Selective forces at work

Abstract

It is highly appropriate that, at a time of such sweeping geo-political change, we should be presented in ‘Functional Explanation in Linguistics and the Origins of Language’ with a blueprint for the future ‘reconciliation between formal and functional approaches to grammar’ (Section 1.2). Unfortunately, Newmeyer’s attitude towards this task is rather like that of an imperialist power intent on maintaining the status quo rather than engaging in a genuine process of dialogue. There are several reasons why a formalist should have adopted such a hard-line position. For one thing, the virtual hegemony which the field has enjoyed over the past two decades has conditioned its adherents to assume that whatever insights its adversaries may have chanced upon can best be developed within the formalist structure; the possibility of the reverse, or of the emergence of a genuinely new paradigm, is still not a contingency that can be realistically addressed. Moreover, there is an obvious pressure to bring linguistics into line with the other cognitive sciences; particularly in regard to the psychology of reasoning, where the Darwinian framework has come to play an ever more dominant role in the explanation of the ‘cognitive heuristics’ that are postulated to account for the ‘biases’ displayed in problem-solving behaviour. Still, the very fact that the formalist is now prepared to sit down and negotiate with the functionalist is evidence, perhaps, of the decline of the former and the emerging power of the latter: the first tentative indication that yet another ‘paradigm-revolution’ may be in the offing.