Main description:
For this volume, 30 well-known linguistics and researcher in related fields were invited to present an overview of their most important insights and theories as these have evolved over the past 30 years. Against the background of work done in other areas of study, the contributors reflect on the development of their ideas; the book shows what progress has been made, and how priorities have shifted these past decades. By placing current ideas in a wider historical perspective, Thirty Years of Linguistics Evolution will become a unique instrument for future generations of linguists to gain insight into the overall trends and problems that have dominated linguistics in the second half of the 20th century.
The impressive contributions to this volume provide a glowing and appropriate testimonial to the many years of effort which René Dirven has devoted to linguistic research and to the forging of contacts between scholars all over the world. The topics are wide-ranging, the titles intriguing, the content challenging. The whole has been scrupulously edited by Martin Pütz to provide a book which I am sure will be of considerable interest and value to scholars and students alike. David Crystal, Bangor, Wales.
Table of contents:
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- René Dirven: A Biographical Sketch
- René Dirven: A Bibliography
- Introduction
- Section I. General Linguistics
- On the nature, use and acquisition of language
- The concept of communicative competence revisited
- New ways of analysing meaning
- The creole key to the black box of language
- Twenty years after
- The changing English language 2; fiction and fact
- Section II. Applied Linguistics
- 6;Very like a whale'
- Section III. Grammar and Discourse Analysis
- Between grammar and discourse
- Linguistics and grammatics
- Institutional linguistics
- Section IV. Semantics
- The search for universal semantic primitives
- A theory of vocabulary structure
- The return of hermeneutics to lexical semantics
- Section V. Morphology
- The formats change 2; the problems remain
- Section VI. Historical Linguistics
- The return of philology to linguistics
- Section VII. Functionalism in Linguistics
- The why's and the how's in my research into functional sentence perspective
- Section VIII. Sociolinguistics and Languages in Contact
- Norwich revisited
- Multilingualism and contact linguistics
- Multilingualism research in Australia
- Codeswitching as socially motivated performance meets structurally motivated constraints
- Language attitudes in South Africa
- Section IX. Cognitive Linguistics
- Metaphors and war
- The symbolic nature of cognitive grammar
- Diachrony within synchrony
- The cognitive approach to natural language
- Section X. Cognitive Psychology
- The takeover of psychology by biology or the devaluation of reference in psychology
- Section XI. Philosophical Linguistics
- Linguistic theory and epistemology of linguistics
- Section XII. Linguistics and Anthropology
- Linguistics and anthropology
- Section XIII. Computational Linguistics
- Where am I coming from
- Index
For this volume, 30 well-known linguistics and researcher in related fields were invited to present an overview of their most important insights and theories as these have evolved over the past 30 years. Against the background of work done in other areas of study, the contributors reflect on the development of their ideas; the book shows what progress has been made, and how priorities have shifted these past decades. By placing current ideas in a wider historical perspective, Thirty Years of Linguistics Evolution will become a unique instrument for future generations of linguists to gain insight into the overall trends and problems that have dominated linguistics in the second half of the 20th century.
The impressive contributions to this volume provide a glowing and appropriate testimonial to the many years of effort which René Dirven has devoted to linguistic research and to the forging of contacts between scholars all over the world. The topics are wide-ranging, the titles intriguing, the content challenging. The whole has been scrupulously edited by Martin Pütz to provide a book which I am sure will be of considerable interest and value to scholars and students alike. David Crystal, Bangor, Wales.
Table of contents:
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- René Dirven: A Biographical Sketch
- René Dirven: A Bibliography
- Introduction
- Section I. General Linguistics
- On the nature, use and acquisition of language
- The concept of communicative competence revisited
- New ways of analysing meaning
- The creole key to the black box of language
- Twenty years after
- The changing English language 2; fiction and fact
- Section II. Applied Linguistics
- 6;Very like a whale'
- Section III. Grammar and Discourse Analysis
- Between grammar and discourse
- Linguistics and grammatics
- Institutional linguistics
- Section IV. Semantics
- The search for universal semantic primitives
- A theory of vocabulary structure
- The return of hermeneutics to lexical semantics
- Section V. Morphology
- The formats change 2; the problems remain
- Section VI. Historical Linguistics
- The return of philology to linguistics
- Section VII. Functionalism in Linguistics
- The why's and the how's in my research into functional sentence perspective
- Section VIII. Sociolinguistics and Languages in Contact
- Norwich revisited
- Multilingualism and contact linguistics
- Multilingualism research in Australia
- Codeswitching as socially motivated performance meets structurally motivated constraints
- Language attitudes in South Africa
- Section IX. Cognitive Linguistics
- Metaphors and war
- The symbolic nature of cognitive grammar
- Diachrony within synchrony
- The cognitive approach to natural language
- Section X. Cognitive Psychology
- The takeover of psychology by biology or the devaluation of reference in psychology
- Section XI. Philosophical Linguistics
- Linguistic theory and epistemology of linguistics
- Section XII. Linguistics and Anthropology
- Linguistics and anthropology
- Section XIII. Computational Linguistics
- Where am I coming from
- Index