Linguistics of Language Structure and Linguistics of Speech
In allocating to a science of linguistic structure its essential role within the study of language in general, we have at the same time mapped out linguistics in its entirety. The other elements of language, which go to make up speech, are automatically subordinated to this first science. In this way all the parts of linguistics fall into their proper place.
Take, for example, the production of sounds necessary to speech. The vocal organs are as external to the language system as the electrical apparatus which is used to tap out the Morse code is external to that code. Phonation, that is to say the execution of sound patterns, in no way affects the system itself. In this respect one may compare a language to a symphony. The symphony has a reality of its own, which is independent of the way in which it is performed. The mistakes which musicians may make in performance in no way compromise that reality.
[37]
One may perhaps object to regarding phonation as separate from the language system. What about the evidence provided by phonetic changes, coming from alterations in sounds as produced in speech? Do not these have a profound influence upon the destiny of the language itself? Have we really the right to claim that a language exists independently of such phenomena? Yes, for they affect only the material substance of words. The language itself as a system of signs is affected only indirectly, through the change of interpretation which results. But that has nothing to do with phonetic change as such (cf. p. [121]). It may be of interest to investigate the causes of such changes, and the study of sounds may be of assistance. But it is not essential. For a science which deals with linguistic structure, it will always suffice to take note of sound changes and to examine what effects they have on the system.
What applies to phonation will apply also to all other elements of speech. The activity of the speaker must be studied in a variety of disciplines, which are of concern to linguistics only through their connexions with linguistic structure.
The study of language thus comprises two parts. The essential part takes for its object the language itself, which is social in its essence and independent of the individual. This is a purely psychological study. The subsidiary part takes as its object of study the individual part of language, which means speech, including phonation. This is a psycho-physical study.
These two objects of study are doubtless closely linked and each presupposes the other. A language is necessary in order that speech should be intelligible and produce all its effects. But speech also is necessary in order that a language may be established. Historically, speech always takes precedence. How would we ever come to associate an idea with a verbal sound pattern, if we did not first of all grasp this association in an act of speech? Furthermore, it is by listening to others that we learn our native language. A language accumulates in our brain only as the result of countless experiences. Finally, it is speech which causes a language to evolve. The impressions received from listening to others modify our own linguistic habits. Thus there is an interdependence between the language itself and speech. The former is at the same time the instrument and the product of the latter. But none of this compromises the absolute nature of the distinction between the two.
[38]
A language, as a collective phenomenon, takes the form of a totality of imprints in everyone’s brain, rather like a dictionary of which each individual has an identical copy (cf. p. [30]). Thus it is something which is in each individual, but is none the less common to all. At the same time it is out of the reach of any deliberate interference by individuals. This mode of existence of a language may be represented by the following formula:
1 + 1 + 1 + 1… = I (collective model).
In what way is speech present in this same collectivity? Speech is the sum total of what people say, and it comprises (a) individual combinations of words, depending on the will of the speakers, and (b) acts of phonation, which are also voluntary and are necessary for the execution of the speakers’ combinations of words.
Thus there is nothing collective about speech. Its manifestations are individual and ephemeral. It is no more than an aggregate of particular cases, which may be represented by the following formula:
(1 + 1′ + 1″ + 1‴…).
For all these reasons, it would be impossible to consider language systems and speech from one and the same point of view. Language in its totality is unknowable, for it lacks homogeneity. But the distinction drawn above and the priority it implies make it possible to clarify everything.
That is the first parting of the ways that we come to when endeavouring to construct a theory of language. It is necessary to choose between two routes which cannot both be taken simultaneously. Each must be followed separately.
[39]
It would be possible to keep the name linguistics for each of these two disciplines. We would then have a linguistics of speech. But it would be essential not to confuse the linguistics of speech with linguistics properly so called. The latter has linguistic structure as its sole object of study.
We shall here concern ourselves strictly with linguistics proper, and although in the course of our discussion we may draw upon what the study of speech can tell us, we shall endeavour never to blur the boundaries which separate the two domains.