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Aug 22, 2019 · Linguistics scholars seek to determine what is unique and universal about the language we use, how it is acquired and the ways it changes over time.
- Overview
- Historical attitudes toward language
As is evident from the discussion above, human life in its present form would be impossible and inconceivable without the use of language. People have long recognized the force and significance of language. Naming—applying a word to pick out and refer to a fellow human being, an animal, an object, or a class of such beings or objects—is only one part of the use of language, but it is an essential and prominent part. In many cultures people have seen in the ability to name a means to control or to possess; this explains the reluctance, in some communities, with which names are revealed to strangers and the taboo restrictions found in several parts of the world on using the names of persons recently dead. Such restrictions echo widespread and perhaps universal taboos on naming directly things considered obscene, blasphemous, or very fearful.
Perhaps not surprisingly, several independent traditions ascribe a divine or at least a supernatural origin to language or to the language of a particular community. The biblical account, representing ancient Jewish beliefs, of Adam’s naming the creatures of the earth under God’s guidance is one such example:
So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. (Genesis 2:19)
Norse mythology preserves a similar story of divine participation in the creation of language, and in India the god Indra is said to have invented articulate speech. In the debate on the nature and origin of language given in Plato’s Socratic dialogue Cratylus, Socrates is made to speak of the gods as those responsible for first fixing the names of things in the proper way.
A similar divine aura pervades early accounts of the origin of writing. The Norse god Odin was held responsible for the invention of the runic alphabet. The inspired stroke of genius whereby the ancient Greeks adapted a variety of the Phoenician consonantal script so as to represent the distinctive consonant and vowel sounds of Greek, thus producing the first alphabet such as is known today, was linked with the mythological figure Cadmus, who, coming from Phoenicia, was said to have founded Thebes and introduced writing into Greece (see Phoenician language). By a traditional account, the Arabic alphabet, together with the language itself, was given to Adam by God.
The later biblical tradition of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9) exemplifies three aspects of early thought about language: (1) divine interest in and control over its use and development, (2) a recognition of the power it gives to humans in relation to their environment, and (3) an explanation of linguistic diversity, of the fact that people in adjacent communities speak different and mutually unintelligible languages, together with a survey of the various speech communities of the world known at the time to the Hebrew people.
As is evident from the discussion above, human life in its present form would be impossible and inconceivable without the use of language. People have long recognized the force and significance of language. Naming—applying a word to pick out and refer to a fellow human being, an animal, an object, or a class of such beings or objects—is only one part of the use of language, but it is an essential and prominent part. In many cultures people have seen in the ability to name a means to control or to possess; this explains the reluctance, in some communities, with which names are revealed to strangers and the taboo restrictions found in several parts of the world on using the names of persons recently dead. Such restrictions echo widespread and perhaps universal taboos on naming directly things considered obscene, blasphemous, or very fearful.
Perhaps not surprisingly, several independent traditions ascribe a divine or at least a supernatural origin to language or to the language of a particular community. The biblical account, representing ancient Jewish beliefs, of Adam’s naming the creatures of the earth under God’s guidance is one such example:
So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. (Genesis 2:19)
Norse mythology preserves a similar story of divine participation in the creation of language, and in India the god Indra is said to have invented articulate speech. In the debate on the nature and origin of language given in Plato’s Socratic dialogue Cratylus, Socrates is made to speak of the gods as those responsible for first fixing the names of things in the proper way.
A similar divine aura pervades early accounts of the origin of writing. The Norse god Odin was held responsible for the invention of the runic alphabet. The inspired stroke of genius whereby the ancient Greeks adapted a variety of the Phoenician consonantal script so as to represent the distinctive consonant and vowel sounds of Greek, thus producing the first alphabet such as is known today, was linked with the mythological figure Cadmus, who, coming from Phoenicia, was said to have founded Thebes and introduced writing into Greece (see Phoenician language). By a traditional account, the Arabic alphabet, together with the language itself, was given to Adam by God.
The later biblical tradition of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9) exemplifies three aspects of early thought about language: (1) divine interest in and control over its use and development, (2) a recognition of the power it gives to humans in relation to their environment, and (3) an explanation of linguistic diversity, of the fact that people in adjacent communities speak different and mutually unintelligible languages, together with a survey of the various speech communities of the world known at the time to the Hebrew people.
Aug 23, 2021 · The concept of speech acts was a central component of the ordinary language movement, a movement that focused on language in everyday use that emanated from Oxford University and the work of Wittgenstein, and later authors such as J.L. Austin (1911–1960) and John Searle (1932–).
- mark.murphy.2@glasgow.ac.uk
Feb 2, 2023 · Awareness of the power of language can make journalism better. The relationship between language and thought has been researched for a long time. In the 1950s, a broad research program advanced the hypothesis that language influences how people think, an idea known as linguistic relativity.
Francophonie is an international language movement led by government and nongovernment elites in over thirty countries where French is official or used by a significant population.
The movement believed it was an advantage for language students to learn first those words most commonly used; in other words, those with the highest frequencies. Once this background information is firmly established, Schmitt begins the body of his book, contained in chapters 3 to 7.
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Jul 3, 2007 · The Ordinary Language movement, with its broad claim that the meaning of an expression should be equated with its use, and its desire to transcend traditional philosophical perplexities, did not achieve the revolution of which Austin speaks.
