Providing “insight into the nature of ‘humanness’”
In the summer of 1994, the Linguistic Society of America endorsed a policy statement on “The Need for the Documentation of Linguistic Diversity.” This statement reflected back on a period characterized by ambitious efforts to generalize linguistic knowledge to a universal (or, nearly universal) scale. Members of the Committee on Endangered Languages and Their Preservation wrote:
If the central concern of linguistics is essentially anthropological or psychological, i.e. to provide insight into the nature of “humanness” through the investigation of the structure of human language, then linguistics will without question benefit by supporting research on the documentation of dying or endangered languages. Taking the study of universal grammar and linguistic typology (the study of the restricted ways in which languages may differ from each other) as more concrete manifestations of this central concern, linguistic typology is obviously enriched by knowledge of linguistic diversity, as languages on the geographical or linguistic “fringe” sometimes turn out to be the most diverse typologically… Somewhat less obviously, the positing of language universals must necessarily be revised and thus become more accurate when the structure of divergent languages is made known.
This document—which goes on to outline recommendations for training, archiving, hiring, and promotion—is an important source for the history of the “endangerment sensibility” and the rise of documentary linguistics. But it is also noteworthy for its discussion of two approaches to language universals: “the study of universal grammar and linguistic typology” are presented as “concrete manifestations” of the “central concern” of the discipline, namely, to shed light on our “humanness.” The fact that these approaches garner such prominent attention in the statement suggests that champions of endangered languages in the early 1990s took researchers invested in universal grammar and linguistic typology to be key members—or influencers—of the audience they were trying to compel.
The project, “Linguistics: Reconstructing the Discipline through Universals Research,” likewise focuses on the study of universal grammar and linguistic typology—two approaches that can be identified with the scholarly networks surrounding Noam Chomsky and Joseph Greenberg during the 1960s and ‘70s. By looking at their work in tandem, it explores disciplinary disunity at an important moment in time. In addition, it investigates the specific contributions of logical and empirical orientations to the study of human language—methodological predispositions that the philosopher John Searle described in terms of
…a fundamental opposition between those who believe that progress is to be made by a rigorous observation of man’s actual behavior and those who believe that such observations are interesting only in so far as they reveal to us hidden and possibly fairly mysterious underlying laws.
What can we learn from this opposition? In what sense did these understandings of “progress” hold together? Not only does the project put such questions to Chomsky and Greenberg; ultimately, it will also trace conversations about language universals both backwards and forwards in time. In so doing, it supports understanding of how disciplines work “synchronically” (in cross-section) and “diachronically” (through time.
This online journal will provide bi-weekly reports of the project, which was launched with support from the National Science Foundation in 2022. Accounts of archival finds, bibliographic resources, interviews, and guest entries all lay in store. Comments and discussion are most welcome.
Works cited:
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1990 [1983]. “Two Approaches to Language Universals.” In On Language: Selected Writings of Joseph H. Greenberg. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 702-722.
Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. 1998. “Documentary and Descriptive Linguistics.” Linguistics 36: 161-195.
LSA Committee on Endangered Languages and Their Preservation, “The Need for the Documentation of Linguistic Diversity.” (https://www.linguisticsociety.org/sites/default/files/lsa-stmt-documentation-linguistic-diversity.pdf). Accessed 4 May 2023.
Searle, John. 1972. “A Special Supplement: Chomsky’s Revolution in Linguistics.” The New York Review of Books, June 29 Issue.
Vidal, Fernando, and Nélia Dias. 2016. Endangerment, Biodiversity and Culture. London and New York: Routledge.
