(6) Post-Bloomfieldian Period (1952-1956)
= What is behaviorism?
Behaviorism is a principle of scientific method, based on the belief that human beings cannot know anything they have not experienced.
For Bloomfield, linguistics is a branch of the positivistic brand of psychology known as “behaviourism”. Behaviorism in linguistics holds that children learn language through a chain of “stimulus-response reinforcement”, and the adult’s use of language is also a process of “stimulus-response”.
= What is tagmemics? (法位学)
Tagmemics is a school of linguistics deriving from American structuralism based on the work of Kenneth Lee Pike and using the tagmeme as the basic unit of grammatical analysis.
« Transformational-Generative Grammar
= What is the characteristic of TG grammar?
The starting point of Chomsky’s TG Grammar is his innateness hypothesis, based on his observations that some important facts can never be otherwise explained adequately.
Chomsky’s TG Grammar has the following features.
First, Chomsky defines language as a set of rules or principles.
Second, Chomsky believes that the aim of linguistics is to produce a generative grammar which captures the tacit不言而喻的;默示的 knowledge of the native speaker of his language. This concerns the question of learning theory and the question of linguistic universals.
Third, Chomsky and his followers are interested in any data that can reveal the native speaker’s tacit knowledge. They seldom use what native speakers actually say; they rely on their own intuition.
Fourth, Chomsky’s methodology is hypothesis-deductive, which operates at two levels: (a) the linguist formulates a hypothesis about language structure —a general linguistic theory; this is tested by grammars for particular languages, and (b) each such grammar is a hypothesis on the general linguistic theory.
Finally, Chomsky follows rationalism in philosophy and mentalism in psychology.
=What is LAD? What is innateness hypothesis?
LAD, that is Language Acquisition Device, is posited by Chomsky in the 1960s as a device effectively present in the minds of children by which a grammar of their native language is constructed.
The “Innateness Hypothesis” of child language acquisition, proposed by Noam Chomsky, states that the human species is prewired to acquire language and that the kind of language is also determined; it states and explains all the aspects of linguistic organization, basic to the human brain, making it possible for human children to acquire linguistic competence in all its complexity with little or no instruction, with the help of what Chomsky called LAD.
« Linguistic theories in the latter half of the 20th century
= What is Case Grammar?
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= What is Generative Semantics?
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«Modern linguistic
ª The traditional grammar school attempts to lay down universally valid rules to show how a language ought to be used. It is prescriptive rather than descriptive.
ªSaussure
Saussure is the first to notice the complexities of language. He believed that language is a system of sign, called conventions. His idea on the arbitrary nature of sign, on the distinction of langue and parole, etc. pushed linguistics into a brand new stage.
ªThe Prague School
1.This school practiced a special style of synchronic linguistic, and its important contribution to linguistics is that it sees language in terms of function.
2. Trubetzkoy is best known and remembered for its contribution to phonology and the distinction between phonetics and phonology.
3. Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP)
ªThe London School
Thus, Landon School is known as systemic linguistic and functional linguistics.
Malinowski—Firth
Halliday’s Systemic-Functional Grammar (Stemming from Firth’s theories in the London School, Halliday’ Systemic-Functional Grammar is a socially oriented functional linguistic approach.)
ªAmerican Structuralism
Boas and Sapir
Bloomfield’s theory of Behaviorism
ªTransformational-Generative Grammar (A.N. Chomsky)
The Innateness Hypothesis
Chomsky follows rationalism in philosophy and mentalism in psychology.
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