Table Of ContentStudies
I N T H E
History of Linguistics
TRADITIONS AND PARADIGMS
INDIANA UNIVERSITY STUDIES EM THE
HISTORY AND THEORY OF LINGUISTICS
EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Edited by Dell Hymes
THOMAS A. SEBEOK, Chairman
Indiana University
HANS AARSLEFF
Princeton University
ERIC P. HAMP
University of Chicago
DELL H. HYMES
University of Pennsylvania
WILLIAM LABOV
University of Pennsylvania
ROBERT STOCKWELL
University of California
Los Angeles
Indiana University Press
BLOOMINGTON LONDON
CONTENTS
1
Introduction: Traditions and Paradigms
Dell Hymes
I Contrastive Beginnings
1 Very Ancient Linguistics: Babylonian Grammatical Texts 41
Thorkild Jacobsen
2 The Origin and Development of Linguistics in India 63
J. F. Staal
II Traditions: The Nature of Language and of Grammar
3 Toward a History of Linguistics in the Middle Ages, 1100—1450 77
G. L. Bursill-Hall
4 The Tradition of Condillac: The Problem of the Origin of Language 93
in the Eighteenth Century and the Debate in the Berlin Academy
Publication of this book was assisted by the American Council of
before Herder
Learned Societies under a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Hans Aarsleff
Copyright© 1974 by Indiana University Press 5 The Dithyramb to the Verb in Eighteenth and Nineteenth 157
All rights reserved
Century Linguistics
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by
Edward Stankiewicz
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and
6 Vicissitudes of Paradigms 191
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American Pieter A. Verburg
University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only
exception to this prohibition.
III First Paradigm (?): Comparison and Explanation of Change
Published in Canada by 7 The Indo-European Hypothesis in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth 233
Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, Don Mills, Ontario Centuries
Library of Congress catalog card number: 72-88630
George J. Metcalf
ISBN: 0-253-35559-1
8 Some Eighteenth Century Antecedents of Nineteenth Century 258
Manufactured in the United States of America Linguistics: The Discovery of Finno-Ugrian
Janos Gulya
9 The Foundation of Comparative Linguistics: Revolution or Con- 277
tinuation?
Paul Diderichsen
Contents
VI
10 Rask’s View of Linguistic Development and Phonetic Correspond- 307
ences
PREFACE
W. Keith Percival
11 Friedrich Diez’s Debt to pre-1800 Linguistics 315
Yakov Malkiel
12 From Paleogrammarians to Neogrammarians 331
Paul Kiparsky
13 Fallacies in the History of Linguistics: Notes on the Appraisal 346
of the Nineteenth Century
Henry M. Hoenigswald
The very possibility of such a book as this indicates the growth in activity
IV The Slow Growth of Grammatical Adequacy
and maturity of the study of the history of linguistics, in the last decade or so.
14 Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Grammars 361
Not only have two general studies, more penetrating than any predecessors,
John Howland Rowe
appeared (Mounin 1967, Robins 1967), as well as two very useful anthologies
15 Humboldt’s Description of the Javanese Verb 380
(Arens 1955, 1969, Sebeok 1966), but also an increasing number of able
W. Keith Percival
scholars have been attracted to the subject. Received versions of the past have
16 On Bonaparte and the Neogrammarians as Field Workers 390
been reassessed, new topics taken up, and familiar themes freshly explored.
Eric P. Hamp
Linguists, considering the history of their subject, have been far less
17 Phonemics in the Nineteenth Century, 1876—1900 434
prone than members of other disciplines, perhaps, to define their history
Rulon Wells
narrowly or to truncate it in time. Perhaps this reflects the impact at a critical
18 The Boas Plan for the Study of American Indian Languages 454 formative stage of the discovery of Sanskrit, the recognition as a marvel (and
George W. Stocking, Jr.
still today as an inspiration) of a grammar more than two millennia old, and
the continued relevance for several generations of training in classical Greek
V Complementary Perspectives
and Latin. Be that as it may, serious linguists, whatever their evaluation and
19 The History of Science and the History of Linguistics 487 emphasis, have tended to embrace as part of their history any analytic study
John C. Greene or even reflection on the structure and nature of language.
20 Notes on the Sociology of Knowledge and Linguistics 502 This book reflects this openness, ranging as Roman Jakobson has
Kurt H. Wolff and Barrie Thorne observed over four millennia of linguistic research. The book reflects an
21 Some Comments on History as a Moral Discipline: “Transcending 511 attempt to open the context for such study as well, by introducing the
‘Textbook’ Chronicles and Apologetics” perspectives of the history of science, the sociology of knowledge, and the
George W. Stocking, Jr. history of anthropology and other social sciences, together with reflections
on methodology motivated from within linguistics itself.
The actuality of this book has depended very much on the openness to
the subject of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research,
and its Director of Research, Lita Osmundsen. The Foundation supported a
conference on the history of anthropology, organized through the Social
Science Research Council, in 1962, from which came the germ of the idea for
subsequent conferences on the history of linguistics. In 1964 a symposium
focused on the relevance to the history of linguistics of Thomas Kuhn’s
notions of paradigm and scientific relevance was held at the Foundation’s
summer headquarters, Burg Wartenstein bei Gloggnitz, Austria. In 1968 the
vii
inil Preface
Foundation enabled the Newberry Library to hold a successor conference in
Chicago. We are much indebted to the Newberry Library too, whose
important linguistic holdings, particularly in its Louis-Lucien Bonaparte and INTRODUCTION
Edward E. Ayer Collections, have given it an important role and interest in
Traditions and Paradigms
the study of the history of linguistics.
I should like to thank all the participants in the two conferences, and to
thank particularly the contributors to this volume for their cooperation and
patience. Dell Hymes
The Newberry Conference was illuminated by the knowledge and zest
for the subject of Roman Jakobson. It is a source of profound regret to all of
us that it has not been possible to have the written contribution hoped for
from him, as concluding essay. Let me thank Dr. Florence M. Voegelin and
Dr. Regna Darnell for their help at the Burg Wartenstein and Newberry
Library conferences, respectively; John Van Sickle and Henry Hoenigswald Linguistics is a discipline and a science, and its history is part of the general
for help with the translation of some Greek and Latin passages; and Mrs. history of disciplines and sciences. Nevertheless, this book is written mostly
Susan Thomas Brown for help with the preparation of the manuscript. by linguists and will be read mostly by linguists. Analogous situations seem to
prevail in the historiography of the various human sciences. Efforts toward
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Dell Hymes adequate history may borrow a notion and a term, such as ‘paradigm’, from
general writings on the history of science, but writers on the general history
of science do not much notice the efforts. This situation must change, but the
basis for change must be laid principally by work to establish the relevant
facts and to discern the intrinsic relationships in the particular field. We still
have far to go to achieve the historiographic equivalents of what Chomsky
once labeled ‘observational’ and ‘descriptive’ adequacy.
In this introduction I shall say something about the contributions its
contents make to the achievement of such adequacy. The book is, I think, a
timely one, that speaks very much to our present condition. In the course of
the introduction I shall say something about our present condition and lines
of work that are needed. In particular, I shall discuss the use and abuse of the
notion of ‘paradigm’, when the topic of the history of general linguistics has
been reached.1
Let me say something about each section of the book in turn, then,
considering general questions as they arise. And let me stress that the sections
are conceived as groups of papers, whose parts should be read in mutual
relationship. So much may seem obvious. The papers do come in groups.
Reviewers and readers, nevertheless, tend to take papers in isolation,
evaluating them in relation to almost anything except their partners and the
plan embracing them. Of course, that is their right, and I cannot pretend that
the present papers are as integrated, say, as a sonata movement. That lack
reflects, not on the abilities of the contributors, but the state of the art. Each
section does have a point, and so does the order of the whole, as I shall try to
bring out.
1
2 Dell Hymes Introduction: Traditions and Paradigms 3
Contrastive Beginnings study can suggest something of the earliest matrices of interest in language,
out of which what we know as linguistics has grown. It can suggest something
We tend to take linguistics for granted, since its florescence since the of the matrices of interest in language in which linguistics takes root (or fails
Second World War. It is sobering and healthy to consider the possibility that to take root) in the world today. (For while linguistics aspires to be the
it might not exist, even though it is one of the oldest intellectual activities to science of language as a whole, in subject, it is the science of but part of the
become codified and distinct. Were present linguistics to disappear, one world, in participants. On this problem, see Hale 1972.)
would conjecture, surely practical needs and curiosity would bring it into The best difinition of the temporal scope of the history of linguistics
being, as they did before. Such needs and curiosity, however, are not thus is probably the widest. Following Hallowell (1960) in his depiction of
everywhere or always the same. Cultural values (explicit and latent), matrices anthropology as an emergent out of folk-anthropology, as having continuity
of institutions, individual personalities and abilities, and the nature of with man’s earliest efforts to obtain reliable knowledge about himself and his
materials at hand, all shape the needs that are felt and the directions that place in the universe, we can begin with ‘folk linguistics’. (Cf. Hoenigswald
curiosity takes. (Cf. the delineation of factors in Malkiel 1964.) There is also 1966 for a valuable discussion of the scope of the topic.)
the stage to which prior configurations of such factors will have brought The motives most frequently cited for emergence of attention to
matters; given a fresh start, without prior configuration as a determinant, the linguistic features can be generalized as recognition of difference or
outcome might be quite different. It is a useful thought-experiment to discrepancy. What sort of difference is recognized may vary. Most often cited
imagine what the outcome might be. are differences between social varieties or levels of speech within a single
In effect, the question of beginnings is always with us. As generations community; between distinct communities; and between the current state of
change, so do the ‘beginnings’ of linguistics in the contexts and motives a language and retained knowledge of an earlier stage. (The types are not
(partly unconscious) of those who enter linguistics and renew it. And the mutually exclusive, and may merge.) It is this last kind of recognition that
complex history of linguistics, closely considered, resolves into an overlapping figures in the historically known rise of linguistic study in the classical
series of local scenes, specific ‘structures of feeling’ (Williams 1965: 64-66), societies of India, China, Greece, and Rome, and that figures again in the
approachable through biographies (as in Sebeok 1966—cf. Austerlitz 1972) positive interest of many American Indian communities today in the services
and lesser writings, more than through isolated classics. There is a certain of linguists. It seems likely, however, that in any community at any time,
logic in the course of ideas, yes, but the pace and places of its working out, differential individual competence, including that between adults and
and whether a particular logic is worked out at all, is invisible in the ‘great children, as well as between neighbors, may have sufficed to give rise to some
works’. Isolated works may suffice, if our interest in the past is only to praise overt linguistic consciousness.
or condemn. If our interest is to know what happened, we must enter into Sapir (1915) remains the fullest study of conscious exploitation of
the contexts of personal and institutional origins. Our history must become a phonological features, followed by few others (cf. Frachtenberg 1917).
history, not only of great men, but also of circles, and not only of circles, but Gudschinsky (1959) has reported a Soyaltepec Mazatec conception of
also of institutions, governments, rulers, wars and the ways in which these phonemic tones as ‘thick’ vs. ‘thin’ and J. D. Sapir (1973) another use of the
have shaped the renewed origins of linguistics in successive generations. ‘thick’:‘thin’ contrast among the Diola of Senegal. Elmendorf and Suttles
(1960) have put into social context what amounts to virtual recognition of
the distinctive feature of nasality among the Halkomelem Salish. Lowie
Folk Linguistics (1935) has documented normative consciousness of linguistic features among
the Crow, and Bloomfield devoted an article to his unexpected discovery of
Such a perspective gives reason to consider the nature and sources of its pervasiveness among the Menominee (1927). Ferguson (1971) has brought
reflection on language in all conditions of community. Scholarly studies have to the fore the kind of implicit analysis involved in simplification for talk to
begun with the point at which reflection on language, and analysis of it, has those outside the normal adult community, foreigners and babies. Generally,
left written trace. There is something to be gained, however, from inquiry elaboration of folk analysis of speech, as codified in vocabulary, appears to be
into the conceptions of language held by societies without institutionalized in regard to speech styles and speech acts. Communities with little more than
linguistics. Comparative study of such information can shed light on the range a general word for ‘language, speech, word(s)’, may have quite precise and
of interests and motives for reflection on language. Given due caution, such interesting terminology for talking like X, Y, or Z or talk to accomplish A, B,
4 Dell Hymes
Introduction: Traditions and Paradigms 5
or C. Gossen (1972, 1974) and Stross (1974) provide rich accounts of this
literacy has not been imposed by fiat, but introduced to a language in
from Mayan communities.
collaboration with its users.
It remains true that we lack systematization and comparative study of
such systems of terminology and conception as to speech. The concerns of
the ‘prehistory’ of linguistics and of the ethnography of speaking here
National Philologies
coincide, so that it can be hoped that the lack will be made good, given the
surge of activity in the latter field.
For the most part, it is true, writing systems involve a second stage of
Sometimes scholars have perpetuated notions of the discontinuity
conscious attention to linguistic features, one that may be called the stage of
between ‘primitive’ and ‘civilized’ societies, on scientific grounds, by ignoring,
national philologies. It is not that there is a necessary relationship between
and even denying, the presence of reflection on speech, among the
the two; at least it would be rash to take one for granted. The Greek
non-Westem communities in which they have worked. Such notions have
tradition, insofar as it was a matter of rhetorical education, might have
been held to be the product of rationalization, probably of misguided school
carried on with oral means; and the Indie tradition, centering around
traditions, and a source of interference with one’s task. Certainly notions
maintenance of sacred texts, was so carried on in the first instance,
about language cannot override or replace realistic analysis (as some linguists
continuing to focus on oral memorization and recitation after writing was
are today again discovering), but to ignore them is to miss one aspect of
introduced into the society. Only in the cases of the Babylonian and Chinese
reality. Indeed, the very interaction of linguist with native speaker (another
traditions, and those much later in which a national philology is begun by
or himself) is subject to the influence of terminology, even if ad hoc
foreigners, can one say that writing is intrinsic. The stage of national
terminology, and hence the validity of the resulting data, is very much subject
philology represents a focussing and cultivation of consciousness of language
to conceptions acquired from the linguist (whether fieldworker or self
which might arise repeatedly, requiring, not special means (graphic), but only
consulting). One might think that the self-consciousness about sources of
special interest.
social knowledge so widespread today would rear its head in linguistics; but
The ancient Mesopotamian attempts at analysis of language, described
the only mention of the emergence of terminology in linguistic investigation
that I know is reported from his Nootka work by Swadesh (1960). here by THORKILD JACOBSEN, are earlier than any other known attempt,
When we investigate a language, another’s or our own, we cannot avoid dating from about 1600 B.C. They are also very little known. (I am indebted
to Roman Jakobson for bringing the possibility of including this work in the
in some degree terms and notions already locally extant; if we ignore them,
they may influence the outcome of our work nonetheless. Thus the interests volume to my attention.) Professor Jacobsen brings out the nature of analysis
of validity in linguistics, and the curiosities of ethnographers, folklorists, and in terms of paradigms in the first period known to us (Old Babylonian) and
the analysis of elements in the later period (Neo-Babylonian). He concludes
historians, come into contact here. If demonstration is needed that notions
that efforts to consider and order in isolation elements which had no
about language show continuity from the earliest known societies to modern
independent existence seem to have taken place.
times, White’s chapter on philology (1896) and Borst (1957-63) are excellent.
The circumstances of the Babylonian work seem to have been similar to
The origin and spread of writing systems plays a part here. Invention or
those of other classical civilizations: concern to preserve a literature
adaptation of such systems is prima facie evidence of analysis of language on
embodied in a language becoming obsolete. In the Old Babylonian period,
the part of the inventors or adaptors. Kroeber (1940) has called attention to
Sumerian (in which the major part of Ancient Mesopotamian literature was
cases of ‘stimulus diffusion’ in this regard, and indeed, our interest here is not
written) was rapidly dying out as a living language, being replaced by
satisfied by restriction to one or a few cases of wholly unmediated invention
Akkadian. It would seem that consciousness of imminent loss is what counts,
of writing from scratch (no pun intended). Evidence of analysis is given, as
and that it does not matter whether the linguistic varieties involved are
has just been said, in diffusion as well as in pristine invention. The role of
separate languages, or related dialects, or styles.
knowledge of the alphabet as stimulus to Sequoyah’s invention of a Cherokee
In India, as STAAL brings out, the primary aim was to preserve a Vedic
syllabary is of much less interest than what Sequoyah did with Cherokee.
heritage required for recitation in ritual. The earliest evidence of great
Similarly with the question of possible stimuli to the Korean Hangul system.
activity, word for word recitation, may be from between the tenth and seventh
The present century offers rich opportunity for understanding writing
centuries B.C., some centuries later than the origins of the Babylonian
systems as manifestations of pre- or para-disciplinary linguistic analysis, where
tradition (although the Babylonian manuscripts are from roughly the sixth and
Introduction: Traditions and Paradigms 7
6 Dell Hymes
logic, literary criticism, philosophy, rhetoric—by itself. We do not get
fifth centuries B.C.)- Explicit analysis went much further, as is generally
treatment of the study of language, or the field of linguistics, as conceived
known, and as Staal succintly shows. It is in India, indeed, that one can
and conducted in history itself. The separateness is understandable, and
earliest identify distinct authors and schools, in developments over time, and
difficult to surmount, but it is unfortunate for our understanding of the
in controversies. In particular, although the tradition stemming from Panini
development of the subject, cutting off essential aspects of generalization and
became central to linguistics in India, it is important to remember that it was
explanation. (It is also unfortunate for the contribution that comprehensive
not the beginning nor did it become the only tradition. The richness of the
historical studies could make to a general theory of the use of language. From
Indian history of linguistics goes further, in that its work was applied to other
one standpoint, the history of linguistics, if it seeks explanation, is an aspect
languages, in India (e.g., Tamil) and in other countries (e.g., Tibet). We have
of sociolinguistics.)
here an invaluable contrastive chse for the comparative study of the relation
The traditions of national philology of course persist past the
between linguistic models and languages of structure different from those in
emergence of general linguistics, and the interactions between the two are of
connection with which they were developed. We have, too, an instructive
special interests One such interaction is the emergence of new traditions of
contrast to the situation in the West, in which linguistics has often aspired to
the prestige of mathematics or a natural science (with results of mixed value). ‘national philology’, initially motivated by general linguistic concerns, as
In India it was linguistics that was considered the norm of a science, a status when the work recorded and published by an anthropologist or missionary
to which other traditional subjects aspired. comes to be the baseline for later activity in a traditionally nonliterate
Most accounts of the history of linguistics begin, whether insightfully community. It is a distinctive trait of the period of general linguistics indeed,
or patronizingly, with the Greeks and Romans (sometimes missing the that many ‘national’ philologies are begun by strangers to the people and
significance of the Romans [Romeo and Tiberio 1971]). Conceptions of the language studied (e.g., Eskimo philology by the Danes). This fact of
history of linguistics so limited to the standard conception of the ‘march of provenience may reflect normative attitudes, as when vernacular Semitic
civilization’, are prone to error. The essays by Jacobsen and Staal, together languages and various creoles are written down and analyzed by foreigners
with the discussion of ‘folk linguistics’ in this introduction, hopefully may who do not share the attitudes toward them of their own users. At this step
help to correct the situation. The history of linguistics, like linguistics itself, one has elementary or anthropological philology (which can be roughly
must aim for univerality of scope and explanation. defined as the philology of peoples without indigenous philology of their
For the general study of the development of classical traditions of own). At a later step an interplay between indigenous and exogenous
national philology, Kroeber (1944) has a chapter on philology which may traditions, concerned with the indigenous subject-matter, may arise. Note
serve as an introduction. The material for the several lines—Indian, Chinese, worthy in this connection are Whitney’s arguments as to the autonomy,
equality, and in some respects superiority of Western studies of Indie
Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Greek, Roman, and others—is unfortunately
difficult of access for any but the specialist in each. Dispassionate case philology, as against those conducted within the Indian setting (1872). Of
course, those who work in the name of general linguistics may confuse
studies, conceived so as to facilitate comparative study, are greatly to be
themselves with the office, and ignore or distort indigenous testimony that is
desired. In some cases a particular scholar might be able to provide
comparison (Japanese: Korean, Indo Aryan: Dravidian, etc.). Ultimately the correct.2 \
roles played by type of linguistic study could be assessed.
In this last respect, our present recognition of linguistics as an
General Linguistics
independent discipline can do us a disservice. (Nor does calling it a branch of
some, other recent discipline, such as cognitive psychology, help.) The
We think of the history of linguistics principally in terms of the third of
treatment of linguistic structure has been closely linked to other interests,
the three stages-, that of general linguistics. Particular philologies and lines of
such as logic, rhetoric, poetics, philosophy, theology—in short, with the uses
work are considered of interest insofar as they contribute to the development
of language recognized and valued by the societies in which lines of national
of this stage. Yet it is difficult to say when and where this stage begins.
philology have emerged, or to which they have spread. Some modern histories
do treat together two such foci: Steinthal (1863) joins classical linguistics Generalizations about the nature of language and of grammar were made in
with logic, Sandys (1921) joins classical linguistics and literature). Mostly ancient India and in classical Mediterranean antiquity. Given the continuity in
today we get treatment of one contemporary focus of interest—linguistics, the history of ideas in both Indian and European civilization, a general
° Dell Hymes Introduction: Traditions and Paradigms 9
linguistics broad enough to include aspects of language beyond technical linguistic ‘paradigm’ in the United States declares the history of general
grammar can easily be traced, then, for some 2500 years. linguistics to be a history, not of paradigms and continuity, but of traditions
A generation ago it would have been common sense to say that a and discontinuity.
general linguistics grounded in knowledge of but one or a few languages could I think that this view of the history of general linguistics is correct, and
not be truly ‘general’ in a scientific sense. The history of linguistics proper not only for the past, but also for the history that is accomplished in the
would have been felt to begin with the development of a methodology giving present and the foreseeable future. Let me try to show some of the reasons
a new depth of insight into particular languages by means of comparison of why.
many. In particular the kind of depth and of comparison associated with the
separating out of language study as a discipline with academic chairs, the
comparative-historical approach of the early nineteenth century, would have On Paradigms and Cynosures
been seen as the start of linguistics proper. As will be seen with regard to
section III of this book, that starting point seems now more an institutional It may appear anachronistic to assess a notion about the history of a
than an intellectual ‘breakthrough’. science in terms of the recent and contemporary scene, especially when space
We are familiar with the increase in interest in the history of linguistic cannot be taken to develop and support statements that are not neutral to
ideas stimulated by Chomsky’s notion of ‘Cartesian linguistics’ (Chomsky current controversies. I can refer to other places where some basis for the
1966). Chomsky brackets the hitherto celebrated history of true linguistics in view taken here is given (Hymes and Fought 1974; see also the historical
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to find predecessors among gram treatments in Hymes 1970a, 1970b, 1971a, 1971b, 1972, 1973a). And I
marians and philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Yet believe it is necessary to discuss the notion of ‘paradigm’ in this way, because
there is an element of contradiction in appeal for a starting point to the its interest for linguists is partly a function of their sense of the contemporary
period of Descartes. To be sure, it fits well with the general history of the rise scene, and because the notion has indeed entered into the contemporary
of natural and social science, which must be located in the period. That has
scene as a factor in its development. Kuhn may have intended the notion of
long been recognized by historians of natural science, and is becoming widely ‘paradigm’ to illuminate the past of science, but of course the notion also
recognized among students of the history of the social sciences. The involves a conception of the nature of science, specifically, of the nature of
nineteenth century is the century of the separating out of special disciplines,
scientific progress. This aspect of the notion has been taken up as something
of great advances in institutionalization and in empirical scope and precision of a scenario of what future progress will be like. A good deal of controversial
of method, but the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the develop literature takes the form, not just of the adequacy or inadequacy of this or
ment of comprehensive frames of reference, initial institutionalization, and that finding or idea, but of contention for being the next stage in a process
accomplishments of still some validity. But the appeal to ‘Cartesian’ conceived as unilinear. All this has roots in the experience of linguistics itself,
precedent is strange in a science. Perhaps some physicists appeal to of course; the notion of ‘paradigm’ may be as much a convenient label as
seventeenth century precedent as warrant and legitimation for their work, or anything else. In any case, the joint result is unhealthy, I think, for genuine
out of a sense of honor to neglected merit, but one is inclined to doubt it. We progress in linguistics, and I am sure that it is disastrous for progress with the
have then the somewhat contradictory spectacle of an approach hailed and history of linguistics. The lessons drawn from recent experience, and the
felt as a triumphant new ‘paradigm’ (cf. Koerner 1972), an approach which interpretation given to the notion of ‘paradigm’ are both, I think, incomplete.
eclipses its immediate predecessor, as a paradigm should, but which is so far To assess the two together may contribute something to current linguistics; it
from having a sense of building upon cumulative efforts, as to seem to want is indispensable, I think, for development of the history of linguistics.
to regret a century and a half, because of what is regarded as philosophical The term ‘paradigm’ is deceptive. It answers to something real in the
misdirection. recent history of linguistics, but not to enough of reality. Many linguists have
It is clear from Chomsky’s own account, and even more so from the rightly sensed in the success of the Chomskyan approach something
accounts of his critics, that the original ‘Cartesian’ linguistics does not corresponding to Kuhn’s concept of a paradigm, as a revolutionary, eclipsing,
represent a successful scientific paradigm; it represents rather a tradition of general view (cf. Thorne 1965, Grace 1969, Wells 1963, Voegelin and
inquiry, a set of questions and problems, which were addressed for a time, Voegelin 1963, and Lounsbury 1961). One can also see the dominance of a
and which are now addressed again. In effect, the clearest case we have of a ‘neo-Bloomfieldian’ approach from late in the Second World War until the
10 Dell Hymes Introduction: Traditions and Paradigms 11
emergence of Chomsky’s approach (as in important part a thoroughgoing source for his views). In important part they considered themselves to be
reaction against it) as constituting a preceding ‘paradigm’ in the United continuing the valid structuralist tradition of Sapir; in part, their influence
States. One cannot readily identify a central ‘paradigm’ before then (and it is was limited because of political and religious commitments, respectively. In
one of the grave defects of the discipline’s current account of its own history the time-honored manner of economically and politically successful
that the ‘neo-Bloomfieldian’ approach is left to stand for all of American approaches, members of the inner paradigmatic community could afford to
structuralism preceding Chomsky (on the fallacies involved in this, see Hymes mock them, rather than have to take them seriously. Similar conduct of
and Fought 1974; on the Sapir tradition in this period, see Hymes 1971a). course has been familiar within the succeeding Chomskyan approach, in
These temporal facts indicate what is missing. The notion of ‘paradigm’ regard, say, to the work on universals of Greenberg. But the lines of work
has been taken to refer to philosophies of science, to psychological represented by these and many others have not simply lingered on to die.
assumptions, to analytic practices, but not to social realities. Yet it is no mere They have had varying fortunes, but many have thrived or been revitalized.
coincidence that the dominance of the ‘neo-Bloomfieldian’ approach came How can this be so, if paradigmatic succession is unilinear, in the image of an
with the emergence of linguistics as a distinct academic profession, separate Einstein succeeding a Newton as law-giver?
from philology, language departments, and anthropology departments, in the Part of the answer is that each approach has not been a matter of
United States. The approach provided the ideology for a separatist move scientific methods and findings alone, but also a'complex of attitudes and
ment. Numbers grew, departments and programs grew, focussed around the outlooks. The congeries of attitudes and interests of each has been roughly in
new concepts of structural units and relationships, and concomitant keeping with ingredients of the outlook of the youngest generation in the
methodology; and the views that were furthest from those of the preceding period in which each came to the fore. On this more specific scale, as on the
period (and other contemporary disciplines) had the most appeal. The broader scale of international changes over many generations, climates of
phenomenon is frequent enough in political life for us to recognize it in our opinion play a part. (Malkiel and Langdon 1969 discuss, for instance, the role
own profession. The Chomskyan approach seized hold of linguistics coinci of reaction against German culture in the acceptance of the Swiss-French
dent with a second surge in the profession. The preceding group had sought linguist, de Saussure, after the First World War, as well as in the local
independence. The Chomskyan group inherited independence, and attracted popularity, for a time within Germany, of Vossler’s idealism. Bloomfield’s
numbers of new students, who entered linguistics as if it had begun with ‘mechanism’ and its appeal to young American linguists can hardly be
Chomsky, having in turn a novel conception of structural units and understood apart from the skeptical climate between world wars). Particular
relationships, and methodology. social origins are a factor as well, although seldom considered by linguists
In their political aspect each approach in turn has dominated journals, engaged in their own history. It seems significant that the leaders of the
professional meetings, textbooks, and the like. But neither has been exclusive ‘neo-Bloomfieldian’ approach after the Second World War had mainly entered
holder of the stage. Each has had the center, but not the whole. Perhaps the the new profession of linguistics from backgrounds in European languages
same sort of thing is found in the history of the natural sciences—one cannot and literatures, and work in American dialectology, as against the anthro
tell from Kuhn’s account, which is largely silent on the articulation of pological and field work backgrounds of a number of established figures who
paradigms to each other, within disciplines, and between disciplines. In the did not accept their hegemony. There is in fact an irony here, in that the
case of linguistics, at least, other approaches than the dominant ones militant behaviorism of the ‘neo-Bloomfieldians’, along with their concentra
continued, and indeed sometimes emerged, contemporaneously. One can say tion on phonology, is often explained in terms of anthropological field work.
that each dominant approach was successively the cynosure of its discipline. The truth of course is that structuralists everywhere concentrated on
One can say that its participants, and others around them, had a phonology at the time—that is where the structural breakthrough had been
consciousness of a revolutionary change, and that there was indeed a dramatically accomplished, the new territory that traditional grammar had
paradigmatic community. The paradigmatic community, however, has never not conquered, and that leading fieldworkers such as Morris Swadesh and
come to be equivalent to the whole of the discipline. Nor has this been due to Kenneth Pike, men most notably concerned with practical field procedures,
holdovers from the past alone. Each new ‘paradigm’ simply has not succeeded were vigorous opponents of behaviorism and algorithms.
in establishing complete authority. For example, the authority of the In short, membership in the self-conscious paradigmatic community has
‘neo-Bloomfieldian’ approach was never accepted by such major figures as entailed allegiance to a variety of ideas, only some of which have been
Swadesh (cf. his ‘mentalistic’ critique of it [1948]) and Pike (1954 is a major essential to new insights and genuine problems. (In this volume, Kiparsky
