2008年12月7日 星期日

C1. The Conceptual Framework-VI.Conclusion T

In this chapter we have covered a vast territory citing embryological, anatomical, physiological, and genetic facts pertinent to a great variety of animals. The aim of these excursions was to provide a panorama of the many aspects of the study of behavior and the scientific approaches to this study. We wished to demonstrate the intimate relationship between behavior and biological phenomena in general. We shall, in subsequent chapters, focus on language, but from the foregoing discussions it will be apparent that a biology of language must go far beyond the traditional subjects, namely beyond a demonstration that man is not the only communicating animal, and that certain animal experiments are analogous to language acquistion. Instead, we may expect that language, just as the other types of behavior disucssed in this chapter, is determined to a large extent by biological potentialities.

在這一章,我們涵蓋了廣大的範圍,指出胚胎學、解剖學、生理學及遺傳學和許多動物有關。會提及這些那麼遠的學科,其主要目的是為了提供對行為研究及它的科學方法一個全面性的概觀。我們希望能證明行為和生物現象之間的密切關係。我們在後面的章節,將集中於語言部分,但是根據前面的討論,會很明顯的顯示出語言的生物面一定遠遠超過傳統的議題,也就是證明人類不是唯一會溝通的動物,並且某些動物實驗和語言習得類似。 取而代之的是,我們期待語言,就像本章討論到的其它行為一樣,是被生物的潛能性所決定。

We have come to the following conclusions in the previous sections. The central nervous system and other tissues in the body develop simultaneously and influence one another continuously during morphogenesis. Also, the internal architecture of bones is in part influenced by muscle tonus, which in turn depends on central nervous system activity. As soon as embryonic tissues are sufficiently differentiated movement and primitive stages of behavior appear, and these develop pari passu with further embryonic development. In mammals and most birds, individuals emerge into the world after a complex ontogenetic history in which behavioral differentiation played as important a role as tissue differentiation. Once the individual mammal attains freedom from the intrauterine influence, he is neither a passive tool that may be put to any arbitrary use nor a tabula rasa into which behavior can be arbitrarily inscribed. There are biological limits to its future behavioral repertoire, and these express themselves as species-specificities. Such specificities are ever present and there is no behavior (including language) that is exempt from them. In many animals there is a certain degree of plasticity, but the building blocks of any behavior however arbitrarily it might have been shapted by exterior forces, remain species-specific reflexes, sensitivities, and motor patterns. Genetic transmission appears to play an important role in the fundamental nature of behavioral building blocks and their propagation through animal populations. There is in certain instances a developmental connection between the morphological charateristics and the behavioral characteristics of a species. However, a simple inspection of form does not ordinarily allow us to predict the complete behavioral characteristics of the animal. But if the animal's behavior is well-known, some of its morphological characteristics can then be related to function.

從前面幾節,我們達成了以下幾個結論。中樞神經系統和其它身體上的組織同時發展並且在形態生成的過程中不斷地互相影響。此外,骨骼的內部結構會某種程度上地受到肌緊張的影響,而肌肉的緊張則取決於中樞神經系統的活動 。只要胚胎的組織一經過充分的分化,行為的動作和行為的原始階段就會出現,而且這些發展和進一步的胚胎發展同種速度。在哺乳類以及大多數的鳥類,個體的出生是經過一個複雜的發育歷程,而行為的分化在這個歷程中所扮演的角色就像組織分化一樣重要。一個個体哺乳類一旦不受母體的影響而取得自由,他就不是一個被任意使用的工具,也不是一個被任意銘記行為的白板。他更深一層的行為功能會受到生物上的限制,這些都能從他自己顯現出生物特有的性質。像這樣的特殊性一直都存在著,而且也沒有行為(包含語言)可以被免除。許多動物都具有某種程度的可塑性,但是生物的特殊性阻擋了任何的行為。基因的傳承似乎在行為建構材料的基礎本質中和動物族群的繁殖中扮演了重要的角色。 然而,對一個形式的簡單檢驗通常不允許我們預測動物完整的行為特性。 但是,如果動物的行為是眾所週知的,它的某些構詞特性就和功能有關。

In our investigations of biological foundations of language we shall examine anatomical and phsiological correlates: we shall attempt to follow the emergence of language through growth and maturation; and we shall attempt to see language in the context of the science of evolution. These and related matters must, by necessity, be treated in individual chapters. Yet none of these topics by themselves is likely to give us definitive clues to the biological nature of language. Each produces circumstantial evidence. only a synopsis of the entire material will give us a picture, however hazy, of the immensely intricate design of the whole.

在我們對語言的生物基礎研究中,我們將檢視解剖和生理的相關之處;我們將試圖從發育及成熟的過程注意語言的出現。而且,我們將試圖檢視語言的進化面。這些以及相關的事物都一定且必需要在獨立的章節中討論。雖然這些主題都還沒有提供我們對語言的生物本質一些可靠的線索。每個主題都是有關的證據。然而,只有全部資料的概要才會給我們一個輪廓,雖然朦朧但卻是錯綜複雜的圖樣。

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