Language and intentional explanation

Abstract

The author looks at two dominant traditions In linguistics. On the one hand the social approach where language is studied and analysed in its social context and asocial tradition which turns Lo the individual as a source of explanation for language facts. We find a similar division in the philosophical tradition as shown in the two dominant approaches to language meaning, one under communication-intention and the other under formal or truth semantics. There are also two trends in the theory of language change, one favouring psychological explantlons while in the socially based approaches the stress is put on the social components underlying language change. Is it possible to offer an adequate explanation and an answer to the que- stion why and not only how language changes? Four explanations are found in the relevant literature: 1. genetic, 2. functional, 3, probabilistic/statistical and 4. causal (deductive-nomological). The author tries to deal critically with the proposed explanations, offers her own under the label of intentional explanation of language change, and also tries to present the advantages of such an explanation. In the intentional explanation, language is not seen as an autonomous system; neither is a group of speakers the starting point of language change. The stress is put on Individual intentions in communication The argument gets support from Strawson’s idea of communication-intention, then from von Wright’s attempt to see intentonality not as a purely mental act but embedded in what Wittgenstein calls situation, human customs and institutions. The article rests on the belief that language, individual, and society are interrelated and that the explanation of language change should reflect this relationship in a manner that no component in this triad is deprived of its basic features.