LINGUISTICS TODAY A Journal of Language and Communcation Vol. I, No. 1 Bi-Annual Jan-Jun, 1999 Special Issue on Post Structural Linguistics Editor A.R. Fatihi Guest Editors Amitav Chowdhry Debaprasad Bandyopadh yay ALIGARHMODERN LINGUISTICS: AN OBITUARY DEBAPRASAD BANDYOPADHYAY Linguistic reserch Unit Indian Statistical Institute Calcutta 0. A DEATH-REPORT It is obvious enough as per title of the paper; | am going to write a paper not to praise modern Linguistics but to bury it. However, in my culture, to which | once belonged to, there is no concept of burial of a deceased body, instead it is being burnt after the death with a belief that though the corporal body has . been destroyed, the trace of the soul remains. On the other hand, in case of burial, the concept of which | have colonially derived from other cultures, body and soul both remain, though the body is gradually decaying under the closed universe of the coffin. That is, though the body is put under erasure, the trace must be out there in the physical world. But, in our culture, the body is erased totally and the trace of the soul remains. However, instigated by modern science, | do not venture into these types of cultural discourses as | have pledged my body so that it can be utilized for mankind after my death. So, | will leave my physical trace in this world, though there will be no trace of my soul, the concept of which is “unscientific”. With this new scientific culture, | am supposed to help “truth-seekers” (doctors, who will dissect my body) to investigate on my body for developing the future healing system for the mankind as well as handicapped human beings. According to the modern Scientific method, formal inquiry begins when the human subject is deadModern Linguistics : An Obituary 58 Though in the modern system of pathological investigation, human subject in a laboratory is thoroughly and formally investigated to understand the distortion in the body, the modern lab-system has metamorphosed the human as a de-human by objectifying “it.” This technological control over the body under the purview of modern science creates a “Ulysses Syndrome”, in which the human subject like Ulysses, does not return to the position, after pathological test, from where s/he has started. In this connection, | cannot help but quote Lakatos: “Nobody will doubt that some problems of Mathematical theory can only be approached after it has been formalized, just as some problems about human beings (say concerning their anatomy) can only be approached after their death. But few will infer from this that human beings are ‘suitable for scientific investigation’ only when they are presented in “dead” form’, and that biological investigations are confined in conse uence to the discussion on dead human beings— although, | should not be surprised if some enthusiastic pupil of Vesalius in those glorious days of early anatomy, when the powerful new method of dissection emerged, had identified biology with the analysis of dead bodies.” (1976:3) We the pupils of Vesalius, as modern scientists follow the same footsteps by analysing formally as well as metamathematically the human being by treating them as dead bodies. This is one of the goals of modern reductionist science that reduces human to a dehuman. i ’ However, it is a paradox to me, as a student of Linguistics, that how could | investigate, the exact formal position of Language Acquisition Device (LAD), Linguistics Today Vol. ITT No. 1 Modern Linguistics : An Obituary 59 the “physical organ” for creating infinite sets of sentences out of finite sets of words, when the act of creative speaking is ceased to be existed in the human dead body. | even do not know, if | would at all find LAD in a static body, that the LAD is preserved in its raw state without being disturbed or polluted by the outside “viruses” constructed by the behavioral manipulation. As Chomsky’s research lead us to the LAD as something in a raw state, itis rather impossible for me to find out a man without being contaminated by outside social malleability. Precisely, therefore, my question is: is there any relationship between my “empty linguistic organism” and “social malleability’? Or, what are the effects of linguistic externality to linguistic internality? This question leads us to the domain of ’ internalization of external social constraints, which disturb or pollute the “normal”, “ideal” “health” of my “normalized” body. Chomskyan metanarrative of creative speaking subject, as Kristeva noticed, turns to be a transcendental ego. Creative speaking subject a la Chomsky is a human being stands in a stable space of a laboratory without being disturbed by externality. In this paper, | shall first scrutinize this stability of speaking subject in a laboratory state and then will try to see the operation of formal system upon speaking subject's language. |s it not the fact that a fact of “scrutinization” or formal inquiry to an academic subject begins, if we have to believe Lakatos, when the subject is dead. In this paper | will venture to look into the subjectification of Linguistics and subjection of human body due to this subjectification. Thus, the subject “Linguistics” will be under erasure, though its trace will remain through out the paper. Linguistics Today Vol. IIT No. 1Modern Linguistics : An Obituar, ys Modern Linguistics : An Obituary 61 administrative divisions of subjects by deploying its disciplinary dividing practice. Consider first the metanarrative of creative speaking subject endowed with universal grammar a la Noam Chomsky. The algorithmic mind of the creative speaking subject is explored via syntactic analysis. The crucial question arises here is: Do we really have human-object in such a raw state without being constrained or manipulated by the outside sociality? To answer such an odd question, let me begin with the formalization proposed by Dasguta (1988,1993) to depict vividly the state of affairs evolving out of the explosion of Generative Grammar, Sociolinguistics and Literary Criticism: “[llinguistics becomes a social science when we face the fact that speaker S of a language L has in S’s brain-Constructed -as-a-mind not only |, an internal representation of L that enables S to use L, but also something amounting to E, an external representation which embodies S’s awareness of the community’s joint possession of L as represented in |. My 1988 paper proposes that for formal reasons S cannot construct or store a viable ‘society function’ capable of mapping | onto an imagined set of parallel |-representations, and that instead S allows a non- formal image of L, an external representation of discourse embodying L, to serve E. Thus E is the site where a psycho-socially real image of L is posited and imagined.” (Dasgupta, 1993:51) Thus our problems begin. It is clear from the quoted portion of the paragraph that (I) is an untouched site where no question of psycho-social constraints can penetrate. (I) is such an area of ideal transcendental Itm the concept of rane eee wae ine : the ethnocentric meaning mean i rides na cultural relativity or eve i Chomskian “trace” is not a n wa Syntax in the ee inguistics j, ne hilosophy of Psycholinguistice, which a i attain human cognitive domain. Thad { qT ’ i he question of integration, does not, however, icting the metanarrative that Linguistics Today Vol. III No. Linguistics Today " Vok. IITNo. IModern Linguistics : An Obituary 62 See cogito, where there is no hyphenated on oe Properties (rather than can be posited or imagined a: h ‘ S Peele of ehiaenment BhonBmienaidaically I , we found a divided self in the S . . fi ny ee stance: one authentic ea resented by (|) and another one is i i Psycho-social existence. Thus bape ant ae ; ) : we find a tension o} aces of some classic philosophical categories in above formulation like essence vs. existence ideal vs. real, theory vs ‘ or inauthenticity. Ti pane authenticity vs. In this stage of i : i present post-industri Pe clonica society, speaker-hearer are Rae . nsumer-producer or buyer-seller relation. Language i commoditized. There is no question of Reema aed consumer-producer to be “ideal.” pee i ideal’ creative relationship between pana wets the producers-consumer relation has t lue to the institutionalized intervention of ideolog i Palate Horney \ y. The “ideal” situation i 4 the ‘ideal’ has become ‘ sh oeate : real’ and ‘real’ has be: ‘apparent’. Thus the interpla ; roa? y between ‘ideal’ and ‘real’ pelts a myth. The position of L produced by the Sis ae Reece ee and at a time ‘perceptible e’. In this myth of “ideal s y : ’ peaker- pnd eval an ear ties reality) the essential man being is missing, and on eee us ge aie eed existence of i : The Theory, the metanarrative of i speaking subject colla it imgaiaey ot s ' pses in the mast ideological practices. In: i i at ees . Inauthentic falling existence Dasein foregrounds veiling the authenticity. The ene Linguistics RHEE Tod) Vol. IIT No. 1 Modern Linguistics : An Obituary 63 of creating infinite sets of sentences ends, thus ends the opportunity of free dialogues and creativity cripples. The (I) in S is, as Barthes pointed out, thus devoid of his/her history, childhood configuration and neurotic element. But if anyone tries to find the locus standi of such $ in the behavioural manipulatative world, s/he may find that the subjectification of S’s body is under the control of dispotifs. (\) or LAD, a physical organ cannot be imagined without accomodating a social interpretation of psyche, and that is missing in the above formalization of watertight essence of (!) as such. According to this proposed interpretation (1) of S, being contaminated by the outside sociality or unweilt,, is not something transcendental or something outside psychosocial E and it is equally viable to psycho-social properties, which | abbreviated as Y(psi)-P. These Y-P reasserts that the being is always in the being-in-the- (social)world as well as being-for-others. Now the ontlogical problem of speaking subjects begins. Problems of learning Theory (LT) for the organism 0 in the Cognitive domain (D) is LT (O,D) (Chomsky, 1976:18). This Theory can be regarded as function which has certain “input” (a cognitive structure of some sort) (ibid:14). One may specifically reformulate LT (O,D) by considering O as Humans (H) and D as Language(L). They one may investigate LT(H,L) as L is strikingly different from non-humans. But LT shows certain discrepancies as there is no place for outside sociality and its influence to the biological body of H. Therefore we need to reformulate LT by putting Social Constraints S within this theory. Thus, natural organism H is to be reinterprated as SH, Linguistics Today Vol. IIT No. 1Modern-Linguistics : An Obituary 64 which is a natural H bound by social constrains. This reformulation, thus, is now represented as LT (SH,L). The output, then is not infinite L, but finite L with repititions, chiches, Stereotypes and phatic communes. A serious reader of this exposition may find the affinity of these conjectures to the Post-structuralist enterprise and may want to take a que from Frankfurt Marxists. And they.may like to compare with the texts of Barthes, Foucault, Lacan or Kristeva, Let me begin my discussion with Nietzsche. It is wellknown fact that Post-structuralism in general is much influenced by Nietzschean doctrines. For Nietzsche, due to the coercieve disciplinary technology Of control and “normalization” ( reader may notice the Foucaldian fephrasing!)of the instincts are blocked: “..all instincts: that do not discharge themselves Outwardly turn inward- this is what | call Internalization of man first developed what was later called his ‘sour” (1956:220, emphasis added). Nietzsche's argument is that this gives birth toa masochist interpretation of self that is resulted in the moral consciousness, My argument is not only confined to the moral question of reflexive self, but the internalization (or one may, if wishes, rephrase it in Freudian term as “repression’) of threat and violence which disrupt the authenticatd “soul” or innateness. Nietzsche also mentioned the “repression” of the instincts which was later on explored by Freud as Freud remarked, “suffering comes from thtee quarters: from our own body...... from the outer world, which can rage against us with the most Powerful and pitiless forces Linguistics Today Vol. IIT No.1 i 65 Modern Linguistics : An Obituary i This suffering is “obvious” et ee to us (Freud, ibid: 94) and it is not an illusi ny sed be eradicated by technical interve — Ae medicine. The different domains of sta anbaralee’ school, prison, army, Foe eet use behavioural technique to manipulate body-object. From the critical Marxist standpoint the ae speaker-hearer” as Pe ees Chee He i ted by deploying Language- int aelatat Godan The obvious reason coed Frankfurt Marxists’ views here is to rethin soe between two initiators of eee oe of in thi m ibution in this area. Both of the é ae tanee of subject.in and through a series of social codes. i i the free labour of From this perspective, ‘ creating infinite sets of sentences is eee eat ae eaking subject as the non-ideal speaker-hea f saan and hear in alienation due to the pe established linguistic functions controlled by ae han rasponse. Thatis, the speaking subjects are a i — black box of behaviouristic management ee eae the ecstasy of creation. These speaker-| ee pride speak for themselves, but they oe aoe ae The other control them y a cee or dispotif or manipulate them by using pak aiebeal management. This Se es i linguistic creativity the physical organ for tic c ear an off this pressure, scientist could ie have the opportunity to understand cS eee ia linguisti In the behavi n mind via linguistic data. sha anh words and concepts tend to ee. rather the concept tends to be angers pina d become cliche and cliche 9! Lobeah ne writing. Discourse is deprived of the ‘ Vol. IT No. 1 Linguistics TodayModern Linguistics ; An Obituary 66 mediation, which are the stages of the process of cognition and cognitive evaluation. Language is telescoped, condensed and abridged (Marcuse,1964). Intersubjectivity has become authoritatively ritualized by repetitive use of phatic commune. These all are the result of technological rationality translated in social behaviour which is a result of technological control and manipulation. The position of subject that is necessary for prediction is constructed in the interaction of somatic drives in unconscious by the contradictory outside sociality. However, in the modern linguistics, the Creative Speaking subject's “soul” without being theoretically contaminated by the internalization of externality is being deciphered by the deployment of logocentric technique which constructs a metanarrative of Universal Grammar. Barthes thinks it as a “scandal” as he brilliantly put it: “When | myself was a public square, a sook; Through me passed words, tiny syntagms, bits of formulae, and no sentence formed, as though at were the law of such a language. This.language at once very cultural and very savage, was above all lexical, sporadic; ...This non-sentence was in no way something that could not have acceded to the sentence, that might have been before the sentence; it was; what is eternally, splendidly outside the sentence. Then potentially all linguistics fell, linguistics which believes only in the sentence and always attributed an exorbitant dignity to predicative syntax (as the for of logic, of a rationality); | recalled this scientific scandal...” (Barthes, 1975:49-50) Linguistics Today Vol. HI No, 1 Modern Linguistics : An Obituary 67 “Theory (Chomsky) says that the sentence is potentially infinite (infinitely catalyzable), but practice always obliges the sentence to end.” (ibid: 50) Theory did not consider like science, subjects body as a historical subject; for it is at end of a very complex process combining biographical, historical, sociological and neurotic elements (education, social class, childhood configuration, etc.) (ibid:62) We will be back to the problem of legal formalization as mentioned by Barthes of L in the latter part of the paper, however what is haunting to us is the proliferation of non-sentences in the L of present day discourse, that is named by Barthes as Encritic language that which is produced and spread under the protection of power, institutionally distorted discourse: “All the official institutions of language are recapturing mechanism: school, sports, advertising, pulp novels pop songs, news, always repeat the same structure, the same sense, often the same words. Stereotypes are a political fact, the principal aspects of ideology.” (ibid: 45) In connection with this, one can compare Foucault’s position regarding the approximation of discourse by the coercive institutions. Quite contrary to the Chomskian interest in the essence of human species, Foucault is more concerned with the question: “how has the concept of human nature functioned in our society?” Foucault is suspicious about the universal claims regarding the speaking subjects’ essential characters. Not only he is concerned with the discourse on the concept of essence or species character, but he is also concerned with the essence itself in question regarding the function it plays in the society. For Linguistics Today Vol. IIT No. 1Modern Linguistics : An Obituary 68 Foucault, human body and human es: polarized. The one pole of bio-power is alae human body and the other pole is human species The Problem of language as well as the docile body is subject to different types of disciplinary technology which establish rhythms, impose particular occupations, regulate cycles of repetitions. Different institutions like workshops, school, prisons and hospitals, which manipulate and control the body- object in the form of “disciplinary Technology” by conjoining power and knowledge (dispotif). For Foucault, every education system is political means of maintaining and Modifying the appropriation of discourse. He is, therefore concerned with the assujetissement, the subjection of individuals in society to some Suprapersonal disciplines and authority. In Foucault's term, it is “living by way of killing” by deploying the institutionalized disciplinary technology of anatomo/bio-politics that controls the docile human body for this violent Purpose. Interestingly enough, Chomsky hi subscribes this view: ‘ ee _ “Of course one can desi nar i environment in which such cats azeosush patterns...can be demonstrated, but there is no reason to suppose that any more is learned about the range of human potentialities by such methods than would be learned by observing humans in Prison or an army- or in many a schoolroom.” (1 972:114) However, Chomsky continued his i enterprise ignoring this “deterministic” pa between body and society. The above quotation from Chomsky !s somehow isotopic in relation to his dominant discourse or metanarrative on the creative Linguistics inguistics Today Val. IIT No. 1 Modern Linguistics ; An Obituary 69 speaking subject. The proposed hypothesis of the Y-P can be subscribed by Kristeva's semanalysis, where meaning is conceived as a signifying process rather than a sign system. Kristeva remarked: “Within this process one might see the release and subsequent articulation of the drives as constrained by the social code yet not reducible to the language system as a genotext and as the signifying system as it presents itself to phenomenological intuition as a phenotext; describable in terms of structure, or of competence/performance.... The presence of genotext within the phenotext is indicated by... a semiotic disposition.”(1973:1249) lt is clear that Kristeva as a Psycholinguist, » moving away from the notion of stable subject as master of system introduced the notion of unstable Subject who is disrupted by the symbolic order of language as well as institutional order, splitting out of the continuum of semiotic chora (in Lacan’s term, “imaginary’). This splitting or dividing points between semiotic continuum and symbolic order, according to Kristeva, there is a thetic or static or structuring stage of language. For Kristeva, handling only such thetic structuring period of the speaking subject by deploying analytical grammatical procedures, that only handles the phenotext (rule-governed phenomenon) is inadequate. Kristeva encompassed this lack in her proposed semanalysis, where she dealt with language as a both drive-governed fact and something within the social space. Thus Kristeva opened up an arena that is not confined to the ‘ideal speker-hearer” in a laboratory state, but she proposed the presence of genotext (deviations) within the phenotext. This is the Linguistics Today Vol. IIT No. 1Modern Linguistics : An Obituary 70 juncture, where one can talk about the Possibility of Y-P as a category. ° ri FORMAL VERSUS NON-FORMAL SYSTEM formal phase, we found mediaeval bhakti movement preceded by formal Systematization of our philosophy in its various schools including nyaya-vaisesika tradition. The non-formal bhakti movement of Caitanya was preceded by the formal navyanyaya tradition. This time-space of postmodarnity now enjoys the informal phase by differentiated itself from the rigorous object- analysis of modern science. Though, one may also Notice the side-by-side co-existence of formal and non- formal system in a given space-time, 8.9. Kamalakanta, a noted bhakti-singer and a devotee of the mother goddess Kali, questioned, in one of his song, the existence of Kali as a primitive being or as an incarnation of the first and original existence as he pointed out that Kali should not have “munDomala’(a garland of human head-cuts) at the beginning of the world, when everything was Supposed to be a non- existent. i In the western tradition, after the much advertised triumph of enlightened formal science, a Problem regarding the status of reality arises, which leads Russell to consider the hypotheticality of science it is seldom quite wrong and has, as a tule, a better chance of being fight than theoriés of unscientific. It is, therefore, rational to accept hypothetically.” (1959:17). Thus truth-claims of enlightened science had reduced to mere truth-game where everything is indeterminate and non-predictable. Every attempt to Linguistics Today Val. IIT No, 7 Modern Linguistics : An Obituary 71 the reality-object by empirical method is at stake pif en Rented out, “Science seems to be at war with itself: when it most means to be objective, it plunged into subjectivity against its will."(1940:15). In the same paragraph, he put an antecedent of a hypothetical sentence, “[i]f Physics is to be believed...” where the question of faith in science is attacked by the always haunting septic and rational mind. This type of sabotage within the periphery of enlightened science begins when Russell put his famous paradox in his magnum opus Principia Mathematica where Russell introduced sentential calculus for better understanding of outer reality. The sentences like “This sentence is not true”, “One Calcuttan says all Calcuttans are liars” etc. have truth- functional problem which is supposed to be dissolved by Russell’s theory of types. Though Russell introduced such device to resolve the problem, the problem was further elaborated by Kurt Goedel in his famous theorem of incompleteness of any formal system. , The problem further expanded when well- formed sentences are analyzed in the Logical Form (LF) of S-Structure following the path of logical positivist way of analyzing sentences to get the sentential meaning. The problems arise from this are as follows: a What happens if Russell’s paradox or Goedel's propositions is put into the LF? 2 LF is supposed fo give the notion of ‘reality’: what is this “reality”? Is it achievable via linguistic analysis? Actually, the analysis of LF is based on the Linguistics Today Vol. IITNo. 1Modern Linguistics : An Obituary 72 logical positivist believe that sentence is representation of reality as such. (Cf. “ For my part, | believe that, partly by means of the study of syntax, we can arrive at considerable knowledge concerning the structure of the world.” Russell, 1940:347) The meaning is supposed to be exposed in the GE: LF is constructed on the basis of Fregean compositional function and Katz-Fodorian Semantic analysis. This is an extentionalist view of meaning where meaning of a‘unit can be componentially fragmanted into atomic sub-units. _ However this theory does not consi: meaning from the subjective-cognitive Miradbae. ‘ the speaking subject’s cognitive domain, there is no such compositionality or componeatiality as proposed by Frege or Katz-Fodor. Instead it has a prototypical understanding of meaning of the sign. Apart from this cognitive psychological perspective the psychoanalytic view also subscribes this standpoint if we are able to look into the theory of “archetype” as proposed by Jung who inaugurated the scope of irrationality in modern psychoanalytic science by introducing the notion of phylogenetic unconscious The scope of putting “irrational” sentences in LF is also not possible from the standpoint of modern enlightened positivist science. Therefo a re, the madman/ woman, the product of modern enlightened dividing practice, as a speaking subject is absent in the LF- scheme. The absence of madman/woman’s dialogue/ monologue is marked by the presence of positivist — - rational logic. This, | think, implie logocentrism in Chomsky’s theory. Cle With these hints only, | am returning to the Linguistics Today Vol. IIT No. 1 Modern Linguistics : An Obituary 7 problems of informality in Linguistics. The discipline called “Linguistics” is now under erasure, thanks to the efforts made by the anti-linguists like Aronoff, Rajendra Singh, Probal Dasgupta and Ramakant Agnihotri im their numerous works in 80s and 90s of this century. What | found that Singh, Dasgupta and Agnihotri, all of them are inspired by the Non-Paniniam tradition of non-analysis of language-object as developed by Nagesa, Prabhakara and Bharttrihari. This endeavor for linguistic analysis began at the eve of second urbanization (600 B.C.) when rkpratisakhya was composed by Saunaka. by involving the rules of analysis (padapatha) and synthesis (samhitapatha). Thus, the codification of a selected variety started through the translation of vedic text into a reconstructed H code and the songs which are composed in L code(sama-songs) instantly and subsequently branded as gramageya ‘songs sung in the village’ and aranyageya ‘song sung in the forest’.’ What is interesting to note here these analytical procedures of archewriting and their subsequent development in the Vyakaranas were discarded in the 7 C. AD, when Bharttrhari criticized these analytical procedures by calling them “apoddhara’” (“analytical abstractions” made by the grammarians). Thus the non- formal poststructuralist tradition or Anti-Linguistics began in India. Though, Bhartrihari had precedence. Kumarila, in his abhihitanvayavada, said that in case of assigning meaning to words, it is the amalgamation of root and suffix that constitute the meaning (“prakrti pratyayau sahartham bruta”). However he considered the separate and alienated status of words in the sentences. Later on, Prabhakara, one follower of Linguistics Today Vol. IIT No. 1Modern Linguistics : An Obituary 3 740 Mimamsa school like Kumarila, proposed the theory of anvitabhidhanavada, where words only meaningful when they are used in the sentences. There is no alienated word-meaning separated from syntactic constructions. Bhartrhari took this que and said the sentence-meaning is “atyanta-samsrsta” (intimately attached) and discarded the “dividing” practice of grammarians who used to deploy the inductive method of agreement and difference (anvayi-vyatireki) by Saying the analytical divisions as completely imaginary as well as illusory and by introducing the notion of “apoddhara”. The language as a whole, in its non- imaginary undivisable vyavaharika (practical) existence, is called “anvakhyeya”. The grammarians’ way of imaginary divisions or apoddhara may lead to the “truth” of language, butit is the trajectory from un- reason to reason, un-truth to truth. In Modern Linguistics, and with the advent of Computational Linguistics, the deployment of such analytical procedures is proliferated by creating a cyberspace of communication. The will to know the “truth” about the language domain within the body and cybernetic control over the communication lead us to what Foucault called as “power over life"(Foucault, 1978/90: 139) through a series of disciplinary technology (procedures of language-object analysis) that control the docile human bady by considering it as a machine. The procedures of power here get a chance to know and penetrate the body through, what Foucault called as “anatomo-politics”. On the other hand, the procedures of Power also penetrate the human species by deploying universal mechanics. These attempts to intervene with regulatory control over the species are, according to Foucault, the “bio- Politics”. The linguistic regulation of population is only Linguistics Today Vol. IIT No. 1 ; i 75 Modern Linguistics : An Obituary i i tion of anatomo- ossible through the violent interven ] bio politics of Computational Linguistics that ee the notion of parallel brain as well as oe intelligence. As Poster (1984: 146-69), ae Foucault showed that how this enable Soe doci I] as huma ver the docile human body as we! ; By using computational regulatory practice by bi Procrustean bed of software is possible in the country like America. | i kian endeavour It seems paradoxical that Choms! ‘ ° u to know the “cognitive domain” by formal inquiry via syntax does not able to escape the trap of Se bio-politics as Chomskian system is also largely use in the procedures of Computational ie jectifi i {| as subjecti the subjectification as we i i (assujetissement) of the human body is Rose Though Chomsky, as an anarchist, himself, times to time, opposed the violent power-game played by any power-monger. 3. METHODOLOGY er the format of the thesis or research paper, te ee atlat on the methodology adopted cigs be in the beginning just like a preface Then We reasoning begins with the bare “facts' by recording . observations. In the intermediate portion of the paper thesis, these observations are generalized into a “natural law” by applying rules of discovery. This is wit is known as empirical inductive method of standar research. Lastly, observations and results are stated without bothering about any why-question. This suffocating dependence on a single i i d colonially inductive method developed by Mill and colon denlupd by us for applying it in our “scientific” writings, Linguistics Today Vol. IIT No. 1) Modern Linguistics : An Obituary 76 makes me remember of a giant, Damastes or otherwise Prokrustes, who laid all human beings on his bed and then “lop them or rack them out to make fit it.” Due to this type of violent action of appropriation and formatted mode of thinking, the potentiality of human Cognition has fridged and condensed into a one- dimensional thought. In this paper, this Procrustean “standard”” standard bed of scientific writing is avoided. Therefore, | put the horse before the car as | found that in writing standard theses, research guides advise to write the chapter on methodology after finishing the “other” chapters. | simply follow this standard Practice to write this report to convey different competing theories As for example, | do not want to follow here the scientific epistemological or empirical method, which encourages dissection of the “Physical organ” for LAD and finding out of the crippling zones to prove my hypothesis. As far as the present knowledge on medical technology goes, this type of direct investigation in the realm of cognitive domain is rather impossible. Instead, | here adopt the “ pluralistic methodology” (a la Feyerabend; | abbreviated it as plurimethods) by means of which | compare different “theories with other theories rather than with ‘experience’, ‘data’, ‘facts’ and ! will “try to improve father than discard the views that appear to lose into competition”. (Feyerabend, 1988: 33) Chomskian Theory T’ “ successfully describes the situations inside domain D’. T’ agrees with a finite numbers of observations (let their class be F) and it agrees with these observations inside a margin M of error. Any alternative that contradicts T’ outside F and inside M is supported by exactly the same observations Linguistics Today Vol. IIT No. 1 ji Fa Modern Linguistics : An Obituary 7 and is therefore acceptable if T’ was accaeets (Feyerabend, 1988:25). In the Chomskian yy eon Tie the M is the omission of social constraints. ing ae F confines itself to well-organized set of senten i ignoring the actual performance of the Se ee also ignores the failure of IL or competence Ras leads to performance error as competence a performance are two distinct and discrete openonens in T’. Therefore, the proposed LT (SH, L) neon contradicts T’ [= LT (H, L) ] inside M, a) a isti in. thi; is F (linguistic data or sentences ii ° 2. oy partial observation lead by Pree architecture of Syntax. Thus T’ nea - Hope se f transcendental speaking subject by i globally, not locally the different shades of creative subjects’ existences. is plurimethodical approach inclines towards osed ajubtaral “method” of decentered subjects ps post-structuralism, as a method, encourages Te in every sphere of LN ee a ey i ur’s cup of tea. Bri : iris tan eGb hatwrials in contrast with type ie engineer, who straits out with a well-defined ee si or explanatory weeny eo ke ue ined theory. Levi- aeesece = the work of a bricoleur. He Bua, as that no theory could escape the effects of pda es Bricoleur’s work, then, falls outside the dom enlightened science and pure reason. iti i prentice In writing this report, 1 as an ap bricoleur, simply follow this plurimethod ite amalgamating different theories to prove my points. it wi i ho tit will not satisfy people wi cones i Baetcetne scientific methodology! | am ‘ . HI No. 1 Linguistics Today Vol. lo.Modern Linguistics : An Obituary 78 feeling sorry for them and also sympathetic to them whose rigorous hard work made linguistics to live as an autonomous subject through out this century. Now the Linguistics is dead. Long lives the Anti-Linguistics. 4 Notes: a The term grama- ‘village’ in gramageya indicates — the existence of a-grama or nagara, non-village Or urban society and thus the term was Presumably coined after the second urbanization, when attempts were made to (1) Standardize a variety (2) stylize a variety (3) codify a variety (4) fix a variety (5) appropriate “other” varieties by way of hegemonic subsumption and also by deploying speech technology as it was found in padapatha. To sum up: the process of fixing oral text also included the process of Sanskritization by subscribing a particular variety, perhaps the udicya or madhyadesiya variety. The aranya and grama antithetically establish the dichotomous relation between nagara, “city” and aranya,grama, i.e. ,centre and periphery relation or empire-colony relation or dominator-dominated relation. REFERENCES Altridge, D. Bannington, G., Young, R. ed. 1987. Poststrucuralism and the Question of History. New York: Cambridge University Press. Barthes, R. 1975. The Pleasure of Text. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . 1973. Mythologies. St. Albans: Paladin. Chomsky, N.A. 1972. Language and Mind. New York: Brace Jevanovich. Linguistics Today Vol. IIT No. 1 Modern Linguistics : An Obituary ae . 1976. Reflections on Language. London: Temple Smith. . 1979. Language and Responsibility. New York: Pantheon Books. . 1986. Knowledge of Language. New York: Praeger. i Materialism: Coward, R., Ellis, J. 1977.Language and Development in Semiology and the Theory of Subject. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. f inguisti heory”. Dasgupta, P. 1983. “On Freedom of Linguistic T! y ' indlan Journal of Linguistics. Vol. X. (Special No.). Calcutta (pp. 15-59) . 1993. The Otherness of English. Delhi: Sage. Derrida, J. 1976/1994. OF Grammatology. (Tr. G) G: Spivak) Delhi: Motilal Benarasidas. . 1981. Dissemination. ( Tr. B. Johnson). Chicago: Chicago University Press. Dews, P. 1987. Logics of Disintegration. London: Verso. Feyerabnad, P.1988. Against Method. London: Verso. Foucault, M. 1979. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books. .. 1988. The History of Sexuality: An "Introduction, Vol. |. New York: Vintage Books. Freud, S. 1930. Civilization and its Discontent. (Tr. Joan, R.) London: The Hogarth Press Ltd. Gadamar, H-G. 1975. Truth and Method. New York: Continuum. Linguistics Today Vol. IIT No. 1Modern Linguistics : An Obituary 80 Habermas, J. 1970. “Towards a Theory of Communicative Competence”, in Dreitzel, H.-P. ed. Patterns of Communicative Behavior. New York: Macmillan. Kristeva, J. 1973. “The System of Speaking Subject’. Times Literary Supplement, 12 October, 1973. (pp. 1249-50): London. . 1986. “A Question of Subjectivity- An Interview”, in Rice, P. et al ed_ A Modern Literary Theory: A Reader. London: Edward Arnold. Lakatos, |. 1976. Proof and Refutations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcuse, H. 1964. One Dimensional Man: Studies In The Advanced Industrialized Society. London: ARK Paperbacks Nietzsche, F. 1956. The Birth of Tragedy/ The y Genealogy of Morals. (Tr. Golffing, F.) New York. Penrose, R. 1990. Emperor’s New Mind.Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1994. Shadows of the Mind.Oxford: Oxford University Press. WHipson, R. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism.Oxtord: Oxford University Press. Rabinow, P. ed. 1984. A Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon Books. Singh, R. 1988."*Do We Really want a Syntax Organ? ~ A Note On Phonology, Morphology and Autonomy Thesis.” Indian Linguistics. Vol. 49, Nos.-1-4. (pp.109-114). Linguistics Today Vol. IIT No. 1 Modern Linguistics : An Obituary 81 _ 1994. “Reflections On Morphology and Lexicon (With Apologies to Neo-Paninians) National Seminar on “Word Formations In Indian Languages”. Osmania University. : Silverman, D., Terode, B. 1980. The Materia! Word: Some Theories of Language and Its Limits. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 986. Marxism and Philosophy of NEN © i i veloaey ambridge: Cambridge University Language. CG Press.s Vol. IIT No. 1 Linguistics Today