A Word Between Us

Abstract

There is nothing obvious about the nature and function of language. The discovery of its nature is as difficult as an attempt to see our own retina or to sense the motion of the planet under our feet. Linguists have been accused by students of animal behavior that they are complicating the picture unduly by the introduction of formalization and by creating an aura of philosophy about language that is—they claim—unnecessary and merely serves to becloud the straightforward and “simple” facts. R. A. and B. T. Gardner, for instance, state (1969):

The theories [on language] that can be constructed are never as interesting as the natural phenomena themselves, and the gathering of data is a self-justifying activity.