› › Wilhelm Von Humboldt And Early American Linguistics

Wilhelm von Humboldt and Early American Linguistics

Author : Emanuel J. Drechsel

Publisher : Cambridge University Press

Page : 440 pages

File Size : 25,58 MB

Release : 2024-01-31

Category : Language Arts & Disciplines

ISBN : 1108967590

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Book Description

Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835), an early pioneer in the philosophy of language, linguistic and educational theory, was not only one of the first European linguists to identify human language as a rule-governed system –the foundational premise of Noam Chomsky's generative theory – or to reflect on cognition in studying language; he was also a major scholar of Indigenous American languages. However, with his famous naturalist brother Alexander 'stealing the show,' Humboldt's contributions to linguistics and anthropology have remained understudied in English until today. Drechsel's unique book addresses this gap by uncovering and examining Humboldt's influences on diverse issues in nineteenth-century American linguistics, from Peter S. Duponceau to the early Boasians, including Edward Sapir. This study shows how Humboldt's ideas have shaped the field in multiple ways. Shining a light on one of the early innovators of linguistics, it is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the field.



The Philosophical Foundations of Humboldt's Linguistic Doctrines

Author : Martin L. Manchester

Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing

Page : 229 pages

File Size : 44,96 MB

Release : 1985-01-01

Category : Language Arts & Disciplines

ISBN : 9027245142

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Book Description

Wilhelm von Humboldt s writings on language are a mixture of philosophical theorizing about mind and language on the one hand, and on the other hand, specialized studies of the most detailed sort of both the classical languages and languages which only in Humboldt s day were becoming known to European scholars, such as Sanskrit, Chinese, and native north and south American languages. This book endeavors to show that Humboldt s work on language is a coherent system of thought; to recapture and expose the systematic structure of assumption, hypothesis, argument and conclusion; and to assign many of the specific themes in his writing to a place within this structure.



Linguistic Relativities

Author : John Leavitt

Publisher : Cambridge University Press

Page : 257 pages

File Size : 37,59 MB

Release : 2010-12-23

Category : Language Arts & Disciplines

ISBN : 1139494872

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Book Description

There are more than six thousand human languages, each one unique. For the last five hundred years, people have argued about how important language differences are. This book traces that history and shows how language differences have generally been treated either as of no importance or as all-important, depending on broader approaches taken to human life and knowledge. It was only in the twentieth century, in the work of Franz Boas and his students, that an attempt was made to engage seriously with the reality of language specificities. Since the 1950s, this work has been largely presented as yet another claim that language differences are all-important by cognitive scientists and philosophers who believe that such differences are of no importance. This book seeks to correct this misrepresentation and point to the new directions taken by the Boasians, directions now being recovered in the most recent work in psychology and linguistics.



Humboldt: 'On Language'

Author : Wilhelm von Humboldt

Publisher : Cambridge University Press

Page : 344 pages

File Size : 34,2 MB

Release : 1999-12-09

Category : Language Arts & Disciplines

ISBN : 9780521667722

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Book Description

Wilhelm von Humboldt's classic study of human language was first published in 1836, as a general introduction to his three-volume treatise on the Kawi language of Java. It is the final statement of his lifelong study of the nature of language, exploring its universal structures and its relation to mind and culture. Empirically wide-ranging - Humboldt goes far beyond the Indo-European family of languages - it remains one of the most interesting and important attempts to draw philosophical conclusions from comparative linguistics. This 1999 volume presents a translation by Peter Heath, together with an introduction by Michael Losonsky that places Humboldt's work in its historical context and discusses its relevance to contemporary work in philosophy, linguistics, cognitive science, and psychology.



Doing Humanities in Nineteenth-Century Germany

Author : Efraim Podoksik

Publisher : BRILL

Page : 334 pages

File Size : 30,74 MB

Release : 2019-12-09

Category : History

ISBN : 9004416846

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Book Description

Doing Humanities in Nineteenth-Century Germany, edited by Efraim Podoksik, is a collaborative project by leading scholars in German studies that examines the practices of theorising and researching in the humanities as pursued by German thinkers and scholars during the long nineteenth century, and the relevance of those practices for the humanities today. Each chapter focuses on a particular branch of the humanities, such as philosophy, history, classical philology, theology, or history of art. The volume both offers a broad overview of the history of German humanities and examines an array of particular cases that illustrate their inner dilemmas, ranging from Ranke’s engagement with the world of poetry to Max Weber’s appropriation of the notion of causality.



The Limits of State Action

Author : Wilhelm von Humboldt

Publisher : Cambridge University Press

Page : 241 pages

File Size : 26,46 MB

Release : 2008-12-11

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 1316284018

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Book Description

This text is important both as one of the most interesting contributions to the liberalism of the German Enlightenment, and as the most significant source for the ideas which John Stuart Mill popularized in his essay On Liberty. Humboldt's concern is to define the criteria by which the permissible limits of the state's activities may be determined. His basic principle, like that of Mill, is that the only justification for government interference is the prevention of harm to others. He discusses in detail the role and limits of the state's responsibility for the welfare, security and morals of its citizens. Humboldt's special achievement in this work is to enlarge our sense of what a liberal political theory might be by his particularly sensitive grasp of the complexity of our attitudes to and our need of other people. Dr Burrow has based his translation on Coulthard's version of 1854. In an important introduction, he provides a most perceptive as well as scholarly guide to Humboldt's political thought.



The Passage to Cosmos

Author : Laura Dassow Walls

Publisher : University of Chicago Press

Page : 421 pages

File Size : 13,2 MB

Release : 2011-11-15

Category : History

ISBN : 0226871835

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Book Description

Humboldt offered the world a vision of humans & nature as integrated halves of a single whole. He espoused the idea that while the univerise of nature exists apart from human purpose, its beauty & order are human achievements. Laura Dassow Walls traces the emergence of this philosophy to Humboldt's 1799 journey to America.



History of the Language Sciences / Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaften / Histoire des sciences du langage. 2. Teilband

Author : Sylvain Auroux

Publisher : Walter de Gruyter

Page : 936 pages

File Size : 20,43 MB

Release : 2008-07-14

Category : Language Arts & Disciplines

ISBN : 311019421X

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Book Description

Volume 2 treats, in great detail and, at times quite innovatively, the individual stages of development of the study of language as an autonomous discipline, from the growing awareness in 17th and 18th century Europe of genetic relationships among a host of languages to the establishment of comparative-historical Indo-European linguistics in the 19th century, from the generation of the Schlegels, Bopp, Rask, and Grimm to the Neogrammarians and the application of the comparative method to non-Indo-European languages from all over the globe. Typological linguistic interests, first synthesized by Humboldt, as well as the development of various other non-historical endeavours in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, such as language and psychology, semantics, phonetics, and dialectology, receive ample attention.



History of Linguistics 2017

Author : Émilie Aussant

Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing Company

Page : 265 pages

File Size : 35,23 MB

Release : 2020-05-15

Category : Language Arts & Disciplines

ISBN : 902726127X

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Book Description

The present book is a selection of papers from the 14th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences (Paris 2017). The volume is divided thematically into three parts: I. Notions and categories, II. Representations and receptions, III. Learning, codification and the linguistic practices of social actors. The first part is especially concerned with data not easily handled by extant traditions of linguistic analysis, and with constructs and perspectives which proved difficult to establish in the linguist’s descriptive apparatus. Part II groups six studies dealing with alternative representations of linguistic data, and matters of interpretation and reception regarding the work of three important linguists (Saussure, Jespersen, Chomsky). The scope of part III embraces social and pedagogical practices as well as the involvement of linguists in questions of national identity.



Rethinking Linguistic Relativity

Author : John J. Gumperz

Publisher : Cambridge University Press

Page : 504 pages

File Size : 33,35 MB

Release : 1996-07-11

Category : Language Arts & Disciplines

ISBN : 9780521448901

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Book Description

Linguistic relativity is the claim that culture, through language, affects the way in which we think, and especially our classification of the experienced world. This book reexamines ideas about linguistic relativity in the light of new evidence and changes in theoretical climate. The editors have provided a substantial introduction that summarizes changes in thinking about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in the light of developments in anthropology, linguistics and cognitive science. Introductions to each section will be of especial use to students.