Language as a System of Symbols
作为符号系统的语言
Of all systems of symbols, language is the most highly developed. It has been pointed out that human beings, by agreement, can make anything stand for anything. Human beings have agreed, in the course of centuries of mutual dependency, to let the various noises that they can produce with their lungs, throats, tongues, teeth, and lips systematically stand for certain happenings in their nervous systems. We call that system of agreements language.
在所有符号系统中，语言是最发达的。有人指出，人类可以达成共识，用某物代表某物。在几个世纪的相互交流中，人类已经达成了共识，让他们的肺、喉咙、舌头、牙齿和嘴唇产生的各种声音系统地代表神经系统中的某些事件。我们称之为共识体系语言。
There is no necessary connection between the symbol and that which it stands for. Just as social positions can be symbolized by feathers worn on the head, by gold on the watch chain, or by a thousand other things according to the culture we live in, so the fact of being hungry can be symbolized by a thousand different noises according to the culture we live in.
符号和它所代表的东西之间没有必然的联系。正如社会地位可以通过戴在头上的羽毛、表链上的黄金或根据我们文化中的一千种其他物品来象征一样，饥饿这件事也可以通过根据我们文化中的一千种不同声音来象征。
However obvious these facts may appear at first glance, they are actually not so obvious as they seem except when we take special pains to think about the subject. Symbols and the things they stand for are independent of each other, yet we all have a way of feeling as if, and sometimes acting as if, there were necessary connections. For example, there are people who feel that foreign languages are unreasonable by nature; foreigners have such funny names for things, and why can’t they call things by their right names? This feeling exhibits itself most strongly in those English and American tourists who seem to believe that they can make the natives of any country understand English if they shout loud enough. Like the little boy who is reported to have said: “Pigs are called pigs because they are such dirty animals,” they feel that the symbol is inherently connected in some way with the things symbolized.
这些事实乍一看非常明显，但实际上并不像看上去那么明显，除非我们特别费劲地思考这个问题。符号和它们所代表的事物是相互独立的，然而我们都有一种感觉，有时好像有必然联系。例如，有些人认为外语本质上是不合理的；外国人给物品取的名字太有趣，为什么不能用正确的名字来称呼它们呢？这种感觉在那些英国和美国游客身上表现得最为强烈，他们似乎相信，只要喊得足够大声，任何国家的本地人都能听懂英语。就像有报道称的那个小男孩所说的：“猪之所以被称为猪，是因为它们是肮脏的动物，”他们觉得这个符号与象征的事物之间有着某种方式的内在联系。
网友评论