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Working Paper 3onKa:rmik Linguistic Theory (1988) Ka:rmik Linguistics: Theory and Practice 3The Ka:rmik Linguistic Approach and Modern LinguisticTheories: A Critique Chilukuri Bhuvaneswar, CIEFL, Hyderabad, India Among the modern theories of language, formal, functional, and cognitivetheories are very popular. According to Leech (1983: 46), formalists (e.g.,Chomsky) tend to regard language primarily as a mental phenomenonwhich is a genetically inherited autonomous system acquired by a built-in capacity of human beings whereas functionalists (e.g., Halliday),on the other hand, regard it as a societal phenomenon which is socially derived from the universality of the uses to which it is put and related to its social function and consequently not acquired by a built-incapacity as such but by the development of the child’s communicativeneeds and abilities in society. Cognitivists also assert that “language isnot an autonomous faculty... the representation of linguistic knowledge isessentially the same as the representation of other conceptual structures,and that the processes in which that knowledge is used are notfundamentally different from cognitive abilities that human beings useoutside the domain of language (Croft and Cruse 2004: 2). In addition, as acognitive linguist, Langacker believes that “grammar is conceptualization” of the experience to be communicated as well as the conceptualization of thelinguistic knowledge we possess.Finally, “knowledge of language emergesfrom language use. (ibid).”If we observe the basis of language from the perspectives of these schools of thought, we readily see that the mind plays an important role in theacquisition, memory and application of the system of language; and that the society also plays an equally important role in the transmission (by sociocultural inheritance ), socioculturalspiritualization, and socialcontextualization of language. What is more, there is also conceptualizationof the various levels of language as the cognitive linguists point out. Inother words, eclectically, language is not merely mental, not merely social, and not merely cognitive but a complex of all these. Unfortunately, these theories are contradictory in their premises andtherefore an eclectic approach of combining these theories to provide acomprehensive and unified theoretical account is not feasible. Moreover,none of these theories can satisfactorily motivate internal as well as externalvariation in and across languages. These two major factors demand a re-examination of the existing theories and a search beyond their atomicapproaches for a holistic and unified theory that integrates form, function,and cognition into an integrated theory of language .1 |Page Working Paper 3onKa:rmik Linguistic Theory (1988) In a similar way, the formalist view that there are an infinite number of structures expressing a finite number of ideas as opposed to the functionalistview that there are only a finite number of structures expressing an infinitenumber of ideas does not hold good. Every language has only a limitednumber of words in the lexicon and a limited number of syntactic structuresin their basic form in an open ended set. This set can be expanded by theinclusion of new members. The lexical set is capable of expansion rapidlywhen compared with the syntactic set diachronically. However, theexpansion of the syntactic patterns is very, very slow because of the fixedpatterns of action in the universal science of action. Therefore, for asyntactic set to change, only the formal properties of representation of action can change. For example, there might be an expansion of the casesystem in a language in a forward direction as it happened in the case of English; but subsequently, a contraction in the case system took place in thereverse direction and most of the inflectional endings were lost and thesystem was radically simplified; so also in the case of the regularization of the verb forms in English, there was a tendency for simplification of thesystem by uniform suffixation of – ed to represent the past and pastparticiple forms. However, still some forms remained unaffected (e.g., sing –sang – sung; read –read – read; cut –cut – cut); so also in the case of thetypological change of SOV to SVO pattern in Modern English . It means that these changes are not genetically inherited by principles andparametric variation as Chomsky proposes but produced in a context bydispositional choices of a language community; even the parametricvariations are not genetically acquired but contextually learnt in the case of new word-formation processes such as affixation, acronomy, and the recenttrend of lexical quotational bifurcation (forming a word within a word byquotational bifurcation – e.g. ‘mini’mum; ‘break’through; real e’state’ inIndian journalism). If they were genetically inherited, why did they not occurearlier in the language and why only through a gradual, orderly change ata specific time, in a particular place, in a chosen culture. A betterexplanation of such word-formation processes is through invoking spurts of dispositional creativity which catch on and get established as speech habits.A pattern is observed, interpreted, and identified and then learnt andsubsequently used and mastered by a speaker of a language either in thechildhood or late in the adulthood. This is what we observe in our daily life:new words are heard and remembered; new patterns are observed andacquired. By a permutation and combination of these syntactic structures,new structures are derived but these new structures are not really new; theyare only an extension or modification of the existing structures in a historicalsense (e.g. SOV to SVO in English is a modification of an existing structure .(. Such an integrated theory is possible and indeed can be formulated byrecourse to the integrated vision of human existence as living for thefulfillment of desires impelled by variable dispositional socio-cultural-spiritual 2 |Page Working Paper 3onKa:rmik Linguistic Theory (1988) cognition of action and its ultimate experience. Such a vision can beprofitably extracted from the theory of karma as the ultimate experiential principle of cause – effect reality at the level beyond evolving intodispositional reality at the higher level, actional reality at the middle level,and experiential reality at the lower level as follows : (4) Ka:rmik Reality Dispositional reality ActionalReality Experiential Reality. In such a perspective, karma evolves into variable disposition (personality),and disposition (personality) generates, specifies and directs desires, andconsequent action for its experience. Since individual action is cognizedthrough the sociocultural-spiritual reality of the society and the contextualactional reality, we can expand dispositional reality in this equation into acomplex of [cognitive, socioculturalspiritual, and contextual actional]realities as follows: (5) Ka:rmik Reality Dispositional Reality[Cognitive Reality Socioculturalspiritual Reality Contextual ActionalReality]Actional reality Experiential Reality. In view of that, such an integrated theory should on the whole considerlanguage (human speech) as (variable) dispositionalsocio-cognitivecontextual semiotic action. Since, dispositionalsocio-cognitive contextualsemiotic action is experiential action, it can be shortened to (variable)experiential action and since it is ka:rmik action, it can be simply calledka:rmik action. Such an integrated theory contradicts the atomic or eclecticperspectives of language: 1. Language is not a formal system, or a functionalsystem, developed into a functional system, or a formal system, but anintegrated system in which form and function are interrelated-interconnected-interdependent in a star network; 2. So also it is not acognitive system per se but an I-I-I system in which cognition is another partlike form, or function.Such a view has serious implications for describing, learning, teaching, andapplying language in other areas of living such as psychotherapy, religion,politics, philosophy, etc. For example, a descriptive account of language inthis view requires an overall integration of the levels of form, function,cognition, and disposition (personality) in language; the teaching of alanguage requires an integration of language as a structure into language asa functional structure into language as a cognitive functional structure intolanguage as a dispositional cognitive functional structure; psychotherapeuticapplication of language requires an integration of performing action intoperforming it as lingually conceived action into performing it asdispositionallyimpelled mental, vocal, and physical action into performing itas ka:rmik action. Consequently, NLP becomes Ka:rmik LanguageProgramming transforming Living into the Bliss of Being. In a similar way, 3 |Page Working Paper 3onKa:rmik Linguistic Theory (1988) political programming will become ka:rmik political programming andreligious programming will become ka:rmik living programming thattransforms living from a sequence of sufferings into a sequence of witnessing/serving God, etc., and so on with the prefixation of ka:rmik to anytype of activity. The concept of karma in the Ka:rmik Linguistic Theory is inspired by Sri:A:di Samkara Bhagavadpu:jyapa:dah’s Advaitha Siddha:nta and theconcept of disposition (personality) from the Teachings of Lord Sri: Krishna in the Holy Bhagavad Gi:ta in the Sana:tana Dharma (literally, the eternalreligion of God; popularly called Hinduism) but it is adapted as a philosophical scientific experiential principle of cause-effect reality and is derived by an empirical investigation of linguistic data withoutreference to its religious connotations as explained previously ( seeKa:rmik Linguistic Theory 1) and this change is further indicated by a changein the spelling from karmic to ka:rmik. Such an adaptation has the uniqueadvantage of being scientific (rigorous and open to proof), empirical andat the same time amenable to spiritual investigation by being open-ended in its framework. This is an outstanding feature of this theory, which I claimto be a significant point of departure in theoretical linguistics. The practice of adapting a principle from one branch of knowledge into another is followedin linguistic research also, for example, Leech (1983) adapting Halliday’sthree layers (ideational, interpersonal, and textual) into his model of pragmatics within linguistics and Halliday adapting Popper’s three worldsfrom biology into linguistics ; in a similar way, the change of spellings toindicate the change of meaning as well as assigning different meanings tothe same word also (e.g., intension and intention in semantics) . As a philosophical and empirically scientific principle, it is NON-THEOLOGICAL and variable dispositional sociocognitive contextual experiential (i.e. ka:rmik) . In its a-theological sense, disposition(personality) (svabha:vam) is an aggregate of va:sana:s (strong impressionsof actions leading to their spontaneous manifestation without anyantecedent or precedent cause); their jna:nam (knowledge) as this and that (indeterminate differentiation), as so and so (determinate differentiation of this and that ), and as such and such (qualitative differentiation of so and so );and their individual reception to be so and so which generates qualitativity in perception as guna:s (traits). Va:sana:s, jna:nam and guna:s are allinterconnected-interrelated-interdependent in a network of one impactingthe other two and bring about a change in svabha:vam (disposition(personality)) as they change. This is svabha:vam at the individual level .However, we observe that it differs from individual to individual and againfrom group to group broadly. As the individuals’ svabha:vam is collectivelyshared, adopted, and standardized at the group level, it becomes the groupdisposition (personality) . It can have both uniformity and variety as thedisposition (personality) emerges out to be uniform or varied within the 4 |Page
