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- 20th Century Linguistics, part 1
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- The school of thought that has been labeled Structuralism is based on
the belief that cultural objects such as literature, art, architecture,
etc. cannot be understood in isolation—they must be studied within the
context of the larger structures to which they contribute and within
which they developed. In terms of text, it is viewed as a function of a
system and not so much as an individual creation. The emphasis is placed
not on the author as the origin of the text or of meaning, but on the
structures that texts inhabit and how they constrict the culture within
which we live.
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- “The mind is seen as an information processing machine that fits sense
data into a functional structure that serves a purpose and has a
meaning. We say that in so doing,
the mind interprets the data” (Seuren 1998:141).
- Reductionism: the mind is a physical object—the mind must be constrained
to physical matter (the brain)
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- Unaffected by behaviorism
- Introspective (rationalist) and intuitive analyses coupled with a realist interpretation in terms of
psychological structures and processes.
- Language is an autonomous structure in the mind or brain of the speaker
(this is a common link to American Structuralism).
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- Highly influenced by behaviorism
- Language is an autonomous structure in the mind or brain of the speaker
(this is a common link to European Structuralism).
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- Jan Baudouin de Courtenay (1845-1929)
- Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)
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- Born in Poland
- The major founder of modern phonology
- Taught that the “phoneme is the psychological principle behind the
realization of speech sounds” (Seuren 1998:145).
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- Born in Geneva, Switzerland
- Wrote The Cours, which introduced linguistics as a formal discipline
- Etc.
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- Anton Marty (1847-1914)
- Vilém Mathesius (1882-1945)
- Nikolai Trubetzkoy (1890-1938)
- Roman Jakobson (1896-1982)
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- Semantics is psychological, not logical, therefore logic should not come
into play in the study of meaning.
- “The grammatical form of a sentence expresses not only its abstract
propositional meaning but also its less abstract linguistic meaning or
‘inner form’, which corresponds more closely to surface structure and
intonation and is determined by the way the propositional meaning is to
be integrated into running discourse” (Seuren 1998:157-8).
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- Theme & Rheme
- Theme = topic; subject
- Rheme = comment; predicate
- Mathesius ‘borrowed’ theme & rheme from C.S. Peirce (without giving
him credit).
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- Heavily influenced by de Courtenay’s concept of the phoneme and
phonology.
- Worked with Jakobsen to develop the idea of markedness.
- Died shortly after the Nazis ransacked his home.
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- Heavily influenced by de Courtenay’s concept of the phoneme and
phonology.
- Binary distinctive features are underlying the phonemic system of all
languages.
- Markedness (w/ Trubetskoy)
- Historical change as a system
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- Jakobsen dealt with grammatical categories, but emphasized the need to
retain meaning (semantics) in the system. This was a very anti-Formalist
approach to language (i.e. anti-Chomskyan), which eventually turned the
Formalists against him. In fact
at an LSA meeting after WWII, Robert Hall (Cornell) passed around a $20
bill and had everyone sign it who agreed to blackball Jakobsen.
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- Louis Hjelmslev (1899-1965)
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- Born in Copenhagen, Denmark
- Glossematics (heavy Saussurian influence)
- There is a content plane (thought) and an expression plane
(ideas/sounds).
- Form versus substance: “The abstract units, defined by their algebraic
combinatory properties, are the form, whereas any conventionally
established phonetic (or semantic) realization is the substance”
(Seuren 1998:163).
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- Linguistic description should proceed from the text (general meaning)
down to the words/sounds, not vice versa.
- Algorithmic view of language: generating an infinite # of sentence from
a finite # of constituents.
- Hjelmslev’s ideas about an algorithmic mechanism for generating
language, though very rough, precludes Generativism in America.
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- Henry Sweet (1845-1912)
- Daniel Jones (1881-1967)
- John Rupert Firth (1890-1960)
- Sir Alan Gardiner (1879-1963)
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- Born in London
- Developed a broad and narrow
phonetic alphabet, which was later used by the International Phonetic
Association (IPA).
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- Born in London
- Established the first phonetics lab in Britain.
- Did a large amount of phonology research in Asian and African languages,
and his work has a wide influence in phonology.
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- Did a lot of work with prosodic features in phonetics and phonology.
- “It is not only the substitution of segmental features like nasality or
voice that can make a semantic difference but also the substitution of
prosodic features of length, tone and stress” (Sueren 1998:169).
- Promotes speech act theory
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- Wrote Egyptian Grammar (still a standard reference book)
- The Theory of Speech and Language
- speech acts are the primary data in linguistics
- a language system exists in the conscious
- the linguistic sign = speaker, listener, utterance, and meaning of the
utterance
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