Linguistic schools

Monserrath Martínez Barrón

Linguistics (morning shift)

Late
19th century Neogrammatism
Comparative linguistics
Since the 19th century, a new scientific trend in linguistics began to spread rapidly, which had many researchers in all countries.
Europe that had a developed linguistics. It emerged in Germany, at the University of Leipzig, where it jokingly received the name 'young grammarians'.

Considerations

They accepted the historical approach as scientific.

They focused on phonetics and morphology.
They defended the existence of the languages of different individuals.

This school sought to introduce into historical linguistics the positivist principles that were triumphing in the science and philosophy of the time, hoping to renew grammar.
compared. Several of the theses of the neogrammarians provoked the most important linguistic controversy of the last quarter of the 19th century. Their two most prominent representatives

Important are H. Osthoff (1847-1909) and K. Brugmann (1849-1919).

Contributions/ideas from the representatives

They stated that all phonetic changes, as mechanical processes, occur based on rules that have no exceptions within the same dialect, and that the
The same sound will develop in the same context always in the same way. That is to say, they gave phonetic laws an absolute character; the exceptions
They can also be explained based on rules that only need to be discovered.

1916 European Structuralism School

Origin: Europe
Ferdinand Saussure
Obra: Curso de lingüística general
 It is located at the beginning of the 20th century and already represents the start of modern linguistics. Its initiator was Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) with his Course in General Linguistics.

(1916), which was a work published posthumously by two of his disciples, who based it on class notes from students who had listened to Saussure.
during his last three years at the University of Geneva.

Contributions/ideas from the main representative

It proposes that linguistics should have as its object of study the language in a synchronic form, that is, the study of the structure and functioning of a language in
a given moment, without taking into account its evolution; to what is referred to as external structure. Structuralism arises as a reaction against the
comparative linguistic investigations of comparative grammar, as opposed to diachronic investigations of historical grammar and against the
positivist investigations of the neogrammarians.

Structuralism founded by Saussure, which speaks of 'the structure of a system', continued to develop in Europe by later linguists, emerging later
various structuralist schools, such as the Geneva School, the Prague Linguistic Circle, and the Copenhagen School.

• Prague Linguistic Circle

The theses of the Prague Linguistic Circle, founded in 1929, in which Roman Jakobson, Nicolai Trubetzkoy, and André Martinet participated, point out the necessity
to consider language as a functional system (functionalism), whose purpose is to realize the intentions of every speaking subject to
expressing and communicating; they seek to overcome the sharp separation between the diachronic and synchronic approach, and they consider the phonetic and phonological study to be fundamental.

of the considered system.

• Copenhagen School
The Copenhagen school, led by Louis Hjelmslev, formulates a new theory, Glosematics, which radicalizes Saussurean theses by emphasizing formalism.
In Prolegomena to a Theory of Language (1943; Spanish translation: Gredos, Madrid 1974), Hjelmslev poses the need to construct a theory that accounts for all
natural languages, a theory that must be independent of any experience - Hjelmslev claims that data from experience can never confirm or deny the
validity of the theory, but only its adequacy to experience. The linguistic description, which must be coherent, comprehensive, and as simple as possible,
exceeds the limits of classification and distribution of elements to become an exact, systematic, and generalizing science.

1921 Descriptive Linguistic School

Origin: America
Principal representative: Edward Sapir
Thesis on Linguistic Relativity

Many North American linguists were trained by studying the indigenous languages that, due to being unknown in their previous phases, were not open to investigation.
diachronic. They had to be studied as they were, in their current state. It is precisely that attention given to indigenous languages that shaped and provided originality to the
Descriptive School and its methods. Indeed, those languages could not be described with the categories established secularly by traditional linguistics (noun,
adjective, verb, tense, mood, aspect...
 This forced its scholars to seek new categories and, in the process, revealed the weakness of the old ones, which had been created solely based on European languages.
That search led American linguists to more advanced stages than their European colleagues, especially regarding their studies of morphology and syntax.

Two very influential figures of this school are Edward Sapir, who conceives language as a completely human method that is a product of culture and depends faithfully.
of Anthropology; and Franz Boas, who establishes the relationship between the knowledge of the indigenous language and ethnology by saying that: 'the knowledge of the indigenous language

it serves as an important adjunct for a thorough understanding of customs and beliefs... the service it provides us is, above all, a practical need aimed at
to a clearer understanding of ethnological phenomena

Contributions/ ideas from the representatives

Sapir and Boas establish a close relationship between language and the social context to which it belongs, considering that each language manifests a special way.
own, to see the world and interpret it. In this language-context relationship, it will be impossible for them to study the social environment without paying attention to language.

used, as well as studying a language, without paying attention to the social context that enables it and with which it interacts.
2. Language can be studied from two points of view: from the formal expression or grammatical procedures and from the combination or distribution of the
expressed concepts.

1933 Escuela Estructuralismo Americano

Origin: America
Leonard Bloomfield
Work: Language
Compared to European structuralism, North American structuralism is considered to have followed a more formalist and mechanistic approach in the study.
of language. The goals of American linguists were more limited and modest than those of Europeans since they were particularly interested in finding methods
that allow for an adequate and precise description of a language. For this reason, it is evident that American structuralism advanced much further in morphological analysis.
and syntactic than its European counterpart. In the US, this theory was carried out by Leonard Bloomfield influenced by Saussure.

Contributions/ideas from the representatives

Bloomfield emphasizes the importance of mathematics, as well as the scientific method for a rigorous study of that language. He determines that the structure of that
Language must have hypotheses and definitions to propose a rigorous and more scientific grammar.

All of this is captured in his work Language from the year 1933, as he represented the diachronic and synchronic aspects, that is, the study of a language as a system at a given time.
What primarily focuses both authors, and on the other hand, the diachronic is the opposite because a language cannot be studied as a system due to the course of
time. This work is also conditioned by the behaviorist psychology that has already been clarified previously. This psychology can be considered materialist since
It argues that human behavior is due to a mental factor and that every action is the result of a material impulse. This thesis led to the study of the function of
language from the behavioral sense.
 American linguistics is more homogeneous because it develops in the same environment and the same language, whereas in Europe there are nations, cultures and
very different languages. North American linguistics is more empirical and pragmatic; however, this perspective has evolved and has been managed since Chomsky.
There is already an interest in speculation about language. A common characteristic is the increasing use of a graphic and conceptual formalism as a consequence of the influence
of logical and mathematical language.

1957 Escuela Generativismo

Origin: Europe
Noam Chomsky
Work: Syntactic Structures - Knowledge of Language
It is a school of thought within linguistics that makes use of the concept of generative grammar, a term used in different ways by different scholars;
therefore the term "generative linguistics" takes on different meanings.

It is a grammar model that has specific rules and principles so that the speaker can understand, speak, and produce all the sentences of their own language.
It is characterized by being a school opposed to Bloomfield's American structuralism. Here, paradigmatic relationships are shown, that is to say, grammatical functions.
as agreement and function of words. On the other hand, through Chomsky's generativism (1928-), founder of the generative school, he tries to demonstrate why
behaviorism is wrong.

Contributions/ideas from the representatives

Chomsky believes that human language has creativity as its fundamental characteristic and that Linguistics should focus as a subject of study on its
more formal part. Thus, it begins by distinguishing between competence, that is, the implicit knowledge that a native speaker has of their mother tongue, and performance.
What is the use of this knowledge in communication.

Generativism applies the hypothetico-deductive method in its theories, allowing it to continuously review its hypotheses. This implies the development of various models.
generativists in the late fifties. One example is that of Principles and Parameters in the eighties. Its purpose is to explain how children are able to acquire a
language with a complicated system when they have limited access to human language.

A generative grammar should be distinguished from traditional grammars, which are characterized by their prescriptive nature, and from other descriptive approaches, such as ...
currents that fall within functional grammar. In most cases, a generative grammar should be able to generate an infinite amount of
syntactic constructions based on a limited number of rules and units.
References
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Structuralism (linguistics)

Wikipedia contributors. (2021, January 27). Neogrammarians. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.Neogrammarians

collaborators of Wikipedia. (2020, 26 May. Linguistics generative. Wikipedia, the encyclopedia free.
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linguistic schools of the 20th century

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