Theory Groups and the Study of Language in North America: A Social History
Based on extensive archival research, interviews, and participant observation over the course of two decades, Theory Groups in the Study of Language in North America provides a detailed social history of traditions and “revolutionary” challenges to traditions within North American linguistics, especially within 20th-century anthropological linguistics. After showing substantial differences between Bloomfield's and neo-Bloomfieldian theorizing, Murray shows that early...
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Based on extensive archival research, interviews, and participant observation over the course of two decades, Theory Groups in the Study of Language in North America provides a detailed social history of traditions and “revolutionary” challenges to traditions within North American linguistics, especially within 20th-century anthropological linguistics. After showing substantial differences between Bloomfield's and neo-Bloomfieldian theorizing, Murray shows that early transformational-generative work on syntax grew out of neo-Bloomfieldian structuralism, and was promoted by neo-Bloomfieldian gatekeepers, in particular longtime Language editor Bernard Bloch. The central case studies of the book contrast the (increasingly) “revolutionary rhetoric” of transformational-generative grammarians with rhetorics of continuity emitted by two linguistic anthropology groupings that began simultaneously with TGG in the late-1950s, the ethnography of communication and ethnoscience.The history of linguistics in North America provides a continuum from isolated scholars to successful groups dominating entire disciplines. Although focused on groupings — both “invisible colleges” and readily visible institutions — Murray discusses those writing about language in society who were not participants in “theory groups” or “schools” both before and after the three central case studies. He provides a theory of social bases for claiming to be making “scientific revolution” in contrast to building on sound “traditions”, and suggests non-cognitive reasons for success in the often rhetorically violent contention of perspectives about language in North America during the last century and a half.The book includes appendices explaining the methodology used, an extensive bibliography, and an index.
List of TablesList of FiguresIntroduction1Theory Groups in Science12Early Work on American Languages273Franz Boas and the Institutionalization of Academic Anthropology474Boas's Students675Edward Sapir776Was Bloomfield a Bloomfieldian?1137Neo-Bloomfieldians1378Structuralist Diversification During the 1950s1859Transformational-Generative Grammar before the 1964-66 Revelations22510Language contact and Early Sociolinguistics24911The Ethnography of Speaking28912Related Perspectives34113Ethnoscience39114The Sociology of Language41915Permanent Chomskian Civil War in Linguistics43116The Third Generation of University of California Sociolinguists44717The Turn Away from Linguistic Interest in Contemporary American Anthropology47318Conclusions479An Appendix on Methods491Bibliography503Index of Names577
