Linguistics and its methodology. Preliminaries

elective courses

Introduction.

Introductory information about linguistics as a scientific discipline. Science: its definition.

Theories in science vs. methodology / methodologies; general scientific methodology and methodologies of particular scientific disciplines.

Fundamental presuppositions concerning language (basic information on the accepted tenets of theory of language).

Fundamental compartments of linguistics.

Methodology: general methodology of action; methodology of scientific research.

Principles of scientific investigation. The superordinate principle: the principle of radical criticism.

The superordinate principles in linguistics: proportionalism; negativism.

Specific principles of scientific investigation:

(a) pragmatic; (b) immanent: in the processes of: (b.i) conceptualisation, (b.ii) proposition-selection, (b.iii) assertion.

Quality and quantity of information. Proof and explanation.

Linguistic positive and negative illustrations of the functioning of the immanent principles

I. Introduction.

1. Introductory information about linguistics as a scientific discipline. Science: its definition.

Linguistics sensu stricto vs. other studies concerned with language and speech. The distinction: natural language code vs. speech. Linguistics vs. use of language; linguistics vs. knowledge of language. Metalanguage; metatext. A sociological evaluation of linguistics.

Theoretical research (the interface between philosophy and science of languages) vs. research of the empirical data.

A concise historical overview of linguistics (basically, pertaining to theoretical research).

The contention between psychocentrism, expressive logocentrism and epistemic logocentrism as the leading theoretical propositions concerning language as a whole.

2. Theories in science vs. methodology / methodologies; (general) scientific methodology and methodologies of scientific disciplines.

Fundamentals of the theory of knowledge and the theory of science, including a general classification of studies. Their Weltanschauung background.

The necessity of general presuppositions in scientific investigations.

3. Fundamental presuppositions concerning language (basic information on the accepted tenets of theory of language).

The essence of language; its place in the Reality. Language / langue and speech / parole. Sentence, utterance, someone’s saying something. Locution, illocution, perlocution. Competence, performance. The first and the second levels of „articulation”. The basis of language vs. its peripheries. ‘Saying that _’, ‘saying: _’; other utterances. Unit of language; syntactic projection of the fundamental stock of the units. Lexical and operational units (the nature of the former as contrastive syllabic segments / CSS). Inflection vs. word-formation („derivation”). Asyntactic units. Semantic vs. pragmatic properties of expressions: (a) properties of elements of a code; (b) properties of performance (the problem of tropes).

The second level of articulation. Problems of learnability and redundance. Phonology, phonetics; graphematics.

4. Fundamental compartments of linguistics. Linguistics in its relation to the four-fold nature of scientific studies: absence of nomological studies in linguistics.

Particular properties of linguistic studies. Their classifications: general-theoretical and specific-item-oriented.

Internal (synchronic) linguistics vs. external linguistics. Descriptive and comparative linguistics.

External linguistics: synchronic and diachronic. Stylistics. Diversity of languages: genealogical and typological. Etymology. Ethnolinguistics. Changeability of languages. Changes: „phonetic”; „analogical”; others. Their regularities vs. irregularities.

II. Methodology: general methodology of action; methodology of scientific research.

Principles of scientific investigation. The superordinate principle: the principle of radical criticism.

The superordinate principles in linguistics: proportionalism; negativism.

Specific principles of scientific investigation: (a) pragmatic; (b) immanent: in the processes of: (b.i) conceptualization, (b.ii) proposition-selection, (b.iii) assertion.

Quality and quantity of information. Proof and explanation.

Linguistic positive and negative illustrations of the functioning of the immanent principles.

K. Ajdukiewicz, Zarys logiki. Warszawa 1960.

W. Marciszewski (red.), Mała encyklopedia logiki. Wrocław 1970.

J. Kmita, Wykłady z logiki i metodologii nauk. Dla studentów wydziałów humanistycznych, Warszawa 1973.

T. Pawłowski, Pojęcia i metody współczesnej humanistyki, Wrocław 1977.

T. Pawłowski, Tworzenie pojęć i definiowanie w naukach humanistycznych, Warszawa 1978.

Studia z metodologii i filozofii językoznawstwa, pod red. P. Stalmaszczyka, np. zeszyt 3: Od zdania do aktów mowy – rozważania lingwistyczne i filozoficzne, Łódź 2015.

A. Bogusławski, Science as linguistic activity, linguistics as scientific activity. Warszawa 1998.

A. Heinz, Dzieje językoznawstwa w zarysie, Warszawa 1978.

A. Bogusławski, E. Drzazgowska, Język w refleksji teoretycznej. Przekroje historyczne, Warszawa 2016.

A. Bogusławski, Lingwistyczna teoria mowy. Preliminaria. Warszawa 2021 [Obszerne streszczenie w języku angielskim]

Student acquires essential knowledge of the conceptual apparatus of linguistics and of research procedures, both general and specific in the discipline;

S/he is endowed with the ability to undertake some linguistic analyses; this is made possible due to a vast exemplification offered in the lecture.

A test of questions, either open or optional, including analytic tasks. A revisory hearing possible. Evaluation in terms of grades / marks. The admissible number of cases of absence: 2.