Abstract

I defend the view, call it Communitarianism, that the only languages which need be posited by a scientific description and explanation of linguistic phenomena are public languages. We need not, instead or in addition, posit idiolects. Your language is different from your own theory of what that language is like; it is different from any mental representations of your linguistic knowledge or capacities; and it is different from your idiosyncratic speech patterns or dispositions. To motivate Communitarianism, I expound my preferred brand. A linguistic expression token is like a monetary token, a chess piece or a title deed: in each case, a physical item receives and retains contextual properties because of its role in a social practice. A language is like a monetary system, a game or a contractual arrangement: each corresponds to a social practice which is partially constituted by rules. ;Communitarians are opposed by Individualists. They hold that any adequate scientific description and explanation of linguistic phenomena recognizes idiolects. If saying that you and I share a public language pays scientific dividends, the linguist can construct that language by abstracting from features of our idiolects and those of other speakers. ;I voice three worries about extant presentations of Individualism. First, many of them change the subject from languages to something else. Chomsky, for example, changes it to cognitive psychology. He believes that grammars are psychological theories of competence, but if he turned out to be wrong, linguistic methodology would not be renounced and the deliverances of most descriptive linguistics would stand unrefuted. Second, many Individualists retain philosophical views about the priority of mind over language which have a good historical pedigree but are hard to motivate nowadays given the distinction between the properties of linguistic expressions and the properties of utterances. Third, many write as though idiolects are uncontentious and as though it is somebody else's job to explain why this is and what they are. Consequently, Individualism continues to spread, though it is often unclear to what extent the spreaders are ready to justify it