguistics, psycholinguistics have found a new field for research work. 1.2. In an automated ambiance, man is confronted with verbal messages, either in interhuman communication (between operators, between operators and dispatchers, etc.), or in the one between man and the "automaton" (fig. 12). AUTOMATION VERBAL MESSAGES

Interhuman communication

Man — automatic machine communication

I

Verbal signals serving to denote (differentiating role) Inscriptions

Verbal signals which furnish new, elaborated information. Messages in "caskets"

Fig.

12

As regards the verbal signals which belong to the system "/wan-automaton", some of them denote, and, as such, differentiate the numerous identical bulbs, knobs, controls, small handles, etc. specific of the exchange boards, panels, or desks in the control rooms (fig. 13, 14 a, b, c, and 15), which we shall briefly call

Fig. 13

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I I . Α . A P P L I C A T I O N S OF P S Y C H O L I N G U I S T I C S I N CONNECTED F I E L D S

Start DOSING D R U M TUBE OF IMPREGNATION

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Fig. 14

"panels". The complexity of the technological process in automation and the multiplicity of signalling by which man controls or directs from distance the functioning of machines insures that these inscriptions should be more necessary in the conditions of automation than in the conditions of any work with machines. For the

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V.

PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

T.G. 1 Engine 1

AND

TECHNICAL

T.G. 2 Engine 2

LANGUAGE

T.G. 3 Engine 3

IN

AUTOMATION

T.G. 4 Engine 4

T.G. 5 Engine 5

Lack of continuous current Key «DANGER. Generator ¡differential protection (jenerator maximal protection Connection with ground stator I Engine excitation ι trouble

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PRESSURE LOWERING

191

192

I I . A. APPLICATIONS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS IN CONNECTED F I E L

same reasons, these inscriptions maintain their important role not only at a first stage, that of learning the meaning of various controls, bulbs, etc., but even later (especially in case of troubles, when the operator has to give various quick "orders" to the automaton, without making any confusion between the hundreds of controls, knobs, switches, keys, etc. in front of him). Other verbal signals — presented in the form of inscriptions, "the signal" function of which is seen only at the time when the "caskets" in which they are placed become lighted — are even more specific of automation. They are messages which furnish a really new item of information and in any case elaborated by the "automatic machine", which "announces" that some trouble has occurred, or it indicates the place of the trouble, the steps which the "automaton" may have taken, etc. (fig. 16 a and b). Obviously, the problems which appear in connection with these various modalities of presenting verbal messages are not specific in an equal degree to automation and partly this is the reason why they are not equally new to linguistics, psychology, and psycholinguistics. 1.3. Problems connected with interhuman communication (direct or transmitted by telecommunication means — by optic telegraph, see fig. 17 a — etc.) are those which generally arise in human activity. We must, however, mention that in the conditions of automation the background against which communication takes place is extremely complex and messages must circulate with maximum efficiency as regards time for directing them towards the efficient receiver or as regards the understanding of messages, etc. (for instance from a dispatcher who watches the functioning of the machines on the panel — fig. 17 b — to the operator who can take steps to prevent a problem). In such conditions, what appears more acute is on the one hand the technical psychological problem of organizing "networks" (of the modality of distributing messages). On the other hand, the problem arises in psycholinguistics of elaborating and finally establishing (in typical situations) of economical and at the same time clearly intelligible messages from the auditory point of view: that is the problem of "securing" these messages (generally sonorous) by establishing the phonemes and sonorous groups which are the most resistant to a "noisy" environment, etc., or of establishing the phonetic, lexical, grammatical means which should create acoustically the necessary redundance, etc. 2. We shall insist a little longer on the verbal messages included in the system "man-automaton", as they have a different specific from those used in inter-human communication. 2.1. In automated plants, as we have mentioned, operations carried out by machines are signalled by signs which give information on their state during the dynamics of their functioning. Human operators must therefore control and command industrial processes, and interpret the systems of signs which are either taken from the language, or

V. PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

ATTENTION'

TELEPHONE

AND TECHNICAL

LANGUAGE

WE A R E LOADING

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193

194

I I . Α. A P P L I C A T I O N S OF P S Y C H O L I N G U I S T I C S I N CONNECTED F I E L D S

form special codes, or are made of mixed signs —, some of them belonging to the verbal language through their form or meaning and others belonging to a special code. The problems which derive from this situation are varied: from the problem of drawing up optimal messages in the verbal language — code, to that of a new formalization with adequate symbols and a new syntax. A general and corollary problem will be that of co-ordinating all these systems so that the operator should not encounter too great difficulties in passing from one system to another. In some of these "technical languages", the grcmmatical structure can be easily recognized — as it belongs to the code "language", while the specific sense of the terms is new; — in other "technical languages", the terms may be words taken with their common meaning, but the new syntax or morphology (ellipses, abbreviations, etc.) make them difficult to be recognized by an outsider. For the time being, the messages which the machine may send to man appear only in a graphic form (therefore they are received only visually—very few machines being able to emit spoken "oral" signals). They are specified and programmed initially by the projector of the device and can appear (if we refer to the messages in the "caskets") simultaneously in several places on various panels watched by a single operator (sometimes they follow one another very rapidly, depending on the increasing of the trouble, etc.). The essential problem in the case of these messages is that of being quickly perceptible visually, of giving just and complete indications, in a brief form, but at the same time to be easily (correctly and rapidly) understood. Therefore — at least at the present technical stage, when the form of emission is fixed and only the variables of reception interfere —, the purpose of research must first have in view the facilitating of reception. As such, we are confronted here with psycholinguistic aspects connected especially with the pole reception — in special conditions, which may influence it. 2.2. When drawing up these messages (both as regards the inscriptions under the controls, etc., and "the lighted caskets") technicians do not take enough into consideration a system of linguistic, psychological and psycholinguistic principles, and the specialists in these fields did not show enough interest in these problems (at least, present-day psycholinguistics almost ignores them). This explains why technical works — some of which discuss, however, the means of informing "the human component" 2 do not raise the problem of the drawing up of the verbal messages or, when they discuss it, they do not refer in any way to the psycholinguistic or linguistic 3 aspects of the problem (even when they discuss systems of abbreviations — by letters, or by combinations of letters, etc.) 4 . At the same time, sometimes the drawing up of messages is left to the makers-decorators of the panels (who are guided especially by aesthetic criteria, or shorten and lengthen the messages according to the space they have). The result of this neglecting of the principles of the linguistic and psycholinguistic aspects is badly constructed messages (containing abbreviations which vary from one message to another

V. PSYCHOLTNGUISTICS A N D TECHNICAL LANGUAGE I N AUTOMATION

195

and contradict the laws of reception, artificial ellipses — changeable or non conforming to the language known by the persons who watch the panels and in general the "automatons" —, terms the meaning of which cannot be directly understood because these terms do not belong to the respective language, etc.). The manner of presenting the message — its form, size, colour of letters, light and colour of background, etc. — has a great influence on reception. Although the above elements are psychological problems they cannot be ignored by linguistic or psycholinguistic research in this field. But the essential problem which may be of interest to psycholinguistics — and in which it should even be obliged to interfere together with applied linguistics — is that of an optimal drawing up of the messages used in this field (we underline that it is not a mere matter of terminology, as "the optimal message" raises various and complex problems, which have also syntactic, morphological implications; at the same time, the optimal message, in these conditions, may sometimes not be in accordance with the norms of the literary language — if we think for instance of the various abbreviations which must often be used). 3. When drawing up these messages, the principle of economy plays an important rôle (both in order to facilitate a rapid reception and in order that the message should not hold a too large space among the other signals) 5. The question is: how will this economy be achieved? Some messages have the form of phrases or even sentences (for instance 6 « Lipsä N2 Spalare ptr. dulapul I analizä» ['Lacking N 2 , Washing for cupboard I analysis'] — in chemical industry —, or « Aparat de corecfie pentru fixarea sarcinii pe cazan » ['Correcting apparatus for establishing load on boiler'] — in the electroenergetic industry), and as such economy can be achieved first by means of ellipses {«Mot. încetarea reac[iei » ['Gas stopping reaction'], instead of «[Motorina] pentru...» '[Gas oil] for...', or «Pipa albire» 'Pipe bleaching', instead of «Pipa de albire» 'Pipe of bleaching', or « Temperatura joasä abur» 'Low-temperature steam', instead of «a aburului» 'of steam'). 3.1. Ellipses cannot be made at random, however, irrespective of the norms of the language, of the principle of respecting a certain consistency which should facilitate the establishing of a psychological association between signals and responses, or of the necessity for an intelligible and nonequivocal form. (The elimination of some prepositions from certain messages may create ambiguity and endanger the correct interpretation of the meaning. As we know, in some situations certain prepositions are commutable with others — of and for, in Romanian de and pentru — without changing the meaning of the message, while in other situations the substitution of a preposition by another one leads to change of meaning. Owing to this, an elliptical message, such as « Temperatura ardere » ('Temperature burning') — encountered by us in practice in Romanian — is ambiguous as it can be completed either with the preposition for, Rom, «Temperatura pentru ardere» — having the

196

I I . Α. APPLICATIONS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS IN CONNECTED F I E L D S

meaning of "Temperature which serves for burning''... —, or with the preposition of, Rom. «Temperatura de ardere» — which gives the phrase both a final meaning and one indicating quality: 'Temperature at which something burns...'). Similarly helpless is the "false shortening", which consists of a useless and sometimes equivocal elementary juxtaposition of uninflected nouns, when with the same number of signs (in Romanian) a complete and correct message could be drawn up (« întrerupere comandä» ['Interruption command'] instead of «întreruperea comenzii» ['Interruption of command'] —, or «Preîungire incärcare» ['Prolongation charge'] — instead of «Prelungirea încarcârii» ['Prolongation of charge']). Psycholinguists should show (and we ourselves have already started studies in this direction and in the one referred to in 3.2. infra) what is the limit to achieving economy by ellipses — as excessive elimination, touching the supreme hierarchical rank of the components which contain the fundamental nucleus of the sense of the message, may prevent the efficiency of the message. But, on the other hand, only linguists can indicate the ellipses which conform best to the language — considering, for instance, their frequency —, or can show the commutation cases which cause serious changes of meaning, thus contributing to establish the optimal ellipses or even a general system, applicable to each particular case. 3.2. Another means of economic form — this time acting upon the lexical unit, the word — is that of the shortened words or abbreviations. This is achieved by selecting one or more components of a word, which will consequently be represented by one or several letters (for example temperature by T). In fact, these two ways of achieving economy are combined (for instance: « D e f . int. TRAFO» [ = Defect intern la transformatorul de forja] ['Int. def. TRAFO' = 'Internal deficiency with power ( = force) transformer'] or « Contr. sig. sem. prev. » [ = controlul siguranjelor la semnalizarea preventiva] ['Contr. fuse. prev. sig.' = 'control of fuses in preventive signalling'] or « Acfionat prot. netemp. » [ = A acfionat protegía netemporizatä] [Operated nontemp. prot.' = 'Operated nontemporized protection'] or «EPCo— 29» [ = electropompa care servente la transportul condensatului 29] ['Electropump which serves to transport condensed 29']). The principle of shortening — to which also the systems of special symbols should be added — is widely used in sciences and technique, but in the conditions of automation the necessity for these economic forms appears more acute, as the appearance of verbal signals on the big panels for signalling and control raises special problems connected with the complexity of the various situations, the frequency of the same denomination and the multiplicity of various denominations, etc. The need for shortenings has been felt to such an extent by technicians, that in the last decade various systems of shortenings have been set up, which tend more and more to become uniform, not only inside one and the same plant, but also in the same field or country — the proposal having even been made to achieve standardization on international scale. In West Germany, for instance, the NAMUR

V. PSYCHO LING UISTICS AND TECHNICAL LANGUAGE IN AUTOMATION

197

system has been adopted by the chemical industry (based on using the initials of words : Germ. Analyse is represented by A, Druck "pressure" by Ρ or AP, etc.)7. In the United States a more complicated system has been set up, the ISA (in which the first letter stands for the initial of the basic term, and the second or the third one shows the function of the instrument: for instance, Recorder is R, Controller is C, etc' — so that the meaning "temperature of control valve" is expressed by TCV, the meaning "temperature of security valve" is expressed by TSV, etc.) 8 . In exchange, the system of the International Standardizing Organization (ISO) — based also on English — is simpler, consisting of one letter only ( A for Acceleration or for Activity, etc.) 9 . It is significant, however, that for these systems technicians do not generally ask linguists or psychologists for collaboration 10 , trying to solve problems which are connected at least with psycholinguistics, without co-operating with specialists in this field 11 . A first question is the following: how must these shortenings be made, or what must the productive principle be on the basis of which the necessary shortening should be made in each particular situation? (As, in most cases, in automation the matter is not exclusively about "classical" shortenings — such as Τ for Temperature, etc. —, but new paramétrés, tools, processes, etc., which have to be written down economically on the control and signalling panels, continuously appear). Is it more useful to have recourse to one or to several letters for the shortening of the same term, and how should further "productivity" be created (by adopting a fixed order, significant in itself — as for instance in the ISA system —, or by "free" order)? The question is also whether one must choose between the elliptical system or that of combinative shortenings or if both systems should be maintained, that is if a message which appears in its complete form as: «fnregistreazädebitul de apä limpezitä in amestecätorul din pozifia X» ("Check amount of clear water mixer in position X'), it is better to reduce it with the help of ellipses («Debit apä Ροζ. 20/ΙΙ» ['Amount water, Position] 20/II']), or by mere juxtaposition of each word represented in an abbreviated form (for instance I have come across messages of this kind: FRiCA, that is 'recorded flow indicated, controlled, signalled'; this abbreviation does not correspond, however, to the Romanian complete sentence, that is: «debit ìnregistrat indicai, réglât, semnalizat»). The problem has another aspect too. Certainly, unification is necessary, as it offers consistency in codification (and therefore universal decoding) and at the same time it ensures — in the case when the code is achieved through the work of a team which members represent various economic fields — greater possibilities for generalizing in various particular situations. (The use of arbitrary local shortenings cannot be reasonable, for instance: Rom. « Ch 5» [ = Cheie no 5] ['AT 5' = ['Key no. 5'], or « AM» [ = Aprovizionarea morii] ['SM' = 'Supplying of mill'], or «Sem. gaze » [ = Semnal gaze] ['Sig. gases' = 'Signal for gases'], or «P. la P. 6 kv»

198

I I . Α. APPLICATIONS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS IN CONNECTED F I E L D S

[ = Punere la pamînt pe sistemili de 6 kilovol^i] ['G.c. 6 kv' = 'ground connexion in the system of 6 kv'] or various forms for the same term, such as T. Temp., Temper., for 'Temperature'). Unification may contribute to eliminate polysémie forms, which may be very noxious in the conditions we are discussing now. At least within a certain field, a shortening must not have several meanings — as for instance we came across this in the ISO system: A for Acceleration and Activity, F for Feed rate and Force, R for Ratio and Resistance12; but, in our opinion, polysemy should be avoided even in the case of abbreviations used in various fields, especially if such fields are close enough 13 . The question is how far should this unification go ? Some technicians have expressed their desire for establishing international systems 14 . However, if for certain terms international standardization is useful (especially for the fundamental denoting of units of measure concerning quantities, time, space etc.), for countless name of objects or of activities in each domain where automation has been introduced, international standardization offers inconveniences. In Western Germany, for instance, both the Ν AMUR and ISA or ISO are used l B , but the last two systems are in the case of most of the terms, at variance with German, as the shortenings correspond to English terms (thus for Germ. Regelnd we find the abbreviation C, from English Controller, or for Anzeigend we find the abbreviation I, from Engl. Indicator, etc.) 1β . If it were the matter only of a single letter, maybe the understanding of the messages would not offer too great difficulties to a person who does not know English. But, as we have mentioned, we must not forget that these abbreviations are not used only for the reading of projects, technical drawings, etc. in order to study them, but also (and this is the aspect in which we are interested here) for rapid decoding, for performing certain operations in the complex conditions of work in front of signalling and control panels. Under these conditions, the necessity of a continuous transposing of the code of abbreviations into the code of the mother tongue may be a cause of delays, of hesitations or even mistakes in one's activity. Moreover, the process of translating is rendered more difficult by the fact that some of these systems — such as ISA — are characterized not only by combining letters in order to denote a certain object or process, but also by juxtaposing several abbreviations into groups which must be immediately and quickly deciphered (as they denote a complex though unitary concept as 'recorded flow, indicated, controlled, signalled' in the example given supra). From all these points of view, indicators such as the example mentioned supra — FRiCA — , or PdlA 011Δ ρ neutralizator final — corresponding, in Romanian, to the complete message «Presiune diferencíala indicata alarmâ, in pozifia Oll de montaj neutralizator final» ['Differential pressure indicated alarm, at assembling position 011 final neutralizer'] —, or HLA — from English 'High level alarm', which does not correspond, by its translation in Romanian Alarma la nivel ridicati], to the abbreviation — raise difficulties when decoded into the native tongue of the operators. Therefore,

V. PSYCHOLINGUISTICS AND TECHNICAL LANGUAGE IN AUTOMATION

199

maybe in such situations it would be better to set up systems of uniform abbreviations, but valid for each language taken separately. In any case, these are aspects for which solutions should be offered by linguists co-operating with psycholinguists and psychologists and carrying out special research work. 4. In connection with the aspect examined earlier we shall also mention the following detail, which is connected with the general problem of technical and scientific terminology, but which is very important in automation, as a correct action is directly connected and irremediably, without any tolerance for errors — with the rapid understanding of the meaning of the term "posted". When certain installations are built together with a foreign firm, it is necessary to translate various terms, which are written on the engines, panels, etc. (as the operating of the installations without knowing the meaning of the terms is not only impossible in principle, during the period of learning how to perform the various operations, but it is also harmful, afterwards, the actions not being based on a real understanding of mechanisms in their complexity)17. The difficulty consists in these cases not only in establishing terminology (which is sometimes completely new, when new equipment or a new technological process has to be introduced), but also in creating and adopting certain terms. The difficulty may also lie in translating messages, in observing the syntax of the language in which the translation is made, in adapting abbreviations, etc. — taking care not to make an incorrect translation and of not introducing in the second language caiques or forms which contradict its rules. A final problem, which we should like to mention — and which we consider the most important as it refers to the possible development of automation — , is that of the co-operation between technicians and psycholinguists, linguists and psychologists in order to achieve progress in the signalizing systems of automatic devices and the manner also in which human messages are received by these devices. From a psychological viewpoint, for reasons which we shall not state here 18 , it would be more useful if the automatic apparatus could produce (instead of graphic signals — the only ones used at present) sonorous verbal signals, and, at the same time, receive and respond to oral verbal messages coming from a human emitter. To this purpose, it would be necessary to carry out new research work or to use certain data which are already known in linguistics — for instance the data regarding spectral analyses of sounds 10 . On the other hand, it would be necessary — more than it is required only by the present stage of technique — to draw up the optimal verbal messages — economical and at the same time rendered "secure" on the basis of a "necessary redundancy" 20 — , which should ensure efficient emissions from the part of the machine (facilitating correct and rapid intelligibility) and at the same time easy and correct emissions from man. In order to establish these stereotype messages and in general the principles of "modelling" these apparatus —, linguists could also contribute by extrapolating well-known principles regarding

200

I I . A. APPLICATIONS OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS IN CONNECTED F I E L D S

h u m a n c o m m u n i c a t i o n , or b y completing o r m o d i f y i n g t h e m depending o n the new c o n d i t i o n s developed i n a u t o m a t i o n . 6. T h e solving o f the various problems mentioned above cannot be achieved except b y thorough research w o r k — mostly experimental — and b y t h e conjoint efforts o f linguists, psycholinguists and technicians. If certain problems, f r o m a m o n g those which have been mentioned, are not absolutely specific of automated work, in exchange they are either more poignant in these conditions or they have special implications due t o the particular situations appearing w h e n automated machines are used.

Notes 1

This assertion which I also made a few years ago (Problèmes psycholinguistiques posés par les messages verbaux employés dans Vautomation, "Revue roumaine de linguistique", 1964, no. 2, pp. 119—130 and in Verbal signals in automation, "Revue roumaine des sciences sociales— Psychologie", 1964, no. 1, pp. 89—99) is valid also today.

2

J. Lyman and L. J. Fogel, The human component, in E. M. Grabbe, S. Ramo, D. E. Wooldridge (ed.), Handbook of automation, computation and control, vol. III. Systems and components, New York—London, Wiley, 1961, pp. 201—216.

' This is the case — as regards the insufficient approach of the problem by psychology — of certain works, such as: V. Belevitch, Langage des machines et langage humain, Bruxelles, Office de publicité, 1956. * See for instance J. Hahn, Schaltbilder und Symbole, in J. Hengstenberg, Β. Sturm, Ο. Winkler (herausgegeben von-), Messen und Regeln in der chemischen Technik, Berlin-Göttingen-Heidelberg, Springer, 1957 [I960], pp. 1163 foil. ' Without succeeding in separating this aspect from the influence exerted on reception by the proper manner in which the message is presented — the form, size, colour of letters, lighting up and colour of the background, etc. —, which cannot be ignored, although this is a problem concerning psychology. • All the examples are taken from the data collected by the author in various factories. The remarks made here are also based on results obtained during certain inquires carried out by the author in 1961—1963, in the framework of the Institute of psychology of the Academy of the Socialist Republic of Romania (the psychological aspects of this research work have been shown in the article: Verbal signals in automation, cited, and in the first article mentioned in note 1 supra·, other laboratory research work was carried on later). ' Cf. J. Hahn, op. cit., p. 1163. 8

Ibid,, pp. 1165—1167.

8

American Standard. Letter symbols for chemical engineering (ASA y 10. 12. 1955), American Society of Mechanical Engineers, [1956], pp. 5—6. As concerns Romanian, co-operation was also achieved with the Institute of linguistics of The Academy of the Socialist Republic of Romania (C. Maneca), especially in establishing standard terminology.

10

V. PSYCHOLINGUISTICS AND TECHNICAL LANGUAGE IN AUTOMATION

201

11

Thus, in "Sectional Committee on Letter symbols", which has set up the system mentioned in note 9, all the members were chemists or engineers (cf. ibid., p. 2).

n

American Standard. Letter symbols for chemical engineering, cited, pp. 5—11.

13

For instance, in a chemical plant I found R standing for redler, and in another chemical plant the same letter stands for reper ("reference point").

14

J. Hahn, op. cit., p. 1163.

" C f . ibid. "Ibid.,

p. 1167.

17

An operator who does not know English and does not know the meaning of the English terms high and low, and guides himself after the concrete landmarks which are the colours underlining the two words, has only a fragmentary perspective of the process and an elementary behaviour. In a similar situation is the operator supervising a semiautomatic machine guiding himself after the positional reference point left-right, but who (as he does not know Italian) thinks that Italian «Entrata acqua» "entering of water' means "air cylinder".

18

See Verbal signals in automation, cited, and more recently: T. Slama-Cazacu, M. Voicu, O.Vijan, Comparative efficiency of verbal and nonverbal stimuli in special complex conditions {uncertitude and verbal reaction time), "Revue roumaine des sciences sociales—Psychologie", 1966 no. 1, pp. 21—43, and T. Slama-Cazacu, O. Viçan, Comparative study of the perception of verbal and nonverbal stimuli, in complex conditions, through the motor reaction time, ibid., 1967, no. 1, pp. 65—79, and: T. Slama-Cazacu, The use of motor reaction time for the comparison of the verbal and nonverbal stimuli, and verbalization in perception, ibid., pp. 81—88.

18

"The automatic machine" being capable of identifying verbal sounds on the basis of their spectral features (see in this direction also the data given by N. E. Kirillov, L.V. Fatkin, Eksperimenty po opoznavaniju avtomatami zvukov reii, "Voprosy psixDlogii", 1962, no. 3, pp. 45—56).

20

Research work carried out by us aims at establishing the optimal length of the message, depending on the meaning of the message, of words familiarity, of the power of associative links between an abbreviation and the proper word it abbreviates, etc. (see T. Slama-Cazacu, A. Dabija, Perception time and motor reaction time for verbal stimuli of different lengths (words and abbreviations·,), cited; NEV).

Β. THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE AND PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

CHAPTER I

Acquisition of language by the child. The first stages

1. We have mentioned, among the problems of diachronic psycholinguistics, the relationship between the evolution of the subject and his speech. The main aspects of the problem depend on two factors: the learning of the native language and of a second language by the child. These problems greatly concern one of the most important branches of applied linguistics, viz. language teaching (including both learning and acquiring a perfect command of the native language, and learning a second one) as well as other branches or domains of investigation (the theoretical problems of linguistics among others) 1 . 1.1. The problem of language learning is vast indeed: it can form, in itself, the subject of a comprehensive work. The same can be said about the examination of the methods used in preparing the teaching aids or about the tuition methods adopted in order to utilize those aids in the teaching process (let us mention in passing the experiments carried on in order to establish the basic vocabulary and grammar — such as those of the French school of Saint-Cloud —, to which psycholinguistics can contribute its share, or the experiments concerning the foundations of the audio-visual methods etc. — which we shall revert to). We shall therefore choose for the moment one aspect of this vast ensemble and deal in particular with the learning of the primary language, which leads us to child speech, to the genesis and development of speech (prior to school-age). The learning or rather the effort, this trend toward acquiring the so-called mother tongue, never ceases throughout man's life. We are continually learning new words, new meanings, and the speech sequences we utter are almost never the same. However, the first stage — until school-age is reached — is decisive and results in a comparatively good command of the language, which at any rate is sufficient enough to make it possible to use the written language and to allow the transmitting of scientific knowledge, at school. 1.2. We shall deal with this stage not only because we can rely on a material we have been collecting ourselves for several years, but also — and more particularly — because it is highly interesting both for linguistics in general and for applied linguistics in particular (though, for the present, most of the linguists do

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not concern themselves too much with the latter aspect). It is particularly important for linguistics in general to have a thorough knowledge of the road covered from the first cry of the new-born babe to the connected sentences, the organized sequences of a child of 6 or 7, in his effort to use the language everybody uses, to establish an efficient communication. And from the practical viewpoint, it is necessary to know for certain what the child brings along, in point of linguistic "dowry", the moment he goes to school. It is necessary to know more thoroughly the general lines of development in this slow process — which consists in acquiring the language of the adult —, the lines of progressive aproximation of the language spoken by the linguistic community. On the one hand this is imperative in order to better distinguish the way in which the spoken language is acquired by the child, during a stage when there can be no direct intervention of the written language. On the other hand, it is necessary to know precisely in what consists the "stock" the child brings with him when first going to school — in fact in the life controlled by school education —, as the line along which the child developed before going to school should not be overlooked; on the contrary, it should be continued so as to further develop language at school. Whether this line can also show the road to be followed — or at least offer some suggestions — in teaching foreign languages (not only to children, but to adults alike?) will be further discussed here. As we said before, the problem concerns the other branches of applied linguistics as well. Quoting a witticism by an expert in automated translation: in order to teach a machine to speak, it is necessary to know how children learn to speak. This problem also concerns the pathology of langage, as there are disorders which — in some of their aspects — evince peculiarities similar to those of the child langage; while the loss of an ability, the dissolution of langage, the significance of this regressive process are more easily grasped when the reverse direction is known, i.e. the normal orientation towards a command of language. 1.3. We are going to study first (vide infra, 2.) the appearance and development of the child's phonemic system, as compared to the characteristic features of his age and to the growth of his abilities to acquire the phonemic system of the language (without dwelling at length on the genesis of langage, especially as investigations — ours and other research workers' too — are only incipient and allow no wider generalization as yet). We shall discuss at length the ontogenesis of the grammatical structure (vide infra 3., and Ch. II and III) and shall develop a conception based on the principle of the "selective echo" — a psycholinguistic concept par excellence, as the mechanism of the selective echo enables us to understand why and how the child comes to use language according to his own abilities of thought and perception, according to his affectivity, his interests, or the motivation peculiar to him. We shall therefore concentrate more particularly on a psycholinguistic analysis regarding the relationship between the grammatical structure of language

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and the dynamics of its acquisition by the child, in order to reach (see Ch. II) the wider field of children's dialogue and what we could term "the style of child speech", a specifically psycholinguistic domain. As the object of our work however is not to give an exhaustive presentation of the various problems discussed, we shall not undertake an all-round psycholinguistic study of child's langage. Yet, in order to illustrate one of the manners in which a more detailed approach through psycholinguistic analysis can be made, we shall select a typical aspect (see Ch. III), namely declension learning in the development of the child (a comparison being also made with forms existing in "popular langage" or with archaic and dialectal forms). We shall further on present investigations regarding the dynamics of the relationship between thought and langage in ontogenesis (see Ch. IV), and add a few remarks on foreign language learning (see Ch. V). 1.4. We have emphatically stressed already, one of our fundamental methodological principles: direct collecting of facts. We have therefore tried, when applying the methodology already mentioned to the study of the child langage, to personally collect facts, which should be linguistically analysed, faithfully and in a complex way recorded (by noting down the whole context), and collected from a large number of children. The author has collected the material from nearly 600 children, native speakers of the Romanian language, 2—7 years of age (the material continued being collected, with the help of linguists too, this time, from infants 1 day — — 2 years of age). We have worked with all these children separately, recording either spontaneous linguistic facts or experimentally elicited facts, adding narrations and dialogues between children or between children and adults. The facts recorded have been interpreted so as to enable us to establish the main peculiar features of the child's speech in Romanian along the psychic dynamics of various ages. However, we must stress that these are not mere inventories of data. The materials (that we do not even call mere "corpus") have been correlated with the situations — sometimes experimental ones —, and in many cases they have been connected with the child's thought, with mental dynamics, etc. 2 . 2. The first act of independent life the child performs in his external environment is to breathe out and thus utter a cry. This — and a plastic possibility of development and acquiring — is his phonic inheritance, which he brings along when coming into the world. What will he do with it, owing to the society surrounding him and also, we should not forget it, owing to his own effort — a great effort indeed — ? We know quite well wjiat he will do with it, for we all can hear ourselves and others speak. But we still know very little about the way in which the child manages to "speak" properly. The most difficult, perhaps, concerning the study of child langage, is less to establish which are the incipient phases of language development than what they include, as well as the principles according to which these vocal utterances are organized, what governs them, what makes it possible — and how —

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for each normal child to get at the phonemic system of the language spoken all around him. What happens in the history of the individual before the moment when a phoneme as such appears ? What is the genesis and chronology, what are the moments preceding the more or less ultimate stage, when "some" specific sounds become comparatively stable, and which are exactly the sounds which form the very concrete reflex of the phonemes of the language in question ? What is, therefore, the road leading to the achievement of the phonemic system? Present-day linguistics — following in the wake of the important studies already carried on before by R. Jakobson, A. Grégoire, Κ. Ohnesorg, M. Cohen and other, linguists and psychologists — ought to include in its programme a larger number of investigations in this very important and captivating domain, which deals with the various hypostases a sound assumes until it comes to represent the crystallized phoneme, its tribulations until the child is able to grasp exactly the phonemic shape pertaining to a certain language. 2.1. Roughly speaking, the phases for which there is some consensus have long been established: sounds produced at random 3 , cries, vocalisation (in the first three or four months) — in German they are sometimes called Gurren by comparison with the cooing of pigeons; then babbling, about the fifth or the sixth months —, when imitation sounds (which however can appear earlier) begin to be noticed too —, then, later on, about the eighth or ninth month (or even earlier), the first evidence of understanding language, and later still, towards the end of the first year, the appearance of the first so-called "words". 2.2. I personally prefer to introduce the following stages: of the biological sounds, of the pre-phonemes, and of the phonemes. The biological sounds are the initial sounds, due to a general biological background, independent of all the habits of the linguistic community; they are physiologically determined by a peculiar position assumed by the articulatory organs (when the child lies on his back for example). They are 'acts without a norm' ("actes sans norme"), as L. Hjelmslev 4 would have said, and which do not correspond to some mentally constituted structures. By imitation, the child learns the sounds corresponding — in the terms we have defined and established — to pre-phonemes, which are approximations of the phonemes of the specific language, in the child's attempt to come close to the latter (as this term refers to a different level than the term "biological sounds", it denotes the shaping of a peculiar "form" on the mental plane). Following upon a lengthy period of adjustments, the pre-phonemes become phonemes proper, when the sounds corresponding to them come to represent the very phonemes of the mother tongue, and when they become integrated into a system, in the linguistic equipment the child possesses. At the stage when clear, precise differentiations are produced, leading — at a peculiar level of the subconscious — to the perceptive-auditory and proprioceptive-articulatory 5 control through the self-adjustment of the articulation, through the perception of one's own articulatory movements, i.e. through

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a feed-back, and also because the sounds are defined on the mental plane of the "procedures", of the "auditory images", at that stage only can we speak of the existence of the phoneme as such; only then can we distinguish the "distinctive features", in the terminology of R. Jakobson. The tribulations belong to another stage, in which the sonorous material is an extralinguistic material. Neither the biological sounds nor the pre-phonemes convey any "meaning" in the proper sense of the word: however none of them are unimportant for the development of speech as preparatory exercise, in the dynamics controlling the appearance and formation of the phonemic system. Because though the child — apparently — gives up, at a certain moment, all the phonic ballast he has been producing for a few months, though — as R. Jakobson 6 noted — 'the phonetic profusion of babbling gives place to a phonologic restriction', this initial redundancy will however still help him functionally during the following stages, in the extraordinary struggle the child wages to acquire the command of language, starting from an amorphous material (O. Irwin 7 used to say — exaggerating in a way — that no other subsequent achievement of the human being can match this struggle). Thus, evolution proceeds in this way: from primary redundancy (a stage with many biological sounds) to the elimination 8 and selection of the sounds corresponding to the system of language. 2.3. We must state here another fact too. The child starts assimilating the language gradually, as his perceptive-auditory, articulatory and proprioceptive capacities and, at the same time, as a minimum capacity of abstractization and generalization develops. The phonemic system is not achieved through a mechanic articulatory and accoustic delimitation of sounds, but through their being defined — as we said before — on the mental plane of "procedures", by the patterning of the co-ordinations between the motor components (following the articulatory differentiation and then its consolidation by functional stereotypes) and at the same time by the patterning of the relations between the auditory control and the motor-articulatory one, which allows a reverse circuit. At the same time, the organization of the phonemic system in the individual's consciousness is gradually achieved, as relations become systematized and oppositions are delimited, thus achieving the notional integration of phonemes into a system. We do not deem it necessary — or possible psychologically — to make a clear-cut dissociation between an articulatory level (which would, in fact "produce" the substance) and the level of consciousness, of the "active acquisition of language" 9 . F. Grewel holds that there is a clear-cut difference between the two levels, for there are children who "know what they should articulate", but do not "realise the phonemes they wish to utter" 1 0 . In point of methodology, it would be necessary to prove that these children actually know "what they should articulate". It is probable that the mental image itself has not very clearly outlined contours with these children, and that is why the manner in which it is realised in the sonorous substance

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is defective. The absence of the sonorous substance also points to a deficit in the assimilation of form as a phonemic system. "Form" originates in a psychic ensemble, which is much more complex than one might usually think when a marked distinction between form and substance is being drawn. There is not in man — as in the automatic mechanism of a system — a distinct plane, that of the articulatory system, existing separately from the mental plane. The former plane, starting at a certain stage of development, is closely interlocked with the other. 2.4. As early as the prephonemic stage, there appears an imitative tension, as yet little known through objective research work. The recordings made so far as well as some sonagramic 11 analyses objectively point to attempts at imitating at a very early age. Thus, for instance; while recording vocal utterances by children 4—6 months old, when the mother or the person carrying on the experiment talked to them, we have noticed they tried to imitate the sounds uttered by the adult (see below). 2.5. However, while pointing out that the fundamental "mechanism" through which the child acquires language is imitation, we must also add that though this process is very often mentioned in the psychology of the child development, yet little is known about it, in general and especially when referring to the formation of the phonemic system. The problem of when, what and how, concerning the genesis of the phonemic system, is going to be solved mostly by closely observing the process of imitation — which we conceive as an active, a selective imitation. The child, far from recording the language all of a sudden, from the first contact, operates in fact a dynamic selection: that is the very reason why the phonemic system is not assimilated all at once, but its acquiring is dynamic, assuming the form of a development. The assimilation of language is not a mere passive reflex of the ¡acts performed by adults: concurrently with imitation there are also complicated processes of perception, thinking etc. At the same time, the imitation is a selective process for, on the one hand, the child imitates what he can and the way he can — as much as the development stage he has reached allows him to — , at a certain moment. On the other hand, it is selective because, from the multitude of sounds he hears all around him, the child must discern and choose only those sounds which bring him to the typical. Though it is believed that 1 2 the adult offers the child a simplified and "special" language, still the problem that claims our attention is whether one can consider the child altogether "deaf" to all that adult people say in his presence. At any rate, the child has to manage as best he can when faced with the concrete sonorous utterances, with the complex sonorous substance he hears and from which he will have to extract the essence which constitutes the system typical of a language. 2.6. Gradually, the content is also introduced, together with the selection of sounds. Language changes sounds into oppositive qualities, necessary to convey some meaning, hence necessary to communication; it is 'an instrument governed

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and organized in view of the concepts to be expressed' 13 . In order to build up the message it is necessary that the code should exist on the mental plane of the individual. Only when the imitated phonemic system of the specific language begins to take shape, namely in the second year (even if it is subsequently improved until the age of 4—5) does langage proper appear, i.e. the deliberate communication by means of language, showing that the signifying value of the message is clearly specified. We must add, however, that it is not enough to ascertain the imitation of some of the sounds corresponding to the phonemes of the mother tongue, in order to draw the conclusion that langage proper, as a means of communication, has appeared. It is only when the entire phonemic system has taken shape, that we can speak about real phonemic achievements. On the other hand, it is again only when the whole phonemic system of the language has been moulded, in the main at least, that combinations with discriminating values become possible (even if they are still approximate) and the signifying values firmly associated with these combinations can be introduced. It is therefore only through gradual corrections — while the sonorous form becomes fixed and the phonemes are organized into a system — that the content necessary to the communication can be introduced. 2.7. We shall not deal here with the stages of this evolution. Material has been gathered no doubt (though not very bulky yet valuable material, collected by K. Ohnesorg 14 , in Czech, from his own children, or for bilingual children by A. Grégoire or by W. Leopold 15 . Some very important theories have also been put forth, such as R. Jakobson's (during his development, the child learns to establish the various "distinctive features" in a particular order: for instance, the first type of expression is characterized by the combination of two extremes — consonant vowel —, like pa, which leads subsequently to distinctions allowing him to choose between pa and a, pa and ap, etc.) 16 . However, there is still very much to be done: to collect more material from a larger number of children (not from one's own children as it has been done so far in linguistics in general), and in several languages, applying such a methodology as to allow comparisons and the formulation of general principles. 2.8. What is highly important in these researches is the methodology used17. As a rule, linguists have not interpreted the material enough, they have studied only separate cases and, have especially drawn up inventories; psychologists, on the other hand, in general have not resorted to rigorous systems of phonetic transcription 18 . It is therefore necessary: a) to carry on large scale research, using a great number of children; b) to record the sounds very accurately and to establish a transcription system that should be adequate to the sounds uttered by children, and which should be "understood" by the other research workers too, i.e. a modality of transcription which should be easily transposed — irrespective of the language on which the research is made — into a code universally valid; c) to record all

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the conditions the child finds himself in the whole context, everything he does, his movements, what he heard the moment before a sound was produced etc.; d) to observe what the child is able to understand as compared to what he is able to produce; e) to note the language environment (what the child can usually hear around him), so as to compare his vocal utterances not (or not only) with language in general, but with the idiolects of the adults around him; f ) to make experiments — as far as possible at such an age, and as far as the experiment does not distort the normal spontaneous expression — and to record the sounds uttered by the child in experimental conditions; g) to make an objective analysis of the sounds with the help of precision devices (sonagrams, etc.) so as to make it possible to compare — by means of an objective and unique system of "measurement" — with the sounds produced by the adults or with those uttered by children speaking other languages. As regards methodology there is one more question — apparently pertaining to mere procedure but related to content too — concerning the aim in view: is it only the spontaneous utterances of the child when alone 1 9 that should be recorded, or is it necessary to record the child's utterances in the presence of the adult and even with the interference of the latter? The latter method — less often used — is necessary more especially if we think that it takes into account the normal situation of "communication", and also that it allows studying the manner in which the child actually learns the language, namely by taking it over from the adult. The method can yield interesting results not only when observing the way in which the adult elicits the vocal reactions in the child 20 , but particularly in order to study the way in which the language of the adult is reflected in the child's mode of expression, and to follow directly, dynamically, the child's ability to imitate, hence the way in which the mother tongue "introduces itself" into the child's speech, as well as what a message of the adult becomes, when replicated in the child speech. A few experiments we made in this area have yielded some telling results. Thus (during some recordings made together with A. Roceric-Alexandrescu and I. Märdärescu), we recorded t h e incipient "dialogue" between children a few months old and the mother or the experimenter who, bending over the children, "proposed" various words or sonorous sequences which they "took over" in their own peculiar way. For instance, Adi P. (4 months) imitates a click of the experimenter or the sound ngy (as egy, g'i), repeated by his mother in front of him. While Valentin C. (5 months, 17 days) imitates the sound gy, uttered by the experimenter, under the form of ghy21. 2.9. All the sounds produced by all the children in the world are probably the same: this has been stated by R. Jakobson 2 2 , other authors stated it too 2 3 , and it was also suggested by the experiments made by Han Piao Chen 24 (who demonstrated that there is no difference in the initial sounds produced by white or black newborn infants). The thesis is opposed to J. Van Ginneken's 2 8 old conception of

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the fatality of the articulatory basis, owing to anatomical predispositions. It is also probable that at first young children can imitate any sound when a certain language is spoken around them 2 V no matter the linguistic community they come from. However, the thesis should be validated by means of objective, comparable facts, and by achieving comparative research work; it must also be established what remains common for all children during their development — hence, maybe, what is peculiar to the species —, and what is due to imitation or to learning proper. On the other hand, it is also held that the young child's vocal utterances contain all the sounds to be found in various languages. Yet is it possible to maintain that babbling is "a sample of all the vocal sounds in the most varied languages?" M. Cohen answers in the negative27. Only special, comparative research work could demonstrate objectively (by comparing for instance certain sounds previous to phonemes proper — affricates for instance — in various languages), if those sounds are exactly the same, and if it is possible, in fact, to identify all the sounds produced by the child at the beginning with the sonorous utterances which represent the various phonemes in the languages used by adults. Even if we refer only to the phonemic level, we cannot overlook the fact that the child's articulatory organs are different from the adults' in point of size and that the vocal utterances should therefore vary at least for this reason 28 . 2.10. These aspects make the phonetic transcription of the sounds produced by children very difficult. Besides the phonological analysis — by referring to the system of the code, to the classification of phonemes —, the study of the formation and evolution of the phonemic system must also solve the problem of an accurate description of the sonorous material. When the pre-phonemes start becoming the phonemes of the language under consideration, the transcription can be achieved by making reference to the usual system of the respective language (but, even at that stage, these sounds, still fragile and having many variants, make the transcription difficult). The greatest difficulties, however, appear when the various sounds outside the phonemic system must be noted down, namely the first sounds that appear with children and which are subsequently eliminated. Some of them resemble the phonemes in various languages : yet can we transcribe them in the same way in which we do the sounds produced by adults and which are real phonemes ? Comparative sonagramic analyses become absolutely necessary, in order to establish objectively the relationship between the various sonorous utterances of young children and the apparently identical phonemic achievements specific to the various languages. Such analyses are very difficult 29 , as it is hard to find typical, invariable criteria according to which one could establish limits enabling us to recognize the common elements in the continuous flow of the young children's vocal utterances. 2.11. In order to answer to this and many other questions, we initiated and carried on a project of research work involving international co-operation in which,

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so far, Romanian research workers as well as others from Czechoslovakia (K. Ohnesorg and collab.), Poland (L. Kaczmarek and collab.), Italy and Holland (headed by G. Francescato), France (headed by R. Gsell) joined. The study was based on a common plan and a common methodology, and it had to adopt a common system of transcription, so as to make possible the establishing not only of inventories for each language but also a parallel between the pre-phonemes and the phonemes existing with children and those in the languages of the adults (as also to establish what are the mechanisms and the principles that bring about this "phonematogenesis", depending on the situation peculiar to each child. It would be, if successfully carried out by each of the collaborators, not only a study in phonetics but also a vast study in general and comparative psycholinguistics. 3. Before the phonemic system has been achieved, even before it has assumed its general shape, we witness the first attempts at using words and at outlining the grammatical structure. We shall not dwell at length here on the genesis of words and generally on the development of the vocabulary, which we shall analyse in other chapters (vide infra, Ch. II and V, and Part ΠΙ, Ch. III) 30 . The first manifestations of the grammatical mode of expression assume at first sight shapeless aspects, which suggest a rudimentary accumulation of those small stones the child's words are at the beginning. Little by little, the usual forms of the adults' speech are reached. The phrase "little by little" is too brief however to express an effort yet insufficiently known in its most varied details and even in its essential mechanism. In this respect the linguistic and psychological bibliography is ample enough. Studies including grammatical inventories 31 have come out, as also studies attempting psychological or linguistic32 interpretations or, more recently, psycholinguistic ones33. We shall present here data based on our own research work made with children, native speakers of Romanian 34 , because in this way we can use a concrete material collected by ourselves (which, however, by the principles derived, could have a general value) and on the other hand, because we have applied to these studies the method suggested above, trying at the same time to interpret facts — which could be of help to linguistics as well — depending on the situation of the subjects, their age, their thought, affectivity, motivation etc.). 3.2. An important stage in the development of langage is the period between 2 and 3 years: it is at this age that speech based on connected words appears35. Before 1; 103β, one can seldom notice real connections between words, real grammatical relations. The peculiar features of speech before 2 years of age are the global, non-differentiated expression (one single word functions as a sentence), and after one year and a half, the juxtaposition of noninflected forms, invariable and rigid37, whose meaning becomes clear mostly through intonation, through indicative gesture.

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3.3. After two years of age especially, the situation expressed at first by means of the word-sentence is 'partitioned' in view of a more adequate expression; it is differentiated verbally into its elements (objects, actions, characteristic features etc.). At the same time, relationships expressed by means of morphemes are established between these elements. This partitioning, this "découpage" and differentiating via verbal (linguistic) cues of the data of a given situation and of their connections, herald the inception of grammatical expression 38 . Speech, which before 3 years of age consisted only of a few rigid, uniform elements, is becoming towards the age of 3 subtler, more flexible, adapting itself to the specific features of each situation. Declension and conjugation, inflexion in general, as well as a comparative harmonizing of words, a reciprocal formal adaptation of the words in the sentence, are the great acquisition of this phase. Between 2 and 3, the child begins to use the morphological and syntactic means of the declension (together with particular traits we shall analyse in Ch. III), of the conjugation (the present indicative and the imperative especially; a few rudiments of the past tense and very seldom the subjunctive). We must therefore mention the fact that, concomitantly with the declension, a more complex way of using the verbs makes its appearance: the nominal and verbal inflexions seem to develop in concert, they seem to be synchronous. At the same time, one can notice a more frequent use of pronouns and of the pronominal inflexion — a fact determined by the child's needs of social life. 3.4. Some of the most interesting aspects in the development of the grammatical mode of expression — therefore of expressing relationships — are those which the analysis of the sentence set off. The one-word-stage (mot-phrase) was prevalent in a previous stage, but some of its traces are still perceptible in the stage we are concerned with, in the monorhemes situatively completed, through gestures, etc. At any rate, after eighteen months and about twenty-four the child juxtaposes words without inflecting them. This mode of expression, elliptical, is also characterized by lack of any connection between words which should be indicated formally, as there are no morphological changes peculiar to a more developed sentence (for instance, at the age of 1; 10: «Toba colo. Pune colo» (ad lit. : 'Drum there. Put there'); or, at 2; 2: «Banca acolo. Ica bolnavä » (ad lit. : 'Bench there. Ica [the name of the child herself] ill'). And yet, at the age of 2, besides such types of pregrammatical expression, one can also notice juxtapositions of several words, and words with some morphological changes, often arranged according to a chaotic word order: «Acolo, nani, doa[r]me. Acolo baie. Pe[r]ie a bä[ie](el. Baia acolo » (ad lit. : 'There, nani [ = child language word for 'sleep!'], [he, she] sleeps. There bath-room. B[r]ush of boy. Bath there.'). This sentence formed by juxtaposition is identifiable, later on, with the elliptical sentence, a form characteristic of the age of 2—3 (and in which, very often, the auxiliary verb is absent). These ellipses are due to a tendency to select the modalities most eco-

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nomical for the child's abilities. Gradually, however, real clauses come into shape, then whole sentences, consisting of at least 2 or 3 words, in which the inflexion is obvious, especially in longer sentences. The more the sentence develops, the greater the child's ability of expressing himself with the help of a morphological flexibility. We should also mention another feature which is absolutely necessary for the development of the sentence : a quantitative development — characteristic of the increasing thinking ability, of the stored memory, of the more concentrated attention of a child aged 2—3, manifested through an increased number of words in the sentence. There is a close connection between the quantitative development of the sentence and that of its morphological complexity, both of them reflecting a progress in the child's cognitive skills, therefore of thought, and at the same time a growth in the child's interests. About 2 years and a half, the sentence contains 2—3 words (while at 3 and a half years there are complete sentences, of 4 words; these results are contrary to Nice's assertion that complete sentences appear only after the age of 4) 39 , As to the logical concatenation of the elements in sentences, there is a progress from completely independent sequences to parataxis (the clauses are linked on the basis of a certain degree of reciprocal dependence, however it often happens that this dependence is not shown externally). The paratactic formulation (in which there are also frequent pauses between words) lends the young child's speech the aspect of a disconnected emission of words difficultly brought together (at the age of 2; 1: «E foe acolo. U[i]te am väzut, focu[l], M-am f[r]ipt la mina. M-am f[r]ipt la asta»); (ad. lit.: 'It is fire there. Look, I've seen, [the] fire. I've burnt my hand. I've burnt this.'). The emergence of the sentence proper (consisting of at least 2 dependent clauses) is a sign of the development of langage as also of the development of thought. We often notice at this age the effort of completing an expression, of making it explicit, of rendering ideas or images clearer, by means of some addition to the expression. Expressing himself by monorhemes, for instance, seems insufficient and the child tries to explain it (at the age of 2; 9: «Macina, a plecat matinal» [ad lit.: 'The car — the car has left!']. Finally, this is the age when the hypotactic organization makes its appearance (co-ordination or subordination); for instance, at the age of 2; 2: «Andrei s-a dus μ a cumpärat o minge» (ad lit.: 'Andrei has gone and has bought a ball'); at 2; 11: «Mi s-a rupt dintele fi nu mi l-a pus la loc» (ad lit.: 'My tooth has broken and it has not been put back'); at 2; 5: «17ite, am gäsit fi eu im balón, rfa[r] e de hî[r]tie» (ad lit.: 'Look, I also have found a balloon, but it's of paper'). About the age of three, the child has got so much accustomed to freely using the conjunction fi ('and'), that he uses it more and more frequently and replaces the logical subordination of clauses by a paratactic sequence, formally connected by fi ('and') — a form peculiar to familiar, popular

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speech, which nevertheless concomitantly points to the need to follow a logical line of thought, to lend unity to successive ideas or images. 3.5. We have also observed, during these researches, the frequent repetition of elliptical expressions and ascribed it to a trend toward an economy of means, to some indolence in seeking elements of expression. But, at the same time, the child is very lavish in using superfluous expressions. He makes a sparing use of expressions he does not know very well or enough, but he indulges to the point of satiety in repeating stock-phrases, fixed sequences he has learnt, of which he has a good command, which he maybe likes, which he is delighted to be able to use and which, at the same time, are an excellent vocal exercise40. Yet general stereotypy is a mechanism peculiar to the child speech at this age; he repeats the same formulas also because, besides a poor enough content of ideas, a lexical penury and difficulties in grammar, besides the affective reasons we have mentioned (we should also add the pleasure he finds in using rhythmical refrains, in symmetry, in the symmetrical equilibrium of the sentence) besides all this, the age under consideration is also characterized by a peculiar inertia, which often lends imitation an echolalic aspect, creates rhymes in speech and, in general, induces the child to use stereotyped formulas. One of the forms inertia assumes — to which must be added the insufficient ability of distinguishing the expressions used by adults and of reformulating them into new syntheses — is the use of syntagmatic blocks, of stereotype chains of words. This is one of the most striking speech peculiarities at the age we are considering. Besides incorrect or clumsy forms of expression, one can notice during this stage perfectly correct fragments, with the aspect of blocks fixed as such. Imitation manifests itself, in its less active form, by adopting — at this age — certain readymade formulas which will function in speech as "clichés". They constitute at first the basis of the child speech. On the one hand, these are whole sentences (familiar, everyday phrases, which the adult often repeats when talking to the child: Rom. «Taci!», (Φα-mil», «la asta!», «Pune asta pe masä!» etc. [Engl.: 'Hush!', 'Give me!', 'Take this', 'Put this on the table!']. On the other hand, these are syntagms the child does not analyse and which will function as blocks (for instance : Rom. «sub masä», «sub pat», etc.) (ad lit.: 'under the table', 'under the bed'). Thus a child of 2; 3 puts the bucket under the bench, but he says he put it «Airi, supat» (ad lit.: 'Here, under-the-bed'), while another, aged 2; 2, puts his doll under the bench and says he has put it «La supat la bancä» (ad lit.: 'At-under-the-bed at the bench'). Supat [Sub pat] forms a block (like in the speech of the famous Zazie (in the novel of R. Queneau) which is used to indicate everything placed under something and it has even the function of an adverb, replacing the preposition sub ('under'), in an incongruous syntagm (which is not even an adverbial phrase). Let us give a few more examples with older children. The mother-goat in the Romanian folktale Capra cu trei iezi (ad lit. 'Mother-goat with three kids') tells her three kids:

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«Trei iezi cucuie(i, Ufa mamei descuiefi!» (ad lit.: 'Three little bumpy kids, open the door to mummy!'). Some children of 5 talk of «Un trei iezi cucuiefi mare, un trei iezi cucuiefi mie» (ad lit.: 'One big three bumpy kids, one small three bumpy kids'). While another one (3; 11 of age) will say: «Capra cu trei iezi avea fase iezi» (ad lit.: 'Mother-goat with three kids had six kids'). In like manner, the title of a tale being «Pungufa cu doi bani», ('The little purse with two coins'), a child of 5; 3 says: «A gäsit o pungufä cu doi bani μpungufa aia cu doi bani eraplinä cu gaibeni» (ad lit.: 'He found a little purse with two coins in it, and that little purse with two coins in it was full of gold coins'.). Concerning the evolution of the syntagm, it is important to note that after the stage in which he uses single words, the child passes on to syntagms adopted in the lump, indiscriminately, his sentences thus consisting of "prefabricated" blocks. Later on, after a correct differentiation, they will become automatized again and the child will be able to use them properly, to adapt them to any situation, like as many separate bricks. However, between 2—3, these blocks constitute the basis of the first grammatical acquisitions, grammatical expression being facilitated by the mechanical imitation of syntagms forming clichés·, they are, in this stage, a factor contributing to the development of both langage and thinking, which they provide with patterns aiding it to find support, to acquire fixed contours, to grow richer. Such sentences in embryo — reduced to the ultimate expression on the one hand, elementary and thereby fundamental on the other, necessary and at the same time primary from the genetic point of view — could offer suggestions, or at any rate food for thought, to the linguistics of transformational or generative grammars. The clichés-syntagms do not spring from a conscious, correct analysis of the language elements; they result first from a lack of discrimination of the verbal elements. On the other hand, there is no clear, gnosiological distinction corresponding to these syntagmatic blocks: the child who says «La supat, la bancä» has not distinguished correctly a precise position in space which could be designated by means of the preposition sub, no matter the objects it applies to'. For the child there is one place which can be called supat', the only transparent element in this phrase is the concrete object pat ('bed') and not the preposition denoting a spatial relation which is difficult enough to grasp. Such block-syntagms correspond (on the plane of thought) to some rudimentary concepts — maybe to some "pre-notions" — or to some pseudo-concepts, for which the child notices their formal cover in the speech of the adult and takes it over mechanically, globally, indiscriminately. We wish to emphasize here that it is not enough to undertake a superficial study of child speech, neglecting a functional analysis of the role and value of the forms that appear and, at the same time, of the content of thought, as these blocks might sometimes induce one to conclude that speech is sufficiently developed in a child : a strictly quantitative study, an inventory or a statistic estimate could lead to such

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a conclusion. The qualitative indices however show that if speech seems to be developed sometimes, this is because syntagms or even cliché-sentences are used mechanically. On the contrary, if there are mistakes in the mode of expression they may prove that the child has started consciously reflecting on language. 3.6. The subsequent development of speech will consist in a subtle differentiation of the syntagmatic elements together with a discrimination — by the child — of the elements and relationships existing in reality; at the same time, these syntagms will contribute to the development of thought. This however is no mere imitation, even at this very young age. In the child speech, language is not reflected mechanically 41 , by simple imitation; the younger child selects some peculiar aspects (though to a certain extent less than the older child, after three years of age — who starts "creating", as he possesses a better command of the language). He uses syntagmatic blocks by imitation, but at the same time he makes a selection in the grammatical structure of the language according to his own needs, choosing the most important elements — both affectively and subjectively — and also what is more accessible to his own thinking abilities. Selection manifests itself at the stage of 2—3 years of age, in a well known feature: a predilection for the simplest forms, most actual and present, reflecting the most immediate concrete reality. The coexistence of the imitation process — by which the child takes over mechanically non-differentiated blocks — with comparative creation (in the sense for the moment of "selecting", of "choosing" adequate means) shows that the progressive assimilation of grammatical patterns is not achieved in a passive way: the child imposes the specific features of his age, he is an echo — but a selective one. Child speech becomes more and more efficient in the communication process: as he nears the age of 3, his speech is more and more clearly understood by his interlocutors. The child begins even to make efforts to correct himself and sometimes, he corrects the others too. His evolution reflects, therefore, an increasing emphasis of the social function of langage, of its communication function. Little by little, he will learn how to select what is most efficient in the process of communication, what is cognitively essential, what is objectively more important in point of thinking, cognition, communication and not only for his own affectivity and motivation. He will gradually become accustomed to selecting what is essential in the building up of the means necessary to communication, the acquisition of grammar being achieved in fact under the form of a retention of some universal patterns of construction. After having surveyed a few peculiar features of the grammatical mode of expresión before the age of 3, we shall discuss the subsequent progress achieved from 3 to 7 and conclude by a general presentation of the style of child speech and of children's dialogue.

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Notes 1

J. Vendryes, in reviewing (see "Bull. Soc. ling. Paris", 1953 49, fase. 2, pp. 25—29) a study by M. Cohen (Sur l'étude du langage enfantin, "Enfance", 1952, no. 3)—the latter too a great supporter of the importance of studying the child's speech, the same as R. Jakobson, Κ. Ohnesorg, etc. —, held that "the study of child's speech is of paramount importance in linguistics" [cf. also, for more bibliographical data, our survey: Studiile europene asupra limbajului copilului (1920—1968), "Studii çi cercetäri lingvistice", 1969, no. 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ; in English: The study of child language in Europe (the last 50 years), in T. A. Sebeok (ed.), Current trends in linguistics, The Hague, Mouton, vol. IX. The fullest recent official recognition of the importance of studying child's speech was the fact that one of the section of the X