bloomfield 1
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Dead languages
Linguists tried to reconstruct dead languages on the basis of the similarities that were found to exist between languages thought to be related historically to those dead languages.
In short, during the 19th century scholars in linguistics worked from a historical, diachronic, perspective.
Structuralism is of two kinds. One is European (1920’s) and another is North
American (1930’s-1960’s).
European Structuralism
Ferdinand de Saussure
1857 - 1913
De Saussure was not satisfied with the historical comparison of language. He stated that such comparison only answered where a language comes from, but not what language is.
Main tenets
1) Language has a structure
2) Language is a system of sings
3) Language operates at two levels: langue and parole
European Structuralism
1) Language has a structure
Language is a structure in which each elements interact.
European Structuralism
Main tenets
2) Language is a system of signs
Noise is language only when it expresses or communicates ideas.
European Structuralism
Main tenets
Signified Signifier
Physical dimension of language
SignCar
/ka:r/
European Structuralism
Langue
The abstract system
Parole
European Structuralism
Actual speech
Main tenets
North American StructuralismBeginning: 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.
A new step in the American Structuralism
Leonard Bloomfield
1887-1949
NA Structuralism centers in what people actually say
North American Structuralism
North 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.
Main tenets
1) Linguistics is a descriptive science.
Describe what people say, not what people should say.
North American Structuralism
Main tenets
2) The primary form of language is the spoken one.
Reasons:
1) Not every language has a written form.
2) Everybody learns an oral language.
3) The spoken form comes first than the written one.
North American Structuralism
Main tenets
3) Every language is a system on its own right.
Language should not be described in terms of another language, but rather, it should be described on its own terms.
North American Structuralism
Main tenets
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.
/l/
[lang-gwIʤ]
Language is a system
North American Structuralism
Main tenets
5) Meaning should not be part of linguistic analysis.
Bloomfield and many other structuralism followers consider meaning as abstract and unobservable, therefore, unscientific.
Prato?
North American Structuralism
Main tenets
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).
North American Structuralism
Main tenets
6) The procedures to determine the units in language should be objective and rigorous.
North American Structuralism
In this respect, they provide two observable criteria for defying the items of language: Form and Distribution.
Main tenets
North American Structuralism
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.
Main tenets