Notes on JRFirth.docx

1、Notes on JRFirth J.R. Firth1Although John Rupert Firth helped to found linguistics in Great Britain, he published no major theoretical book. Despite vacillations and contradictions, Firths position remained fairly consistent. In Palmers estimate, Firth alone pioneered linguistics in Britain, develop

2、ed his own original brand. Firth held the first chair in general linguistics in England, which was established in the University of London in 1944. He remained largely unknown to linguistics in America, aside from Pike. Firth did espouse some ideas of Bloomfield, but mainly due to the then intellect

3、ual climate. Sometimes Firth showed solidarity with American linguists, but other times depicted their work as narrow or misguided.Unlike other theorists, Firth salutes the importance of religion in the history of Western linguistics alongside science, like the Summer Institute of Linguistics that t

4、rains missionaries. Firth alludes to holy books portraying language as the invention of a god. But he recognizes religious and linguistic expansion as a supplement to more material interests. After all, world languages are built on blood, money.Being an Orientalist, Firth also salutes the dawn of la

5、nguage study in India and the discovery of Sanskrit. Admittedly, the ancient Hindu grammarians and later the Arabs were not interested in vernacular. Their descendants all believe in arbitrary linguistic standards and purity, and adopt a static, mainly prescriptive view which saw linguistic evolutio

6、n as degeneration. Still, Firth thinks the great languages of older civilizations were well preserved by grammarians. The trouble arose later when Latin grammar was misapplied to other languages along with Greek logic and metaphysics. Today, the modern technician finds traditional grammatical catego

7、ries logically and philosophically pretentious, outdated and a nuisance in practice. Traditional logic shows no understanding of language or rational use of words and sentences in everyday life. In modern times, Firth sees another grave flaw in language study. In traditional school grammars, the rul

8、es are based on puritan taboos. The Pure-English crusade leads to the artificiality of “good English”, preventing “schools and colleges from turning out pupils who can put their ideas into words with simplicity”. This grim situation provides the backdrop to Firths appeal for more disciplined modern

9、linguistic studies, including grammar. Grammars and language books will be “X-rayed” and the results will be stated with as little feeling as possible to encourage open and natural use of local speech and literature, not just the Received English of the elite.Like Sweet and Malinowski, Firth prefers

10、 the analysis of living languages. He sees the quest for the origins of language as largely futile. Instead of getting further away from the habits we can observe, we should look for the origins of language in the way we learn and use it. Firth is shocked to realize that we English have yet to make

11、adequate provision for the study of linguistic problems. By showing that linguistics is a more important social science, we may secure an endowment for an Institute of Linguistic Research to address educational and social problems. He proclaims that the use of the English language today is the great

12、est social force in the whole world, and we should lead the way in training young people towards a critical understanding of language behaviour. Firth believes that English is the only practicable world language and can be taught in a normalized form as a second language, and easier to learn than Fr

13、ench or German. To deal with the theory of language, the Western scholar must de-Europeanize himself. Firth hails the enormous scope in the application of general linguistics for the development of under-developed countries. Here, the general linguist must offer help and guidance. Firth lauds the we

14、ighty contributions of English linguists, grammarians, rhetoricians, phoneticians, and orthographers. Firth is uncertain about how broad his discipline should be. As a social science, linguistics is ahead of the others in theoretical formulation and technique of statement; its findings are basic and

15、 must be carefully studied. Linguistics should seek alliance with the biological and social sciences and develop proper relationships with all sciences. Firth is gratified that linguistics in Europe has become an autonomous discipline and no longer play second fiddle to others. Psychology emphasizes

16、 incommunicable experience, and logic has given us bad grammar and taken the heart out of language. Logic cannot form an integral part of linguistics. Firth avows that linguistics cannot be seen in proper perspective without a philosophy of language. Linguistics has not been developed to deal with l

17、anguage in general terms. We need a linguistic theory applicable to particular problems instead of a theory for general description. Another peril is the dualism between mind and body dating from Descartes and upheld by Swiss. Firth takes mind and body together as being constrained in specific condi

18、tions. A normal linguistic behaviour as a whole is a meaningful effort for maintaining proper patterns of life. Our bodies are the primary field of experience and expression. Speech situates within a network of relations between people, things, and events. It is a bodily habit pointing not only to t

19、he brain function, but also to localized speech centres plus our body movements. Some hope for a purely mechanical explanation of all thought in terms of its motor accompaniment. John B. Watson vowed there is no such thing as thinking, only “inner speech” .However, Firth argues that whereas instinct

20、ive habits require no learning, all human habits, like speech, involve habit formatting processes. Firth portrays words as stimulus-response acts, and spoken sentences as successions of stimuli. “If intelligibility depended on a narrow reflex connection between speaking and hearing, we should all sp

21、eak exactly alike”. Yet no two people pronounce exactly alike using the same style; familiar sounds are constantly being made in partly new contexts. He therefore adopted a fresh dualism. We shouldnt embrace materialism to avoid foolish mentalism, as Bloomfield did. Even though he applauds Malinowsk

22、is warning: “all mental states” are “outside the realm of science”; and “It is dangerous to imagine that language “mirrors the mental reality”. He hates to see language as an instrument to mind. He wants to regard language as a mode of action, a way of doing things and getting things done, of social

23、 interaction. Speech is a pattern of group behaviour, verbalizations of the experiential contexts. Due to contextual elimination, what you say only calls for a limited range of responses. Conversation is narrowly conditioned by culture and by small speech groups. Firth thus sees the most universal f

24、orms of language behaviour in routine service and social ritual. He proposes the term tact which determines the use of fitting forms of language of a social situation; and the term set for a general pattern of behaviour belonging to a social group or type. The language behaviour in the actual situat

25、ion is a manifestation of the sets, which tune themselves automatically to context of situation. Due to the close association between personality and social structure, Firth favours sociology over individual psychology. Linguistics is mainly interested in persons and personalities as active particip

26、ators in the maintenance of cultural values, rather than as separate natural entities. The human being is therefore to be regarded not as an individual, but as a person acting in his many social roles. The relevant forms of language favours social responsibility and stability. Firth distinguished th

27、e terms idiolect from monolect which is limited to one person. Rejecting Saussures division between “langue” and “parole”, Firth hopes for a synthesis of contemporary theories. Polysystemic hypotheses may render the highly complex patterns of language clearer within the plurality of systems. Structu

28、ralists work forms only one part of structural linguistics which aims at employing all technical resources systematically for multiple statements of meaning. In contrast, structuralism emphasizes segmentation and phonemics and excludes meaning. It seeks a linguistic mathematics which will not be wor

29、kable. Structure is syntagmatic and horizontal, whereas system is paradigmatic and vertical. Since systems furnish values for elements of structure and acquire ordering from structure, the exponents in systems are always consistent (exponent- the actual shape of words or parts of words). Elements of

30、 structure share a mutual expectancy in an order which is not merely a sequence. Expectancy not only exists between elements of discourse, but also between words and the surrounding living space. Linguistics is a group of techniques for handling language. For empirical analysis, descriptive linguist

31、ics must be practical; its abstractions, inventions must be able to handle speech. Systematics is schematic constructs intended to cover a field of phenomena; they have no ontological existence; they are just language turned back on itself. Since we all take part and rely on experience to make abstr

32、actions, linguistics is reflexive and introvert. Each scholar makes his own selection and grouping of facts determined by his attitudes, theories, and experience of reality, and his statements must be referred to personal and social conditions. Firth insists that there are no scientific facts until

33、they are stated in scientifically within a system of related statements. “The highest state would be that all facility is already theory”. Firth distinguishes three methods of stating linguistic facts: (1) language under description (exemplified by texts), (2) language of description (technical terms, notation, etc.), and (3) language of translati