LANGUAGE IN INDIA

On Interrogating Language and Cognition

Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi

Abstract

This paper interrogates language. My basic interest is to put forth a detail analysis of the terms language, knowledge, meaning and interpretation linguistically. The paper deals them individually. Finally it tries to break the vicious circle of binary oppositions and it also substitutes a rotary1 move (where language, knowledge, meaning and interpretation come one after another) to accommodate both cognition and language. It will provide readers a perceptivity to connect (in a sense connectere2) the descriptive fragmentary textual chunks in a whole.

Key words: cognition, language, meaning, interpretation, fragmentary textual chunks, etc.

On Language

While working on the limits of structuralist philosophy, I subvert not only the notion of language but also present a path for a theory of a text (the sectional arguments in this paper are put in a disoriented form; the general reason for this is that a disoriented form neither follows the substitution nor the circular route-a never ending state; the dependency of an equilibrium set like A+B=C+D where A=D rests on the variables innumerous and of infinite sorts that neither represents circularity nor substitution) that equally opposes the metaphysical and linguistic hierarchy that caused conceptual opposition3-egocentric speech and social speech-as Saussurean langue is outlined as a social system, and as a sum of collective conventions with a commonly shared code by a community (Saussure [1916] 1967: 25), and parole is an individual, psycho-physiological activity that consists of producing specific combinations from the elements that are present in the code (30).

When langue and parole are outlined in this way, there remains an ellipsis (a contextual one) between both that creates a gap: what would be the arbitrary constituent that bridges the distance between the social and the psychological, between the community and the individual, between the system and the implementation of the system, between the code and the actual use of the code?

This section answers some of these basic cognitively charged language queries. The Chomskian dichotomy between competence and performance presents a modified version for the old Saussurean notions, such as virtual/real, description/prescription, acceptability/grammaticality, so on and so forth. I, in this paper, further proceed with the language argument from English and Hindi. Consider:

a) John is understanding the lessons.
b) John is getting the lessons.
c) John has put on a nice Indian sari.

In the first example it is described in the virtual4 human being viz. computer that 'understand' is a VERB and it doesn't come with the progressive aspect. The example is ungrammatical as well as unacceptable5 in English language reality. This example shows that the word 'understand' is privileged over some other verbs like 'get' (every word is a concept, and the agreement and uniformity among languages differ) that can be used in both the aspects - habitual as well as progressive or vice versa.

Till now we are working on the assumption that language is different, and the content of words in various languages cannot be transferred directly. An individual's mother tongue affects his or her conceptual view of the world. Language bears witness to culture in a sense of a historically conveyed system of conceptions and attitudes. (Wierzbicka, 1997) Now if an Indian student uses the same structure as mentioned in example (a), he/she will go in this manner:

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