According to the italian news agency, professor eleanora birota, a linguist at calabria university, and professor pedro pantano, a mathematician, recently studied the natural language using the strange attraction of chaos theory, and found some dynamic features of the evolution of the language of human babies. According to the experts concerned, the study is further evidence of the evolution of human languages through mutation, genetics and natural selection in a competitive race of superiority。
The term chaos refers to the chaos and disorder that existed before the creation of the universe, and now to a complex and seemingly irregular pattern of movement in the real world. The chaos theory (known as “mixed theory”) is a combination of qualitative thinking and quantitative analysis that explores behaviour that cannot be interpreted and predicted in dynamic systems without a single data relationship (e. G., weather change, chemical reactions, population movements, social behaviour, etc.). Today, with rapid advances in technologies such as computers, chaos has evolved into a far-reaching and rapidly developing frontier science。
The confusion theory was created in 1963 by professor edward lorenz, an american meteorologist; the butterfly effect (butterfly effect), fractal structure and strange attraction are its three important concepts. The essence of this theory refers to the inherent randomness and unpredictability of complex certainty systems, the greatest value of which lies in bringing about the most dramatic changes in human nature, and the greatest contribution of which is in obtaining clear non-cyclical results with simple models. According to many scientists, there are three brilliant miracles of the twentieth century: relativity, quantum theory and chaos. The emergence of chaos quickly drew the attention of various disciplines and became a useful tool for studying and interpreting the phenomenon。
In the 1980s, the academic community began to study linguistic issues using the doctrine of confusion. At a seminar on “new approaches and new horizons in language research”, held in berkeley, united states, in 1991, chinese mathematicians and linguists professor zhou hai had proposed the creation of “linguism”. He pointed out that linguistic homogeneity was viewed primarily from the standpoint of the homogeneity of speech and its associated phenomena, and that it was necessary to adopt a new paradigm of linguistic research in order to promote the development of the homogeneity of language. As things stand, a new paradigm for this language study is emerging。
Professor jeffrey ellman, american linguist and neural network expert, stated in 1995 that confusion theory had potential value in understanding language, which should be seen as a dynamic and complex system act. In his view, language treatment based on traditional linguistic studies has the following main features: language is treated on the basis of symbols that are separate from each other and independent of the context; syntax is an operator, whose words are objects; syntax rules and vocabulary are static; sentences are created like bricks, which are bricks and syntax is the clay of bricks。
As can be seen from the above, traditional linguistic studies are heavily influenced by retrogression. In the past, language studies have tended to divide the entire language system into layers or different aspects, neglecting “secondary” details or “controlling” variables, artificially separating the links between factors in the language system. In fact, language is not a mechanical structure, but a complex system, which is non-linear and multilayered and multifaceted, and an open system itself, which is disturbed and influenced by many factors in its evolution. Thus, the systemic holistic nature of chaosism can be described as a powerful challenge to retrogression, and perhaps we can look at the other side of the language from this mirror of chaosism, thereby gaining a whole new interpretation of language and opening new horizons and fields for linguistic research。
At present, many branches of linguistic science, such as cultural linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics, neurolinguistics, mathematical linguistics, etc., are absorbing research methods and mathematical models of muscism. For example, the chinese linguist professor zhang zhang zheng jian, who has introduced chaosism and its methods into the study of languages and culture, has had a wide-ranging impact and has achieved encouraging results in the study of chinese linguistics and culture, especially those of ethnic minorities。
Finally, a chinese-language example is given to illustrate the effect of the butterfly effect on languages. On 10 november 2010, the daily people's journal published an article on the front page of the front page entitled jiangsu-li's “culture of culture”, which, because of its authority and appeal, has been confined to the word “contributive” used on the internet, which has spread throughout china overnight and spread to the national vocabulary system, and is included in the sixth edition of the modern chinese dictionary。
(by visiting scholar, university of milan, italy)
