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1、CHAPTER IV第四章Linguistic Value语言价值I. The language as thought organised in sound第一节.以思想组织的语言In order to realise that the language itself can be nothing other thana system of pure values, one need only consider the two elementswhich are involved in the way it functions: ideas and sounds 为了意识到语言它本身无外乎就是
2、一个 纯粹的价值系统，我们只需要考虑到关于语 言发挥它作用的方式的两种元素：声音和思 想。Psychologically, setting aside its expression in words, our thoughtis simplya vague, shapeless mass. Philosophers and linguists havealways agreed that were it not for signs, we should be incapable ofdifferentiating any two ideas in a clear and constant wa
3、y. In itself,thought is like a swirling cloud, where no shape is intrinsically deter-minate. No ideas are established in advance, and nothing is distinct,before the introduction oflinguistic structure.心理学上，不理会它语言表面上的表达， 我们的思想就是简单的一个模糊不清的，不 成样子的，没有形状的团块。哲学家和语言 学家一直认同要不是由于符号标志，我们将 会没有能力用一种清楚明了和始终如一的 方
4、法区别任何两种思想。思想，它本身，就 像一个乌云密布的漩涡，在那里，没有成形 之物本质上是确切的。在语言构造学引用之 前，没有概念是提前固定好，没有事物是清 楚明显的。But do sounds, which lie outside this nebulous world of thought, inthemselves constitute entities established in advance? No more thanideas do. The substance of sound is no more fixed or rigid than that ofthought. It
5、 does not offer a ready-made mould, with shapes thatthought must inevitably conform to. It is a malleable material whichcan be fashioned into separate parts in order to supply the signalswhich thought has need of. So we can envisage the linguistic phenomenon in its entirety 一 the language, that is 一
6、 as a series of adjoining subdivisions simultaneously imprinted both on the plane of vague,amorphous thought (A), and on the equally featureless plane of sound(H). This can be represented very approximately as in the followingsketch (top of p. 111。)但是，位于模糊的思想世界之外的声音 它本身会构成预先成立的实体吗？只不过 是想法这样。声音的实质不再是
7、思想的固定 或僵化。它不提供现成的模具，思想必须不 可避免地符合。这是一种可锻材料，为了提供思想所需要的信号可以制成不同的零件。 我们可以设想语言本身即为一系列相邻分 支同时印迹对模糊语言的平面，无定型的思 想（A）和声音一样的平面（B）。这可以非 常接近下面的示意图表示。（ 111 页的顶端）fW. Linguistic ValueThe characteristic role of a language in relation to thought is not tosupply the material phonetic means by which ideas may be expre
8、ssed.it is to act as intermediary between thought and sound, in such a waythat the combination of both necessarily produces a mutually complementary delimitation of units. Thought, chaotic by nature, is madeprecise by this process of segmentation. But what happens is neithera transformation of thoug
9、hts into matter,nor a transformation ofsounds into ideas. What takes place, is a somewhat mysterious processby which thought-sound evolves divisions, and a language takesshape with its linguistic units in between those two amorphous masses. One might think of it as being like air in contact with wat
10、er:changes in atmospheric pressure break up the surface of the waterinto series of divisions, i.e. waves. The correlation between thoughtand sound, and the union of the two, is like that 语言与思维的特征作用不是提供可以表达 思想的材料的语音手段。它是思想与声音的 中介，在这样一种方式，两者的组合必然产 生一个相互补充的单位划分。思想，混乱的 性质，通过这个分割过程精确。但是发生的 事情并不是把思想转化为物质，
11、也不是声音 转变成思想。发生了什么，是有点神秘的“思 想声音”演变的过程，一种语言形成了它的 语言单位之间的两个非晶质量。人们。可能 会想到它像空气一样与水接触：大气压力变 化把水面分解成一系列的分裂，即波浪。思 维与声音的关系，两者的结合，就是这样。Linguistic ValueLinguistic structure might be described as the domain of articulations, taking this term in the sense defined earlier (p. 261). Everylinguistic sign is a part
12、 or member, an articulus, where an idea isfixed in a sound, and a sound becomes the sign of an idea.语言结构可能被描述为关节领域，在这 个意义上定义的术语（第 261 页）。每个语 言符号都是一部分或一个成员，一个关节， 其中一个想法是固定在一个声音，声音成为 思想的标志。A language might also be compared to a sheet of paper. Thought is one side of the sheet and sound the reverse sid
13、e. Just as it is impossibleto take a pair of scissors and cut one side of paper without at the sawtime cutting the other, so it is impossible in a language to isolatesoand from thought, or thought from sound. To separate the two fortheoretical purposes takes us into either pure psychology or purepho
14、netics, not linguistics一种语言也可能被比作一张纸。思想是 纸张的一面，声音的反面。就像拿一把剪刀 是不可能的，切纸的一边不在锯的时候切另 一个，因此，语言是不可能隔绝声音和思想 的，或从声音思考。为了理论目的分离二者 让我们进入纯粹心理学或纯粹语音学，而不 是语言学。Linguistics, then, operates along this margin, where sound andthought meet. The contact between them gives rise to a form, not asubstance语言学，然后，沿着这个边缘，声音和
15、 思想满足。它们之间的接触产生了一种形式 而不是物质。These observations clarify our earlier remarks about the arbitrarynature of the linguistic sign (p. 1001). Not only are the two areaswhich are linguistically linked vague and amorphous in themselvesbut the process which selects one particular sound-sequence to corre-spond
16、to one particular idea is entirely arbitrary. If this were not sothe notion of value would lose something. For it would involve acertain element of imposition from the outside world. But in factvalues remain entirely a matter of internal relations, and that is whythe link between idea and sound is intrinsically arbitrary这些观察阐明了我们先前的语言符号 的任意性评论。这不仅是语言上的两个领域 模糊与无定形也是选择一个特定的声音对 应于一个特定的想法是完全任意的序列的 过程。如果不是这样，价值观念就会失去一 些东西。因为它会涉及到外界强加的某些因 素。但事实上，价值观仍
