IDEOLOGY AND LINGUISTIC THEORY: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE DEEP STRUCTURE DEBATES.Geoffrey J. Huck and John A. Goldsmith. London: Routledge, 1995. Pp. 186. $25.00 cloth.

1997 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-402
Author(s):  
Susanne Carroll

The authors begin their book with the assertion, “Many linguists today assume that theirs is an empirical and deductive science, and that scientific progress in the domain of their research is possible” (p. 1). They then proceed in an interesting, well-written, and informative case study of the evolution of generative grammar to cast doubt on the veracity of this assertion. The central focus is the nature of the debates among researchers developing what came to be known as generative semantics and interpretive semantics. The book attempts to detail who influenced whom and who was interested in what. More particularly, Huck and Goldsmith ask to what extent data, analyses, and argumentation were critical to the debates. The central question is: To what extent were generativist scholars moved one way or the other by rational considerations? The answer, not surprisingly, is: Not much. The real story is one about personalities, not about truth and reason. They attempt to explain why paying particular attention to the personalities involved, the role of the linguistic institutions where the participants worked, and the research agendas of each is important.

Perichoresis ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-117
Author(s):  
Lina Toth

Abstract How does an emerging community of faith develop its identity in the context of a semi-hostile and increasingly nationalistic culture? The story of the early years of Lithuanian-speaking Baptists provides an interesting and informative case study. This article focusses on the formative stage of the Lithuanian-speaking Baptist movement during the interwar period of the independent Republic of Lithuania (1918-1940). It considers four main factors which contributed to the formation of Lithuanian-speaking Baptist identity: different ethnic and cultural groupings amongst Baptists in Lithuania; the role of the global Baptist family in providing both material and ideological support; the community’s relationship with the Lithuanian state; and their stance towards the dominant religious context, i.e. the Lithuanian Catholic Church. Out of this dynamic emerges a picture of the particular ways in which these congregations, and especially their leadership, navigated their understanding of loyalty to the Kingdom of God in relation to their belonging to a particular national grouping.


Chomsky’s Remarks on Nominalization (RoN), published in 1970, has had an immense impact on syntax, and far reaching ramifications for phonology, semantics, and morphology. Among other major factors, RoN[R1] propelled the emergence of theoretical morphology as a distinct subfield within generative grammar. The original agenda set up by RoN, as augmented by supplemental work on argument structure, on the typology of derived nominals, and on the role of morphological complexity, continue to inform major contemporary theoretical approaches to morphosyntax in general, and to the study of derived nominals, in particular. This volume brings together contributions which address these issues from different perspectives and which, importantly, focus on a broad range of typologically diverse languages (Archi, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hiaki, Icelandic, Japanese, Jingpo, Korean, Mayan, Mẽbengokre, Navajo, Polish, Romanian, Spanish, Turkish, Udmurt). The volume also contains an introduction by the editors as well as a short contribution by Noam Chomsky.<153>


1983 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rhianon Allen ◽  
Marilyn Shatz

ABSTRACTChildren aged 1; 4 to 1; 6 were asked common what/-questions under four different contextual conditions. The presence of a gesture was found to have a significant effect on the nonverbal components of children's responses, while linguistic sophistication and type of question asked affected vocal responses, but did not produce any consistent effects on nonverbal responses. Results are interpreted as suggesting that, at this early age, gestural information is processed relatively independently of speech. These findings cast doubt on the likelihood that maternal gestures facilitate early language responding. Case-study observations of the children's interactional behaviour with mothers suggest instead that prior experience with verbal routines was a factor in the children's experimental vocal performance.


1987 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Worrall ◽  
Ann W. Stockman

2015 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catriona M. M. Macdonald

The career and posthumous reputation of Andrew Lang (1844–1912) call into question Scottish historiographical conventions of the era following the death of Sir Walter Scott which foreground the apparent triumph of scientific methods over Romance and the professionalisation of the discipline within a university setting. Taking issue with the premise of notions relating to the Strange Death of Scottish History in the mid-nineteenth century, it is proposed that perceptions of Scottish historiographical exceptionalism in a European context and presumptions of Scottish inferiorism stand in need of re-assessment. By offering alternative readings of the reformation, by uncoupling unionism from whiggism, by reaffirming the role of Romance in ‘serious’ Scottish history, and by disrupting distinctions between whig and Jacobite, the historical works and the surviving personal papers of Andrew Lang cast doubt on many conventional grand narratives and the paradigms conventionally used to make sense of Scottish historiography.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Robert M. Anderson ◽  
Amy M. Lambert

The island marble butterfly (Euchloe ausonides insulanus), thought to be extinct throughout the 20th century until re-discovered on a single remote island in Puget Sound in 1998, has become the focus of a concerted protection effort to prevent its extinction. However, efforts to “restore” island marble habitat conflict with efforts to “restore” the prairie ecosystem where it lives, because of the butterfly’s use of a non-native “weedy” host plant. Through a case study of the island marble project, we examine the practice of ecological restoration as the enactment of particular norms that define which species are understood to belong in the place being restored. We contextualize this case study within ongoing debates over the value of “native” species, indicative of deep-seated uncertainties and anxieties about the role of human intervention to alter or manage landscapes and ecosystems, in the time commonly described as the “Anthropocene.” We interpret the question of “what plants and animals belong in a particular place?” as not a question of scientific truth, but a value-laden construct of environmental management in practice, and we argue for deeper reflexivity on the part of environmental scientists and managers about the social values that inform ecological restoration.


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