Functional Approaches to Language

Functionalism, as characterized by Allen, (2007:254) "holds that linguistic structures can only be understood and explained with reference to the semantic and communicative functions of language, whose primary function is to be a vehicle for social interaction among human beings." Since the 1970s, inspired by the work of Jespersen, Bolinger, Dik, Halliday, and Chafe, functionalism has been attached to a variety of movements and models making major contributions to linguistic theory and to various subfields within linguistics, such as syntax, discourse, language acquisition, cognitive linguistics, typology, and documentary linguistics. Further, functional approaches have had a major impact outside linguistics in fields such as psychology and education, both in terms of theory and application. The main goal of functionalist approaches is to clarify the dynamic relationship between form and function (Thompson 2003:53). Functionalist perspectives have gained more ground over the past decades with more linguists resorting to functional explanations to account for linguistic structure. The authors in this volume present the current state of functional approaches to linguistic inquiry expanding our knowledge of language and linguistics. * Highlights functionalism as the new trend in linguistics Introduction 9 1 Introduction 9 2 The Volume Papers 11 Acknowledgments 16 References 16 On the Intellectual Roots of Functionalism in Linguistics 17 1 Antiquity 17 2 Middle Ages to the 19th Century 19 3 The 19th Century 20 4 Structuralism 20 5 Chomsky 23 6 The 1970’s pragmatic synthesis 25 References 31 Functional Explanation and its Uses 39 1 Preliminary Remarks 39 2 Explaining the Zero in Verb Morphology 39 3 Explaining Grammatical Asymmetries and Hierarchies 47 4 Explaining Grammaticalization 54 5 Additional Examples of Typological Explanation 58 6 Explanations: From Typological via Teleological to Rational 62 7 Sense-Perception and Its Complementary Notions: Introspection < Empathy < Intuition 66 8 In Which Sense Do Typological Explanations Qualify as Functional? 68 9 What Other Types of Explanation May Be Needed? 73 10 Conclusion 74 References 74 Structure and Function: A Niche-Constructional Approach 79 1 Introduction 79 2 Linguistics and evolutionary theory 81 3 The structuralist-functionalist dichotomies – in the light of nicheconstructional evolution 93 4 Conclusion 110 References 111 Toward a Thought-Based Linguistics 115 1 Language function 115 2 Looking through the wrong end of the telescope 116 3 What are thoughts anyway? 117 4 Two views of language design 120 5 Thought structure 121 6 From thoughts to a semantic structure 123 7 From semantics to syntax 127 8 From syntax to phonology and sounds 129 9 Thought and language as a continuous flow 130 10 Does language shape thoughts? 130 11 Interdisciplinary convergence 132 12 Summary 135 References 136 Changing Language 139 1 Introduction 139 2 Syntactic Adaptations 141 3 Phonological Adaptations 147 4 What Kind of Learning System? 153 5 Concluding Remarks 156 References 157 An Outline of Discourse Grammar 163 1 Introduction 163 2 Discourse Grammar 164 3 The two main domains of DG 166 4 The categories of TG 171 5 Non-restrictive meaning and the situation of discourse 190 6 Cooptation 193 7 Types of theticals 195 8 Earlier accounts 198 9 Conclusions 202 Abbreviations 205 Acknowledgements 205 References 206 Towards an Experimental Functional Linguistics: Production 215 1 Introduction 215 2 Why do experiments? 215 3 Why study production? 219 4 The observer’s paradox and the ‘design space’ of functional language production experiments 220 5 Beyond recipient design: Strategies, choices, and brain-traps 222 6 Two things that functional linguists need to know about how the brain works: Lexical and structural priming 225 7 Experiments and their design 230 8 Conclusion 247 Acknowledgements 248 References 248 Index 255

Functionalism, as characterized by Allen, (2007:254) "holds that linguistic structures can only be understood and explained with reference to the semantic and communicative functions of language, whose primary function is to be a vehicle for social interaction among human beings." Since the 1970s, inspired by the work of Jespersen, Bolinger, Dik, Halliday, and Chafe, functionalism has been attached to a variety of movements and models making major contributions to linguistic theory and to various subfields within linguistics, such as syntax, discourse, language acquisition, cognitive linguistics, typology, and documentary linguistics. Further, functional approaches have had a major impact outside linguistics in fields such as psychology and education, both in terms of theory and application. The main goal of functionalist approaches is to clarify the dynamic relationship between form and function (Thompson 2003:53). Functionalist perspectives have gained more ground over the past decades with more linguists resorting to functional explanations to account for linguistic structure. The authors in this volume present the current state of functional approaches to linguistic inquiry expanding our knowledge of language and linguistics.

Since the 1970s functionalism has been attached to a variety of movements and models making major contributions to linguistic theory. Over the past decades it has gained more ground, and we now have a substantial body of literature from various perspectives making a positive impact on the field of linguistics. This collection of papers brings leading scholars in this area together to provide recognition to the impact of functionalism on current linguistic theory highlighting its nature as a leading force within linguistics and beyond and defining its current and future directions. On the intellectual roots of functionalism in linguistics / T. Givón Functional explanation and its uses / Esa Itkonen Structure and function : a niche-constructional approach / Peter Harder Toward a thought-based linguistics / Wallace Chafe Changing language / Michael P. Kaschak and Morton Ann Gernsbacher An outline of discourse grammar / Bernd Heine, Gunther Kaltenböck, Tania Kuteva and Haiping Long Towards an experimental functional linguistics : production / Lise Menn, Cecily Jill Duffield, and Bhuvana Narasimhan. Biographical note: Shannon T. Bischoff, Indiana University-Purdue University, USA; Carmen Jany, California State University, USA