(24) Is it for you?
(25) Is it for yourself?
We see how the syntax of the reflexive pronoun, supposedly inscribed in
the genetic inheritance or the neuronal circuits, no longer applies: the ‘yourself’
has no antecedent. Its presence in fact obeys a pragmatic maxim of politeness,
of the type: ‘prioritise the conversational interests of your interlocutor’.
We can draw three conclusions from these examples and counter-examples:
the rules of grammar are maxims, not laws of nature; they are specific to a
language, not universal (French, for example, does not possess the honorific
use of the reflexive); they are subject to historical evolution (according to a
temporal layering: syntax develops more slowly than vocabulary), not fixed
once and for all by an evolutionary leap.
We are therefore dealing not just with a linguistics but also with a philosophy
of language. This philosophy is not confined to Chomsky, even if it is articulated
with exemplary clarity and explicitness in his work. The moment has come
to identify its main characteristics.
The four harmful characteristics of Chomsky’s philosophy of
language
The first characteristic is methodological individualism– that is, the idea that
the language faculty is inscribed in the brain (the mind/brain) of each individual
speaker. As we have seen, this is a major regression compared with the
Saussurian conception of langue. (This is why Chomsky replaced Saussure’s
distinction between langueand paroleby the individualist contrast between
‘competence’ and ‘performance’: it is individuals who are endowed with
competence and realise performances.) This characteristic signals the introduction
of liberalism into the philosophy of language: Chomsky does to Saussure
what the analytical Marxists (Elster and others) have tried to do to Marx.
Against this position, I shall try to defend a conception of language not as a
biological endowment of the human species, but as a social practice, which
produces effects of inter-subjectivity by means of interlocution, creating
subjects/speakers through interpellation. Chomsky defends an a-social
conception of language which goes to extremes, since it denies that
communication is the function/origin of language (in this, of course, it is not
wholly mistaken: communication is not the only function of language). A
simple example will bring out the limitations of this a-social conception of
34 • Chapter Two