Introduced by: RICHARD J.KOSCIEJEW
Theorization about language goes back thousands of years. Ancient Greek philosophers speculated on the origins of language and the relationship between objects and their names. They also discussed the rules that govern language, or grammar, and by the 3rd century Bc they had begun grouping words into parts of speech and devising names for different forms of verbs and nouns.
In India religion provided the motivation for the study of language nearly 2500 years ago. Hindu priests noted that the language they spoke had changed since the compilation of their ancient sacred texts, the Vedas, starting about 1000 Bc. They believed that for certain religious ceremonies based upon the Vedas to succeed, they needed to reproduce the language of the Vedas precisely. Panini, an Indian grammarian who lived about 400 Bc, produced the earliest work describing the rules of Sanskrit, the ancient language of India.
The Romans used Greek grammars as models for their own, adding commentary on Latin style and usage. Statesman and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote on rhetoric and style in the 1st century Bc. Later grammarian’s Aelius Donatus (4th century ad) and Priscian (6th century ad) produced detailed Latin grammars. Roman works served as textbooks and standards for the study of language for more than 1000 years.
In addition, during the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, where Latin had been the dominant speaking language, for in at least two millennium, none the less, the migrations westward were taken to a firm hold by the Jutes, Saxons and Jesuits languages Communicable communications between Latin speaking orients and those of the Jutes, Saxons and Jesuits had in developing the exchanging their survival traits of goods and services by offering, such things as one pig for something as worth by comparison. Speaking in some foreign language, makes it very difficult in the understanding between people, as such were the visual objects (one pig) was communicably the gesture of a spoken linguistic utterance, in that, over time, it became of some sorted form of communication. Considering that the Latin communities were very much than organized and held themselves steadfast within the Upper and Southern territories surrounding the Megatherian Sea, that it became an influential experience with those gathered of the Jutes, Saxons and Jesuits. As such, one might think, that familiarity breeds contempt, so that might have caused the furthering migratoria toward the English Channel by those of the Jutes, Saxon and Jesuits. Prompting of more complexities, that is to say, the Vikings, moving south had engaged upon and embraced the peopls inclusive of the Jutes, Saxons, and Jesuits, as, once, again, the developing communications between them were established. As with the Latin speaking peoples, the Vikings, had, in the beginning built a strong platform of Trade and Commerce, if only by the enfolded efforts of changing the traditionally accustomed treatises in combinations with civil behaviour and the coherence of a mutually felt languages. Thus, it became apparently clear that the further migratory endeavours for the Jutes, Saxon and Jesuits were to agree upon the crossing-over of the English Channel. With the Jutes, Saxons, and Jesuits it can be strongly noted that these individual peoples were all sustained in the habits of their own individual languages. That is to say, within the proper valuing organizations and cooperative legislating, that, in time, an evolutionary substructure evolved into what is now known as the English Speaking Language.
As such, the 17th and 18th centuries, modern languages, such as French and English, replaced Latin as the means of universal communication in the West. This occurrence, along with developments in printing, meant that many more texts became available. At about this time, the study of phonetics, or the sounds of a language, began. Such investigations led to comparisons of sounds in different languages; in the late eighteenth-century the observation of correspondences among Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek gave birth to the field of Indo - European linguistics.
During the 19th century, the European inhabitation of linguists focussed on philology, or the historical analysis and comparison of languages. They studied written texts and looked for changes over time or for relationships between one language and another.
American linguist, writer, teacher, and political activist Noam Chomsky is considered the founder of transformational - generative linguistic analysis, which revolutionized the field of linguistics. This system of linguistics treats grammar as a theory of language - that is, Chomsky believes that in addition to the rules of grammar specific to individual languages, there are universal rules common to all languages that indicate that the ability to form and understand language is innate to all human beings. Chomsky also is well known for his political activism - he opposed United States involvement in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s and has written various books and articles and delivered many lectures in an attempt to educate and empower people on various political and social issues.
In the early 20th century, linguistics expanded to include the study of unwritten languages. In the United States linguists and anthropologists began to study the rapidly disappearing spoken languages of Native North Americans. Because many of these languages were unwritten, researchers could not use historical analysis in their studies. In their pioneering research on these languages, anthropologist’s Franz Boas and Edward Sapir developed the techniques of descriptive linguistics and theorized on the ways in which language shapes our perceptions of the world.
An important outgrowth of descriptive linguistics is a theory known as structuralism, which assumes that language is a system with a highly organized structure. Structuralism began with publication of the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure in Cours de linguistique générale (1916; Course in General Linguistics, 1959). This work, compiled by Saussure’s students after his death, is considered the foundation of the modern field of linguistics. Saussure made a distinction between actual speech, or spoken language, and the knowledge underlying speech that speakers share about what is grammatical. Speech, he said, represents instances of grammar, and the linguist’s task is to find the underlying rules of a particular language from examples found in speech. To the Structuralists, grammar is a set of relationships that account for speech, rather than a set of instances of speech, as it is to the descriptivist.
Once linguists began to study language as a set of abstract rules that somehow account for speech, other scholars began to take an interest in the field. They drew analogies between language and other forms of human behavior, based on the belief that a shared structure underlies many aspects of a culture. Anthropologists, for example, became interested in a Structuralists approach to the interpretation of kinship systems and analysis of myth and religion. American linguist Leonard Bloomfield promoted structuralism in the United States.
Saussure’s ideas also influenced European linguistics, most notably in France and Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic). In 1926 Czech linguist Vilem Mathesius founded the Linguistic Circle of Prague, a group that expanded the focus of the field to include the context of language use. The Prague circle developed the field of phonology, or the study of sounds, and demonstrated that universal features of sounds in the languages of the world interrelate in a systematic way. Linguistic analysis, they said, should focus on the distinctiveness of sounds rather than on the ways they combine. Where descriptivists tried to locate and describe individual phonemes, such as /b/ and /p/, the Prague linguists stressed the features of these phonemes and their interrelationships in different languages. In English, for example, the voice distinguishes between the similar sounds of /b/ and /p/, but these are not distinct phonemes in a number of other languages. An Arabic speaker might pronounce the cities Pompei and Bombay the same way.
As linguistics developed in the 20th century, the notion became prevalent that language is more than speech - specifically, that it is an abstract system of interrelationships shared by members of a speech community. Structural linguistics led linguists to look at the rules and the patterns of behavior shared by such communities. Whereas structural linguists saw the basis of language in the social structure, other linguists looked at language as a mental process.
The 1957 publication of Syntactic Structures by American linguist Noam Chomsky initiated what many view as a scientific revolution in linguistics. Chomsky sought a theory that would account for both linguistic structure and the creativity of language - the fact that we can create entirely original sentences and understand sentences never before uttered. He proposed that all people have an innate ability to acquire language. The task of the linguist, he claimed, is to describe this universal human ability, known as language competence, with a grammar from which the grammars of all languages could be derived. The linguist would develop this grammar by looking at the rules children use in hearing and speaking their first language. He termed the resulting model, or grammar, a transformational - generative grammar, referring to the transformations (or rules) that generate (or account for) language. Certain rules, Chomsky asserted, are shared by all languages and form part of a universal grammar, while others are language specific and associated with particular speech communities. Since the 1960s much of the development in the field of linguistics has been a reaction to or against Chomsky’s theories.
At the end of the 20th century, linguists used the term grammar primarily to refer to a subconscious linguistic system that enables people to produce and comprehend an unlimited number of utterances. Grammar thus accounts for our linguistic competence. Observations about the actual language we use, or language performance, are used to theorize about this invisible mechanism known as grammar.
The orientation toward the scientific study of language led by Chomsky has had an impact on nongenerative linguists as well. Comparative and historically oriented linguists are looking for the various ways linguistic universals show up in individual languages. Psycholinguists, interested in language acquisition, are investigating the notion that an ideal speaker - hearer is the origin of the acquisition process. Sociolinguists are examining the rules that underlie the choice of language variants, or codes, and allow for switching from one code to another. Some linguists are studying language performance - the way people use language - see how it reveals a cognitive ability shared by all human beings. Others seek to understand animal communication within such a framework. What mental processes enable chimpanzees to make signs and communicate with one another and how do these processes differ from those of humans?
A written bibliographic note in gratification To Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 - 1951), an Austrian - British philosopher, who was one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century, particularly noted for his contribution to the movement known as analytic and linguistic philosophy.
Born in Vienna on April 26, 1889, Wittgenstein was raised in a wealthy and cultured family. After attending schools in Linz and Berlin, he went to England to study engineering at the University of Manchester. His interest in pure mathematics led him to Trinity College, University of Cambridge, to study with Bertrand Russell. There he turned his attention to philosophy. By 1918 Wittgenstein had completed his Tractatus Logico - philosophicus (1921; trans. 1922), a work he then believed provided the ‘final solution’ to philosophical problems. Subsequently, he turned from philosophy and for several years taught elementary school in an Austrian village. In 1929 he returned to Cambridge to resume his work in philosophy and was appointed to the faculty of Trinity College. Soon he began to reject certain conclusions of the Tractatus and to develop the position reflected in his Philosophical Investigations (pub. posthumously 1953; trans. 1953). Wittgenstein retired in 1947; he died in Cambridge on April 29, 1951. A sensitive, intense man who often sought solitude and was frequently depressed, Wittgenstein abhorred pretense and was noted for his simple style of life and dress. The philosopher was forceful and confident in personality, however, and he exerted considerable influence on those with whom he came in contact.
Wittgenstein’s philosophical life may be divided into two distinct phases: an early period, represented by the Tractatus, and a later period, represented by the Philosophical Investigations. Throughout most of his life, however, Wittgenstein consistently viewed philosophy as linguistic or conceptual analysis. In the Tractatus he argued that ‘philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts.’ In the Philosophical Investigations, however, he maintained that ‘philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.’
Language, Wittgenstein argued in the Tractatus, is composed of complex propositions that can be analyzed into fewer complex propositions until one arrives at simple or elementary propositions. Correspondingly, the world is composed of complex facts that can be analyzed into fewer complex facts until one arrives at simple, or atomic, facts. The world is the totality of these facts. According to Wittgenstein’s picture theory of meaning, it is the nature of elementary propositions logically to picture atomic facts, or ‘states of affairs.’ He claimed that the nature of language required elementary propositions, and his theory of meaning required that there be atomic facts pictured by the elementary propositions. On this analysis, only propositions that picture facts - the propositions of science - are considered cognitively meaningfully. Metaphysical and ethical statements are not meaningful assertions. The logical positivist associated with the Vienna Circle were greatly influenced by this conclusion.
Wittgenstein came to believe, however, that the narrow view of language reflected in the Tractatus was mistaken. In the Philosophical Investigations he argued that if one actually looks to see how language is used, the variety of linguistic usage becomes clear. Words are like tools, and just as tools serve different functions, so linguistic expressions serve many functions. Although some propositions are used to picture facts, others are used to command, question, pray, thank, curse, and so on. This recognition of linguistic flexibility and variety led to Wittgenstein’s concept of a language game and to the conclusion that people play different language games. The scientist, for example, is involved in a different language game than the theologian. Moreover, the meaning of a proposition must be understood in terms of its context, that is, in terms of the rules of the game of which that proposition is a part. The key to the resolution of philosophical puzzles is the therapeutic process of examining and describing language in use.
A considerable diversity of views exists among analytic and linguistic philosophers regarding the nature of conceptual or linguistic analysis. Some have been primarily concerned with clarifying the meaning of specific words or phrases as an essential step in making philosophical assertions clear and unambiguous. Others have been more concerned with determining the general conditions that must be met for any linguistic utterance to be meaningful; their intent is to establish a criterion that will distinguish between meaningful and nonsensical sentences. Still other analysts have been interested in creating formal, symbolic languages that are mathematical in nature. Their claim is that philosophical problems can be more effectively dealt with once they are formulated in a rigorous logical language.
By contrast, many philosophers associated with the movement have focused on the analysis of ordinary, or natural, language. Difficulties arise when concepts such as time and freedom, for example, are considered apart from the linguistic context in which they normally appear. Attention to language as it is ordinarily used is the key, it is argued, to resolving many philosophical puzzles.
Linguistic analysis as a method of philosophy is as old as the Greeks. Several of the dialogues of Plato, for example, are specifically concerned with clarifying terms and concepts. Nevertheless, this style of philosophizing has received dramatically renewed emphasis in the 20th century. Influenced by the earlier British empirical tradition of John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume, and John Stuart Mill and by the writings of the German mathematician and philosopher Gottlob Frége, the 20th - century English philosopher’s G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell became the founders of this contemporary analytic and linguistic trend. As students together at the University of Cambridge, Moore and Russell rejected Hegelian idealism, particularly as it was reflected in the work of the English metaphysician F. H. Bradley, who held that nothing is completely real except the Absolute. In their opposition to idealism and in their commitment to the view that careful attention to language is crucial in philosophical inquiry. They set the mood and style of philosophizing for much of the 20th century English - speaking world.
For Moore, philosophy was first and foremost analysis. The philosophical task involves clarifying puzzling propositions or concepts by indicating fewer puzzling propositions or concepts to which the originals are held to be logically equivalent. Once this task has been completed, the truth or falsity of problematic philosophical assertions can be determined more adequately. Moore was noted for his careful analyses of such puzzling philosophical claims as ‘time is unreal,’ analyses that then aided in determining the truth of such assertions.
Russell, strongly influenced by the precision of mathematics, was concerned with developing an ideal logical language that would accurately reflect the nature of the world. Complex propositions, Russell maintained, can be resolved into their simplest components, which he called atomic propositions. These propositions refer to atomic facts, the ultimate constituents of the universe. The metaphysical views based on this logical analysis of language and the insistence that meaningful propositions must correspond to facts constitute what Russell called logical atomism. His interest in the structure of language also led him to distinguish between the grammatical form of a proposition and its logical form. The statements ‘John is good’ and ‘John is tall’ have the same grammatical form but different logical forms. Failure to recognize this would lead one to treat the property ‘goodness’ as if it were a characteristic of John in the same way that the property ‘tallness’ is a characteristic of John. Such failure results in philosophical confusion.
Russell’s work in mathematics attracted to Cambridge. The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who became a central figure in the analytic and linguistic movement. In his first major work, Tractatus Logico - philosophicus (1921; trans. 1922), in which he first presented his theory of language, Wittgenstein argued that ‘all philosophy is a ‘critique of language’ and that ‘philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts’. The results of Wittgenstein’s analysis resembled Russell’s logical atomism. The world, he argued, is ultimately composed of simple facts, which it is the purpose of language to picture. To be meaningful, statements about the world must be reducible to linguistic utterances that have a structure similar to the simple facts pictured. In this early Wittgensteinian analysis, only propositions that picture facts - the propositions of science - are considered factually meaningful. Metaphysical, theological, and ethical sentences were judged to be factually meaningless continues to exist between.
Influenced by Russell, Wittgenstein, Ernst Mach, and others, a group of philosophers and mathematicians in Vienna in the 1920s initiated the movement known as logical positivism. Led by Moritz Schlick and Rudolf Carnap, the Vienna Circle initiated one of the most important chapters in the history of analytic and linguistic philosophy. According to the positivist, the task of philosophy is the clarification of meaning, not the discovery of new facts (the job of the scientists) or the construction of comprehensive accounts of reality (the misguided pursuit of traditional metaphysics).
The positivist divided all meaningful assertions into two classes: analytic propositions and empirically verifiable ones. Analytic propositions, which include the propositions of logic and mathematics, are statements the truth or falsity of which depend together on the meanings of the terms constituting the statement. An example would be the proposition ‘two plus two equals four.’ The second class of meaningful propositions includes all statements about the world that can be verified, at least in principle, by sense experience. Indeed, the meaning of such propositions is identified with the empirical method of their verification. This verifiability theory of meaning, the positivist concluded, would demonstrate that scientific statements are legitimate factual claims and that metaphysical, religious, and ethical sentences are factually empties. The ideas of logical positivism were made popular in England by the publication of A.J. Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic in 1936.
The positivist’ verifiability theory of meaning came under intense criticism by philosophers such as the Austrian - born British philosopher Karl Popper. Eventually this narrow theory of meaning yielded to a broader understanding of the nature of language. Again, an influential figure was Wittgenstein. Repudiating many of his earlier conclusions in the Tractatus, he initiated a new line of thought culminating in his posthumously published Philosophical Investigations (1953; trans. 1953). In this work, Wittgenstein argued that once attention is directed to the way language is actually used in ordinary discourse, the variety and flexibility of language become clear. Propositions do much more than simply picture facts.
This recognition led to Wittgenstein’s influential concept of language games. The scientist, the poet, and the theologian, for example, are involved in different language games. Moreover, the meaning of a proposition must be understood in its context, that is, in terms of the rules of the language game of which that proposition is a part. Philosophy, concluded Wittgenstein, is an attempt to resolve problems that arise as the result of linguistic confusion, and the key to the resolution of such problems is ordinary language analysis and the proper use of language.
Additional contributions within the analytic and linguistic movement include the work of the British philosopher's Gilbert Ryle, John Austin, and P. F. Strawson and the American philosopher W. V. Quine. According to Ryle, the task of philosophy is to restate ‘systematically misleading expressions’ in forms that are logically more accurate. He was particularly concerned with statements the grammatical form of which suggests the existence of nonexistent objects. For example, Ryle is best known for his analysis of mentalistic language, language that misleadingly suggests that the mind is an entity in the same way as the body.
Austin maintained that one of the most fruitful starting points for philosophical inquiry is attention to the extremely fine distinctions drawn in ordinary language. His analysis of language eventually led to a general theory of speech acts, that is, to a description of the variety of activities that an individual may be performing when something is uttered.
Strawson is known for his analysis of the relationship between formal logic and ordinary language. The complexity of the latter, he argued, is inadequately represented by formal logic. A variety of analytic tools, therefore, are needed in addition to logic in analyzing ordinary language.
Quine discussed the relationship between language and ontology. He argued that language systems tend to commit their users to the existence of certain things. For Quine, the justification for speaking one way rather than another is a thoroughly pragmatic one.
The commitment to language analysis as a way of pursuing philosophy has continued as a significant contemporary dimension in philosophy. A division also those who prefer to work with the precision and rigor of symbolic logical systems and those who prefer to analyze ordinary language. Although few contemporary philosophers maintain that all philosophical problems are linguistic, the view continues to be widely held that attention to the logical structure of language and to how language is used in everyday discourse can often aid in resolving philosophical problems
Are terms of logical calculus are also called a formal language, and a logical system? A system in which explicit rules are provided to determining (1) which are the expressions of the system (2) which sequence of expressions count as well formed (well - forced formulae) (3) which sequence would count ss proofs. A system may include axioms for which leaves terminate a proof, however, it shows of the prepositional calculus and the predicated calculus.
It’s most immediate of issues surrounding certainty are especially connected with those concerning ‘scepticism.’ Although Greek scepticism entered on the value of enquiry and questioning, scepticism is now the denial that knowledge or even rational belief is possible, either about some specific subject - matter, e.g., ethics, or in any area whatsoever. Classical scepticism, springs from the observation that the best method in some area seems to fall short of giving us contact with the truth, e.g., there is a gulf between appearances and reality, it frequently cites the conflicting judgements that our methods deliver, with the result that questions of truth become undefinable. In classic thought the various examples of this conflict were systemized in the tropes of Aenesidemus. So that, the scepticism of Pyrrho and the new Academy was a system of argument and inasmuch as opposing dogmatism, and, particularly the philosophical system building of the Stoics.
As it has come down to us, particularly in the writings of Sextus Empiricus, its method was typically to cite reasons for finding our issue undesirable (sceptics devoted particular energy to undermining the Stoics conception of some truths as delivered by direct apprehension or some katalepsis). As a result the sceptic concludes eposhé, or the suspension of belief, and then go on to celebrate a way of life whose object was ataraxia, or the tranquillity resulting from suspension of belief.
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