语言学人｜黄正德：语法是生成的 兴趣是养成的

黄正德

Shi: Mr. Huang, I have read an essay about how you became a linguist. In the essay, you mentioned that you were interested in literature when you were young. Why didn't you study literature in college and choose linguistics instead?

Huang: In high school I was already interested in both language and literature, but I didn't know anything called linguistics at that time. All I learned about linguistics was just grammar，which helps one to learn English better. Meanwhile, I enjoyed reading and learning literature. Since understanding western literature requires strong English ability, my interest in literature led my interest to language naturally. In high school, I was a "literary youth"     that was fond of writing. At that time, young people wrote modern poems, which broke the traditional shackles after the vernacular movement, and prose, a new style of the Chinese poetry that does not follow the traditional regular foot. I even wrote many poems and published them in a school magazine.

During high school, I studied English beyond what the school had taught. Besides what was taught in school and in textbooks, I read reference books that helped me improve my English. I was particularly interested in figuring out the correspondence between spelling and pronunciation. Understanding the rules in pronunciation is important for high school students because some questions test our knowledge in this area on the college entrance examinations take place every year. Therefore, I read books with explanations about the rules and their exceptions in English grammar, which sometimes made me wonder why the rules were the way they were, not some other ways. For example, when a vowel is followed by a consonant and a silent e, the vowel will be a so-called“long vowel", which is pronounced exactly like the way we call the letter. For instance, lake has a long vowel a which pronounced /ei/, and "like" has ...

Shi: A long vowel i is pronounced like the letter 's name /ai/?

Huang: Yes, also the long e in delete. I wondered why and when the "e" need to be silent if it follows a consonant and why the vowel has to be pronounced "short” if it is followed by one or two consonants without the silent e. When I learned about the syllable structure by myself, I figured out what strongly affects the pronunciation now is Middle English (of 14th-16th century). In that historical stage, people used to pronounce the silent e, which made the word lake sound like /leika/. When the final e is not silent but pronounced (as in /leika/ for example), the consonant before the e becomes part of the second syllable. Therefore, every time you have one consonant with one vowel plus one consonant with an e, there will be two syllables: each syllable includes one consonant and one vowel, which is called an "open syllable". All the vowels in open syllables were pronounced long, and the long vowels underwent a change, known as the Great Vowel Shift, which made the vowel acquire the pronunciation by which we name them. The reasons are related with the history, with the cause for the vowel change, and with the theory of phonetics. In high school, some of the books that explained the grammatical rules didn't make them very clear or explain the reasons for the rules, so I figured out clearer ways to understand the reason of the rules.

Shi: So when did you really encounter with linguistics?

Huang: I went to Taiwan Normal University for collge, which has the best English department in Taiwan. During the first year, my teacher told me about linguistics. In linguistics, one can study not only English grammar, but also Chinese grammar and the grammar of any other languages. Most importantly, one does not memorize the rules, but rather figure out the reasons for the rules. With the same example, the vowel can be pronounced short although it is not followed by a consonant in some languages. There is no language, however, with the rule that an open syllable ending with a vowel must have the vowel pronounced short, and a closed syllable ending with a consonant must have the vowel pronounced long. In most cases, in high school, the teachers only required us to memorize all the grammatical rules without explaining the reasons. Yet I thought all the rules have their own reasons, so I focused on one question, "why?". Besides asking why the rule works in certain ways, I also wondered why, where, and how certain rules apply to some languages while they do not apply to others. The introduction of the subject "linguistics" gave me an idea: one can actually find out why by approaching the question in a scientific approach. Galileo, the father of modern science, was a great example for all other intellctuals of his time, for not taking things for granted. Scientists have intellectual curiosity about everything around them and always ask WHY things are the way they are. For example, when an apple drops, it always goes downward. Normal people might take it for granted, but Newton asked "why", and he went on to discover the foundation for the theory of gravity. You know a burning candle is hot, but do you know why? The person who knows the reason is a wiser person than the one that does not. Linguistics is a subject that can fulfill my inclination of wanting to know why. In high school, I was interested in reasoning; in college, I found out this subject allowed me to ask for reasons. That is how I became interested in linguistics. It is a long answer for a short question.

Shi: When we mention Generative Grammar, a person we must talk about is Noam Chomsky. I met him once in MIT and he signed on a picture that I drew for him. In my media literacy class, I learned many of his ideas as a political activist instead of a linguist. I was surprised with his ability to master so many fields and wonder about the internal relationships between the subjects.

Huang: I think the subjects are all connected through philosophy. It is philosophy that determines your view of different things. Noam's philosophy views language as a part of human brain. This view is kind of philosophy. From his point of view of Generative Grammar, language is part of the mind and mind is part of human being's birth. You learn to think in a way your mind works, but you are born with a mind. Because of this philosophy, he also used the human "brain" instead of "mind". Therefore, the philosophy of mind is necessary when one talks about the philosophy of human beings and human behavior. Noam's philosophy of psychology and language are related through his view of human mind. On the other hand, as a philosopher, Noam views political concepts as part of human nature.

Shi: I am especially confused with the relationship between politics and linguistics.

Huang: Noam's idea of linguistics is Generative Grammar, which is strongly related to the concept of human minds that connect it to politics. Part of the human political activity is  guided by human mind, like how humans are able to organize themselves. He can analyze political activities in a very structural way. Noam can think in an analytical way that other people may not. Noam, even as a non-natural scientist, is able to apply the spirit of intellectual curiosity in asking why the government says what they said. From Noam's questions and philosophy, you can see the deeper side of what the government is saying and what people are living through. At least for him, the government is not always right, because he can easily see the other side. It does not mean that he thinks the government should change, because he maybe knows that is how the government works. Therefore, although he crticizes the government, I don't think that he wants America to become a multi-system country. He comes from an intellectual point of view to criticize American policy because he is pointing out another side of political activities of human beings. Actually, he does not know whether America would set the policies in other ways; he just speaks his mind about what is right, and what is wrong according to human nature. However, what is right and what should be done are not the same, and it is hard to achieve both at the same time. Even if America did what is right, would the world be better today? It's hard to say because there are too many factors. It is possible that America did "the right thing" but the country diminished. Human history is a history of competition. For a country, it is great to have freedom for people to hold and point out different opinions. A society develops because of people like him; otherwise citizens

might not be able to know the other side of the story. I think his nature of seeing beyond what people take for granted is the key guiding line in studying linguistics, literature and criticizing the American political system.

Huang: The schools are oriented in a way for the students to learn to use the language in efficient ways, but not to learn the grammar or linguistics. For a first language, students do not need to learn the rules, not because Chinese does not have rules, but because students have so many opportunities to hear the language and they are born to be able to acquire the language by themselves. The students' need is to get more examples from their teachers, so that they can develop well together with their grammar. They already have Universal Grammar, which will grow as soon as the teachers give them fertilizer. The Universal Grammar in them will naturally develop. Therefore, we do not need to teach the students grammar of the first language, but teaching grammar helps second language learners because students do not have many chances to hear a lot of English or other languages. The learning process of grammar is helping them to get familiar with the new language faster. 

Learming linguistics, however, is a different thing. Even when you learn grammar in high school or study linguistics in the future, it does not make your Chinese better, but rather gives you more explicit knowledge of the rules of grammar. One can study linguistics even though you do not want to become a linguist like me, because one might want to gain the knowledge. For example, you may want to be a musician in the future, but you feel delightful when you understand how the sounds spread so you study physics to know that. Studying in physics does not help you to become a musician, but it gives you knowledge and helps you become an educated modern person. Learning about linguistics and human language in general allows us to know more than our daily necessities, and that makes us a modern human being. The knowledge does not neeessarily help you get a job or make more money, and some people still go to take courses in linguistics, literature appreciation, and drama after they retire. Why? That is because learning has already become a kind of enjoyment for our minds and our lives. Linguistics is one of those subects that can enrich one's life experience because you can learn that language is part of human brain, and understand yourselves and the phenomena better. Back to the question, why do I study linguistics? Everybody has a good reason, maybe it is just the intellectual curiosity to have more knowledge about oneself, just like wanting to know about chemistry without the desire to become a chemical engineer or scientist. Curiosity is a good enough reason for anybody beyond high school to want to know more. Of course, research in linguistics can be a good career option, but it does not have to be the only reason for studying linguistics. We all have desire to know about ourselves as human beings, and language is a good window into parts of ourselves.

Huang: I do not think they need to get prepared particularly about linguistics, but knowing something about linguistics is good. Reading about linguistics and about science, like chemistry, mathematics, and physics is good for students. Most importantly, students need to learn the scientific method of thinking, to learn the spirit of looking at objects in a scientific way, to cultivate their curiosity about everything around them. Maybe through your observation, you find that researching about language regularties makes you excited, so you know you are interested in studying linguistics. If you do not enjoy those observations, there is no point to study in the subject. Not everybody is good at linguistics, just as not everybody is fond of physics or chemistry. Maybe you like to write poems, or to paint, and use the art you can create to entertain yourself and other people, or use the artistic creations to make others' lives better and softer. Scientific research can be harsh. It is logical thinking, and maybe it is not fun for some people. I think the most important thing in high school is to catch every possibility of learning things that you do not know, to expose yourself to arts, to music, to science, to humanities, to social science, to have an open mind of curiosity, and to let your mind travel to everywhere without limitations. Whatever you did, you can find something you feel particularly rewarding, a sense of achievement. In painting, the artist hopes people who see his painting to say "oh it is unique". 

In my own career, I think finding about language rules is a kind of exciting, because I can learn more about "why's" in language than other things. The result is I can get a good score when I go to take an English exam, because I know why. In high school I remember when I was a senior, I was a straight A student. Originally, I was not so good, but I progressed a lot and was the top student in my class. In an exam, I might get a score of 97 or 98, while the student in the second place only got 85 or 79. At that point, I felt a pleasure of being able to acquire certain knowledge with considerable efficiency by figuring out the whys. The teachers did not need to teach me anymore because I was studying by myself out of my own interest. Most of the time the reason you are interested in some subject is actually influenced by the fact that it can reward you with the joy of understanding it, and make you feel proud of yourself. Afterwards you will go further. Try your best in every area at first, and enjoy the reward it might bring to you. When you feel you are particularly rewarded in some areas, it shows that you are good at those areas. Of course, you need to grab every opportunity to develop yourself. I do not want to tell every high school student to study linguistics, but it does not hurt them if they learn the linguistic way of thinking, because it is the same way scientists think.