summary empat linguistic theory

EDWARD SAPIR
FRANZ BOAS
Sauusure had obtained a model for his linguistic work from a different field. Similarly the most important influence on Edward linguistic career was contact with his fellow anthropologist and linguist, franz boas. Boas was self-taught in linguistic. His first interest in his university years had been the physical science and it was primarily an interest in geoghraphy, with its anthropological implications, that took him to baffinland. There he found, contrary to the current teaching that it is the cultural tradition of peoples and not their environmental situation which is most influential in forming a society. He also appreciated that any description of culture made in ignorance of the language and literature of the people would likely be misleading and superficial.
Boas has worked out his own scheme for the orderly description of languages, and he outlined it in the introduction to the handbook of American Indian languages. This work called for three basic divisions in the descriptions:
1. The phonetic of the language
2. The meaning categories expressed in the languages
3. The grammatical processes of combination and modification by which these meanings must be expressed

PHONETIC
The number of sound which may be produced is unlimited. In our own language, we select only a limited number of all the possible sounds for instance, some sounds. Like p are produced by the closing and opening of the lips. Others, like the t by the tongue into contact with the anterior portion of the palate, and producing a closure at that point and by suddenly expelling the air. On the other hand, a sound might be produced by placing the tip of the tongue between the lips making a closure in that manner, and by expelling the air suddenly. This sound would to out ear partake of the character both of the t and p. while it would correspond to neither of these. A comparison of well-known European languages like German, French, and English of even of the various dialects of the languages. Like those of Scouth and of the various English dialect.
Unlike sauusure, Boas intended to focus on la parole. For him language is only “articulate speech: that is ….communication by means of groups of sounds produced by the articulating organs”. This sound can be accurately described for any language. He believed, and he thought that reports by some analysis that the speakers of primitive languages are sloppy in their pronunciations tell us about the analysis than the languages analyzed. Boas said that in fact, we can often determine the nationality of the analyst “from the system selected by him for rendering the sounds” which he will tend to hear terms of his own language sounds.
GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES
Besides having its own peculiar phonetic system, Boas held that each language has its own grammatical system. Of all possible phonetic uses only some, those with which meanings are associated. The selection of meanings is as varied and autonomous as the phonetic individualities:
From experiences from Indian languages Boas concluded that we cannot impose the form of our language upon other language, but must look to see what kinds of forms they use and how they express relations among ideas. The kinds of classifications we find, he believed, are largely due to the peculiar interest of each culture. In additions, there translations are useless, since the translation process suggest that the language and the culture consist of isolated items. Languages all show both content forms and relational forms that have no meaning but relate those that do.
NOUNS
Inmost IE languages nouns are classified according to the categories of gender modified by forms expressing singularity and plurality and appear in synthetic in combinations in various cases. According to Boas, “none of these apparently fundamental aspects of the noun are necessary elements of articulate speech.” He pointed out that suppression of gender does not hamper clarity that it is not the same thing as sex and that order classifications (or none at all) are possible.
PRONOUNS
The IE classification of pronoun is quite arbitrary, Boas showed since it does not exhaust the logical possibilities inherent in the notion of person. American Indian languages vary in the number and nature of selections they make from among these possibilities and they often add other obligatory classifications besides. For example: Kwakiutl and others add the concept of visibility and invisibility, and Chinook adds present and past.
Boas concluded his introduction by saying that any description of a language should concentrate first on what “according to the morphology of the language should be expressed” and not just on what the language might say. This is an implicit critic of the traditional grammarians who imposed who IE scheme upon other languages. They found “nouns” and all the other parts of speech because the language in questions could express the same idea. But they did not inform us of what this language, because of its own morphological construction had to differentiate.
This is the same point that the sauusure approached in the distinctions we have labeled “signification”, “content” and “value”. The mistake of the traditional grammarians was to deal with all the languages in terms of significations. The sole positive fact of language ignoring the different in content which is a result of the linguistic value, which in turn is an expression of the structural relations of a term in its system.
These distinctions can also cut across some other misconceptions that have resulted from structural work. Even in de saussure’s own writings. One misconception is that languages are incomparable because they are systems of signs in which each terms entire definition is to be sought and its structural relations to the other co-existent terms of the system. The other misconception is seen in the so-called Sapir hypothesis. One expression of which is hinted at in the passages quoted from Boas. This view advanced in 1836 by Wilhelm in his ober die suggest that language introduces a principle of relativity. Because languages, being unique structures, either help or hinder their speakers in making certain observations or in perceiving certain relations.
EDWARD SAPIR
After his stimulating the encounter with Boas gave up his work in classical philology and following the methods developed by Boas, started on the analysis of Takelma, an American Indian language spoken in the Northwest. His own reputation as a master of many languages, both from a theoretical as well as a practical aspect, quickly grew. During his career, his published articles on linguistic aspects of the usual European languages, many of the classical langaugaes, Chinese and Gweabo an African language. But his principal work was with American Indian languages and the titles of his articles refer to Kwakiuth, Chinook, Yana, etc.
SAPIR’S LANGUAGE
On the preface of the language sapir made it clear that the book was not to be technical introduction to the description of language, but he hoped, a way of communicating some new insight into the nature of language for the general reader. He said that although he mentioned psychological factors involved in the language use, he had not intended to go very deeply into the psychological bases.
LANGUAGE DEFINED
The introductory chapter of language contains the definitions of the languages that at first seems to be nothing more than a summary of the traditional view: “language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.”
From these two aspect to language—its indispensability for thought and the fact that the outward form of the language alone remains constant, Sapir drew the conclusions that:
1. Language form can and should be studied for it own sake
2. Meaning must be considered, at least as the highest latent potential, at each step in the formal analysis since the whole purpose of language is to communicate meanings.
The formal analysis therefore, requires identification of the element that is the vehicles of the communications.
THE ELEMENT OF SPEECH
Chapter 2 of languages discusses the most fundamental units of language, radicals, grammatical elements, word and sentences. Sapir did not use the term “morpheme” but his illustrations of radicals and grammatical elements indicate that they have the same function. By the element of speech he did not mean the traditional part of speech. He considered later in the book and rejects. Neither was he discussing the phonemes of the language, since an “element of speech” as Sapir used the term, must like the morpheme have a referential functions and not merely the differential function of the sounds the language. A subject discussed in chapter 3 of this book.
LANGAUGE COMPARED
The comparison of the languages, dialects of the same language of different historical stages of the same language will involve the same kinds of methods and criteria. It is the data that are accidentally different. Any language description is implicitly a comparison of that language with other languages that would respond in the same or in different fashion to the descriptive categories employed, we can therefore decide on the criteria by which we can classify languages and contrast their types in terms of the basic elements of linguistic form already discussed.
In erecting a linguistic typology the first problem that Sapir raised was that of the point of view. Too often, he thought others have tried to use too simple a principle of classification or have based their work on two examples. As a result, he found some terms that were currently being used to described language types to be too simplistic.
Languages can thus be distinguished into four types:
1. Those that express concepts of types 1,2 and four which can be cailed simple pure relational languages
2. Those that express concepts type I, II, and IV which can be called complex pure relational languages
3. Those that express concepts of types I and III called simple mixed relational languages, and
4. Those that express concepts of types I, II, III called complex mixed relational languages
This group can be subdivided according to the formal types, for example agglutinative, fusion, and symbolic subtypes, according to the prevailing method of modifying the radical element.
Using the basic classifications and the additional qualifications, three main criteria emerge:
1. The conceptual type
2. The technique the formal expression
The degree of fusion between radical and affix or modification