The
history of linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language, involving analysis of language form, language meaning, and language in context.
Language use was first systematically documented in Mesopotamia, with extant lexical lists of the 3rd to the 2nd M ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
began to discover a greater understanding of humans and language. By trying to find a greater ‘parent language’ through similarities in different languages, a number of connections were discovered. Many contributors and new ideas helped shape the study of linguistics in the United States into what we know it as today. In the 1920s, linguistics focused on grammatical analysis and grammatical structure, especially of languages indigenous to North America, such as Chippewa, Apache, and more. In addition to scholars who have paved the way for linguistics in the United States, the Linguistic Society of America is a group that has contributed to the research of linguistics in America. The United States has long been known for its diverse collection of linguistic features and dialects that are spread across the country. In recent years, the study of linguistics in the United States has broadened to include nonstandard varieties of English speaking, such as
Chicano English
Chicano English, or Mexican-American English, is a dialect of American English spoken primarily by Mexican Americans (sometimes known as Chicanos), particularly in the Southwestern United States ranging from Texas to California,Newman, Michael.T ...
and
African American English
African-American English (or AAE; also known as Black American English, or Black English in American linguistics) is the set of English sociolects spoken by most Black people in the United States and many in Canada; most commonly, it refers t ...
, as well as the question if language perpetuates inequalities.
Important Linguists in the United States
William Dwight Whitney
William Dwight Whitney (February 9, 1827June 7, 1894) was an American linguist, philologist, and lexicographer known for his work on Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Arya ...
, the first U.S.-taught academic linguist, founded the
American Philological Association
The Society for Classical Studies (SCS), formerly known as the American Philological Association (APA) is a non-profit North American scholarly organization devoted to all aspects of Greek and Roman civilization founded in 1869. It is the preemine ...
in 1869. During Whitney's professional career he served as president of the Convention of American Philologists. He was also the first editor-in-chief of The Century Dictionary, 1889–1891. He has also written many books including 'A Sanskrit Grammar' (1879), 'A Compendious German Grammar' (1869), 'A German Reader' (1869), 'The Life and Growth of Language' (1875), and more can be found listed in The Encyclopedia Americana.
Leonard Bloomfield
Leonard Bloomfield (April 1, 1887 – April 18, 1949) was an American linguist who led the development of structural linguistics in the United States during the 1930s and the 1940s. He is considered to be the father of American distributionalism ...
(1878–1949), professor at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
from 1927-1940, founded the
Linguistic Society of America
The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...
in 1924 as presented in the
A History of the American Philological Association. Other linguists active in the first half of the 20th century include
Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American Jewish anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States.
Sa ...
and
Benjamin Whorf
Benjamin Lee Whorf (; April 24, 1897 – July 26, 1941) was an American linguist and fire prevention engineer. He is known for "Sapir–Whorf hypothesis," the idea that differences between the structures of different languages shape how thei ...
.
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
is an American linguist who is often described as the "father of modern linguistics". He theorized on language from a biological standpoint, and referred to it as a cognitive ""module"" in the human brain. Chomsky outlined key differences between language cognition in humans and in other animals as head author of "The Language Faculty", published in 2002. He also contributed the theory of
Universal Grammar
Universal grammar (UG), in modern linguistics, is the theory of the genetic component of the language faculty, usually credited to Noam Chomsky. The basic postulate of UG is that there are innate constraints on what the grammar of a possible hum ...
. From the 1950s, American linguistic tradition began to diverge from the
de Saussurian structuralism
In sociology, anthropology, archaeology, history, philosophy, and linguistics, structuralism is a general theory of culture and methodology that implies that elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a broader ...
taught in European academia, notably with
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
's "
nativist"
transformational grammar
In linguistics, transformational grammar (TG) or transformational-generative grammar (TGG) is part of the theory of generative grammar, especially of natural languages. It considers grammar to be a system of rules that generate exactly those combin ...
and successor theories, which during the 1970s "
linguistics wars
The linguistics wars were a protracted academic dispute inside American theoretical linguistics which took place mostly in the 1960s and 1970s, stemming from an intellectual falling-out between Noam Chomsky and some of his early colleagues and doct ...
" gave rise to a wide variety of competing
grammar framework
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...
s.
American linguistics outside the Chomskyan tradition includes
functional grammar with proponents including
Talmy Givón
Thomas Givon (also known as Talmy Givón) (born June 22, 1936) is a linguist and writer. He is one of the founders of "West Coast Functionalism", today classified as a usage-based model of language, and of the linguistics department at the Unive ...
, and
cognitive grammar advocated by
Ronald Langacker
Ronald Wayne Langacker (born December 27, 1942) is an American linguist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego. He is best known as one of the founders of the cognitive linguistics movement and the creator of cognitive ...
and others.
John McWhorter
John Hamilton McWhorter V (; born October 6, 1965) is an American linguist with a specialty in creole languages, sociolects, and Black English. He is currently associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University, where he also teaches Amer ...
, who has a background in teaching African-American studies, is another American linguist.
Linguistic typology
Linguistic typology (or language typology) is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features to allow their comparison. Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity and the co ...
, and controversially
mass lexical comparison
Mass comparison is a method developed by Joseph Greenberg to determine the level of genetic relatedness between languages. It is now usually called multilateral comparison. The method is rejected by most linguists , though not all.
Some of the to ...
, was considered by
Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.
Life Early life and education
Joseph Greenberg was born on ...
.
Winfred P. Lehmann
Winfred Philip Lehmann (June 23, 1916August 1, 2007) was an American linguist who specialized in historical, Germanic, and Indo-European linguistics. He was for many years a professor and head of departments for linguistics at the University of ...
introduced Greenbergian typological theory to
Indo-European studies
Indo-European studies is a field of linguistics and an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. The goal of those engaged in these studies is to amass information about the hypothetical pro ...
in the 1970s.
Indigenous Languages and Linguistics
In early studies of linguistics in the 1920s, it was incredibly common for an American linguist to focus on grammar and structure of languages native to North America, such as
Chippewa,
Ojibwa
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
,
Apache
The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño an ...
,
Mohawk Mohawk may refer to:
Related to Native Americans
*Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York)
*Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people
*Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been t ...
, and many other
indigenous languages
An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples. This language is from a linguistically distinct community that originated in the area. Indigenous languages are not neces ...
. Due to the origins of the study, there is extensive information on the dialects and structure of indigenous languages.
Linguistic Society of America
The
Linguistic Society of America
The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...
has over 4000 members across the globe. It is made up of students, teachers, and individuals with a passion for linguistics and its field of study. Most of the Linguistic Society of America's members are either working towards a degree in the field or have already earned one. Members of LSA who have earned their PhD work at colleges or universities where they can improve their research, hold research studies, and teach courses. An increasing number of LSA members are working in government fields and are using their expansive knowledge of linguistics to create products and technologies to be used by the general public. The Linguistic Society of America also has sister organizations that they work closely with such as the
American Dialect Society
The American Dialect Society (ADS), founded in 1889, is a learned society "dedicated to the study of the English language in North America, and of other languages, or dialects of other languages, influencing it or influenced by it." The Society p ...
and the
.
Inequalities in Linguistics
Inequalities in language are due to different languages and dialects being seen as having less value than others, this can also be viewed as
Linguistic discrimination
Linguistic discrimination (also called glottophobia, linguicism and languagism) is unfair treatment of people which is based on their use of language and the characteristics of their speech, including their first language, their accent, the p ...
. For example, the Oakland School District implemented Ebonics, also referred to as
African American Vernacular English
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE, ), also referred to as Black (Vernacular) English, Black English Vernacular, or occasionally Ebonics (a colloquial, controversial term), is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban ...
, as the 'primary' language of African American students in 1996. Ebonics is not a language, but a dialect commonly used by black Americans.
[{{Cite web , last=Rickford , first=John R. , date=April 12, 2022 , title=What is Ebonics (African American English)? , url=https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/what-ebonics-african-american-english , url-status=live , access-date=April 12, 2022 , website=linguisticsociety.org] This implementation of Ebonics as a new language sought to teach students a 'standard' variety of English and showed the outlook of the lesser value assigned to the variation in language.
See also
*
Indigenous languages of the Americas
Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...
, for the study of American languages
*
American Association for Applied Linguistics
The American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) is an American organization of scholars interested in applied linguistics.
The goal of the organization is to provide an annual venue for scholars of the multi-disciplinary field of applied ...
References