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The Politics of Linguistics
Linguists in the past two centuries have, for the most part, approached language as an autonomous entity; their practice has been to study languages without considering the culture, society, or beliefs of the speakers. "Autonomous linguistics" has been attacked from both the left and the right. Critics on the left (in particular Marxists) argue that the separation of language from its societal context reinforces the status quo by downplaying the role of language as an instrument of ideology and social control. Critics on the right object to the value-free analyses of individual languages required by the autonomous approach and to the idea that all languages merit equal attention.
The Politics of Linguistics surveys two centuries of debate over autonomy. The discussion includes the political implications of the birth of the modern field of linguistics in the Romantic movement, the views of Marx and Engels on language, the attack on structural linguistics by both Hitler and Stalin, the role of Christian missionary groups and the military in building the field in the United States, and the relation between Noam Chomsky's linguistic theories and his political views.
Frederick J. Newmeyer demonstrates that external political demonstrates that external political currents have often influenced the relative popularity of the autonomous approach to language. He argues that autonomous linguistics, far from being inconsistent with progressive political goals, can be creatively applied to the fulfillment of such goals.
The Politics of Linguistics surveys two centuries of debate over autonomy. The discussion includes the political implications of the birth of the modern field of linguistics in the Romantic movement, the views of Marx and Engels on language, the attack on structural linguistics by both Hitler and Stalin, the role of Christian missionary groups and the military in building the field in the United States, and the relation between Noam Chomsky's linguistic theories and his political views.
Frederick J. Newmeyer demonstrates that external political demonstrates that external political currents have often influenced the relative popularity of the autonomous approach to language. He argues that autonomous linguistics, far from being inconsistent with progressive political goals, can be creatively applied to the fulfillment of such goals.
180 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 20, 2010
Amazingly well written and fluid, especially for a book on this topic.
March 26, 2020
This book won't make you a little linguist. Rather, it is written for understanding what linguistics is used for and what are its concerns and what is its history. Newmeyer is surely an important linguist, and in that book he tries to tell how linguistics has been shaped since 1900s (it has a short but effective history). This book is a great start if you don't know about the field at all, but still one may have difficulty understanding some points, which is completely okey. I didn't know some approaches to the field, because i just learned, as a linguistics student, the current accepted approach to linguistics, which is highly scientific and theoretical. So i still learned new things even if the book is kinda for beginning. Newmeyer also shows some correlations between politics and linguistics, which is very fancy to read. Having interest in sociology, biology or technology, one may realize linguistics can be used to understand and enhance their field, so one can enjoy discovering a new area to study. Highly recommend.
December 29, 2010
Although language is always used in a social context, the science of sociolinguistics is separate from the science of linguistics proper, or autonomous linguistics, as Newmeyer calls it. Sociolinguistics can answer the question, which dialects of English are more or less socially prestigious in which situations, but each dialect has its own grammar, which autonomous linguistics describes, avoiding value judgments: the "We're going a-huntin'" of Appalachian English, or the "Why my n*ggaz ain't get that cake" of African American English. This book is about how this came to be. I didn't realize before that the United States military funded much linguistic research in the 1950s, in hope of producing natural language interfaces to computer-based command-and-control systems; Newmeyer quotes somebody who says that Chomsky's linguistics is no more tainted by the association with the Pentagon than Marx's economics is by the association with the Reading Room of the British Museum, a product of British imperialism. Nicholas Marr gets a mention, and so does Stalin's attack on his Japhetic theory of language.
November 16, 2025
If you don't know any linguists personally, what you need to know is that we are an incredibly dramatic, strongly-opinionated, endearingly-petty bunch of nerds/professionals.
Newmeyer details this, though not explicitly. You'll see what I mean, though. The history of the field is filled with a lot of drama because linguists feel very strongly about things and have a lot of polarizing discussions.
Chapter 1 details the study of language. What do linguists care about? What is language? As a field, we can't politely agree on the second one. A lot of linguistics is asking questions we still can't agree about answers to.
Chapter 2 details autonomous linguistics, that language is its own system with its own structure.
Chapter 3 gets into structuralism, which states that language is a system made up of units, and a defining factor is looking at how these units connect to each other. I am not very smart when it comes to this school of linguistic thought, but I still value it.
Chapter 4 is all about Noam Chomsky, the most influential and dramatic of all linguists. I wrote a rap about him and he responded to it. It made my whole life. I disagree with him as a linguist but respect him as a scholar, that's the best way to put things. He changed the field forever, whether you agree with his theories of universal grammar or others is a separate matter.
Chapter 5 discusses the opposition to autonomous linguistics, and the Marr drama gets mentioned. How did I go for 13 years of being passionate about this field without hearing about the Marr drama?! There is a first time for everything.
Chapter 6 is the conclusion and gets into linguistic theory controversies like how if you're left-leaning but a generativist this is the wrong way to approach your political and linguistic philosophy, among other juicy tidbits.
"Moreover, the uniqueness of language is matched by its pervasiveness. There is hardly a significant facet of our lives in which it does not play a role."
"One critic recently asserted that Chomsky's theories "can only be described as Fascist in character. Another denounced his supporters for "worm[ing] their way into power in a number of linguistics departments" by using a technique that was "exactly the same as that of the Fascists and Communists in seizing political power.""
"The extraordinary and traumatic impact of Syntactic Structures by Noam Chomsky in 1957 can hardly be appreciated by one who did not live through this upheaval." So writes the psychologist Howard Maclay in an overview of American Linguistics since the 1930s."
Newmeyer details this, though not explicitly. You'll see what I mean, though. The history of the field is filled with a lot of drama because linguists feel very strongly about things and have a lot of polarizing discussions.
Chapter 1 details the study of language. What do linguists care about? What is language? As a field, we can't politely agree on the second one. A lot of linguistics is asking questions we still can't agree about answers to.
Chapter 2 details autonomous linguistics, that language is its own system with its own structure.
Chapter 3 gets into structuralism, which states that language is a system made up of units, and a defining factor is looking at how these units connect to each other. I am not very smart when it comes to this school of linguistic thought, but I still value it.
Chapter 4 is all about Noam Chomsky, the most influential and dramatic of all linguists. I wrote a rap about him and he responded to it. It made my whole life. I disagree with him as a linguist but respect him as a scholar, that's the best way to put things. He changed the field forever, whether you agree with his theories of universal grammar or others is a separate matter.
Chapter 5 discusses the opposition to autonomous linguistics, and the Marr drama gets mentioned. How did I go for 13 years of being passionate about this field without hearing about the Marr drama?! There is a first time for everything.
Chapter 6 is the conclusion and gets into linguistic theory controversies like how if you're left-leaning but a generativist this is the wrong way to approach your political and linguistic philosophy, among other juicy tidbits.
"Moreover, the uniqueness of language is matched by its pervasiveness. There is hardly a significant facet of our lives in which it does not play a role."
"One critic recently asserted that Chomsky's theories "can only be described as Fascist in character. Another denounced his supporters for "worm[ing] their way into power in a number of linguistics departments" by using a technique that was "exactly the same as that of the Fascists and Communists in seizing political power.""
"The extraordinary and traumatic impact of Syntactic Structures by Noam Chomsky in 1957 can hardly be appreciated by one who did not live through this upheaval." So writes the psychologist Howard Maclay in an overview of American Linguistics since the 1930s."
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews