Linguagem: natureza ou convenção?

• Main Author: João Pedro Mendes
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sociedade Brasileira de Estudos Clássicos (SBEC) 1988-11-01
• Series: Classica, Revista Brasileira de Estudos Clássicos
• Subjects: Linguagem; Platão; Crátilo
• Online Access: https://revista.classica.org.br/classica/article/view/643

One of the oldest of problems is to establsh the way language arose from the manlpulatlon of sounds used to name thlngs. Plato's dialogue Cratylus was the first work to discuss thls subject. Two conflictlng theories are presented: Cratylus asserts that names are attached to thlngs by thelr very nature, that is,  each entity demands for itself the name that men give it;  the reason for its name is in its nature. Hermogenes refutes this positlon stating that the relationshlp between name and named object is a pure convention or an agreement between speakers. Called upon to decide the issue, Socrates, after expresslng reservations about the posltions of the two debaters, presents a thlrd theory: it is the use for the formation and acceptance of a vast store of  names what makes posslble the relatlonshlps of men among themseives  and of men with things. Names are fixed in order to lnstruct, exlstlng ln thls process an art and artists: the legislators. Eplcurlanlsm explalns the formation of language by sociologlcal and psychologlcal factors. Modern linguists, following Saussure, definitively resolve the problem of the natural or conventlonal origln of language by setting up various polnts of departure such as: the distlnction between language and speech, the concept of language as an ideosyncratlc system of slgns, the arbltrary  nature of slgns, etc.