马林诺夫斯基

Malinowski’sTheoriesZouNiBriefIntroductionMalinowski(1884~1942)isthefirstimportantscholarweshouldmentionwhenweintroducetheLondonSchoolbecausehislinguisticviewsgreatlyinfluencedJ.R.Firth.MalinowskiwasborninPoland,buthespendmostofhistimeinEngland.HewasProfessorofAnthropologyattheLondonSchoolofEconomicssince1927.Asananthropologist,hewasmuchconcernedwiththefunctionsofhumanlanguagesandstudiedlanguagesinasocioculturalcontext,adoptinganapproachquitedifferentfromthoseoflinguistsathistimewhowereinterestedinstudyinglanguageformsandstructures.AchievementsIn1914,MalinowskiwenttotheTrobriandIslandsoffeasternNewGuineaintheSouthPacificOceantodofieldresearch.Thereheobservedthatinthisprimitiveculturethemeaningofawordgreatlydependeduponitsoccurrenceinagivencontext,orrather,uponareallanguagesituation.Takethewordwoodforexample.Inthisculture,thewordmightbeusedeithertorefertothesolidsubstanceofatreeasitsEnglishequivalentsuggests,ormorespecifically,torefertoacanoe,whichservedasusefulmeansoftransportationtotheseislandersandthereforeplayedanimportantroleinthedailylifeofthisspeechcommunity.Thesecondinterpretationofthiswordwasculturallyspecifiedandcouldnotbeeasilycapturedbysomeonewithouttherelevantculturebackground.Basedonthephenomenaofthiskind,Malinowskibelievedthatlanguage“istoberegardedasamodeofaction,ratherthanasacounterpartofthought.”ThisisdifferentfromthatofSapirandWhorf,twoanthropologistsintheNorthAmericawhoalsothoughtofthesignificanceofcultureintheirstudyoflanguageuse.AccordingtoMalinowski,themeaningofanutterancedoesnotcomefromtheideasofthewordscomprisingitbutfromitsrelationtothesituationalcontextinwhichtheutteranceoccurs.Thereisnowaytocharacterizethemeaningofutterancesonthebasisofinternalconsiderationsaboutthelanguagealone.Themeaningofspokenutterancescouldalwaysbedeterminedbythecontextofsituation.Withthisunderstanding,Malinowskidistinguishedthreetypesofcontextofsituation.1)situationinwhichspeechinterrelateswithbodilyactivity;2)narrativesituations;3)situationsinwhichaspeechisusedtofillaspeechvacuum——“phaticcommunion”Bythefirsttypeofsituation,Malinowskimeantthatthemeaningofawordisnotgivenbythephysicalpropertiesofitsreferent,butbyitsfunction.Whenasavagelearnsthemeaningofaword,theprocessisnotaccompaniedbyexplanationbutbylearningtohandleit.Likewise,averb,awordforanaction,receivesitsmeaningthroughanactiveparticipationinthisaction.Forthesecondtypeofsituation,Malinowskifurtherdistinguished“thesituationofthemomentofnarration”and“thesituationreferredtobythenarrative”.Thefirstcaseis“madeupoftherespectivesocial,intellectualandemotionalattitudesofthosepresent”,andthesecondcasederivesitsmeaningfromthecontextreferredto.Thethirdtypeofsituationreferstocasesof“languageusedinfree,aimless,socialintercourse”.Themeaningofutteranceinthiscaseisjustthe“atmosphereofsociabilityand…thatfactofthepersonalcommunionofthesepeople.”Malinowskicalledsuchutterance“phaticcommunition”.Kularing印证功能论最好的例子库拉圈（Kularing）库拉交易圈是马林诺夫斯基在对特罗布里恩德群岛的研究中发现的一种有趣的交换制度。库拉物品包括两类：白贝手镯和红贝项链，它们都是十分贵重的装饰物品。白贝手镯，沿逆时针方向从一个岛传到另一个岛，红贝项链则沿顺时针方向从一个岛传到另一个岛。可是这两种物品却不具备实质上的功用，但土著却愿意冒着相当的风险进行这种无限循环的交换。在多数外人眼中，这种行为看似不可思议，但马林诺夫斯基却认为这种交换过程倚赖于彼此间的信任，而这信任的原动力其实是为了其他民生物资的交换：由于各岛之间物资有限，彼此间依赖度颇深，库拉圈的交易过程得以建立彼此的相互信赖感，使其他顺带的交易成为可能之事。从库拉圈向外推展，所有的文化项目像家庭、巫术等，都是为了满足社会上的个别需求如果腹、性欲、嬉戏、信仰等。因为如此，所有文化项目彼此互相整合，也不相互违背，整体文化平和而稳定。由此衍伸，马林诺夫斯基以为多数稳定的“野蛮人”文化正快速被西方文化取代。身为人类学家，必须尽快以田野调查将这些文化纪录在民族志之中，才能“抢救”这些“未受污染”的文化身影。因此他强调“抢救人类学”的重要性，并成为他积极送学生到世界各地研究的理由之一。InhisworksCoralGardensandTheirMagicpublishedin1935,Malinowskidevelopedhistheoriesonmeaning.First,heprescribedthedataforlinguisticstudies.Hearguedthatisolatedwordsareonlyimaginedlinguisticfacts,andtheyaretheproductsofadvancedanalyticalproceduresoflinguistics.Sinceanutterancemaysometimesbeanautonomousunit,eventhesentencecannotberegardedasreliabledataforlinguisticstudies.Thereallinguisticdataarecompleteutterancesinactualusesoflanguages.AnotherideaMalinowskiputforwardinthisbookisthatwhenacertainsoundisusedintwodifferentsituations,itcannotbecalledaword,buttwowordshavingthesamesound,orhomonyms.Hearguedthatinordertoassignmeaningtoasound,onehastostudythesituationsinwhichitisused.Meaningisnotsomethingthatexistsinsounds,butsomethingthatexistsintherelationsofsoundstotheirenvironment.Malinowski’sconceptsof“linguisticenvironment”and“meaningasfunctionsinthecontextofsituation”provideusefulbackgroundforfurtherdevelopmentoflinguisticscarriedoutbyFirth.