The code model of communication: a powerful - SIL International

108 4. Code Model Linguistics: Patch or Abandon?
To translate a theory or worldview into one’s own language is not to make it one’s own. For
that one must go native, discover that one is thinking and working in, not simply translating
out of, a language that was previously foreign. That transition is not, however, one that an
individual may make or refrain from making by deliberation and choice, however good his
reasons for wishing to do so. Instead, at some point in the process of learning to translate, he
finds that the transition has occurred, that he has slipped into the new language without a
decision having been made. Or else, like many of those who first encountered, say, relativity
or quantum mechanics in their middle years, he finds himself fully persuaded of the new view
but nevertheless unable to internalize it and be at home in the world it helps to shape. Intellectually
such a man has made his choice, but the conversion required if it is to be effective
eludes him. … for he lacks the constellation of mental sets which future members of the
community will acquire through education. (Kuhn 1996:204)
Of the process of paradigm evaluation and its relationship to the incommensurability
problem, Kuhn writes:
It makes a great deal of sense to ask which of two actual and competing theories fits the
facts better. … This formulation, however, makes the task of choosing between paradigms
look both easier and more familiar than it is. If there were but one set of scientific problems,
one world within which to work on them, and one set of standards for their solution, paradigm
competition might be settled more or less routinely by some process like counting the number
of problems solved by each. But, in fact, these conditions are never met completely. The
proponents of competing paradigms are always at least slightly at cross-purposes. Neither side
will grant all the non-empirical assumptions that the other needs in order to make its case. …
they are bound partly to talk through each other. Though each may hope to convert the other to
his way of seeing his science and its problems, neither may hope to prove his case. The
competition between paradigms is not the sort of battle that can be resolved by proofs. (Kuhn
1996:147–148)
4.1.9. The conceptual arrangement of paradigms
Related to the misconception that by ‘paradigm’ Kuhn intended only “Grand
Theories” is a common neglect of Kuhn’s suggestion that paradigms are to some extent
both hierarchically ordered and arranged via network-like connections (1996:40–42).
Kuhn’s suggestions in this regard are not explicitly stated in the 1962 edition; instead
they are embedded in the broader discussion of rules and the various uses of the term
paradigm (1996:41–43). Kuhn’s 1970 Postscript elaborates on the issue somewhat in
discussing the “numerous levels” of community structure and the usage of terms
(1996:177, 181). He alludes to the concept of levels and related (lower level) paradigms
in such comments as the following: “Normally, the members of a mature scientific
community work from a single paradigm or from a closely related set. Very rarely do
different scientific communities investigate the same problems. In those exceptional
cases the groups hold several major paradigms in common” (Kuhn 1996:162).
It is significant that Kuhn chose the word ‘constellation’, defining ‘paradigm’ as a
“constellation of group commitments” (1996:181). In contrast to the simpler terms “set”
and “body,” which Kuhn could have employed in referring to group commitments, the
term constellation evokes the idea of configuration, pattern, and arrangement.
Commitments to the disciplinary matrix are related and arranged; they are not simply a