In defense of public languages

Linguistics and Philosophy 34 (5):479-488 (2011)
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Abstract

My modest aim in this note is to sketch three interrelated critiques of public languages, and to respond to them. All are broadly Chomskyan, and all support the same conclusion: that, insofar as they even exist, the study of public languages is not a viable scientific project. (Related critiques of semantics, understood as involving word–world relations, will be touched on as well)

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10.1007/s10988-011-9104-7

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Robert Stainton
Western University

Citations of this work

A Deranged Argument Against Public Languages.Robert J. Stainton - 2016 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 59 (1):6-32.
Idiolects.Alex Barber - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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References found in this work

Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin, and Use.Noam Chomsky - 1986 - Prager. Edited by Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel.
New horizons in the study of language and mind.Noam Chomsky - 2000 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Languages and language.David K. Lewis - 2010 - In Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel (eds.), Arguing about language. New York: Routledge. pp. 3-35.
Semantics And Cognition.Ray S. Jackendoff - 1983 - Cambridge: MIT Press.

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