Language& Communication, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 225-240, 1984. Printed in Great Britain.

0271-5309/84 $3.00+.00 Pergamon Press Ltd.

PSYCHOLOGISTIC STRUCTURALISM AND THE POLYLECT

NIGEL LOVE

The fundamental issue in human thought is what a thinker decides is really real -C.-J. N. Bailey.

I In the broadest sense of the term, structuralism in linguistics is the idea that what is to be studied is discrete, determinate systems of correspondences between forms and meanings, tailed ‘languages’, ‘varieties’, ‘dialects’ etc. Structuralists differ as to the ontological status of the systems they analyse, and of the entities postulated in the course of analysing them. Some distributionalists, for example, have seen the task of the describer of a linguistic system as being to state the permissible patterns of arrangement of its forms in terms of units identified at various levels, without consideration of the reality of the units so identified, or of the system to which they belong. Thus, Z. S. Harris observes in his introduction to distributionalist procedures that

the methods described here do not eliminate non-uniqueness in linguistic descriptions. It is possible for different linguists, working on the same material, to set up different phonemic and morphemic elements, to break phonemes into simultaneous components or not to do so. The only result of such differences will be a correlative difference in the final statement as to what the utterances consist of (Harris, 1960 [1951] p. 2).

It is clear that the Harrisian distributionalist is uninterested in whether one such ‘final statement as to what the utterances consist of’ may be adjudged, by criteria external to the analysis itself, more ‘correct’ than another. Distributionalism, as practised by Harris, is an example of what may be called non-psychologistic structuralism.

Psychologistic structuralists, on the other hand, suppose that in analysing linguistic systems they are investigating the realia of first-order linguistic behaviour. This is because first-order linguistic behaviour is taken to be primarily or centrally a matter of implementing knowledge of such a system. The two most salient modern formulations of this idea are based on the Saussurean concept of a language as an idiosynchronic system of signs existing in the collective mind of a linguistic community, and the Chomskyan concept of a language as a set of sentences generated by the rules of an individual’s unconsciously known grammar.’

One way of assessing the validity of structuralism in linguistics is to confront it with phenomena with which it is prima facie incompatible. One such phenomenon is linguistic variation. The linguistic output of speakers at a given time and place can readily be observed to differ, in a number of respects, from that of speakers of what one might want to call ‘the same language’ at different times and places; and such observations are not in any immediately obvious way reconcilable with the concept of a language as a determinate system.

This is not a matter that detains the non-psychologistic structuralist for very long.

Correspondence relating to this paper should be addressed to Dr. N. L. Love, Department of Linguistics, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7700, South Africa.

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226 NIGEL LOVE

Linguistic variation may indeed have to be considered by anyone interested in elucidating the realia of language-use. But since the non-psychologistic structuralist makes no claim that the structures he investigates have any bearing on the realia of language-use. and since he finds it theoretically awkward to pay attention to linguistic variation, all hc needs to do is choose a procedure for dismissing it from consideration:

The universe of discourse for a descriptive linguistic investigation is a single language or dialect. These investigations are carriedout for the speech of one particular person. orone community of dialectally

identical persons. at a time. Even though any dialect or language may vary slightly with time or wth replacement of informants. it is in principle held constant throughout the investigation. so that the resulting system of elements and statements applies to one particular dialect. In most cases this presents no problem, since the whole speech of the community shows dialectal consistency: we can define the dialect simply as the speech of the community in question. In other casts. however. we find the single person or the community using various forms which are not dialectally consistent with each other. Several ways are then open to us. We can doggedly maintain the first definition and set up a system corresponding to all the linguistic elements in the speech of the person or the community. Or we may select those stretches of speech which can bc described by a relatively simple and consistent system. and say that they arc cases of one dialect. while the remaining stretches of speech are cases of another dialect (Harris. 1960 [19Slj p. 9).

That is, the distributionalist takes no interest in the provenance of, or reasons for, dialectal inconsistencies, or in what their implications might be for anyone who supposes that structuralism in linguistics stands or falls by its ability to vindicate the idea that the postulated structures are in one sense or another psychologically real. All that matters is that it can be shown that inconsistencies in the data with which he works need not be an insurmountable obstacle to his enterprise.

The psychologistic structuralist, however, is in a different case. Since the fact of linguistic variation casts doubt on the thesis that language-use is the implementation of knowledge of a determinate structure, he is obliged to handle it less perfunctorily than the ontologically uncommitted distributionalist. But there are reasons for wondering whether, even in principle, it can be handled satisfactorily. By way of preliminary illustration we might consider Saussure’s attempt to cope with variation in time.

II If a language is a synchronic network of correspondences between forms and meanings

(that is, in Saussurean terms, a system of ‘signs’), there is a sense in which there is no such thing as ‘language change’, if by ‘language change’ we mean ‘change in a language’. for

jamcris 1~ syst&w n’esf modif direc&wwnr; en hi-m&w il c.$f wwuuhle; seuls certain\ CICmenth wnt alterCs sans Cgard I la solidarite qui les lie au tout. C’est comme si une dcs planetes qui grawtent autour du soleil changeait de dimensions et de poids: cc fait isolC entrainerait des consequences g&nCralcs et dCplacerait I’kquilibre du systkme solaire tout enticr. Pour cxprimer le pluriel. il faut I’oppositwn de dcux termcs: oufi,r : *foti, oufot : fet; ce sont deux pro&d&s Cgalement possibles, mais on a pass& de I’un A I’autre pour ainsi dire sans y toucher; ce n’est pas I’ensemble qui a et& dCplack ni un syst&me qui en a engendrk un autre, mais un Cltment du premier a kte changk, et cela a suffi faire nohe un autre systPme (Saussure, 1969 [1916] p. 121; emphasis added).

The Saussurean language-system (the langue) is an autonomous, self-contained system of elements the value and function of any one of which is determined by the network of relations which it contracts with all the others. If the value or function of any clement is altered, if an element disappears or a new one is introduced, the result is a new synchronic system. How can such a theoretical stance accommodate the facts which lie behind the conviction that, at least in one sense of the phrase ‘a language’, languages do change?

It will be instructive to consider the answer to this question offered by a recent apologist for Saussure. Culler (1976, p. 38) points out that if a linguistic sign is defined by the relations

PSYCHOLOGISTIC STRUCTLJRALISM AND THE POLYLECT 227

it enters into with all the other signs in the same synchronic system, we seem to have no

basis for postulating a historical relationship between ‘a single element from one state of a linguistic system’ and ‘an element from a later state of the system’. Given the relational nature of linguistic units, the fact that they are wholly defined by relations within their own state of the system, this is a questionable thing to do, foreign to the principle of synchronic linguistics. How can it be justified? How can we postulate a diachronic identity?’ Culler’s answer refers to Saussure’s example of the relation between Latin calidum and French chaud: ‘l’identite diachronique de deux mots aussi differents que calidum et chaud signifie simplement que l’on a passe de I’un a l’autre a &avers une serie d’identites synchroniques dans la parole, sans que jamais le lien qui les unit ait Cte rompu par les transformations phonetiques successives’ (Saussure, 1969 [1916] p. 250). Culler glosses this as follows: ‘At one point calidum and calidu were interchangeable and synchronically identical, then later calidu and caldu, then caldu and c&d, then cald and tJalt, then tJalt and tfaut, then tJaut

and laut, then Iaut and lot, and finally rot and Jo. . . When we speak of the transformation of a word and postulate a diachronic identity, we are in fact summarising a parleyed series of synchronic identities’ (Culler, 1976, p. 39).

In assessing this explanation we must first get clear about the basis for saying that the successive pairs of forms (calidum and calidu, calidu and caldu etc.) are, in each case, ‘synchronically identical’. To what extent does Saussure allow phonetically different forms to count as variant manifestations of one and the same sign? Two main types of case can be distinguished. First, there is the variation exemplified in the French phrases le mois de

de’cembre [lamwadadesdbr] and un mois up& [&mwazapre], where mois appears in two phonetic guises, [mwa] and the liaison form [mwaz]. Saussure is quite clear that these must

be taken as signifants of different signs: ‘il ne sautait Ctre question d’une unite concrete: le sens est bien le m&me, mais les tranches de sonorite sont differentes’ (p. 147). In contrast, despite the fact that different utterances of messieurs may involve ‘des differences phoniques tres appreciables - aussi appreciables que celles qui servent ailleurs a distinguer des mots differents’, nonetheless ‘on a le sentiment qu’il s’agit chaque fois de la m&me expression’ (pp. 1X-151); from which we must presumably conclude that we are dealing each time with the same linguistic sign. Let us refer to these two kinds of case as (1) mois-type variation (where we have to do with two distinct signs) and (2) messieurs-type variation (where we have to do with phonetically different realisations of the signifiant of a single sign).

The first question that arises is whether the pairs calidum - calidu etc. represent the mois-

type or the messieurs-type. This question is difficult to answer, because Saussure does not reveal the criteria for distinguishing the two types in the first place. Two possibilities suggest themselves. First, it might be supposed that the distinction is a matter of whether the phonetic variation is phonemic: whereas lmwai and lmwazi differ in their phonemic composition, whatever range of phonetic variants of messieurs Saussure may have in mind,

their segmental phonemic transcription will in every case be /mesj4Y. But this is a dubious interpretation, since Saussure specifically says that the difference between different pronunciations of messieurs may be as great as that between. for instance. pomme /Pam/ and paumr /porn/, where the difference is undoubtedly phonemic. The second possibility derives from Saussure’s assertion that ‘pour savoir dans quelle mesure une chose est une realitc, it faudra et il suffira de rechercher dans quelle mesure elle existe pour la conscience des sujcts’ (p. 128); and it may be that the distinction is based on a claim that whereas native speakers of French take the variants of messieurs to represent a single sign, they take the variants of mois to represent more than one sign. But there is no reason to think that

228 NIGEL LOVE

Saussure is in possession of the evidence that would support such a claim. So it is unclear what the difference between the mois-type and the messieurs-type is

supposed to be, and consequently, even less clear which type we should treat the calidum - calidu etc. alternations as belonging to. What is clear, however, is that it is only if they belong to the messieurs-type (on the face of it. the less likely alternative) that there is any hope of perceiving Culler’s ‘parleyed series of synchronic identities’. For if calidum and calidu are synchronically distinct signs, then they are, perforce. not synchronically identical.

Let us proceed, therefore, on the supposition that we are dealing with a diachronic series of successive synchronic pairs of messieurs-type variants. What provides the link between adjacent pairs? Presumably, the fact that one member of each pair is phonetically identical to a member of the immediately subsequent pair. But this answer merely raises the wider question of how the lines dividing the successive ttats de langue are drawn.’ Culler seems

to suppose that the history of Romance in Gaul from the time when the word for ‘hot’ was [kalrdum] to the time when it was [lo] reveals a series of just eight consecutive synchronic systems identified, it so happens, by what the word for ‘hot’ was; and moreover, that each successive synchronic system featured two and only two messieurs-type variants of that word. But since a new synchronic state comes about whenever there is any change in the system of signs (and not just when there is a change in the word for ‘hot’), it may be imagined that in fact there were far more synchronically different systems than Culler is prepared to recognise. But even if Culler’s count of eight is accepted, as a simplified illustration of his general point, there remains the problem of justifying the identification of, for instance, the calidu that occurs as a messieurs-type variant of calidum at stage one with the culidu that occurs as a messieurs-type variant of caldu at stage two. If stage two is a different Ptut de langue from stage one, then calidum - culidu is a different sign in a different system from calidu - caldu; and to identify the two would be to confuse substance and form. Conversely. if the two instances of calidu arc to be identified, it can only be because they belong to the same synchronic system (that is, because ‘jamais le lien qui les unit [n’a] CtC rompu’). Mutuks mutandis, this argument applies to the entire series: one can only forge a diachronic chain of synchronic identities at the expense of denying that there are different synchronic states involved at all. The logic of the concept of an idiosynchronic language-state leaves one with just two ways to jump: either all the historical variants of a given form belong theoretically to the same Ctat de langue, or there are uncountably many &tats de langue and no such thing as a diachronic identity. Culler’s attempt to occupy a halfway house between these positions only serves to reveal the conceptual discontinuity between the notions of synchrony and diachrony, as expounded by Saussurc.’

III

How is this conceptual discontinuity to be remedied? Of the many attempts that have been made to adapt psychologistic structuralism to enable it to accommodate variation. it will be useful to select for discussion C.-J.N. Bailey’s theory of the ‘polylect’, which has the merit of revealing with particular clarity the source of the problem.

According to Bailey, accommodating variation in time requires that the Saussurcan dichotomy of synchrony and diachrony be abandoned, since ‘the attempt artificially to freeze language data and ignore the ongoing nature of linguistic change has forced linguists into strait-jacketed descriptions which exclude a vast amount of linguistic knowledge or language-user competence, including the elemental fact, of a grandchild’s communicating with his grandparent’ (Bailey, 1973. p. 14).’

PSYCHOLOGISTIC STRUCTURALISM AND THE POLYLECT 229

Accommodating variation in place requires a more general rejection of the structuralist’s concern to describe homogeneous linguistic systems (or to describe linguistic systems as though they were homogeneous): ‘Chomsky’s view that language is essentially homogeneous and that heterogeneity is an accident of time and space seems unfounded’ (Bailey, 1980, p. 149). In fact, homogeneous linguistic systems do not exist (‘everyone always speaks what traditional dialectologists labelled a transitional dialect’) (1972, p. 26)) and are in any case useless for ‘those whose goals require them to compare constructs, sounds or meanings: sociolinguists, dialectologists, historical linguists, investigators of child language, foreign-language teachers, language planners, therapists . . . . It is recreant to their goals to adopt models which were invented for idiolectal analysis, for these exclude comparative and temporal (developmental) analysis’ (1981a, p. 29).

Bailey’s alternative is a ‘dynamic theory of polylectal analysis’, in which ‘patterned variation will no longer have to be relegated to performance or consigned to some other well-known scrap heap” (1972, p. 23). Without such a theory, ‘a linguist must suppose that children and adults handle the lectal variety [i.e. variety of lects] which they are observed to handle quite competently (i) by guesswork . . . or (ii) with a multiplicity of internalised grammars individually formulated for each variety of the native language known to the language-user. To state these hypotheses is to refute themlh (1972, p. 23).

So the chief feature of Bailey’s theory is that the individual speaker is held to possess, not a monolithic idiolect, but a polylect, which he arrives at through exposure from childhood to speech which exhibits variation. It might be supposed that, since each individual’s linguistic experience is unique, Bailey will be led to espouse the view that there are as many different languages (that is, polylects) as there are speakers. But no: ‘the child

asymptotically approaches a panlectal competence in his language and a grammar that resembles the same one that other users of the language are also asymptotically approaching from somewhat different data, or at least data encountered in a somewhat different sequence’ (1973, p. 27).’ That is to say, although the individual is not in possession of any one linguistic system, there is nonetheless a single overarching system consisting of the sum total of overlapping systems in use among the speakers of a given language. The linguist’s task is to analyse these overarching systems (panlects), or, in practice, such portions of them as it is feasible to investigate (polylects).’ The possibility of variation is thus built in to the description of the overarching system itself.

Providing such a description requires recognising that linguistic change is gradual, and that at any time the different lects of a language will exhibit different stages of the development of a given change. Since a speaker of the language will be more or less conversant with more than one of these lects, the description of the language is not an account of the linguistic capacities or output of any particular individual, but of all the possibilities offered by the language, with the changes in progress presented in terms of the implicational relations between their various stages. Involved here is a concept of markedness: changes work so as to reduce markedness, and the development of a change is therefore predictable. There is no particular emphasis on the distinction between variation in place and variation in time: many instances of the former are seen, at any given moment, as being a function of the varying extent, in synchronically different lects, of the development of the latter.

Here is an illustration of these general principles:

IdlnguMic changes hegln in wry circumscribed environments and Inter get generalised to progressively wider

230 NIGEL. LOVE

environments; if they do not stagnate in md-development. as sometimes happens, they eventually operate

axoss the board. Thus the change of German //a/r’ to [z] operates before VOW~IS: at first the cn~r~mn~m

preceding //s/i must bc a vowel or sonorant consonant (e.g. Gliisrr. hrunscw); later. the environment i\

generalised (in some Iccts) to include a word boundary (e.g. SW), a sequence that can hc predicted from the

formalisatmns used in variation theory In a yet more general development been in some lccth. input //j/i

IS changed to [3] by this rule (as in n~ischen). The next predictable development would apply to ii j/i in .Sc/nrh. ‘I’

Since newer developments (other than replacement\) lmplicatc older ones. it can be prcdictcd that apcnkcr\

who have any of the foregoing developments will also have those Icss general one?, that precede It in tlrnc.

Gradient feature valuea like > and < formalize such imphcational patterns. Since, therefore, the un\trcssed

syllables spelt or in Englishf&tor~ and c~orrriho~fitr WC (under gwen conditions) more likely to be d&ted as

the stress of the nucleus that follows IS less - i.e. according as the syllable is [< stress] ~ an\’ style that

exhibits deletion of the first syllable of corrrihortitc, will albo exhibit deletion of the third syllable o? thic word.

and any style deleting both syllables of tlu, word will also be deleting the second. unstreacd sqllablc of /2c,rtw1

(Bailey. lY81a. p. 32).

A fully worked illustration of the kind of formalism used to make statements of this kind can be found in Bailey 1977 pp. 22-23. The grammar of a polylect is the complete set of such statements required for the language at a given time.

IV Although Bailey rejects the distinction between synchrony and diachrony, other aspects

of the Saussurean conception of language and languages are retained. As has been pointed

out, Bailey’s approach ‘involves a refocusing of language theory on the social dimension’ (Atkinson et al., 1982. p. 364). He endorses Saussure’s view of languages as objects to be found in communities rather than in individuals (1972, p. 23), and commends Sapir for speaking (Sapir, lY21, p. 148) of ‘something like an ideal linguistic entity dominating the speech habits of the members of each group’ (Bailey, 1973. p. 4). Moreover. Bailey appears to ascribe to his object of study the same ontological status as Saussurc. Just as a langllr is

a psychological reality, to be found in the collective mind of a community, but not in the speech of any particular member of that community, so ‘it should be obvious that a polylectal grammar can be a psychologically real one. even though no single language-user has all ot it internalised’ (Bailey, 1973, p. 27).”

In view of Bailey’s essentially Saussurean orientation it will be relevant to dcmonstratc that the social location of the Saussurcan langcle makes it impossible in practice to provide an analysis of its structure.

The fundamental concepts in Saussure’s linguistics are f~tzgage, prolc and larzgw.

Langage is a general term referring to linguistic phenomena in the broadcat scnsc. A manuscript of a poem, a speech in Parliament. your act of reading aloud a transcript of a speech in Parliament, a conversation, a lecture, a novel, arc all manifestations of Iurzgrige.

What makes these things possible is the fact that human beings arc endowed with a jticultl;

de langage. But not all of them are of equal interest to linguistics. as Saussure conccivcs it. In particular, linguistics is primarily concerned with spoken language. Hcncc the term pavole.” But even purole is not itself the subject-matter of Saussurean linguistics.” The object of study is, rather, the system of correspondcnccs bctwecn forms and meanings which ensures that the faculty of langage, as manifest in acts of put&, can scrvc as :I mcan4 ot communication among members of the same linguistic community. This system ot correspondences is called a lungue. ”

Communication by means of language is envisaged by Sausaurc as follows. In the brain of a given individual, ‘faits de conscicncc, quc nous appcllerons corzcept.s, se trouvcnt associes aux repr&cntations dcs signes linguistiyucs ou images acoustiquc~ servant 1‘1 Icu~

PSYCHOLOGISTIC STRUCTURALISM AND THE POLYLECT 231

expression’ (Saussure, 1969 [1916], p. 28). If A wants to communicate with B, he utters representations of the acoustic images corresponding to the concepts he wishes to express. B recognises the acoustic images of which A has uttered representations, and matches them with the corresponding concepts in his own brain. Thus, A is able to impart his ideas because he knows which acoustic images correspond to those ideas in the langue which A and B share, while B is able to understand A because he knows which ideas correspond to the acoustic images of which he hears representations. This system whereby A and B communicate in virtue of their shared access to a system of correspondences between concepts (or ‘meanings’) and acoustic images (or ‘forms’) Saussure refers to as the circuit de la parole.

Saussure recognises that there is such a thing as variation in place - that is, linguistic differences between contemporary speakers of what it might be plausible to count as one and the same langue. He observes that the individuals linked by their ability to participate in a particular circuit de la parole (in other words, by the fact that they have a langlie in common) will not have exactly the same set of correspondences between concepts and acoustic images: ‘entre tous les individus ainsi relies par le langage, il s’etablira une sorte de moyenne: tous reproduiront - non exactement sans doute, mais approximativement - les m&mes signes unis aux memes concepts’ (p. 29). No one individual has in his head the total system of correspondences between concepts and acoustic images which constitutes a

langue: a lungue ‘n’est complete dans aucun [cerveau], elle n’existe parfaitement que dans

la masse’ (p. 30).

But the collective mind of la masse is unavailable for investigation; and this is what makes it impossible actually to provide structural analyses of langues. This can be illustrated as follows.

A langue is a set of signs. Each sign unites a concept and an acoustic image. How do we draw up the inventory of signs for a given lungue? Since signs only manifest themselves in

parole (their manifestation in writing being treated as purely secondary), what is required is a method of segmenting the stream of speech so as to isolate the representations of particular acoustic images. Parole is taken to consist of a linear sequence of tokens of acoustic images, and the acoustic image (and hence the sign of which it is one facet) ‘n’est completement determinCe que lorsqu’elle est delimime, separee de tout ce qui I’entoure sur la chainc phonique’ (p. 145). In performing this delimitation we must take account of the fact that normal speech is continuous, and that the ear ‘ne percoit aucune division suffisante et precise’ (p. 145). Finding the signs in a stretch of speech therefore involves paying attention to meanings (concepts: the other facet of the sign). The sign ‘n’a aucun caracterc phonique special, et la seule definition qu’on puisse cn dormer est la suivante: me tranche de sonorit6 qui est, Li I’exclusion de cc qrli prictYc et ce qui suit dons IN chnit~c

parike, lesignifiant d’un certain concept’ (p. 146).

According to Saussure, the method of determining these ‘tranches de sonorite’ is ‘fort simple, du moins cn theoric. Elle cons&c a se placer dans la parole. envisagee comme document de langue. et :I la reprdscnter par deux chaines parallclcs, ccllc des concepts et ccllc des images acoustiques’ (p. 146).

Saussurc concedes that this method may not bc easy to apply in practice, but gives no specific account of the range of possible difficulties. If WC take ;III cxamplc at random-an

English utterance which might be broadly transcribed as [gaesnJb~d3auzMNlakseptabl]-we do not have to work through it very far before encountering problems of various kinds.

232 NIGEL LOVE

In [gaesnJb~d3azehnaks&ptabl] the first possiblecut that would delimit an acoustic image corresponding to a concept is immediately after the first [s]: neither [g] nor [g=] represents any concept in English, but [gaes] is a representation of the acoustic image corresponding to the concept ‘gas’, and the sign gas is one which would make sense in the context of the utterance as a whole. But now the question arises whether we are to count the sequence [IJ] after the first [s] and immechately before the [b] as a unit. It is not the fact that this [nj is not a word in English that worries us, for Saussure says that ‘il faut chercher 1’unitC concrktc

ailleurs que dans le mot beaucoup de mots sont des unit& complexes, oti I’on distinguc aisCment des sous-unit& (suffixes, prCfixes. radicaux); dcs d&iv& comme d&sir-eux,

malheur-eux se divisent en parties distinctes dont chacune a un scns et un r6le Cvidents’ (p. 148). But then he goes on to say that ‘invcrsement il y a des unit& plus larges quc Its mots les formes de flexion (il a 6tC) &c.’ This seems to suggest that whether or not gassing counts as one sign or two may depend on whether it counts as an inflected form of the verb to gas; and whatever the answer to that question, it is not arrived at by matching up concepts and acoustic images. However, even if we assume that it is in principle possible for gassing to be treated as two signs, there remains the problem of deciding whether [IIJ] represents a concept, and if so, what that concept is. Saussure says that ‘pour s’assurcr qu’on a bien affaire 2 une unitC, il faut qu’cn comparant une sCrie de phrases oti la mCme unit6 se rcncontre, on puissc dans chaque cas sCparer cellc-ci du rcstc du contextc cn constatant que le scns autorise cette delimitation (pp.146147). Now to put the matter in these terms is to beg the question: whether or not WC are dealing with ‘the same unit’ in the sentences we take for comparison is just what we want a method of determining. But nonetheless it seems clear enough that if what matters is that a sequence -ing occurs with similar syntactic function in expressions like swimming is good for you or rating is necessary for surlaivul,

then the -ing of gassing qualifies as a unit. On the other hand. it is far from clear that it

qualifies in terms of Saussure’s original criterion: namely, that there should be divisions in the ‘chain of concepts’ represented by [gsesabazdgaz] such that [rr~] corresponds to a concept. We here come up against the fact that Saussure nowhere makes it clear precisely what he means by a ‘concept’. Nor can it be claimed, in mitigation of this vagueness. that there is a tacit general understanding, for purposes of establishing linguistic units, what the term ‘concept’ is to be taken to mean. For other writers on the subject have used the word in rather different senses. Take, for example. Sapir’s analysis (Sapir 1921, pp.88-89) of the sentence the furmer kills the duckling. Sapir’s conclusion is that ‘in this short scntcnce of five words there are expressed thirteen different concepts’ (p.89). Whatever the merits of Sapir’s method of counting concepts, it is clearly different from Saussurc’s: matching LIP

concepts with acoustic images in [bafamak~lzaad~klt~] according to the method recommended in the Cours de finguistiquegPnPrale would give. probably. a count of eight.

What divisions arc to bc made in the scquencc [bEd3az]‘? Wc can isolate the [z] as representing an acoustic image corresponding to the concept ‘more than one‘. But should

there be a further cut between the [d3] and the [ a I’? I n other words, is hatlgclr ;I unitary sign, or is it a sequence of the signs badge and er? The parallels are equivocal. Forms like barter and spider suggest that er is not always to be treated as a scparatc sign, since to treat it as such in these cases would leave the scqucnccs [bat] and [spaId] unaccounted for.” On

the other hand, there are forms, like huker and driver, which seem clearly to consist of two signs: not only does the sequence of sounds that WC arc left with once the suffix is rcmovcd

([ berk], [drarv]) function independently as a sign, the analysis also makes sense of the combination as a whole (a baker is someone who bakes, a driver somconc who drives). But

PSYCHOLOGISTIC STRUCTURALISM AND THE POLYLECT 233

between these two poles there are cases which are less clear. There is a sign hutch in English, but it is less than obvious that butcher should be analysed as a sequence containing it. A fruiter is someone who trades in fruit, but what then is a fruiterer? Badger appears to be an unclear case of this kind. Many speakers of English will treat badger as an indivisible unit on the plerematic level. But some may suppose that the er is a suffix added to budge.

That is, that the badger is a creature which sports a badge (the distinctive white mark on the head).” Another case in point is waiter. Is a waiter a man who waits? In so far as they consider such questions at all, speakers are likely to differ as to whether they take waiter to be one sign or two, depending on whether they happen to have come across the verb to wait

in the appropriate sense. Certainly there may be many speakers of English who pass through a stage of treating waiter as a unitary sign, only afterwards analysing it into a sequence wait

and er. As has been seen, Saussure says that ‘pour savoir dans quelle mesure une chose est une realite, il faudra et il suffira de rechercher dans quelle measure elle existe pour la conscience des sujets’ (p. 128). The trouble is that the ‘conscience’ is likely to vary from one ‘sujet’ to another.

But even if, per impossibile, we could in such cases arrive at an unequivocal answer, valid

for all speakers of a language, to the question how many signs the relevant stretch of speech represents, there remains the issue of exactly which signs are represented. Baker, let us agree, is a concatenation of two signs, bake and er. Likewise driver. But are these two er’s

instances of the same sign? Come to that, is the bake in one instance of baker always the same sign as the bake in another? A baker is not necessarily someone who bakes, but may, instead or additionally, be someone who sells the products of baking. Is the bake in the

baker sold me a large white sliced, where the baker concerned is a salesman, a different bake from the one we find in the baker produced a large batch of wholemeal loaves, where the

baker merely baked? And do we have to do with yet a third sign bake in cases where it refers to a man who fulfils both functions? If Saussure had explained what the term ‘concept’ is supposed to mean, we might know how to answer these questions. But what is clear is that we have uncovered a general problem with the procedure of envisaging a stretch of parole,

as transcribed in writing, ‘comme document de langue’. For we seem forced to conclude that what signs an utterance is composed of may be relative to the context of that utterance. It seems that we cannot tell what signs we are dealing with unless we know more about utterances than is vouchsafed by their written representation.”

Saussure admits that the identification of linguistic signs is in practice ‘un probleme si delicat qu’on se demande si elles sont reellement don&es (p. 149), and continues with the passage which outlines the possibility of messieurs-type variation in the signifiunts of signs: ‘Lorsque dans une conference on entend repeter a plusieurs reprises le mot Messieurs!, on a le sentiment qu’il s’agit chaque fois de la meme expression, et pourtant les variations de debit et I’intonation la presentcnt, dans les divers passages, avec des differences phoniqucs tres apprdciables . en outrc, ce sentiment d’identite persiste. bien qu’au point de vue

skmantique non plus il n’y est pas identittT absolue d’un Messieurs! A un autre’ (pp. 150-15 1). He holds that the problem here can be clarified by extra-linguistic analogies:

Ainsi nous parlons d’identitk g propos de dew express ‘Genke-Paris Xh.45 du soir’qui partent 5 wngt-quatre heures d’intervalle. A nos yew c’est le m$me express, et pourtant probahlcment locomotive. wagons. personnel. tout est diffirent. Ou bien, si une rut est dCmolie. puis rehitie. nous disons qur c‘est la mPme rue, alor~ que matCricllement il ne suhsiste pa-&e rien de I’ancienne. Pourquoi pat-on reconstruire une rut de fond en comble sans qu‘cllc cesst‘ d’Ptre la m5mc? Parce que I’cntitt’ qu’elle conatituc n’est pas purcment matkiclle: elk at fond& sur certaines conditions auxquelles sa mati6rr occasionnclle est dtrangtire. par exemplc. sa situation rclativc aux aotrcs: parcillement. ce qui fait I‘expreas. c’est I’heure de son dCpart. son itinc’rairc et en p&t!ral toutes lcs circonstances qui le distingue d’autrcs express (p. 151).

234 NIGEL LOVE

But contemplation of these analogies does not help us. Suppose we want to ascertain whether the er of badger is the same er that we find in baker. In the case of the two trains. what makes them ‘the same’ is their position in an abstract pattern of railway operations.

They are adjudged the same in virtue of the significance of their departure-time, route, etc. Similarly. what determines whether or not the two u’s are the same will be the socially agreed significance of their occurrence in the utterances of speakers of English. If for speakers of English they count as the same. then they are the same, irrespective of any differences in their meaning or phonetic manifestation. In the case of the two trains, or the rebuilt street. we do indeed know that the community has agreed that, in the relevant respect, the two phenomena are ‘the same’. But whether this holds in the linguistic case is just what is in question. Do speakers of English count the two er’s as ‘the same”? It is far from obvious that speakers of English ever ask themselves such questions, and consequently, even less obvious that agreement among them as to the answers is a

prerequisite for efficient communication in English.

Saussure’s contention is that linguistic communication depends on the shared access of interlocutors to the same fixed set of signs relating concepts to acoustic images. But for this contention to be plausible, it must be possible to tell what the fixed set of signs is. One reason for our inability to determine the set of signs is that it is taken to be the property, not of individual speakers, but of ‘la masse‘. In thus avoiding a confrontation with the implications of the fact that the inventory of signs may be different for different speakers, Saussurc ensures the impossibility of showing that there is a real-world counterpart to his concept of a lungue, and thus of making good his claim as to its role in communication.

V The relevance of the foregoing critique may not be immediately obvious, since Bailey

does not undertake to show that a polylect is analysable as some consistent set of identifiable plcrcmes. Indeed, such an undertaking would appear to be incompatible with the notion of the polylect as an entity which inherently allows for variation. But in that cast one wonders what substance there can be to the claim that polylccts can be ‘psychologically real’, and in what their psychological reality is supposed to consist. In Saussure’s case the answers to such questions are clear. The psychological reality of the lun~l~ is proposed as an answer to the question of how the fncdth de lutzgagc is channelled to serve the communicational needs of the social group to which it belongs, and its reality consists in the group’s shared knowledge of the network of connections between forms and meanings which constitutes it. There is room for doubt as to how the language-describer is in practice supposed to operate with these ideas. But that is a different matter from doubt ah to what

the ideas themselves are.

Here we come upon an obscurity in Bailey’s thought. One way of exploring that obscurity further is with rcfcrcncc to his attitude to the rclcvant aspect of the C’homskyan version of psychologistic structuralism. Kephrascd in Chomsky’s terminology. the question at issue is what Bailey understands by ‘linguistic competcncc’.

In his earlier writings at lcast, Bailey’s theory is preacntcd as remedying a deficiency in the Chomskyan account of linguistic competcncc, understood as the native spcakcr’\ pcrfcct mastery of his own idiolcct. For Bailey this is too limited, for ‘children p~wss the rcconstructivc and comparative m&hods of intcrnalising what they know oU their Ianguagc and its variations - knowledge that extends beyond their own “idiolccts” ’ (Bailey. 197.3, p. 12). In fact.

PSYCHOLOGISTIC STRUCTURALISM AND THE POLYLECT 235

during the past five to ten years, there has grown up a framework of linguistic analysis which provides for the fact that language-users possess the ability to shift styles and to understand speakers of vastly different social and regional backgrounds. Scholars working in this framework reject the reigning assumption of the structuralists and transformationalists that the only proper object of a linguistic formulation is an idiolect - what is heard from one speaker at a given moment in a given style. Limiting their work to such monolectal analysis has been a matter of principle for transformationalists, who are unwilling to admit the possibility that the study of variation can contribute to an understanding of linguistic competence. Everything temporal - change, non-random differences and the like - belongs to yrrformance and as such has no interest for the pure linguist (Bailey. 1976. p. 93).

But the contention that transformationalists are ‘unwilling to admit the possibility that the study of variation can contribute to an understanding of linguistic competence’ is misleading. Bailey appears to suppose that linguistic competence is an objectively given phenomenon, and that transformationalists are perversely refusing to consider a certain kind of evidence bearing on its nature. But that the speaker is in possession of something identifiable as his linguistic competence, separable from his ability to perform linguistically in various ways, is not an objectively given fact. It is, rather. a theoretical postulate. Contemplated without parti pris, the linguistic phenomena associable with a given speaker are scarcely well defined. Yet the ‘ideal speaker-listener’ is someone who knows the language of his (completely homogeneous) speech-community ‘perfectly’.‘” Whatever the precise implications of the phrase, such ‘perfect knowledge’ should, at least in principle, be exhaustively statable. Therefore, some subset of the individual’s linguistic capacities must be delimited as ‘the language’ of which he has this perfect knowledge. Hence what has been called (Smith and Wilson, 1979, p. 196) ‘the strict separation between linguistic and non- linguistic knowledge’, where ‘linguistic knowledge’ is what is otherwise known as ‘competence’.

All this can be illustrated from the passage immediately following the phrase just quoted. Smith and Wilson address the question whether the British speaker for whom the girl dived

off the pavement into the river is a more natural way of expressing what for some Americans might be the girl dove off of the sidewalk into the river, but who nonetheless understands the American expression, should be credited with ‘linguistic knowledge’ of the foreign lect in question:

At first sight it seems that the answer is obviously yes. If it is grammars that enable us to produce and understand sentences. then surely a speaker who can understand a sentence must know the relevant grammar’? In fact this argument would lead very speedily to absurd conclusions. For example, most speakers arc capable of understanding utterances which are completely ungrammatical for them: whether the utterances of children or of foreigners, whether accidental or intended. If every time a speaker understood an utterance, however ungrammatical it was for him. we were forced to assume that hc nonetheless possessed an appropriate grammar, then there would be no limit on the psychologically real grammars that speakers would have to know. We might just as well drop the claim that there were psychologically real grammars at all as claim that every success (or indeed failure) in understanding was a direct exercise of linguistic competence. In fact. we have repeatedly emphaaised that there is an important differcncc between knowing a language and speaking or understanding it; and in particular between the strategies used in sentence-comprehension and the rules embodied in a grammar. It becms to us that it is comprehension strategies rather than rules of grammar that arc generally involved in understanding the sentences of unfarmhar dialects (Smith and Wilson, 197Y, p. 197).

What emerges here, pace Bailey, is the status of ‘linguistic competence’ as a theoretical postulate. Since it would be implausible to explain all the linguistic abilities of a speaker- listener by reference to an internalised grammar, his competence must be treated as the source of only one subdomain of those abilities. Smith and Wilson propose to draw the line delimiting that subdomain in such a way that, for example, the British English-speaker’s ability to understand the girl dove off of the sidewulk into the river lies outside it. But no evidence has been adduced to show that this is the correct place to draw it. Nor could it be.

236 NIGEL LOVE

All we are told, and all we could in principle be told, is that ‘it seems’ that this is the correct place. It would be equally pointless to demand the evidence that supports drawing a line anywhere. There is no evidence: the reason for drawing it is simply that the alternative would be to ‘drop the claim that there were psychologically real grammars at all’.

In later writings, Bailey has objected to the dichotomy of competence and performance, since these terms

imply a distinction that is meaningful only in a framework that excludes the dimensions of time and comparison from linguistics. Here, competence is a static idcalisation. the implicit ‘knowledge of the language that provides the basis for actual use by a speaker-hearer’ Since variation studies typically have no USC for static. minilectal concepts, they of course have no place for the distinction hetwcen competence and performance (Bailey, 1082a, p. 44).”

But what this rejection amounts to is unclear. It is crucially unclear whether it implies renunciation of the earlier claim that ‘a polylectal grammar can be a psychologically real one’ (1973, p. 27). Whether it implies this or not, the general issue of the relation between a polylectal grammar and the speakers of the language described thereby remains to be discussed.

VI

As has been seen, Bailey dismisses the Chomskyan idiolect as a fictional idealisation. He dismisses too the notion of ‘dialects’, at least if defined as ‘mutually intelligible varieties of a language separated by bundles of covarying phenomena’ (1973, p. lo), and finds it remarkable that ‘linguists have held that dialect can go on being used in a certain sense after investigation has shown that the term refers to nothing that can be found in the real world’ (1981b, p. 52). In view of these dismissals, the question is: what entity is there in the real world for a polylectal grammar to be a grammar of?

The Saussurean fangue is clearly intended to correspond quite closely, in certain respects, to the layman’s idea of a language, in the sense in which ‘English’, ‘French’, ‘German’ and so on are the names of different languages. Bailey follows Saussure, in that he is reluctant to relinquish a conception of this general kind as the basis for his version of psychologistic structuralism: ‘the framework of the present undertaking is one in which the notion of “the [English] 1 g g an ua e” is taken quite seriously’ (1973, p. 65).“’ But one wonders why it should be. One might have supposed that the Baileyan polylect would be conceived as being capable of crossing the boundaries between different languages, and that the polylectal grammar for a multilingual community would treat the different languages concerned as parts of a unified linguistic system. After all, ‘what distinguishes the view of language being presented here from static, homogeneous views of language is that the goal of acquiring a language to communicate is taken seriously and treated as the fundamental consideration in trying to understand language’ (Bailey, 1973, p. 27); and it is surely conceivable that there may be circumstances where what is acquired to communicate with is a mixture of languages (that is, a mixture of, for example, English, French, German. etc.). But this possibility is repudiated a priori, and-what is especially strange - repudiated in the name of ‘psychological reality’: ‘the account just given clearly accepts the requirement ofjustifying grammars on the basis of what is psychologically plausible or provable. Without this constraint, of course, there would be no bounds to combining the most diverse data into a single, supposedly unified, putative “system”’ (1973, p. 27). And if thcrc were no such bounds, it would be difficult to maintain simultaneously both that (a) the central task of linguists is the describing of ‘languages’ (however broadly or narrowly conceived), and (b)

PSYCHOLOGfSTlC STRUCTU~LISM AND THE POLYLECT 237

that describing languages is a non-arbitrary enterprise, in that languages are psychologically rea1 (whatever that may mean). Bailey’s structuralism thus turns out to be a peg on which to hang his psychologism, and his psychologism a justification for his structuralism.

In short, he subscribes to a doctrine fundamental to all forms of psychologistic structuralism: that there is some easy translation between statements as to what languages do and statements as to what speakers do. Sometimes he speaks in the former mode. For example, Bailey and Maroldt (1977) talks of languages and their activities throughout. Sometimes there is a swift transition from one to the other (see, for example, Bailey, 1974, pp. 4-5). Sometimes there is a confusion of the two, as when it is asserted (1972, p. 25) that mutual intelligibility can be a criterion for determining the relatedness of lects (rather than the ‘relatedness’ - in a number of senses - of speakers). In other words, ‘the writer’s position is that the remote object of linguistic inquiry is the human being who uses language

. . . The proximate object of linguistic inquiry is the linguistic output of polylectal language- users who are able to switch among a vast array of styles and deal competently with myriads

of variants of their languages’ (1981b, pp. 52-53, emphasis added). Here we see. clearly spelt out, the idea that to use language is to use a language.

In thus accepting unexamined the assumption that the concept of a language is centrally involved in the explication of first-order language-use, Bailey not only fails to get to grips with the source of the problems he identifies as plaguing Saussurean and Chomskyan versions of psychologistic structuralism, he also runs into new difficulties of his own making. As we have seen, Bailey suggests that linguistic change is predictable. More precisely, it is “connatural’ change that is predictable; ‘abnatural’ change is not. ‘Connatural developments are those that take place when languages are left alone, i.e. when they have no contact with other systems. By contrast, equally normal, “abnatural” developments occur as the result of contact with other systems’ (Bailey, 1982a, p. 10). But since there is no non-arbitrary way of establishing the boundaries of different systems, there is no non-arbitrary way of assigning the correct classification to a given change. For example, certain intervocalic consonants in the Dutch spoken in the Netherlands (as in goede) correspond to glides in the Dutch spoken in South Africa (as in goeie). Is this an abnatural change in Dutch, caused by extensive contact of its South African speakers with foreign systems, or is it not a change at all, but a feature of the initial state of a quite different system, called Afrikaans? Further questions arise, since the glide also occurs, although it is not represented orthographically, in certain western forms of European Dutch. Is the change abnatural when it occurs in South Africa, but connatural when it occurs in Holland? Or does the fact that it has come about in the language’s homeland (that is, where the language has presumably been ‘left alone’) show that it has to be counted as connatural wherever it occurs? Or, given that it has become standardised in South Africa to the point of being regularly represented in the officiaf spelling, should it be recognised as the kind of change that is likely to flourish in conditions of abnatural development, and therefore as intrinsically abnatural’? Such questions are scarcely worth answering. What is required is revision of the conceptual framework that obliges them to be posed.

The central component of this conceptual framework is the idea that discrete ‘languages’ are a first-order reality, and that in describing languages one is automatically contributing to an understanding of the first-order activities of speakers. In its Saussurean and Chomskyan versions, this idea can readily be shown to provide an inadequate basis for handling linguistic variation, for in these versions a language is essentially a static system

238 NIGEL LOVE

of correspondences between forms and meanings. Temporal variations from the system as described are simply assigned to a different system, while synchronic variation is either also assigned to a different system (Chomsky), or handled by conceding that no one individual actually knows the language under description (Saussure). But the Baileyan version. in which a language is a ‘dynamic’ system comprising both actual and potential cor- respondences between forms and meanings, ultimately fares no better. For the concept of a language, whatever precise form it takes, is necessarily the concept of some bounded set of entities, from which the speaker - represented as a speaker of rhe language - is envisaged as choosing. For the speaker of a Baileyan polylect, the limits on his choice may be less restrictive than for speakers of Saussurean larlgues or Chomskyan idiolects. But that is not the point. The point is that to set limits at all is to misrepresent the speaker’s relation to language.

Speakers use language, not languages. The initial, primary relation between language and languages is that in certain circumstances speakers’ use of language may be sufficiently homogeneous for groups of them to create what come to be seen as languages. Languages are second-order constructs, derived from retrospective reflection on, and analysis of, past instances of first-order language-use. This is not to deny that languages. once created, may come to be a factor in subsequent first-order language-use. But they arc not what makes first-order language-use possible, any more than the wake left behind a ship as it ploughs through the water is what makes the ship’s progress possible. Psychologistic structuralism is founded on just this mistake.

It is possible to investigate the structure of second-order constructs, called ‘languages’. ‘varieties’, ‘dialects’ etc. Alternatively, it is possible to investigate the circumstances of first- order language-use. But the extent to which the second-order construct has a role to play in an analysis of the first-order activity is a matter for empirical discovery. In this connection, the importance of linguistic variation is that its very existence suggests that its role is a small enc. The Baileyan polylect incorporates variation into the second-order construct itself. Although an obvious conceptual difficulty in the Saussurean and Chomskyan versions of psychologism is thereby obviated, the mistake that gave rise to that difficulty remains.

A~krlow/edji~mmt.r-I am grateful to Professor Charles-James Bailey for providing me with copies 01 some of the

writing\ disxssed in thi, paper. and to Professor Roper 1.~ for his comments on an carlicr draft.

NOTES

’ The dichotomy of psychologistic and non-psychologistic IS not intended to imply that the only cho~ccs avallahlc to

the structuralist arc p\ychologsm or ontological neutrality (For other po\sihilitic\ WC c-g. Hjelmslcv, 1961 [ lW31 or Katz, IYXI )

2 Why should we not alternatively draw the lines like this, for example: culidum - calidu -ccaldu; caldu - cald - tJa/r;

I Iulr - t$uur - raut; r uu/- 5 01 - 10, where WC have four synchronic \ystcms, an d concomitant difference\ in \tatu\

for the various phonetic variants? (For instance. in Culler’\ scheme, wldu represents a different sign, in a dlffercnt

c;tur de /ague, from culldum. wherca\ the tour-system analysis ha\ aldu, at least )n il\ historically carliot

manlfeatation. as a mew mux~iwwtypc variant of wlidum.)

‘See e.g. Kiparhky (lY7ll) for an illustration of a Chomakyan approach to the dllficulty of reconciling synchrony and

diachrony. Critical discussum ol Kiparsky’\ work ofe\pccial relcvnncc here is to hc found in Hailey ( lY73. pp. IS-I’):

1980, pp. 156-157; 1981b, pp. 49, 53).

‘Cf. Bailey (IYXlh, p. 3Y; IYXlc, p. IY).

’ Cf. lY77. p. 6 (.ash can’): lYX1 h, p. 42 (‘ash heap‘. ‘trah can’).

PSYCHOLOGISTIC STRIJCTURALISM AND THE POLYLECT 239

’ On the contrary, there is reason to think that speakers’ ability to handle lects other than their own may in fact be rather restricted (see e.g. Trudgill, 1982). Moreover, to the extent that they do handle them, it is not obvious why it should go without saying that guesswork is to be ruled out as an explanation. ’ Cf. 1972, pp. 23-24. ’ ‘After some initial work [on pandialectal grammars] it gradually came to be recognised that attempting to incorporate all the varieties of one language was an unreasonable endeavour Early work on panlectal grammars was therefore followed by work on a more limited hypothesis - that of the polylectal grammar’ (Trudgill, 1982, p. 173).

‘) Bailey appends a note: ‘symbols in double slants arephonetemes-established not only with the method of internal reconstruction but also with the comparative method’ (Bailey, 1981a. p. 35 n.3).

‘I’ Cf. Bailey 1982a, pp. 4-7.

” What this means is not entirely clear, especially as Bailey has just said (p. 27) that ‘the grammar envisioned in these pages is not located in some reified “communal mind”, socially real though the grammar is claimed to be’. If the grammar is not the possession of the individual speaker, nor of the communal mind, in what then does its psychological reality consist? This point is taken up for further discussion in sections V and VI below.

” See Harris (1983) for a less simplistic conception of the relation between language and speech

” Although, had Saussure lived, there might have been a Saussurean linguistique de la parole. See Saussure (1969 (19161 pp. 3639).

” At one point (p. 112) Saussure says that ‘une langue est pour nous le langage moins la parole’. But this gives a misleading idea of the way the term langage is used elsewhere (e.g. p. 20).

” [bat] could be treated as a sign (an abbreviation of baronet), but this interpretation is scarcely possible in the context [ a]. A comparable point can be made about [spad].

“’ In this they would have the support of the etymology.

” Saussure’s view of the role of writing is as follows. ‘Les signes linguistiques, pour &tre essentiellement psychiques, ne sont pas des abstractions; les associations ratifiCes par le consentement collectif, et dont l’ensemble constitue la langue, sont des rCalitCs qui ont leur siege dam le cerveau. En outre, les signes de la langue sont pour ainsi dire tangibles; I’Ccriture peut les fixer dans des images conventionnelles’ (p. 32). Although individual acts of parole are all transient, fleeting, and different from one another, what matters is not the physical occurrences associated with a given act of speech, but the acoustic image, or images, which those physical occurrences represent. So although the phonetician assures us that any utterance on your part of gassing badgers is unacceptable will be physically different, in a number of respects. from any such utterance on anyone else’s part, the series of acoustic images of which, in each case, those utterances provide tokens, will be identical; and this identity is represented in the fact that both are associated with the same sequence of written forms: gassing badgers is unacceptable. The availability of a written notation expressing the identity of the acoustic images underlying the non-identical disturbances of the air by which they are manifest on different occasions is, Saussure says, a great advantage for the study of langues. What actually happens when you say gassing badgers is unacceptable is different from what happens when I say it, but the differences are unimportant to the lungue involved, and their unimportance is reflected in the fact that our writing offers no representation of them. When we write, we represent langue, not parole. But the word ‘represent’ is important here, for ‘langue et Ccriture sont deux systkmes distincts: l’unique raison d’&tre du second est de reprksenter le premier; l’objet linguistique n’est pas dCfini par la combinaison du mot Ccrit et du mot park?; ce dernier constitue i lui seul cet objet’ (p. 45).

In Cf. Chomsky (1965, p. 3).

” Cf. Bailey (198lc, p. 146; 198lb, pp. 40, 42-43; 198ld. p, 139; 1982b. p. 5)

“I There is no reason to think that this feature of the undertaking has been subsequently jettisoned

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