TOWARDS A DYNAMIC CONCEPTION OF LINGUISTIC COMMUNICATION: A CRITICAL-COMPARATIVE ACCOUNT OF PIAGET AND CHOMSKY

The Structuralism of Saussure and Chomsky proceeds from an epistemological principle of holding itself to the interior of the enclosure of the universe of signs; language (la langue), according to this view, is an autonomous entity of internal dependencies. Central to the present dissertation is the argument that this epistemological position does violence to the true nature of the linguistic experience.;A two-fold claim is made throughout the dissertation. First, it is through language that we come to make sense of our world. That is, our knowledge is primarily an attempt to take the events from "real" world and capture them in symbols. Second, that an understanding of the origins and development of our knowledge (both phylo- and ontogenetically) is crucial for an understanding of knowledge itself. If these two claims are true, then it is maintained, language cannot be viewed as a self-enclosed entity relying solely on the internal dependencies of the system of signs. Language becomes rather, a dynamic part of man's being-in-the-world which makes knowledge possible: Meaning and understanding (in and through language) arise from action or more precisely the interaction between the intentionality of the self and a concrete world of social-historical setting which includes other human beings.;The dissertation suggests that Saussure and Chomsky wrongly subordinate parole to langue, excluding thereby the following fundamental aspects of language from any consideration: (a) communication (i.e., speech acts) as the goal of language; (b) history, as the production of culture and of man which is crystallized in language; (c) primary intention of language.