UniSX – Formalismo & Funcionalismo Vol.

2 – Jaime Vera

PUCP, 28/08/2019

Formalismo y funcionalismo: ¿en qué consiste el desacuerdo?

“Perhaps the greatest rhetorical conflict that exists (and has long existed) among the linguists of the world is between those who
practice some variety of ‘formal linguistics’ and those who practice some variety of ‘functional linguistics’. I stress the word
‘rhetorical’, because [.. I] argue that there is no fundamental incompatibility in the essential content of the two approaches to
linguistic theory. […] It seems reasonable to begin by excluding from discussion those formal theories that categorically reject a role
for function and those functional theories that categorically reject formal structure. The quote from Paul Postal illustrates the
former and that from Paul Hopper illustrates the latter:

There is no more reason for languages to change than there is for automobiles to add fins one year and remove them the next, for
jackets to have three buttons one year and two the next, etc. (Postal 1968)

[Grammar is] a continual movement toward structure, a postponement or ‘deferral’ of structure, a view of structure as always
provisional, always negotiable, and in fact epiphenomenal. (Hopper 1982)” (Newmeyer 2010: 301)

1. Definiciones mínimas (Newmeyer 2010)

 La tesis formalista central es (1). La tesis funcionalista central es (2). (1) y (2) no son incompatibles, de modo que uno puede
creer ambas y, en ese sentido, ser un formalista y un funcionalista a la vez. Hay buena evidencia disponible en favor de ambas
tesis.
(1) AUTONOMÍA DE LA SINTAXIS
Las reglas (principios, restricciones, etc.) que determinan las posibilidades combinatorias de los elementos formales de
una lengua no hacen ninguna referencia a constructos sobre el significado, el discurso o el uso lingüístico.
(2) EXPLICACIÓN EXTERNA
La estructura gramatical recibe su forma en buena parte por las funciones que cumple el lenguaje, la más importante de
las cuales es la de transmitir significado en actos comunicativos.

2. Como maneras diferentes de explicar (Doris Payne 1998; Dryer 2006)

 Ejemplo de la hoja (Doris Payne 1998: 142-3)
(3) Tipos de explicaciones a la forma de la hoja
a. Tipo I
Its cells are arranged in a format in which more cells are spread in two
dimensions than in a third dimension. (An “explanation” which consists in
redescribing the data in a more abstract form.)
b. Tipo II
Its genes said “Be flat!” (Akin to a Universal Grammar type of “explanation”.)
c. Tipo III
It is flat because in this arrangement more cells have direct access to
light, facilitating photosynthesis (and potentially survival). (A Functional
and/or Natural Selection “explanation”.)
 Una posible postura es sostener que son tipos complementarios de explicación, que no se contradicen, sino que funcionan en
diferentes planos.
 En un artículo clásico, Dryer (2006) sostuvo que es necesario diferenciar entre teorías de nivel descriptivo y de nivel
explicativo.
“The distinction between descriptive theories and explanatory theories is not widely recognized in linguistics, although it is not hard to
identify the historical explanation for this. First, pregenerative theories, such as American structuralism, explicitly disavowed the goal of
constructing an explanatory theory. As such they were examples of descriptive theories, but the underlying assumption was that that was the
only type of theory needed. Generative grammar, in contrast, has aimed at being an explanatory theory. Furthermore, a central tenet of
generative grammar, especially clear in the work of Chomsky since the mid-1970s (e.g Chomsky 1973), has been the idea that a
single theory can serve simultaneously as a descriptive theory and as an explanatory theory. Such a view follows from Chomsky’s
ideas about innateness: if one believes that languages are the way they are because of our innate linguistic knowledge, then a theory about

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that innate linguistic knowledge will simultaneously serve as a theory about what languages are like and as a theory about why they are that
way.
Curiously, however, many linguists who reject Chomsky’s views about innateness seem to implicitly accept the Chomskyan view
that a single theory will serve both theoretical goals. Many functionalists, in particular, propose kinds of explanations for why languages
are the way they are that are radically different from those of Chomsky, yet they often see questions of how to describe languages as the
domain of formal linguists, confusing issues of descriptive theory with issues of explanatory theory. […] I argue that what Dixon (1997)
calls “basic linguistic theory” will serve as such a descriptive theory.” (pp. 207-8)

«Linguists often distinguish work they characterize as descriptive from work they characterize as theoretical. Similarly, linguists
often characterize certain work as atheoretical. This label is sometimes applied, not only to descriptive work on particular languages, but
also occasionally to crosslinguistic typological work. […] The idea that description can be atheoretical is simply confused. The
analytical assumptions and the concepts one assumes necessarily constitute a set of theoretical assumptions. If all work in the
field shared the same set of assumptions, the notion of theory might be unnecessary, but it would still be the case that all such work would
be assuming the same theoretical framework. And when one sees the contrast between recent descriptive work and work in early generative
grammar, recent Chomskyan generative grammar, tagmemics, and American Structuralism, among others, it is clear that what distinguishes
the recent descriptive work from these other approaches is a very different set of theoretical assumptions. […] Because of the false contrast
many linguists see between description and theory, and because of the higher prestige associated with what is called theory, work in
basic linguistic theory is often dismissed as “merely” descriptive.» (pp. 207, 212, 229)

3. Como paradigmas científicos alternativos (Scholz, Pelletir & Pullum 2015)

«[…] the tendencies should not be taken as sharply honed, well-developed research programs or theories. Rather, they provide background
biases for the development of specific research programs—biases which sometimes develop into ideological stances or polemical programs
or lead to the branching off of new specialisms with separate journals. In the judgment of Phillips (2010), “Dialog between adherents of
different approaches is alarmingly rare.” […] Many of the central differences between these approaches depend on what proponents
consider to be the main project of linguistic theorizing, and what they count as a satisfying explanation.

Many researchers—perhaps most—mix elements from each of the three approaches. […] Certainly, there are no logical impediments
for a researcher with one tendency from simultaneously pursuing another; these approaches are only general centers of emphasis.» (§ 1)