12. intro to lang. american structuralism
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American structuralism began in the 1930s-1960s as a reaction to European structuralism of the 1920s. It focused on describing observable speech rather than abstract concepts like langue. The main points were: 1) Linguistics should be a descriptive science based on analyzing observable speech and classifying phonemes, morphemes and sentence patterns. 2) The primary form of language is spoken, not written. 3) Every language is a unique system that should be analyzed independently without comparison to other languages. Meaning was considered unscientific and excluded from analysis. The goal was to develop objective, rigorous procedures to segment and classify linguistic units based on their form and distribution through speech samples.
12. intro to lang. american structuralism
- 1. 12. American Structuralism Lecture No. 12 Zafar Ullah, [email protected]
- 2. Definition of Structuralism • Structuralism proposes the idea that many phenomena do not occur in isolation, but instead occur in relation to each other, and that all related phenomena are part of a whole with a definite, but not necessarily defined, structure. 2
- 3. American Structuralism • European (1920’s) and another is North American Structuralism (1930’s-1960’s) is different from European Structuralism (1920s). • To reconstruct dead languages on the basis of the similarities of existing languages. • Linguistics worked from a historical, diachronic, perspective. 3
- 4. Main Points of European Structuralism • 1)Language has a structure • 2)Language is a system of sings • 3)Language operates at two levels: langue and parole 4
- 5. American Structuralism Beginning • Beginning: a group of anthropologists describing fast-disappearing American Indian tribes. They found that there was no methodology for them to follow in order to describe these languages. 5
- 6. Leonard Bloomfield 1887-1949 • NA Structuralism centers in what people actually say . • Language, 1933 • Behaviourism • Empiricism • An approach to acquire knowledge that emphasizes repeatable observations through the physical senses • Stimulus-response theory 6
- 7. Main Points of American Structuralism • 1) Linguistics is a descriptive science. • 2) The primary form of language is the spoken one. • 3) Every language is a system on its own right. • 4) Language is a system in which smaller units arrange systematically to form larger ones. • 5) Meaning should not be part of linguistic analysis. • 6) The procedures to determine the units in language should be objective and rigorous. • 7) Language is observable speech, not knowledge. 7
- 8. 1) Linguistics is a descriptive science. • Describe what people say, not what people should say. 8
- 9. 2) The primary form of language is the spoken one. • Reasons: • Child • Writing system • 1) Not every language has a written form. • 2) Everybody learns an oral language. • 3) The spoken form comes first than the written one. 9
- 10. 3) Every language is a system on its own right. • Philology • Comparative linguistics • Language should not be described in terms of another language, but rather, it should be described on its own terms. 10
- 11. 4) Language is a system in which smaller units arrange systematically to form larger ones. • These linguists proposed a procedure in which they began analyzing the smallest units and classifying them, and describing the patterns into which they combined to form larger units. • Morphology to syntax 11
- 12. 5) Meaning should not be part of linguistic analysis. • Bloomfield and many other structuralism followers consider meaning as abstract and unobservable, therefore, unscientific. 12
- 13. 6) The procedures to determine the units in language should be objective and rigorous. • NA Structuralism rejected traditional definitions of, for example, a noun as “the word that refers to persons, animals or things” (definition based on meaning). • In this respect, they provide two observable criteria for defying the items of language: Form and Distribution. 13
- 14. 7) Language is observable speech, not knowledge. • Langue and parole were rejected as unscientific abstractions. The main objective would be to make a taxonomy of language based on observable samples of speech (corpus/corpora) • Phonemes-morphemes-sentences patterns. 14
- 15. Two Analytical Steps • Segmentation • Classification 15
- 16. Two Phases • 1. Bloomfield • 2. Zellig Harris 16
- 17. Behaviourism • School of psychology which seeks to explain animal and human behavior entirely in terms of observable and measurable responses to environmental stimuli. Behaviorism was introduced (1913) by the American psychologist John B. Watson, who insisted that behavior is a physiological reaction to environmental stimuli. • Tabula Rasa The mind comes as a blank slate 17
- 18. Cont… • The conditioned-reflex experiments of the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov and the American psychologist Edward Thorndike were central to the development of behaviorism. The American behaviorist B. F. Skinner contended that all but a few emotions were conditioned by habit. 18
- 19. Skinner (1904–90) • American psychologist, leading exponent of the school of psychology known as behaviorism, which explains the behavior of humans and other animals in terms of the physiological responses of the organism to external stimuli. • Skinner maintained that learning occurred as a result of the organism responding to, or operating on, its environment. • operant conditioning • Skinner box 19
- 21. Sapir Whorf Hypothesis • 1. Linguistic structure and language habits shape perception • 2. The structure of anyone‘s language determines/strongly influences the worldview they will acquire as they learn the language • 3. Structural differences between language systems will, in general, be parallelled by non- linguistic cognitive differences in the native speakers of the languages (i.e., linguistic structures predetermine not only how, but also what we think). 21
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