The linguist and the psychologist could be friends! A commentary on Bennett-Kastor

Abstract

of them to be discussed here. However, what I have to say will be based on the assumption that everyone has read the article, and digested its data, implications, claims, and recommendations. The primary question raised is not just whether a unified field of CLR is possible or attainable, but also whether it is desirable at all. Language behaviour, as distinct from language as such, is such a multidimensional system that it is not surprising that LBR (Language Behaviour Research) has no unified theory or research format (see in this connection Chomsky's concept of the 'performance model' -Chomsky 1965:3-62; or Hymes's 'communicative competence' -Hymes 1972). One of the most regrettable aspects of contemporary science, including linguistics and psychology, is the tendency to erect theoretical and methodological edifices or schools of thought which then become selfcentred bastions of often rigid, self-fulfilling doctrine; any attempts by iconoclastic outsiders to offer realistic and believable alternatives and critiques are subjected to merciless ridicule, incredulous disbelief, and outright rejection. The danger is thus not that CLR will continue to be conducted within a number of incompatible paradigms, but rather that the field will be taken over by those groups of practitioners who happen either to control the organization of research by virtue of their more favoured placement, success, prestige, and access to power and money, or who are engaged in research that, like a snowball, gathers momentum and size without necessarily accumulating structure (insight), simply by providing a model for others to imitate and follow. It is simply not true that the stereo-typed psychological method advocated by Bennett-Kastor is the only methodology for arriving at insights into CL; as long as an individual investigator can argue convincingly from the data that he/she has collected, no one can afford to ignore the possible significance of what is said, even though it might not be arrived at via the stereotyped research paradigm.Just to give a concrete example, one can point to the fact that by the time the child has learned certain constructions, the data now needed to study the development (evolution) of the syntax, semantics, pragmatics, etc. of these