Language, an Introduction to the Study of Speech
1921
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I. INTRODUCTORY: LANGUAGE DEFINED
Language a cultural, not a biologically inherited, function. Futility of interjectional and sound-imitative theories of the origin of speech. Definition of language. The psycho-physical basis of speech. Concepts and language. Is thought possible without language? Abbreviations and transfers of the speech process. The universality of language.
Sounds not properly elements of speech. Words and significant parts of words (radical elements, grammatical elements). Types of words. The word a formal, not a functional unit. The word has a real psychological existence. The sentence. The cognitive, volitional, and emotional aspects of speech. Feeling-tones of words.
The vast number of possible sounds. The articulating organs and their share in the production of speech sounds: lungs, glottal cords, nose, mouth and its parts. Vowel articulations. How and where consonants are articulated. The phonetic habits of a language. The “values” of sounds. Phonetic patterns.
IV. FORM IN LANGUAGE: GRAMMATICAL PROCESSES
Formal processes as distinct from grammatical functions. Intercrossing of the two points of view. Six main types of grammatical process. Word sequence as a method. Compounding of radical elements. Affixing: prefixes and suffixes; infixes. Internal vocalic change; consonantal change. Reduplication. Functional variations of stress; of pitch.
V. FORM IN LANGUAGE: GRAMMATICAL CONCEPTS
Analysis of a typical English sentence. Types of concepts illustrated by it. Inconsistent expression of analogous concepts. How the same sentence may be expressed in other languages with striking differences in the selection and grouping of concepts. Essential and non-essential concepts. The mixing of essential relational concepts with secondary ones of more concrete order. Form for form’s sake. Classification of linguistic concepts: basic or concrete, derivational, concrete relational, pure relational. Tendency for these types of concepts to flow into each other. Categories expressed in various grammatical systems. Order and stress as relating principles in the sentence. Concord. Parts of speech: no absolute classification possible; noun and verb.
VI. TYPES OF LINGUISTIC STRUCTURE
The possibility of classifying languages. Difficulties. Classification into form-languages and formless languages not valid. Classification according to formal processes used not practicable. Classification according to degree of synthesis. “Inflective” and “agglutinative.” Fusion and symbolism as linguistic techniques. Agglutination. “Inflective” a confused term. Threefold classification suggested: what types of concepts are expressed? what is the prevailing technique? what is the degree of synthesis? Four fundamental conceptual types. Examples tabulated. Historical test of the validity of the suggested conceptual classification.
VII. LANGUAGE AS A HISTORICAL PRODUCT: DRIFT
Variability of language. Individual and dialectic variations. Time variation or “drift.” How dialects arise. Linguistic stocks. Direction or “slope” of linguistic drift. Tendencies illustrated in an English sentence. Hesitations of usage as symptomatic of the direction of drift. Leveling tendencies in English. Weakening of case elements. Tendency to fixed position in the sentence. Drift toward the invariable word.
VIII. LANGUAGE AS A HISTORICAL PRODUCT: PHONETIC LAW
Parallels in drift in related languages. Phonetic law as illustrated in the history of certain English and German vowels and consonants. Regularity of phonetic law. Shifting of sounds without destruction of phonetic pattern. Difficulty of explaining the nature of phonetic drifts. Vowel mutation in English and German. Morphological influence on phonetic change. Analogical levelings to offset irregularities produced by phonetic laws. New morphological features due to phonetic change.
IX. HOW LANGUAGES INFLUENCE EACH OTHER
Linguistic influences due to cultural contact. Borrowing of words. Resistances to borrowing. Phonetic modification of borrowed words. Phonetic interinfluencings of neighboring languages. Morphological borrowings. Morphological resemblances as vestiges of genetic relationship.
X. LANGUAGE, RACE, AND CULTURE
Naïve tendency to consider linguistic, racial, and cultural groupings as congruent. Race and language need not correspond. Cultural and linguistic boundaries not identical. Coincidences between linguistic cleavages and those of language and culture due to historical, not intrinsic psychological, causes. Language does not in any deep sense “reflect” culture.
Language as the material or medium of literature. Literature may move on the generalized linguistic plane or may be inseparable from specific linguistic conditions. Language as a collective art. Necessary esthetic advantages or limitations in any language. Style as conditioned by inherent features of the language. Prosody as conditioned by the phonetic dynamics of a language.
Edward Sapir (Lauenburg, 26 januari 1884 – New Haven, 4 februari 1939) was een Amerikaans etnoloog en linguïst. Hij geldt samen met Leonard Bloomfield als de grondlegger van het Amerikaanse structuralisme.
Leven en werk
Sapir werd geboren in Pommeren, in een van oorsprong Litouws–Joods gezin, dat in 1889 naar Amerika emigreerde. Hij studeerde germanistiek en Indo-Europese talen aan de Columbia Universiteit in New York en studeerde af met een dissertatie over Johann Gottfried Herders theorie over de oorsprong van de taal. Na zijn studie leerde hij de antropoloog Franz Boas kennen, met wie hij veldonderzoek ging doen naar een aantal inheemse Amerikaanse talen. Dat werk leverde een vernieuwende aaneenknoping op van linguïstiek en antropologie en veel kennis over de structuur en verwantschap van de oorspronkelijke Amerikaanse Indianentalen (met name van de Hokantalen, de Uto-Azteekse talen en de Algische talen).
Vanaf 1910 werkte Sapir als directeur van het antropologisch museum te Ottawa en later als professor aan de Yale-universiteit en de Universiteit van Chicago, zijn inzichten uit tot een Amerikaanse variant van het structuralisme. Hij werd uiteindelijk vooral bekend door de samen met Benjamin Lee Whorf ontwikkelde Sapir-Whorfhypothese, die stelt dat de waarneming en voorstelling van de werkelijkheid sterk afhangt van de taal die iemand ter beschikking heeft. Een belangrijk gevolg van deze hypothese is het linguïstisch relativisme, dat aan een overkoepelende taaltheorie twijfelt en stelt dat de taal niets anders is dan een wereldvisie die de menselijke perceptie van de realiteit gestalte geeft. Ter ondersteuning van dat relativisme bracht Sapir een tijd bij de Hopi door. Hij oordeelde dat het wereldbeeld van de Hopi ook volkomen afweek van het Indo-Europese, met name op het punt van hun (circulaire) tijdsbeleving.
In de laatste fase van zijn leven verwijderde Sapir zich enigszins van de klassieke taalkunde, en verdiepte hij zich met name in de theosofie. In 1937 kreeg hij een hartinfarct waarvan hij nooit meer volledig herstelde. Hij overleed in 1939.
Publicaties (selectie)
- Herders “Ursprung der Sprache”, in: Modern Philology, Band 5, 1907.
- Wishram Texts, together with Wasco Tales and Myths. In: American Ethnological Society Publications II, Franz Boas (ed.) Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1909.
- Notes on Chasta Costa Phonology and Morphology. University Museum Publications 1914.
- Language. An Introduction to the Study of Speech. Nw York: Harcourt Brace, 1921 (Ned. vert. Wat is taal? Inleiding tot de taalkunde. Amsterdam, 1949).
- Wishram Ethnography (met Leslie Spier), University of Washington Publications in Anthropology, Band 3, 1930.
- The Function of an International Auxiliary Language, in: Psyche, Band 11, 1931.
- Nootka Texts, 1939.
- Notes on the Culture of the Yana. Met Leslie Spier. University of California Press 1943.
- Selected Writings on Language, Culture, and Personality. David G. Mandelbaum (ed.), Berkeley, 1947.
- Anthropology, 1984
- The Psychology of Culture. A Course of Lectures. Judith T. Irvine (ed.), de Gruyter 2002 ISBN 978-3-11-017282-9