The Interpretation of Language Creativity from the Cartesian Perspective

Abstract

Emphasising creativity as the key feature of natural language, Chomsky enriched his theory with a philosophical dimension. The influence of Early Modern Rationalism, known as Cartesianism (Cartesius, the Latinized name of Descartes), can be found here, so that this predominantly mentalist movement was simply termed Cartesian Linguistics (CL). This is also the title of his profound essay from 1966, subtitled A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Theory, in which he first discusses the creative aspect of language and then compares the deep (common to all languages) and surface (language specific) structure. What follows are the issues referring to description and interpretation in linguistics, while the final section includes his Cartesian viewpoints on first language acquisition. The author of the current paper briefly analyses the context in which the essay was written, starting with the fundamental insights into (non)native language development, early advocated by Chomsky, which strongly influenced the further (non)nativist interpretation of this multi-layered process. The current contribution ends with some critical remarks on the essay and CL as a whole.