DESCRIPTIVISTS

1. DESCRIPTIVISTS

2. END OF XIX/ BEGINNING OF XX EUROPE AMERICA SAUSSURE (STRUCTURALISM) FRANZ BOAS (DESCRIPTIVISM)

3. FRANZ BOAS (1858-1942) STUDENT OF PHYSICS AND GEOGRAPHY INTERESED IN ANTHROPOLOGY • The culture of community is not simply a function of its material circumstance • Human sciences are quite distinc both in content and in methods from • the physical sciences • Language is an important aspect in studying anthropology • Language is the key to attent other aspects of culture. • People are usually unconscious of principle in which language operates.

4. The Handbook of American Indian Language (1911) • Contains a summary of the descriptive approach • focusses on indigenous languages of America (north of Mexico). • There are several chapters talking about the description of • individual languages. • As a guidance of the susequently American Linguists until • the emergence of Generative Transformational Grammar.

6. DESCRIPTIVISM ABSTRACT LINGUISTIC THEORIZING PRACTICAL DESCRIPTION OF INDIVIDUAL LANGUAGES GENERAL THEORY ABOUT LANGUAGE

7. RELATIVISM OF BOAS There was no ideal type of language, to which actual languages approximated more or less closely: human languages were endlessly diverse, and although the structure of a language spoken by som primitive tribe might strike us as very ‘arbitrary’ and irrational, there was no basis of truth in such a judgement: our European languages would appear just as irrational to a member of that tribe. (p.59-60) Read the example on page (60-61)

8. LEONARD BLOOMFIELD (1887-1949) • Published Language (1933) • Just elaborated the concept proposed by Boas. • Emphasized the linguistics as a science. • Was influenced by the logical positivism • ( all of science must be reduced to quantities of statements • about simple sense-data linked together logically • Scientific theories were true or false according as • the sense data-statements which they abbreviated did • or did not correspond to experince. • Linguistics was a branch of psychology that is behaviourism.

9. LINGUISTIC BEHAVIOURISM Only things that may be used to confirm or refute a scientific theory are interpersonally observable phenomena. 2. Behaviouris t method for languagge study: “Accept everything a native speaker says in his language and nothing he says about it.” Working with an exotic language ignoring native-speakers theories about it. A theory is not an abbreviation of a set of observation statements, but rather a guess which can never be ultimately proved right by any finite series of observations no matter how protracted. The linguist must concentrate rather on how Englishmen speak when they are not thinking about their language.

10. LINGUISTIC BEHAVIOURISM • The observable things of human communication are their inputs • (the sight they see, the sound they hear) and their outputs (what they say). • Behaviourists just admit that that the relation between inputs and outputs • is straightforward. • So, speech is a richly patterned category of observable output • (from the speaker) and input (to the hearer) • The branches of linguistic description: phonology, morphology, and syntax are • all concerned with diffrent types of patterning observable in speech data.

11. SEMANTICS IN BEHAVIOURISM • Talking about the meaning of utterances is not talk about patterns • the utterances display but rather to talk about the effects they have • on the minds of those who hear them. • Analyzing meaning means showing what stimuli evoke given utterances • as responses, and wht behavioural responses are evoked by given spoken stimuli. • When someone utters a sentence but there is no stimuli presents, • the situation is called displaced speech. • So, according to Blomfield: the statement of meanings was in practice impossible, • and would remain so ‘until human knowledge advances very far beyond • its present state’ .

12. A THEORY IN DESCRIPTIVISM A THEORY IS, BY DEFINITON: SOMETHING WHICH CONCENTRATES ON THE RELATIVELY CONSTANT FACTORS IN THE RANGE OF PHENOMENA WITH WHICH IT IS CONCERNED, WHILE IGNORING THE MANY FEATURES THAT ARE PECULIAR TO SINGLE INDIVIDUAL INSTANCES.

13. A THEORY IN DESCRIPTIVISM • THERE IS ADIVERSITY IN HUMAN LANGUAGES. • ONE WILL NOT GET FAR WITH THE ANALYSIS OF AN ALIEN LANGUAGE • IF ONE STARTS BY ASSUMINNG THAT ITS STRUCTURE IS MUCH LIKE THAT • OF ENGLISSH OR LATIN. • FEATTURES WHICH WE THINK OUGHT TO BE UNIVERSAL MAY BE ABSENT • FROM THE VERY NEXT LANGUAGE THAT BECOMES ACCESSIBLE. • FOR THE DESCRIPTIVISTS: “THE TRUE THEORY OF LANGUAGE WAS THAT • THERE WAS NO THEORY OF LANGUAGE.”

14. GENERAL LINGUISTICS • BOAS: “THE POINT WAS THAT LANGUAGES ARE CREATIONS OF THE HUMAN MIND • RATHER THAN OF PHYSICAL CIRCUMSTANCE, SO THERE WILL BE NO MORE • LIMITATIONS ON THE DIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES THAN ON THE DIVERSITY • OF MEN’S IMAGININGS. • GENERAL LINGUISTICS ACCORDING TO DESCRIPTIVISTS IS • MERELY TECHNIQUES OF ANALYSIS WHICH MADE NO SUBSTAANTIVE • PRESUPPOPSITIONS ABOUT THE NATURE OF THE SYSTEMS TO BE ANALYSED. • LOOK AT EXAMPLE OF DIFFERENT APPROACHS/TECHNIQUES (IA AND IP) TO ANALYSE • ADJECTIVE IN FRENCH (P. 74)

15. GENERAL LINGUISTICS • ACCORDING TO DESCRIPTIVISTS , THE JOB OF LINGUISTCS IS NOT PRODUCING • THEORYIES ABOUT LLINGUISTIC UNIVERSAL. RATHER, THEY CONCERN • TO PRODUCE CORRECT THEORIES ABOUT INDIVIDUAL LANGUAGES. • GENERAL LINGUISTICS IS MORE AS A BODY OF TECHNIQUES OF DESCRIPTION • THAN AS A BODY OF BELIEFS ABOUT NATURE OF LANGUAGE. • THE PURPOSE OF DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS IS FORMALIZING PATTERN • USING DISCOVERING PROCEDURE APPROACH.

16. THE CONTINUING OF DESCRIPTIVE TRADITION • KENNETH L PIKE, THE HEAD OF SUMMER INSTITUTE OF LINGUISTICS, • DEVELOPING THE TECHNIQUE OF LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS THAT IS NAMED • TAGMEMICS. • THIS TECHNIQUE WAS USED TO ANALYSE THE UNFAMILIAR LANGUAGES WITH • VERY CONCRETE PRACTICAL PURPOSE: TO AID CONVERSION OF THE • HEATHEN BY ENABLING THE HOLY SCRIPTURES TO BE GIVEN TO EVERY HUMAN • IN HIS OWN MOTHER-TONGUE.