A Cross-sectional View of the So-Called Mainstream Linguistic Theory

'주류파 언어이론'의 단면도

The main driving force behind Chomskyan theory of language that is gaining ground under the title of the "minimalist program" has been the urge to reduce the variety of natural languages to a minimal number of theoretical concepts and devices and to formulate the strongest possible hypothesis about linguistic structures. This has led to a long series of proposals of ever greater abstractness, with concomitant modifications in a number of theoretical constructs. The minimalist approach is the latest development of these constant changes, for which there is really "only one computational system and one lexicon," the differences among languages being reducible to parametric variation in "nonsubstantive parts of the lexicon"(Chomaky 1995:169-70). Chomsky thus differs, now more than ever, from other linguists by his sweepingly programmatic, rather than empirical, approach to language. The proposals he makes are too complicated to discuss here in any technical details. We rather focus on a series of lectures delivered by an ardent adherent of the minimalist program, with the view to demonstrating how this theory may mislead and distort the whole prospect of linguistic investigation. The rationale of the so-called 'minimalism' per se will be called into question.