Els Elffers University of Amsterdam Introduction The Dutch Signific movement (ca. 1900–1960) is not widely known, although in the last few decades it has attracted considerable scholarly interest. This has resulted in some valuable publications (see the bibliography). The movement’s…
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Racialization, language science, and nineteenth century anthropometrics
Margaret Thomas Boston College Introduction In May 2019, the Executive Committee of the Linguistic Society of America approved of a ‘Statement on Race’ (https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/lsa-statement-race), which puts on record the society’s opposition to racialization in the study of language, and in…
Lénine, Saussure et la théorie des hiéroglyphes
Patrick Sériot Universités de Lausanne et de Saint-Pétersbourg Introduction La réception positive de Saussure est bien connue, elle est au fondement des manuels de linguistique générale dans la plupart des pays. Curieusement, on s’attarde beaucoup moins sur sa réception négative,…
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Johann Christoph Adelung, a forerunner of modern bilingual lexicography
Jacques François University of Caen-Normandy http://www.interlingua.fr 1. A forgotten German Enlightenment philosopher Johann Christoph Adelung (1732–1806) was one of the main promoters of the Volksaufklärung (popular Enlightenment) in the vein of Christian Wolff, eager to synthetize what the broad cultivated…
Galant grammarians: Donneau de Visé’s Mercure galant
Doyle Calhoun Yale University (Department of French) What was the Mercure galant and why should it interest historians of linguistics? Founded in 1672 by Jean Donneau de Visé (1638–1710) — journalist and royal historiographer under Louis XIV — the bestselling…
What is Syriac and what is Aramaic according to Syriac grammarians (8th-16th cent.)
Margherita Farina Histoire des Théories Linguistiques (Paris) What is Aramaic? In modern linguistic terms, we can say that Aramaic is a linguistic group, composed by dialectal varieties defined on a geographical, chronological and socio-cultural basis. For example, we speak about…
Being critical: Elements of Critical Theory in the work of critical discourse analysts
Diego Romeo University of Edinburgh The constellation of linguistic research broadly labelled as Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) can hardly be understood as the homogeneous product of a monolithic theory or methodology. The variety of approaches employed by critical discourse analysts…
Der Siegener Diskursmonitor – ein Onlineportal zur strategischen Kommunikation
Friedemann Vogel, Fabian Deus & Clemens Knobloch Universität Siegen 1. Gegenstand und Ziel des Diskursmonitors Der “Diskursmonitor” (www.diskursmonitor.de) ist ein disziplinenübergreifendes, webbasiertes Informations- und Dokumentationsportal zur strategischen Kommunikation in öffentlichen Diskursen.[1] Das Portal richtet sich nicht nur an die Fachcommunity…
Has the LSA Been a Generativist-Dominated Organisation?
Frederick J. Newmeyer University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and University of Washington There are two stories about how the field of linguistics (at least in the United States) reacted sociologically to the advent of generative grammar. I call…
Une bonne langue pour chanter ? Réflexions sur les caractéristiques phonétiques des langues et sur le chant baroque
Claudia Schweitzer Histoire des Théories Linguistiques, CNRS, Université de Paris Dans sa Lettre sur la musique française (1753 : 91), Rousseau déclare « qu’il n’y a ni mesure ni mélodie dans la Musique Française, parce que la langue n’en est pas…
