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Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Philosophical Theory of

Language Acquisition and Use

Gary A. Phillips

To cite this article: Gary A. Phillips (1971) Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Philosophical Theory of
Language Acquisition and Use, Word, 27:1-3, 139-157, DOI: 10.1080/00437956.1971.11435619

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GARY A. P H I L L I P S - - - - - - - - - - -

Ludwig Wittgenstein:
A Philosophical Theory of
Language Acquisition and Use

A proper understanding of language acquisition requires a

methodology and mode! of message-communicating behavior that is
dynamic and context oriented. By contrast, Noam Chomsky offers a
transformational mode! of language acquisition which is reduction-
istic ànd overly mechanical. From a philosophical vantage point
Ludwig Wittgenstein represents a view oflinguistic phenomena which
shows Chomsky's accounting of language acquisition to be
mechanically impoverished and finally unsatisfactory. For
Wittgenstein aflirms that any analysis of linguistic form and meaning
must be set in the context oflanguage use and must take into account
the verbal as weil as the nonverbal aspects of the communicative
process. A dynamic view such as Wittgenstein proposes goes beyond
the limitations of Chomsky's scheme to provide a model and an
approach to the phenomena of language acquisition and use that is
holistic and persuasive.

Language acquisition is the result of a complex interrelationship of

verbal and nonverbal elements. The work of sociolinguistics makes it qui te
clear that message communication (both for sender and receiver) is
improperly conceived when understood and explained by strictly verbally-
oriented methods and models. Indeed, research in the area of kinesics
gives added support to a much broader understanding of language
acquisition that views the process as an interplay of a number of
factors, for instance: maturational, biological and cultural.l This stands
quite in contrast to a Chomskian-style transformational understanding
of acquisition which reduces this dynamic process to a universally-shared,
innate mechanism. Simply put, the contrast is between a view of language

1 See, for example, Walburga von Raffier-Engel, "Development Kinesics: Cultural

Differences" (Paper presented at the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Meeting of the Inter-
national Communication Association in Chicago in April, 1975), pp. 3 and 11.
139
140 GARY A. PillLLIPS

behavior that is dynamic and context-centered as over against a view that

is mechanical and posits the ideal speaker-hearer.
The transformationalist orientation and its mode! of language acquisition
and use is akin to a philosophical tradition that has received a severe
criticism in the twentieth century with the rise of linguistic philosophy,
especially that of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Chomsky's linguistic mode! with
ali of its daims for innateness and universality may be vigorously criticized
from a Wittgensteinian view toward language acquisition, language use,
and the diversity of the means of communication in its manifold cultural
and interpersonal aspects. In this regard, Wittgenstein's dynamic mode! of
language with its focus upon language use rather than an innate mechanism
puts him in the framework of the sociolinguists.
What is fundamentally at issue is the method and mode! to be used in
explaining the phenomenon oflanguage acquisition and use. It is important
then that we have a clear grasp of what the mode! can and, equally as
importantly, cannot do. In this connection, Wittgenstein provides a sound,
constructive position from which to develop a critique of the trans-
formational approach to this question and also to provide an alternative
mode! for understanding language as but one part of communicative
behavior. From Wittgenstein's viewpoint toward philosophy and language,
we will see that the Chomskian transformational scheme is beset with
profound difficulties as a mode! ofhow it is that people acquire their means
of communication. This is because it fails to account adequately for
Ianguage's "lived dimension". Jt is impoverished by excessive daims and,
hence, is unworkable.
At the root of the transformationalist orientation is a particular view of
the nature oflanguage and communication systems which is itself grounded
upon a view of the world and reality which can be traced, in part, back to
Descartes. Such an orientation focuses upon the constant elements and
relations pertaining to the object of investigation. It shares in a fundamental
viewpoint which tends to place a value upon the relations between things
rather than upon the properties of the things themselves. In linguistics,
where the emphasis is upon the constant semantic and syntactic features of
communication, the transformationalist is concerned with communication,
the nature of language, and the underlying processes whereby meaning is
made possible.
On a superficiallevel it may be said that modern linguistic philosophy
that is related to Wittgenstein holds in common with the transforma-
tionalist orientation described above a joint interest in language and in
how it is individually generated. However, the presuppositions and goals
of both methodologies have important differences. The focus of linguistic
 A PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND USE 141

philosophy is, in part, upon language use and its logical foundation. For
the philosopher, what is of concern is the identification of the fundamental
constraints both individual and cultural which affect human discourse-
specifically the rules and conditions which make meaning possible-and
their clarification by focusing upon language use. What this view of
philosophy and language entails is a modification of the traditional
approach to and understanding of philosophical problems-in other
words, the proposai of a new method for philosophy. This approach, then,
presents traditional philosophical problems as troubled forms of ordinary
discourse through a redirecting of attention to that discourse which is, for
the most part, trouble-free and meaningful.
Wittgenstein's philosophical method is useful in clarifying certain
transformationalist principles and eventually criticizing them. With
respect to Chomsky's methodology, four important areas are of concern:
the task-the clarification and description of the meaning of and possibility
for communication; the method-the description of linguistic structures at
ali levels; the subject matter-the form of human discourse; and the
model of language-the conception of language, what it is, what it does,
and how it does it. Where linguistic philosophy and transformational
linguistics address themselves to these four areas, there will be a number
of superficial agreements. But there also are deep-seated differences on
the nature finally ofwhat is "real", of the basic understanding of language
and human speaking, and of the implications that these have for explaining
language acquisition.
Let us begin by examining Wittgenstein's understanding of the nature
of philosophy. This is important since it has implications for not only the
method which is to be investigated but also the understanding of the
philosophical task as it pertains to our view of the form and use oflanguage:
"The object ofphilosophy is the logical clarification ofthought. Philosophy
is not a theory but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of
elucidations. The result of philosophy is not a number of 'philosophical
propositions,' but to make propositions clear. Philosophy should other-
wise make clear and delimit sharply the thoughts which otherwise are, as
it were, opaque and blurred."2 The philosophical descriptive activity goes
beyond a simple analysis of the expressions of philosophical propositions;
philosophy must address itself to the constraints and conditions of man-
the-language-user in the world, conditions which make communication
and meaning possible. Wittgenstein's philosophical task is, however, more
than an explication of a theory of language-of "meaning as use" as is

2 Henri Wald, "Structure, Structural, Structuralism," Diogenes, LXVI (1969), 23.

142 GARY A. PHILLIPS

commonly attributed to him. lt is at the very !east a portrayal of the

complex picture of man in the world as a linguistic creature who com-
municates in various ways and whose linguistic behavior may be explained
in as many different ways. We might say that these conditions are struc-
tures of language use and that part of philosophy's task is to ascertain
the nature and logic ofthese structures.
Note, however, that Wittgenstein's brand of philosophy does not set
out to isolate what may be identified as the essential foundations and
conditions in an ideational way as do Husserl and other phenomenologists
of his persuasion. Rather, Wittgenstein zeroes in upon linguistic con-
straints and logical conditions as they are made manifest in common,
ordinary speech.
According to Wittgenstein, the philosophical task has as its goal a
certain type of phenomenological clarification. To this end philosophy
must become a skill, a method, a technique, an activity, an art: "the art of
clarification, of relief from the toits of philosophical confusion. lt is the
art of freeing us from the illusions ... lt is the art of finding one's way
when lost."3 Wittgenstein's philosophy aims at language misuse and
confusion. For it is because of the prostitution of and incestuous relation-
ships of certain expressions that, oftentimes, misunderstandings arise.
Renee, the "results of [Wittgenstein's] philosophy are the uncovering of
one or another piece of nonsense and of bugs that the understanding has
got by running up against the limits of language. "4 Language pro vides the
context for, as well as the means by which, philosophical problems arise
and are dealt with. Indeed, what we need is to commanda clear view of the
use of our words.s
White the task or goal of philosophy is a foundational clarification of
language use, the subject matter of philosophy must be the communi-
cative behavior of human beings. Traditional philosophy with its set of
problems is viewed metaphorically by Wittgenstein as psychosis, a
fundamental aberration and dysfunction of the ordinary, nonproblemati-
cally-acquired language system which is part and parcel of man's cultural
existence. The method which makes this analysis possible is a descriptive

3 John Davis, "Is Philosophy a Sickness or a Therapy," Antioch Review, XXIII (1963),
10.
4 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953),
#119; seealso #127.
5 Ibid., #122. Wittgenstein states: "A main source of our failure to understand is that
we do not command a clear view of the use of our words-Our grammar is lacking in
this sort ofperspecuity. A perspecuous representation producesjust that understanding
which consists in 'seeing connexions'."
 A PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND USE 143
one. Queer, traditional philosophical speculations6 have a chance for
resolution when we recall the ordinary ways in which we speak about the
world: "The work of the philosopher consists in assemblying reminders
for a particular purpose: the [philosophical] problems were solved not by
giving new information, but by arranging what we already have known;
Philosophy puts everything before us. . . . Since everything lies open to
view there is nothing to explain: One might give the name 'philosophy' to
what is possible before ali new discoveries and inventions."7
Clarifying philosophy addresses itself to the world of language use but
goes beyond the linguistic phenomena themselves-the subject matter of
the science of linguistics-to that which makes the linguistic phenomena
possible to begin with. 8 Wittgenstein writes: "We feel as if we had to
penetrate phenomena; an investigation, however, is directed not towards
phenomena, but as one might say toward the 'possibilities' of phenomena.
We remind ourselves, that is to say, of the kind ofstatements that we make
about phenomena."9 This sort of phenomenological philosophy is con-
cerned with the many diverse and interrelated elements of the linguistic
communicative process. What Wittgenstein seeks to clarify by his de-
scriptive method is what the transformationalist also claims to examine:
that which structures or gives form and content to our understanding,
systematizes and regulates our language, and gives rise to meaning. I take
this to be an important aspect of Chomsky's concern. But Wittgenstein
adds one important qualification: all is accomplished within the context
of language use. This philosophical activity, to be distinguished from the
natural sciences, entails not only a clarification of linguistic structure as
such but linguistic structure as it is found in the performance context.
The implication of this position is clear: performance and rules of per-
formance provide the structural elues as to how it is that we can com-
municate.10
6 See Davis, p. 11. Philosophy as therapy seeks to clarify language misuse by accentu-
ating the queer expressions. Therapy upon language amounts to three treatments: first,
the quickening sense of the queer; second, the presentation of basic meanings via
argument by paradigm cases; finally, the uncovering of misleading analogies. The
philosopher-therapist offers no answers to the misinformed linguistic expressions (p. 18).
7 Quoted from Tullio de Mauro, Ludwig Wittgenstein: His Place in the Development
of Semantics (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1967), p. 43.
8 See Edmund Erde. Philosophy and Psycholinguistics (The Hague: Mouton, 1973).
Erde argues in defense of both of the enterprises of Chomsky and Wittgenstein. The
former deals with the scientific mode! and linguistic data in an empirical way; the latter
looks to the fundamental, foundational issues that philosophy is by nature to attend to.
See esp. pp. 203ff.
9 Wittgenstein, #90.
to In agreement with this position, though from a more formallinguistic perspective,
144 GARY A. PHILLIPS

Wittgenstein's approach, as we have seen, is therapeutic in function: its

task is the clarification of the possibility of having a meaningfullanguage
and picture of the world.ll Specifically, Wittgenstein attempts to lay out
the logical and extralinguistic limits and the pertinent rules for language
use so that meaning and its means of constellation are disclosed. How does
he accomplish this? First, he simply recalls our linguistic habits, our
performances, as Chomsky would say. He reminds us that, in our ordinary
speaking world, we can already distinguish what is from what is not
meaningful; said differently, we are already immersed in a culture which
imposes linguistic structure and meaning upon us. Often, though, we
forget the norm for describing meaningful communication and seek to
explain the phenomena with impossible models and statements. Witt·
genstein counteracts this problem by a technique of oscillation: whenever
we stray into misleading discourse, generalities, assertions of fact or
knowledge, we are then brought back to the particular and the meaning-
ful.12 Inventing games as paradigms and as abjects of comparison, calling
attention to weil known pertinent facts, poking fun at statements in order
to let their oddness ring, giving rules of thumb like "Don't ask for a
'meaning', ask for use"-these are but sorne of the philosophical tools
available to Wittgenstein for helping us to regain our bearings about the
nature oflanguage and our roles as linguistic creatures in the co mm onplace
world. 13
Philosophy viewed in this way may quite appropriately be called
phenomenological. At one point in his earlier career, Wittgenstein became
enamored of the logical construction of human speech, seeing it as a
construct upon our language performance. To sorne extent it is true that
the position of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus tended to be idealist
in orientation; that is, Wittgenstein supposed that the structure of natural
languages could be isolated from the speaking context somewhat analo-
gously to the way in which Chomsky can separate structures of syntax
from those of semantics. However, Wittgenstein shifted his focus in the
period marked by the Philosophical Investigations toward the empirical
and the paradigmatic.t4

is Walburga von Raffier-Engel, "Competence, A Term in Search of a Concept," in

Linguistique Contemporaine, ed. Yvan Lebrun (Brussels: Univ. of Brussels, 1969), pp.
280ft'.
u De Mauro, p. 46.
12 David Pears, Ludwig Wittgenstein (New York: Viking Press, 1970), p. 197.
13 Quoted from Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Man and His Philosophy, ed. K. T. Fann
(New York: Delta Books, 1967), p. 108.
14 Pears, pp. 106-107.
 A PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND USE 145
Wittgenstein's great insight is that the conditions and rules governing
language use and meaning may not be isolated from their performance
contexts and may not be given an extralinguistic reality apart from the rest
of the world. In other words, the underlying logic of discourse has a reality
only at the level of the use of language itself. The form exists as an aspect
of the performance. There are no ideals, structures, or essences dis-
cernible apart from the linguistic use; there is only language use con-
figured in such and such a way. We can therefore say that there is a
linguistic reality configured in such and such a way. This does not mean
that the task of identifying the controlling logical patterns and pertinent
rules is ruled out or that theorizing about language in this regard is
prohibited. On the contrary, the search for logical constraints and for the
conditions of linguistic phenomena remains a thoroughgoing concern for
Wittgenstein and hence ought to be the task of any phenomenology of
language. The central issue is: What status may we ascribe to constraints
and rules as we hypothesize them and what is the nature of the necessary
relationship existing between such structures and the extraverbal dimen-
sions of speech ?IS
When philosophy forces us to reflect upon any extraordinary use of
language and the assumptions underpinning such discourse, we are called
to task by the language we already know, by the patterns and con-
straints which operate in and through our speech. In order to disclose the
"grammar" of our language (that is, in Wittgenstein's frequently meta-
phorical language, the constants and relations existing among the syn-
tactic and semantic features of discourse), we must be concerned with the
"language game"-the moment of language use together with its pertinent
rules-so as to show these logical structures and their configuration. Such
a phenomenological approach must "delve beneath the surface," another
metaphor, to those constraints themselves as they are limited and defined
by the speaking context. It is indeed a circular motion: Wittgenstein uses
"language game" and "meaning as use" in a movement away from the
"depths" so that we might eventually return and comprehend what
underpins the surface. The "grammar" or structure of language is arrived
at when we discover the linguistic phenomenon as performance. To see the
structure or grammar which exists, let us look to the context and its use.16
But we must ask why it is that contextual description of phenomena in
15 This position, of course, has its own presuppositions and Weltanschauung. Ernest
Gellner in Words and Things (London: Victor Gollancz, 1959) rightly notes that there
is a metaphysic associated with this viewpoint. It is a naturalistic one: the world is what
it is, oftentimes oblique and confusing, but it is nothing else.
16 See Ludwig Wittgenstein, "Sorne Remarks on Logical Form," Aristotelian Society
Supplement, IX (1929), 163.
146 GARY A. PIDLLIPS

relation to language holds such an important place in the philosophical

scheme of Wittgenstein. The answer, I suggest, goes to the heart of the
philosophy of language enterprise. Philosophy is finally phenomenology.
Hence, the philosophical or descriptive task, in its broadest sense, has the
world as an object. In this connection, Wittgenstein's enigmatic phrase
form of /ife becomes critically important. This phrase refers to the
theoretical, empirical, practical, and historical horizon which provides the
contextual framework for the analysis of ail communicative phenomena,
their meaning and logical structure. 17 This philosophical perspective
seeks to free itself from the "grasp of recalcitrant facts and events";
therefore, we must understand the goal of linguisic philosophy in the
descriptive turn to phenomena themselves as a step beyond the tradi-
tional distinctions erected between truths of reason and truths of fact,
syntax and semantics, surface structure and deep structure. This turn
focuses on linguistic form and context-use as the keys to discerning
meaning and logical structures.ts Properly speaking, structures and
constraints have visibility only within the speaking situation.
Wittgenstein's understanding of the philosophical descriptive task must
be seen in connection with his conception of the nature and role of language
in human life. He focuses, in part, upon language and language use
because in his judgment it is the word as it is spoken that ultimately
mediates meaning. It is through the word that experience is filtered and by
which phenomena become meaningful: "The filter is the implicit function
[of language] in virtue of which the data of experience assumes a particular
meaning." 19 Description of language use and structure is but a clarifica-
tion, then, of the explicit linguistic functions. In other words, Wittgenstein
correlates experience of the world and its everyday meaningfulness in
terms of language as a filter: ordinary experience of the world and its
specifie data are meaningful precisely because man has the use of language. 20
Hence, we must read Wittgenstein's interest in criteria, rules, game logic,
and language use in light of his view of language as a mediator of experi-
ence and meaning, and philosophy, together with the natural sciences, as
having the clarifying task of disclosing language's role in this process.
17 See C. van Peursen, Phenomenology and Analytical Philosophy (Pittsburgh: Du-
quesne Univ. Press, 1972), pp. 173-174.
18 Ibid., p. 175. The descriptive approach of phenomenology starts with positive,
concrete data and plumbs to the depths of meaning. Linguistic philosophy, by contrast,
starts with positive, concrete data and aims at breadth.
19 See Philip Pettit, "On Phenomenology as a Methodology of Philosophy," in
Linguistic Analysis and Phenomenology, ed. William Mays and S. C. Brown (Lewis burg:
Bucknell Univ. Press, 1969), p. 262.
20 Ibid.
 A PffiLOSOPffiCAL THEORY OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND USE 147
Description of language and linguistic understanding is finally a de-
scription of language form and function in context. Description is then
description of the structure of our "implicit knowledge" of that structure
and the constitution of meaning. As Wittgenstein says, "The philosophical
problems are solved not by giving new information but by arranging what
we have already known. "21
But we are confronted with a methodological problem: How is it possible
to describe phenomena in an uncontroversial way so that the true, "real",
structures which enable the phenomena to have meaning disclose them-
selves? What models or descriptive tools are available, and what are the
natural limitations to the endeavor? Clearly, the perspective of the
linguist or philosopher exerts great influence over the way in which these
elements are perceived and evaluated. Ali this suggests that, to sorne extent,
the phenomena which we choose to describe receive their meaningful
character in part from the scheme by which we describe them.22 Facts are
constituted by the methods which we use to establish the facts.23 Hence,
any attempt to see the phenomena as they "really" are fails to take note
that finally there can be no sharp distinction between the description of the
phenomena and the hypothesis which gives them a status.24
It is argued: Is not the task in uncovering linguistic structures one of
proposing a model or picture of the world which accounts for the phe-
nomena, indeed accounts for our very ability to communicate and to under-
stand, an account which is free from interpretation and is a mirror of
"reality"? Yes, the model is but a tentative proposai; no, it cannot be
distinguished absolutely from the performance. In this sense what is real is
so according to the model employed. An account of the way that language
is provided by means of the inventory of features and the type of model
proposed-a model which filters in and highlights certain data, but at the
same time depresses and filters out other features. There is nothing suspect
about this procedure; that is simply the way it works.
No method of language analysis can be merely a description which
relates facts to one another and notes their distinctive features. This is an
important point to remember in connection with Chomsky's language
model. For, as Wittgenstein points out, the factual is redefined in terms of
its status in the world and its place within the theoretical scheme. In his

21 Cf. Maurice Comforth, Marxism and the Linguistic Philosopher (New York:
International Publishers, 1967), p. 139.
22 See David Pole, The Later Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein (London: Athlone
Press, 1958), pp. 127-128.
23 See Van Peursen, p. 154.
24 See A. J. Ayer, Philosophy and Language (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), p. 18.
 148 GARY A. PHILLIPS

earlier work, Wittgenstein failed to see the dynamic nature of the issues at
stake: the relationship between structure and data is quite complex. For
the structure gives form and hence meaning to the phenomena, and the
data in tum provide the something which is to be patterned. Stated in
terms of the relationship of logical rules and facts, neither one is in any
clear sense prior to the other. Put in Chomsky's terms as regards syntax
and semantics, it is possible to speak of one only in terms of the other as
they are constituted together in the linguistic act.2s The traditional
distinction, therefore, separating truths of reason from truths of fact, form
from content, is overcome by noting that language is to be understood in
terms of the interaction of constraint and content (syntax and semantics)
in context.
A further implication of Wittgenstein's proposai for our consideration
of Chomsky's transformational model is that neither the experiential nor
the rational can be identified with reality as such. 26 In Wittgenstein's work
in the Philosophical Investigations, his philosophical method changes
focus: he is directly concemed with describing the phenomenon and from
that deriving its structure, since the way in which language is used gives us
a clue asto its logical form. Wittgenstein's functional perspective, however,
ought not to lead us into any sort of dogmatism concerning use. Ricoeur
has rightly pointed out that, if meaning were understood only in terms of
use, this would eliminate the mediational aspect of language. For, in fact,
the meaning of a linguistic phenomenon is more than its use; it is the
composite of its relationships with other phenomena expressed as signs
set within a certain syntactic and semantic context, 27-and that includes
nonverbal factors as well. To be sure, Wittgenstein accepts that-his
"form of life" notion is an argument for understanding the role of language
and the communication of meaning with both the syntactic and the
semantic dimensions of the phenomenon in view.
Having viewed the significant features of Wittgenstein's proposai
conceming language and language models, let us now turn to a particular
25 See Van Peursen, p. 180. Truths of reason and truths of fact become perceptible in
terms of the meaning of the logical rules. Perhaps a good reference here is in Wittgen-
stein's Remarks on the Foundation of Mathematics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1956), p. 38,
where he states: "There correspond to our laws of logic very general facts of daily
experience.... They are to be compared with the facts that make measurement with a
yard easy and useful."
26 Cf. J. Kockelmans, Edmund Husser/'s Phenomenologica/ Psycho/ogy: A Historico-
Critica/ Study, trans. Bend Jager (Pittsburg: Duquesne Univ. Press, 1967), p. 109.
27 Paul Ricoeur, "Husserl and Wittgenstein on Language," in Phenomeno/ogy and
Existentialism, ed. Edward Lee and Maurice Mandelbaum (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
Press, 1967), p. 216.
 A PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND USE 149

application of a transformationalist ideology, one which bas elicited

discussion precisely in terms of methodology, understanding the nature of
the world, and the function and model of language acquisition and use.
In this case we will examine, in a rather limited and (let us hope) not unfair
way, the transformationallinguistic daims of Chomsky as he argues for an
underlying reality to language which gives language its form and content
and so explains message-communicating behavior. The "deep structures"
which he describes bear a quick resemblance to Wittgenstein's categories of
logical form or deep grammar. However, we will very weil see that con-
flicting ontological position and formulation of the nature of linguistic
reality, especiaily in regard to its extraverbal dimension, radicaily dis-
tinguishes these two perspectives at important points.
As I understand it, one of Chomsky's tasks as a user of a transforma-
tional method is to develop a model for language use that accounts for the
similarity and the dissimilarity of linguistic phenomena. The search is
primarily for sorne "thing" which underpins language and gives it its
form and content28 so that it is open to explanation and prediction of
language use. What structures language performance or use is a certain
linguistic competence which stands in a one-way relationship to the
production of sense: the competence (the conditions and rules) constitutes
the most basic level of linguistic activity and the foundation of the total
linguistic hierarchy. Yet, to contradict Wittgenstein at this crucial point,
performance bas no "direct" relationship to those conditioning factors
which generate language. Indeed, these structures or constraints have a
distinct reality which seems to be ontologicaily prior to the performance.
The question is: What is the status of this reality in Chomsky's scheme?
What is this underlying reality which is spoken of referentiaily? Is it in
fact the sort of thing that can be referred to like other things which are
open to usual empirical scrutiny ?29 What is the nature of these structures as
Chomsky envisions them? Does his formulation account for ail that is
important in explaining the phenomenon of language use?
Chomsky's view of the syntactic or "deep structures" involves an
essentialism and an epistemological nativism. In other words, syntactic
forms are built into the human organism in the form of innate ideas, and
the knowledge of syntax is prior to experience. The knowledge of such
linguistic structures precedes the development of language behavior. This
rationalistic stance, which posits a certain "knowledge" on our part, draws
28 Ibid., p. 207; see also Benjamin Oliver, "Underlying Realities of Language,"
Monist, LVII (1973), 408.
29 See Oliver, p. 425. See also Thomas Olshewsky, "Deep Structure: Essential,
Transcendental or Pragmatic," Monist, LVII (1973), 438.
150 GARY A. PmLLJPS

historically upon Descartes and his perception of man, language, and the
world. Clearly, Chomsky's model and understanding of language is
therefore heavily influenced by Descartes and open to a number of crucial
questions. Hook suggests that, rather than advance an innate syntactical
structure which gives rise to performance, Chomsky might be weil advised
to redefine the status and role of his model of language and to look for the
key to the nature of these constraints within the performance itself. Jo
What sort of reality are we loo king for? And what necessary relationships
does it have with our language performance? This leads us to wonder what
evidence counts for or against Chomsky's position. It is precisely at this
point that Wittgenstein's understanding of model and of language is
helpful.
Is the knowledge of linguistic performance and of the rules constraining
such performance comparable to the knowledge that we have of the weather
or of driving a car or of ri ding a bicycle? Clearly, most would say it is not.
We would no more claim that the mind has an "innate knowledge" of
language constraints than we would that our stomachs "know" how to
digest food. Needless to say, there are different conceptions of the meaning
of "knowledge" in operation.31 In Chomsky's model this cannot be a
conceptual knowledge at stake, even though at points Chomsky intimates
it. It would be misleading to describe it in this way because saying that we
"know" the rules which constrain our language performance, indeed that
the structure provided must be that which makes the performance possible,
oversteps the bounds of the model.
There is an even more serious question about Chomsky's model in this
connection. His transformational position, insofar as it upholds an
absolute distinction between syntax and semantics or between surface and
deep structures, fails to see the necessary interaction between the syntactic
constraints, the semantic content, and the nonverbal dimension of the
speaking context. Specifically, the fundamental syntactic constraints are
held distinct from the performance or use: the semantic can arise only out
of the syntactic. This persistent exclusion of the non verbal and reciprocal
semantic-upon-syntactic factors as fundamental to the underlying con-
straints of linguistic performance bears out his essentialist viewpoint and

30 Sidney Hook, "Empiricism, Rationalism, and Innate Ideas," in Language and

Philosophy: A Symposium, ed. Sidney Hook (New York: New York Univ. Press, 1969),
p. 165. Rationalism, to be sure, is a position which itself contains many varieties. There-
fore, we must be careful not to reduce this type of perspective unfairly. Cf. Kenneth
Stem, "Neorationalism and Empiricism," in Language and Phi/osophy, p. 194.
31 See Thomas Nagel, "Linguistics and Epistemology," in Language and Phi/osophy,
p. 172; see also in the same book Robert Schwartz, "On Knowing a Grammar," p. 184.
 A PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND USE 151

leaves in doubt the place of the empirical (broadly defined) as important in

his scheme. Here again Wittgenstein is of sorne help. The distinction
between truth and fact, form and content, competence and performance,
is finally artificial and must be replaced with a view that interrelates the
two poles, setting them within the context of the language use.
From the import of Chomsky's transformational model we discern an
attempt to describe a set of a priori entities which have an existence over
against other "things" in the world. What is real for Chomsky can be
defined in ideational terms, though it is at the point where he speaks of
such things that Chomsky's words seemingly take on a referential function.
Yet, at the same time, he holds that the conditions for language learning
and use are somehow devoid of contact with the world of language use. Is
it not true that "ideas" are ideas of something or other in a sense that
relates the words and their meanings directly to the world ?3 2 To qualify
"idea" in the ordinary sense by "innate", as Chomsky does, creates in
itself a number of difficulties. If innate does not mean 'existing a priori'
but, rather, characterizes the design of the syntactic-semantic relationship
(in a metaphorical way), this is a rather generous sense of innateness.
Again, Wittgenstein's method of analysis is useful in pointing out that
Chomsky's language operates in a way different from our ordinary dis-
course at certain important points.33 Again we are confronted with the
problem and the question: What is the nature of the underlying constraints
upon language? How do we come to know them? How can we speak
meaningfully of them? How do they affect the way in which we learn and
produce language? These are questions answered when we are attentive to
the ordinary, meaningful ways in which we communicate.
Part of the difficulty that we meet here is the way in which Wittgenstein
and Chomsky conceive and appropriate their models of language. Quine
is cautionary with regard to the linguistic model and its explanatory
function, stating that, "with the following claim of Chomsky's, at least, we
are ali bound to agree:
We must try to characterize innate structure in such a way as to meet two kinds of
empirical conditions. First we must attribute to the organism, as an innate property,
a structure rich enough to account for the fact that the postulated grammar is

32 Arthur Danto, "Semantical Vehicles, Understanding, and Innate ldeas," in

Language and Philosophy, also points to the necessity of the relationship of ideas to the
world (p. 129). On the same point see W. V. Quine, "Linguistics and Philosophy," in
Language and Philosophy, pp. 97-98.
33 See Danto, p. 130. If language acquisition can be designated as innate in the
ordinary sense of the term, then is it not also fair to describe the potential for sausage-
making machines in the same way?
152 GARY A, PHILLIPS

acq uired on the basis of the given conditions of access to data; second, we must not
attribute to the organism a structure so rich asto be incompatible with the data."34

lt is at the point of the structure's relationship to the world (hence to data)

that Chomsky and, indeed, anyone employing a structuralist methodology
must be called to task. It is not a question of language structure in and of
itself but of language and its constraints in relation to the world of
language use. For the rationalist Chomsky, this relationship appears of
secondary importance at best. For Wittgenstein, the world is ali that is,
and it is within that context that our words have reference and meaning.
Katz takes note of the methodological and presuppositional differences
between his and Wittgenstein's phenomenological approach when he
points out that for Wittgenstein "language has no underlying reality",
that the surface structure and public aspects of words35 and sentences are
the primary elements in his attempt to understand how it is that we under-
stand and learn to communicate. Katz goes on to say elsewhere that
Wittgenstein confuses the attempt to reconstruct language in a rational
fullness with the attempt to describe its structure. Indeed, for Katz and, to
a great extent, Chomsky, laying out the logical features of the linguistic
phenomenon is only a matter of theory construction. Wittgenstein would
say in response to Katz that any such reconstruction is impossible without
paying close attention to that language's use.36 For Wittgenstein there is
no conceptual structure existing between signs and data of the world;
there ought to be no "striving after ideals."37 Our language is an order in
itself, set within the world of use. A simple mechanical model of sentence
form giving rise to sentence meaning is plainly inadequate for recon-
structing the phenomenon of language acquisition, language use, and the
communication of meaning. For there is clearly an interaction, as
Wittgenstein points out, between the fundamental constraints, their
manifestation, and the speaker-hearer within the world of verbal and
nonverbal behavior. Put another way, grammatical and logical features of
human language cannot be judged without attending to the presuppositions
about the character of the total world in which we live as languaged beings
and the different uses to which we put our language and our presuppositions
with regard to the nature of language itself. Grammaticality depends
upon context. This statement truly puts into question the transformational
goal of restricting examination to the relation between the purely "linguis-
34 Quine, p. 95.
35 Jerrold J. Katz, Linguistic Philosophy: The Underlying Reality of Language and Its
Philosophical Import (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1971), p. 178.
36 Ibid., p, 15.
37 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, #43.
 A PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND USE 153

tic" elements, for it does not adequately provide a phenomenology of the

interrelationship of competence and performance.3 8
Chomsky's methodology rests on a particular mode!; it is a theory of
things. But what is the status of this mode! vis-à-vis the world? Is the
mode! and the theory employed in an expected sense? Finally, it is not
clear how Chomsky's mode! relates toits data nor that he has not claimed
too much from it. For instance, Harman recognizes that his transforma-
tional mode! cannot be isomorphically related to the brain and its structures
and that his language about "deep" and "surface" entities cannot be
taken referentially.39 In support of Chomsky, 1 must admit, his critics
argue past him when they demand direct evidence and observation of the
existence of the rules and established pattern ;40 they ask for something
that his mode! simply cannot produce. But Chomsky elicits this kind of
response and misunderstanding. He and others who make use of trans-
formational models often open themselves up to such charges when it
becomes unclear what status is reserved for the elements of the mode! and
for the model's overall relationship to the world of language use.
The matter for Wittgenstein is much clearer. He regularly appeals to the
ordinary use of language as the paradigm for setting aside certain tradi-
tional philosophical problems. Furthermore, his game mode! of language
capsulizes a position on the question of the nature of language which
illustrates the lived dimension of syntax and semantics. Take, for example,
his image of the chess game. The syntactic rules correspond to the available
number of pieces, and the semantic content has to do with the capability
and meaning of each piece in doing a certain thing and the value of its
relationship to the other pieces, ali set within a logically and spacially
constrained system, the board. His notion of form of life magnifies this
mode! to the largest possible dimension to include the human being in
relation to other human beings. Even the juxtaposition of the words
form, relating to constraints and structures, and /ife, suggesting content
and meaning, verbal and nonverbal, combined with one another rhetor-
ically carry on Wittgenstein's central linguistic and philosophical obser-
vation.
Linguistics cannot provide a mode! of linguistic competence or
38 See Benjamin Oliver, "Depth Grammar as a Methodological Concept in Phi-
Iosophy," International Philosophical Quarter/y, XII (1972), 130.
39 Gilbert Harman, "Linguistic Competence and Empiricism," in Language and
Philosophy, p. 151.
40 Two different ontological perceptions confront each other when Chomsky and his
cri tics tangle over whether there is any validity in the notion of a linguistic competence.
The misleading impression is that both sides of the debate appear to argue from the
same theoretical and ontological base.
154 GARY A. PillLLIPS

performance in the same way that an automobile manufacturer builds a

car according to exact specifications or an architect the blueprints of a
building. How is it possible, as Chomsky intimates, that his scheme cao
describe the inner workings of the brain? According to Wilks, "There is
no possibility of identifying an item of structure in the brain corresponding
to any item of structure, at any level of the linguistic theory.41 Similarly
for Greimas or Barthes or Levi-Strauss: there is no isomorphic relationship
of structure to what exists. There is simply no definite representation of
what is "real" about narratives or myths; there is no corner on the "real"
market. Wilks observes that this is precisely what the transformationalists
often attempt to do with their model: to make it scientific in a referential
and predictive way.
If I have understood Chomsky correctly on this point, what, might we
ask, are the points of comparison which would allow for an isomorphic
relationship of structure to brain? At the lowest levels of his theory, where
are the bits and data? Chomsky's effort here is part of what Foucault caUs
the post-sixteenth-century rationality-a Western conception of the order
of things which exists somewhere independent of things.42 Modern
linguistics, with the help oflinguistic philosophy, must show us that words
and their relationships are simply things among things of the world and
are not to be paired with sorne essence located in the nonmaterial world.
This is not to say that there should be no theorizing nor that structuralist
attempts to locate regularities and patterns and fondamental conditions
are misplaced. Rather, Chomsky and those who make use of structuralist
methodologies need to be reminded that linguistic theorizing and modeling
is not a predictive, isomorphic modeling of the brain or ofoccult realities
that have no direct or indirect observational base. 43 Linguistics, insofar as
it attempts to lay bare the syntax and semantics of discourse, is a modeling
not of things but of activity-speaking activity, language behavior under-
stood in the broadest sense. From Wittgenstein's viewpoint this must be
the starting point of any analysis of language acquisition and use. For,
analysis of language in this way works with a phenomenological model:
description of form, function, and context.
As a phenomenology of language, structural linguistics must deal with
the worldliness of language and the role of the world in giving shape to our
linguistic expressions. Speech is finally speech about something having to
41 Yorick Wilks, "One Small Head-Models and Theories in Linguistics," Foundations
of Language, XI (1974), 82.
42 See Hayden White, "Foucault Decoded: Notes From the Underground," History
and Theory, XII (1973), 24.
43 See Wilks, p. 81.
 A PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND USE 155
do with the world. To talk about the conditions and constraints which make
discourse possible is ultimately to talk about speaking in the world. But
this is a two-way street: the nonverbal dimension of the conditions of
communication partly defines what is real and its meaning, and conversely
we can say that the world of language use sets the limits of the linguistic
conditions. These conditions or constraints may not be reduced to gram-
matical categories, as Chomsky tries to do.44
Wittgenstein's notion of grammar is therefore quite different from
Chomsky's. Wittgenstein's notion of structure is equally as different. He
prescribes a dynamic view of the interaction between syntactic and semantic
elements as influenced by use. By contrast, Chomsky insists that that which
exists over against the world-the deep structures-is fundamentally
responsible for meaning. For Wittgenstein the linguistic constraints are
never viewed statically. Grammar seen from a dynamic perspective
signifies the features of our expressions which necessarily involve reference
to the world of everyday affairs. And the study of grammar, which is an
ontology among ontologies, becomes an examination of how we come to
use our discourse to speak about the world. Given this understanding of
"grammar", grammar does tell us what anything is.45
We may summarize Wittgenstein's critique and its import for Chomsky's
transformational methodology in this way:
1. Wittgenstein bas shown with his analysis of form of life that de-
scription of phenomena (linguistic in this case) proceeds from models and
paradigms. When this is understood, the structural scheme must incor-
porate a dynamic view of facts or data. The phenomena are not just a
given; they are in part the result of the controlling viewpoint. The limit of
the empirical is the conceptual; language which includes verbal and non-
verbal elements must be considered when defining the content of the
syntactic structures.
2. The world and everyday reality must be described as inexhaustible.
What we might cali the "et cetera, et cetera" quality of the world belongs
to the way things are: "In reality there are no constants as such or natural
types for identification, but every conceptual rearrangement of data con-
tributes to the constancy of the field of perception." In other words, no
conceptual scheme can daim an absolute authority over another in the
attempt to explicate the structural, regulative dimensions of the world,
though clearly sorne are more convincing than others. There is, by force, a
relativity in the proposing of our models for understanding the world.
There simply are no absolute criteria for judging the value of one model
44 See Oliver, "Depth Grammar," pp. 121 ff.
45 See Wittgenstein, Phi/osophica/ Investigations, #644.
156 GARY A. PHILLIPS

over against another nor is our model more valuable because it can appeal
to rationalist, scientific criteria. We may only say that one proposai is
better than another for penultimate reasons (i.e., it offers a more persuasive
accounting of the data in that time and place). 46
3. Finally, the description of the world which takes seriously the inter-
relationship of phenomena and structure me ans a description that is truly
foundational and potentially complete. Linguistic philosophy can assist
the work of structurallinguistics by simply repeating over and over again
the fact that underlying constraints stand in a necessary relationship to
data, and that when we speak about them we do so in the context of
language whose criterion for meaningfulness is our mostly-successful
everyday speech.
What are the implications for the process of language acquisition of
Wittgenstein's understanding of language and of this critique of Chomsky?
Actually, Wittgenstein's philosophical method provides us with a model
for a sound empiricallinguistics as well as a method for doing structural
linguistics or linguistic phenomenology. The task of a linguistic phenom-
enology is to cast light on the relation of "language behavior" to the
world. Its aim is to allow those things which are at the base of language's
form and function to show themselves, and this is done by drawing
attention to the "framework of language" (i.e., the formai features of
discourse as they are revealed within common concrete situations). The
focus cannot be on sorne esoteric reality but upon the way in which
language and experience are related. 47 The focus likewise is not on the
verbal aspect of communication alone, but also on the other aspects of
behavior which affect and carry out the message.
When language is viewed in this fashion, we discover that the meaning of
every linguistic sign is embodied in the ethnography of a society, and,
following Saussure, that the use of a sign is related to all of the possibilities
of the uses of other signs.48 For the underlying features of language are
wedded to life. It is only after we accept this dynamic view that we can
perform a competent phenomenology and so escape the traditional
dilemmas entrapping linguistic models such as Chomsky's which is
isomorphically related to the world.
Finally, Wittgenstein's proposai for philosophy and his model of
language are consistent with the sociolinguistic focusing upon the multi-
dimensional nature of communication. The notion of language behavior
captures not only the verbal but also the nonverbal features of message
46 On this point, see Van Peursen, pp. 171 tf.
47 Ibid., p. 153.
48 See de Mauro, pp. 97 tf.
 A PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND USE 157

communication. As we have seen, Chomsky's transformational model is

plainly inadequate in accounting for the complexity of the language-
acquisition process because his scheme is too reductionistic and mechanical.
By contrast, Wittgenstein's "language game" offers an alternative proposai
that much more persuasively explains the phenomenon of language
acquisition and use.
Department of Philosophy
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, Tennessee 37240