Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech

by Edward Sapir

1921. This little book aims to give a certain perspective on the subject of language rather than to assemble facts about it. It has little to say of the ultimate psychological basis of speech and gives only enough of the actual descriptive or historical facts of particular languages to illustrate principles. Its main purpose is to show what I conceive language to be, what is its variability in place and time, and what are its relations to other fundamental human interests-the problem of thought, the nature of the historical process, race, culture, art. Language Define; The Elements of Speech; The Sounds of Language; Form in Language; Grammatical Processes; Form in Language; Grammatical Concepts; Types of Linguistic Structure; Language as a Historical Drift; Language as a Historical Phonetic Law; How Languages Influence Each Other; Language, Race and Culture; and Language and Literature.

Genres: Linguistics, Language, Nonfiction, Anthropology, Philosophy, Science, Psychology

148 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1921

About the author

Edward Sapir was born in Pomerania, Germany, in 1884, and came to the United States at the age of five. He first made his reputation as an expert on languages of the Native American. He taught at the University of Chicago and later at Yale, and was one of the first to explore the relations between language studies and anthropology. He died in 1939. Language, first published in 1921, is his only full-length book for a general audience. He published a great many articles and some verse in periodicals.

Reviews

[Leonardo]

Los trabajos de Sapir y Whorf se comentan en esta clase.

Sapir sostuvo que el lenguaje moldea la forma en que percibimos y organizamos la realidad, porque cada lengua clasifica el mundo de manera distinta. Su idea central era que los hablantes no observan un mundo completamente neutral, sino uno parcialmente estructurado por su lengua.

Sapir y Whorf defendían que el lenguaje influye profundamente en cómo conceptualizamos el mundo, pero la idea popular de que “el lenguaje determina completamente el pensamiento” es una interpretación posterior y exagerada de sus escritos.

[Hyang Magallanes]

Tiene dos Capitulos en medio que son muy cansinos porque son muy insistentes para probar un punto. Pero pues, era 1920, no podemos pedir mucho.

Pero en general, es un libro casi obligatorio para cualquiera interesado en lenguaje y filosofía.

[Consuelo]

Read Lenguaje, Raza y Cultura.

[Milo Giménez]

Un tema extremadamente interesante explicado de la manera más aburrida posible

[Madelyn]

1. Ejemplos confusos y no pertinentes.
2. Léxico muy rebuscado y poco claro.
3. Secuencia de los hechos rebuscada y difícil de seguir.

[Eder]

Obviamente, en español.