DESCRIPTIVISTS

END OF XIX/ BEGINNING OF XX

EUROPE

AMERICA

SAUSSURE
(STRUCTURALISM)

FRANZ BOAS
(DESCRIPTIVISM)

FRANZ BOAS (1858-1942)

STUDENT OF PHYSICS AND GEOGRAPHY
INTERESTED IN ANTHROPOLOGY

The culture of community is not simply a function of its material circumstance

Human sciences are quite distinct 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.

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.

Saussure

Boas

Just invent a new

perspective of a familiar
phenomena.

Conduct practical problems of

the structure of various
utterly alien languages

Use his own language, French,

and other widely-spoken
European languages.

Do not focus on drawing the

distinction between langue
and parole.

Focus on analyzing conceptual

abstract (treating sounds of
language as a system of
phonemes)

Aim to describe the individual

language, in order to
understand the wider culture
of a particular community.

DESCRIPTIVISM

ABSTRACT LINGUISTIC
THEORIZING

PRACTICAL DESCRIPTION OF
INDIVIDUAL LANGUAGES

GENERAL THEORY ABOUT

LANGUAGE

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)

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.

LINGUISTIC BEHAVIOURISM
1. 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.
3. Working with an exotic language ignoring native-speakers theories
about it.
4. 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.

5. The linguist must concentrate rather on how Englishmen speak when

they are not thinking about their language.

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.

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 .

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.

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.

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 MENS 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)

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.

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.