Page 32 - Critical and Cultural Theory

MEANING
Chomsky maintains that language comprises two faculties: compe-
tence, the system or structure of language, and performance, a
contingent utterance or set of utterances. Competence precedes
and indeed generates performance. Individual utterances are
generated through the transformation of basic rules ('deep struc-
tures') into specific sentences and syntactical arrangements
('surface structures'). Competence is based on a grasp of the
fundamental rules on the basis of which sentences are formed.
Only a relatively small proportion of the indefinite quantity of
sentences that a language can potentially produce are actually
uttered (Chomsky 1965).
One of the most intriguing aspects of Chomsky's writings is
their emphasis on certain vital links between linguistics and
psychology. Linguistics may ultimately gain little from exploring
language as an abstract system. It should, in fact, look at how
language is used by different speakers and at how the use of
language is related to mental processes which cause people to
speak and write in the ways they do. Memory, attention and
concentration all play important roles. The psychological makeup
of the individual language user should also be taken into consid-
eration. For example, the tendency to use particular syntactical
forms (active, passive, declarative, interrogative, etc.) says a lot
about a person. No less telling are so-called mistakes such as
mispronunciations, unfinished utterances, pauses, and shifts in the
construction of a sentence. As amply documented by Freudian
psychoanalysis, mistakes have deep psychological roots and are
therefore not easily reducible to poor grammatical training.
Meaning, ultimately, is no less an effect of haphazardly
constructed utterances, slips of the tongue and of the pen,
misreadings and blunders than it is a product of precisely formu-
lated sentences.

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