The general goal of this course is to use a survey of theories and issues in the study of language to deepen our understanding of language and its relationship to our human being and reality. Since language attends all of our descriptions of reality and plays a key role in our self-description (our account of the distinctiveness of human being), its study can be regarded as crucial to improving both our ability to use language and our philosophic self-understanding.
The course will be taught as a seminar, which presumes a greater level of involvement and student contribution than a typical lecture/discussion course. Students will have an opportunity to define their own objectives and projects within the course and will be encouraged to share their work in progress during class meetings.
Questions about the origin and explanation of language require not only information from historians and linguistics, but also a philosophical sense of just what an explanation of language requires. Is the essence of language captured in a purely historical account of the spread of actual languages? What, if anything, does information about the structure of the brain contribute to our explanation of language? We'll read a variety of speculative accounts, including a functional account which tries to shows what phenomena any good explanation of language must be sensitive to.
Language is often understood by its relationship to thought. Are our patterns and categories of thought influenced by the kind of language we use? Is thought determined by language? Or is language separate from thought? Views of this subject have great practical importance since we often argue for "linguistic reform" (disapproving of phrases like "welshing on a deal" or being "gypped") on the theory that continuing to talk like that will reinforce harmful stereotypes. Is it true that altering our language will alter our attitudes? We'll follow one of the main controversies in the "thought/language debate" between early twentieth century linguists like Sapir and Whorf and contemporary psycholinguists like Steven Pinker.
You can also investigate the nature of language, specifically the relationship between language and our human being, by trying to imagine what a human without language would be like or what the difference is, if any, between the "smartest" animals and humans. Cases of wild children are rare, but there was a case in the 70s of a severely language deprived child who came to be called, "Genie." The next nearest historical instance of a "wild child" was the "wild boy of Aveyron" in 18th-century France. Francois Truffault's film, "L'Enfant Savauge," based on the first hand account of the early linguist Dr. Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, is about this wild child. Our comparisons of wild children and clever animals might help us described the essential contribution of language to human nature. (Unit begins: January 19th)
Walker Percy, "The Mystery Of Language," The Message In The Bottle (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1954) 150-58.
Mario Pei, "Theories Of Language Beginning," The Language Of Man, ed. J. P. Littell (Evanston, Illinois: McDougal, Littell and Co., 1971) 109-13.
Jean- Jacques Rousseau, The First And Second Discourses, Together With The Replies To Critics, And, Essay On The Origin Of Languages, ed. and trans. Victor Gourevitch (New York: Harper & Row, Inc., 1986)
Terry Landau, The Brain: The Two Brains [video recording], ed. Lisa Palatelli (New York: WNET, Educational Broadcasting Corporation, 1984).
Steven Pinker, "Chapter 4: How Language Works," The Language Instinct (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1994) 83-125.
Benjamin Lee Whorf, "Science And Linguistics," Language Thought & Reality, ed. John B. Carroll (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT P, 1956) 207-19.
Benjamin Lee Whorf, "Languages And Logic," Language: Concepts And Processes, ed. Joseph DeVito (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973) 121-32.
Benjamin Lee Whorf, "An American Indian Model Of The Universe," Language Thought & Reality, ed. John B. Carroll (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT P, 1956) 57-64.
Steven Pinker, "Chapter 3: Mentalese," The Language Instinct (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1994) 55-82.
Daniel Dennett, "Chapter 8: How Words Do Things With Us," Consciousness Explained (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1991) 227-52.
Steven Pinker, "The Game Of The Name," editorial, The New York Times Apr. 5 1994.
The author makes a variety of arguments against practices in which we alter terms for things on the basis of perceived offense by some groups. Part of his argument depends upon the claim that language and thought are separate, so we don't have to be as vigilant as some suggest in policing our language in order to change our thinking.
PBS Video on Genie
Francois Truffault, "L'Enfant Savauge," [film] 1991
Maya Pines, "The Civilizing of Genie," Psychology Today, (Sept. 1981): 28+.
Hubert Frings, "Animal Communication," Communication: Concepts And Perspectives, ed. Lee Thayer (London: MacMillan & Co. Ltd., 1967) 297-326.
Daisie Radner, and Michael Radner, "Chapter 7: Animal Communication," Animal Consciousness (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1989) 149-72.
Duane Rumbaugh, and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, "Reasoning And Language In Chimpanzees," Animal Intelligence: Insights Into The Animal Mind, ed. R. J. Hoage, and Larry Goldman (Washington: Smithsonian Institution P, 1986) 57-75.
Recommended
Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, trans. George Humphrey, and Muriel Humphrey, The Wild Boy Of Aveyron (New York: Meredith Publishing Co., 1962) 104.
Contemporary theories of language have their origin in several fields of study which experienced renaissance or rapid development in either the late 19th or early 20th centuries. Hermeneutics, originally a discipline of biblical interpretation, linguistics, literary criticism, structuralism in the social sciences, and the general cultural movement from structuralism to poststructuralism have all contributed to the matrix of theories and interpretive practices which characterize language studies today.
The focus of study in this unit is the structuralist/poststructuralist contrast, which sets so many of the theories mentioned above into relief. To keep our theoretical study focused on actual linguistic practices, we will look at two movies which illustrate the main contrast: The Bicycle Thief, a neo-realist Italian film which lends itself to a structuralist "reading," and The Icicle Thief, a parody of the first movie, which plays with narrative convention in manner which illuminates poststructural thought on language. (Unit begins: February 16)
Terry Eagleton, "Chapter 2: Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Reception Theory," Literary Theory: An Introduction (Minneapolis, Minn: , 1983) 54-90.
Jonathan Culler, Ferdinand De Saussure (New York: Penguin Books, 1986).
Umberto Scarpelli, Ladri Di Biciclette [Videorecording] = The Bicycle Thief (Italy, 1949).
Terry Eagleton, "Chapter 4: Post Structuralism," Literary Theory: An Introduction (Minneapolis, Minnesota: , 1983).
Jonathan Culler, "Chapter 2," On Deconstruction: Theory And Criticism After Structuralism (Ithaca, New York: Cornell UP, 1982).
John Searle, "What Is A Speech Act?, " Language And Social Context, ed. Pier Paolo Giglioli (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd, 1972).
John Stewart, "A Postmodern Look at Traditional Communication Postulates," Western Journal of Speech Communication, 55 (Fall 1991): 354-379.
Vernon E. Cronen, W. Barnett Pearce, and Linda M. Harris, "The Coordinated Management of Meaning," Human Communication Theory: Comparative Essays, ed. F. E. X. Dance (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1982) 61-89.
E. M. Griffin, "Narrative Paradigm of Walter Fisher," A First Look at Communication (New York: McGraw Hill, 1994) 318-328.
Maurizio Nichetti, Ladri Di Saponette [Videorecording] = The Icicle Thief (Italy 1991).
Recommended
David A. Brenders, "Fallacies in the Coordinated Management of Meaning: A philosophy of language critique of the hierarchical organization of coherent conversation and related theory," Quarterly Journal of Speech 73 (1987): 329-348.
By this point in the course we will probably already have expanded the concept of language beyond "alphabetic languages" to include anything which operates as a sign. Semiotics can be defined in terms of the study of the operation of this generalized concept of the sign. Cultural Semiotics would then be a focus within semiotic on the analysis of signification in cultural artifacts, processes and activities. (Unit begins: April 6)
John Fiske, Introduction To Communication Studies (New York: Routlege, 1990).