LB 457 final-460 1/3 怡君

Jean Baptise Bouillaud (1796-1881) picked up Gall's ideas in connection with cases of aphasia, already in 1825. His thoughts on language were based on his clinical experience, and language was defined in terms of the difficulties his aphasic patients showed in the expression or understanding of single words [75].16 Most of the subsequent work on aphasia, including the famous papers of Paul Broca (1824-1880), published in the 1860’s, and the influential monograph by Carl Wernicke (1848-1905), published in 1874, were predominantly concerned with localization. Language was considered in the simple terms of the reception and emission of single words. This oversimplification undoubtedly contributed to the fact that linguists ignored the implications of the physicians’ findings for language science [76]. Earlier we pointed out that the linguists of the first half of the nineteenth century were philologists to whom the biological basis of language was not a central issue, a situation which had been foreseen by Wilhelm von Humboldt in the 1820’s. With him we shall now begin our detailed discussion of language scientists in the 19th century.
Jean Baptiste Bouillard (1796-1881)已在1825年學到Gall的概念並運用在失語症的個案上。他對語言的想法是建立在他的臨床經驗上，並限定在依據他的失語症病患表達或理解單一字詞的困難上。後來多數關於失語症的著作，包括Paul Broca（1824-1880）出版於1860年代的著名文章，還有Carl Wernicke （1848-1905）出版於1874年，有影響力的專題著作，都顯著地在關注局部化。
Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) had accepted and expanded Herder’s original viewpoint which had brought language from the sphere of philosophy into the realm of nature, by including reason in man’s natural endowment. Man can understand meaning attributed to sound, or the single word as a concept, only because language as a whole is innately in him. It is therefore inconceivable that language resulted from an accumulation of words. Language capacity is an attribute of intellectual man’s physiology. The changes which occur in languages with the passage of time, are part of historical development [77].
Language science will have to study both man’s language capacity and the history of languages. It will, have two aims, of which the inquiry into man’s language capacity is primary, and the exacting examination of particular language is secondary.
The biological nature of man’s language capacity appeared confirmed by the observation that all children acquire language at nearly the same age, although they may be raised under quite different circumstances. It is “characteristic for the unfolding of other biologically given attributes that a certain time is denoted for their development,” von Humboldt wrote [78].
No language can be understood in terms of a progressive accumulation of words which later becomes structured. Even the most primitive language requires an understanding of sentence structure [79]. Words cannot be equated with the well-defined symbols of mathematics, for they save more often to discover unverified truths than to define a truth which has been fully recognized [80]. Languages differ from each other in that each one has a distinctive facility to discover certain truths, so that every language represents a particular view of the world. The similarity of the language structures results from the fact that all languages are the expression of man’s inborn language capacity which should be the central point of all language studies. Yet “it is still too early to attempt an over-all theory of human speech…or even a general grammar” [81].
Humboldt’s discrimination between man’s language ability as a biological attribute, and the development of language in terms of language history was well taken. Many of the arguments about the origin and nature of language could have been avoided by adhering to a clear-cut separation of these two basic aspects. For Humboldt understood that they were but two integral components of language and that eventually languages would have to be considered in conjunction with man’s language capacity. But the work on languages had not yet progressed to a point where this was feasible.
Humboldt’s exposition of the aims of language science had not included a discussion of the appropriate methods. But by mid-century the question as to whether linguistics would belong to the natural or to the social sciences and this would determine its commitment to a methodology. August Schleicher (1821-1868), linguist and professor at Weimar and Jena, made a decision in favor of natural science. He believed that language had involved from animal sounds and that its development coincided with the development of the brain and the speech organs. The oldest components of language must have been the same everywhere, namely noises to signify percepts (Anschauungen). Schleicher postulated that the evolution of the human race had progressed through three phases: (1) The development of the physical organism in its most basic aspects. (2) The development of the language. (3) Human history. He thought that not all societies had reached this last phase. He was even convinced that the North American Indians had shown themselves unsuited for this phase and would not find a place in history, because of their overly complicated language.
Because language is man’s most outstanding characteristic, people should be classified according to their language which is a much more important attribute than their racial characteristics. Language being a “symptom” of cerebral activity, language differences must rest on some slight anatomical difference of the brain [82]. This direct connection between the characteristics of a language and the organ related to language ability was a rash conclusion. Had Schleicher adhered to Humboldt’s differentiation (of languages and language ability), his formulations might have proven more fruitful.
Very view linguists concurred with Schleicher’s thinking and his commitment to natural science. Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900) favored the idea that linguistics was a natural science, for he had rejected Schleicher's opinion that language evolved from natural sounds. This German born, Oxford professor of linguistic and literature popularized linguistic by his lectures and is still quoted today as an authority by nonlinguistists. He considered language an irresistible exclusively human instinct. Known languages had developed out of word roots. These roots, the basic components of language, had originally been used of a power inherent in human nature. He considered language and thought inseparable, "... to think is to speak low, to speak is to think aloud"[83]".