The slide of the History of Linguistics a course of Introduction to Linguistics

1. Edi Brata
Mathla‟ul Anwar University

2. Before Nineteenth Century
o Language was of interest mainly
philosophers (Plato and Aristotle)
o Fisis Vs. Nomos Controversy
o Analogy Vs. Anomaly Controversy
o Nature Vs. Nurture Controversy
to

3. Nineteenth Century:
Historical Linguistics
o 1786 is the year which many people regard as
the birthdate of linguistics.
o Sir William Jones discovers Sanskrit, Greek,
Latin, Celtic and Germanic had striking
structural similarities.
o In the mid-19th century Darwin published The
Origin of Species.

4. Early to Mid-20th Century:
Descriptive Linguistics
Emphasis shifted from language change to
language description.

5. Early to Mid-20th Century:
Descriptive Linguistics
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913),
‘the father of modern linguistics’:
• Synchronic and Diachronic
• La Langue and La Parole
• Signifiant and Signifie
• Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic

6. Early to Mid-20th Century:
Descriptive Linguistics
Leonard Bloomfield (1877-1949),
„Structuralism Linguistics‟ :
•
•
Linguistics
should
deal
objectively and systematically
with observable data.
IC Analysis

7. Early to Mid-20th Century:
Descriptive Linguistics
John Rupert Firth (1890-1960),
„Phonology Prosody‟
(Segmental and Supra-segmental)

8. Early to Mid-20th Century:
Descriptive Linguistics
Edward Sapir (1884-1939)
“Language and Culture”

9. Mid- to late- 20th Century:
Generative Linguistics
• Born: December 7, 1928
• Son of a professor of Hebrew
• Ph.D. in linguistics from the
University of Pennsylvania,
1955

10. Mid- to late- 20th Century:
Generative Linguistics
• Universal Grammar
• Transformational Grammar

11. Thank You