Elgin (1)

보낸 사람: Suzette Haden Elgin" <cls@madisoncounty.net>

받는 사람: "AOAA1/40" <gomse@yahoo.co.kr>

보낸 날짜: 2001년 2월 5일 월요일 오후 10: 51

제목: Re:   Human communication is led by invisible tongue

 

*** Dear Eungsu Choi

 

Thank you for your very interesting letter. I'm not sure that I can be of any help, however, because I'm not sure exactly what your question is. To establish that "invisible tongue" can be used to mean " linguistic competence" would require a lenthy and detailed argument, as you are of course aware -- something that can't be done in an e-mail.

I assume that your question must be something like this:

"Does the use of "invisible tongue" as a metaphor for "linguistic competence" seem plausible, appropriate, and so on?"  As a metaphor, It seems plausible; given the English lexical item"native tongue" as the most usual synonym for "native language," it might fit nicely into the vocaburary.

 

Sincerely,

Suzette Haden Elgin

 

 

Dear Mrs. Elgin,

 

   Reading  Language and Mind (Noam Chomsky), I would just like to say about what the linguist refers to as "still mysterious ability." 

What I understand to be the task of those who describe what languages are like and they really work is to characterize "what enables a human to understand new sentences and produce a new sentence on an appropriate occasion.

The linguists try to postulate "what makes it possible for a normal intelligence to use language as an instrument for the free ｅxpression of thought and feeling."

I understand that Adam Smith's invisible hand symbolizes the true orchestrator of social harmony, free market.I think that there is something like that in the "linguistic market", something that governs the human communication.

I would like to name it after "invisible hand" as "invisible tongue."

Considering that the tongue is hidden inside the mouth and that a tongue is a language, the invisible tongue expresses itself. Assuming that the invisible tongue governs the human communication as the invisible hand does the freemarket, the invisible tongue is no less symbolic than the invisible hand is.

No name for it, there are a number of expressons that the linguist uses for describing the nature of human communication.

I like to borrow  his accounts for my discourse and underline the ｅxpressions in them which  I think fit to replace with "invisible tongue."

 

 " The transformational operations relating deep and surface structure are

actual mental operations performed by the mind  when a sentence is produced or understood."

 Among others there are " an abstract theortical apparatus," "an internalized system of rules,"  "liguistic intuition," and so forth.

 

Roughly, the linguistic competence can be referred to as invisible tongue.

By the term what I try to mean, however, is something more than linguistic competence in that it, if I understand correctly, simply represents the speaker's knowledge of linguistic structure.

I see it fit to say that invisible tongue is "mental capacities" on which linguistic competence rests or to say that it is human language faculties" which make sensible decisions about synonymy and ambiguity and understand presupposition.

I assume that how well or badly a speaker uses his invisible tongue depends on his mastery of language, his disposition, and his emotion.

 

To conclude,

I would like to rewrite the linguist's account cited at the outset.

 

" Invisible tongue makes it possible for a human to use language as an instrument for the free ｅxpression of thought and feeling."

 

Does the "invisible tongue" in the sentence sound plausible and feasible?

I hope that the invisible tongue says a lot  about the "still myterious ability" and says it all.

 

I would appreciate your feedback on my proposition.

 

Appreciatively,

Eungsu Choi

 

 

[ ***이 Elgin의답변임 ]