What Is Language?

Abstract

Linguists (and philosophers of language) have long disagreed about the ontology of language, and thus about the proper subject matter of their disciplines. A close examination of the leading arguments in the debates shows that while positive arguments that language is x tend to be sound, negative arguments that language is not x generally fail. This implies that we should be pluralists about the metaphysical status of language and the subject matter of linguistics and the philosophy of language. A pluralist ontology of language, however, involves pitfalls for research on language, and to avoid this pitfalls researchers should temper the pluralist attitude with two strictures. First, pluralism about the ontology of language precludes agnos-ticism about the ontology of language. second, pluralism should not lead to isolated research programs.