西方语言学史中词与物的关系辨析

An Analysis of the Relationship between Words and Things in the History of Western Linguistics

摘要: 本文以西方语言学史为脉络，系统考察词与物的关系的理论演进与范式变革。从古希腊到中世纪的争论，最后到文艺复兴时期的相似性原则居于主导地位，本体论的探讨为语言学的发展奠定了哲学基础。近代的语言哲学从认识论角度重构语言表征世界的机制，20世纪的符号学、分析哲学、生成语言学及认知语言学的发展，推动词物关系从“直接对应”转向“系统建构”与“认识中介”。后现代主义与解构主义则彻底颠覆了西方哲学的传统预设，将词与物的关系视为权力、历史与差异交织的动态建构。研究表明，词与物的关系的理论演变始终贯穿语言本质、认知机制与社会文化的多重维度，为理解语言与现实的互动提供了跨学科的理论参照。

Abstract: This paper takes Western linguistic history as its framework, offering a systematic analysis of the theoretical evolution and paradigm transformations pertaining to the relationship between words and things. Beginning with the naturalism-conventionalism debate in ancient Greece, proceeding to the realism-nominalism disputes of the Middle Ages, and culminating in the Renaissance’s centrality of the similarity principle, these ontological inquiries established the philosophical underpinnings for the advancement of linguistics. Modern linguistics reconfigured the mechanisms by which language represents the world from an epistemological vantage point. The 20th century witnessed developments in semiotics, analytical philosophy, generative linguistics, and cognitive linguistics-advances that shifted the relationship between words and things away from “direct correspondence” toward “systematic construction” and “epistemic mediation”. Postmodernism and deconstructionism, in turn, fundamentally overturned the traditional presuppositions of Western philosophy, framing the relationship between words and things as a dynamic configuration shaped by power, history, and difference. This study demonstrates that the theoretical evolution of the relationship between words and things has persistently interwoven the dimensions of linguistic cognition, cognitive mechanisms, and sociocultural context, thereby providing a cross-disciplinary theoretical reference for understanding the interaction between language and reality.