PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS

PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS

1. PHONETICIANS

   • -Joshua Steeler and Daniel Jones
     • 1940 tape recorder
       • -Consider the nature of language. -Language was spoken before it was written. -Spoken and written English are two different systems.

2. PROPORTIONS AND FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE FORMS

   • SAPIR
     • -Linguistics need to extract information from other aspects of human behavior. -Language: as an end in itself.
       • GRAMMARIANS
         • -Variation in inflection and inflected language.
           • -English and Latin are different but have some similarities. -Process called analogy. -Complexity in languages are opposed to primitiveness in language. -Languages are not better or worse just different. -Bad perspective attitude towards language.
             • -Correct linguistic approach. -Avoid distortions. -Need for explicitness in language study.
   • -Different styles of usage in language (written, spoken). -English, French, etc., are conglomeration of regional and social dialects. -These days, language accents are judged.
     • LINGUISTIC COMPLACENCY ¨armchair grammarian¨
       • -Linguistic nostalgia. -Language itself is indeterminate. -Uncertainty in pronunciation.

3. -Discussion of language in early Greek period. -People were not interested in language. -Philosophical awareness of the nature of language (Philosophia).

   • PERIOD
     • Middle Ages-until Renaissance
       • -Constituted the scholastic trivium. -Scholars wanted to stablish philosophical explanations for the rules of grammar. -XVII century debate between rationalism and empiricism. -XVIII Romanticism: debate of language, local dialects and vernaculars. -Development of artificial language: Esperanto.