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- Volume 31, Issue 2-3, 2004
Historiographia Linguistica - Volume 31, Issue 2-3, 2004
Volume 31, Issue 2-3, 2004
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Gender-Specific Communication in Graeco-Roman Antiquity: With a Research Bibliography
Author(s): Thorsten Fögenpp.: 199–276 (78)More LessIt has been the main interest of numerous studies in modern linguistics, in particular since the 1980s, to analyse gender-specific language and modes of communication. However, the vast majority of these contributions completely ignores the fact that some ancient authors already raised the problem of gender-specific language and thus made at least a first step towards a diaphasic sketch of the linguistic levels and varieties of both Greek and Latin. The ancient sources on women’s language are admittedly not very ample and, moreover, rather scattered. It is the aim of this contribution to bring together relevant metalinguistic passages and provide a close reading in order to obtain a more differentiated impression of the ancients’ views on gender-specific language and style. It is highlighted that differences are pointed out by ancient authors not only in pragmatic respects, but also for the phonological, morphological and lexico-semantic levels. The focus is on excerpts from Plato, Aristophanes, Roman comedy and rhetorical writings, but further (sometimes indirect) sources are also included. The final part of this contribution considers the evidence on “women’s speech” in Giovanni Boccaccio’s treatise De mulieribus claris.
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Lambert ten Kate and Justus-Georg Schottelius: Theoretical similarities between Dutch and German early modern linguistics
Author(s): Gijsbert Ruttenpp.: 277–296 (20)More LessUntil now the Dutch linguist Lambert ten Kate (1674–1731), famous for his early discovery of Ablaut, has not been honoured with a publication concerning his relationship to German 17th-century linguists. Such an interpretation, however, shows great similarities between ten Kate and especially Justus-Georg Schottelius (1612–1676) with regard to three fundamental theoretical issues: the primacy of the roots, the authority of historical material, and the importance of analogy and regularity. They both integrate these when assuming the existence of a suprahistorical system of roots on the basis of which the rational processes of derivation and composition create language as it is.
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Gab es eine Fachsprachenforschung im 17. Jahrhundert?: Versuch einer Antwort mit besonderer Berücksichtigung von Johann Heinrich Alsted
Author(s): Wolf Peter Kleinpp.: 297–327 (31)More LessThe present article demonstrates, with the example of the polyhistor Johann Heinrich Alsted (1588–1638), that in the 17th century there already was systematic work done on language for special purposes. This kind of research was essentially oriented toward the lexicon and stood in close connection to comparative linguistics undertaken at the time. Methodologically it was closely bound up with the categories of lexicological analysis keeping in view semantic and etymological details of technical terms. At the same time, whenever required, the difference between technical language and common language was analyzed. Additionally, in the presentation of the technical lexicon contemporary techniques such as the doctrine of loci communes and pieces taken from Ramistic logic were employed. At the time, the transfer of Greco-Roman terminology to the various vernaculars did not yet play a major role in these activities. Instead, we must see these efforts in the identification and analysis of the technical lexicon as being part of the projects to construct a universal science.
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Wissenschaftsrhetorik: Johann Christoph Gottscheds Ausführliche Redekunst (1759) als Lehre vom Wissenstransfer
Author(s): Kersten Sven Rothpp.: 329–344 (16)More LessThis paper assumes that the key to the understanding of the works of the early Enlightenment philosopher Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700–1766) does not lie in his poetological works, which were preferably read and criticized by his contemporaries, but rather, besides his grammatological works, in his writings on oratory, in particular in the Ausführliche Redekunst of 1759. This paper interprets these works as an attempt to save the art of rhetoric which was on the verge of extinction and to bring it forth into the ‘Critical Age’ (‘kritisches Zeitalter’), and, furthermore, to establish a concept of rational scientific oratory which would stand in strict contrast to the ancient topica on the one hand and to the contemporary courtly ‘Complimentierkunst’ on the other. Therefore, the main point of focus becomes the paradox of a claim for truth and effectiveness, problematized by the timeless quandary of knowledge transfer. Accordingly, the paper attempts to demonstrate this problem’s actuality and thus the value of Gottsched’s concepts of rhetoric for the modern production of (rather popular) scientific texts.
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Language as the Key to the Epistemological Labyrinth: Turgot’s Changing View of Human Perception
Author(s): Avi S. Lifschitzpp.: 345–365 (21)More LessA belief in a firm correspondence between objects, ideas, and their representation in language pervaded the works of Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727–1781) in 1750. This conviction is particularly manifest in Turgot’s sharp critique of Berkeley’s philosophical system and his remarks on Maupertuis’s reconstruction of the origin of language. During the 1750s Turgot’s epistemological views underwent a change, apparent in two of his contributions to the Encyclopédie: the entries Existence and Étymologie (1756). These articles included a reassessment of Berkeleyan immaterialism, facing an ultimate crisis of definition and representation. A similar development may be traced in contemporary works by Condillac and Diderot. Turgot’s Encyclopédie entries also envisaged a new science, an archeology of the human mind aided by the examination of linguistic development and change. This entailed the scientific verification of conjectures in any historical account of ideas, turning etymological and psychological inquiries into what Turgot termed ‘experimental metaphysics’.
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The ‘Genius of Language’: Transformations of a Concept in the History of Linguistics
Author(s): Christiane Schlapspp.: 367–388 (22)More LessThe so-called ‘genius of language’ may be regarded as one of the most influential, and versatile, metalinguistic metaphors used to describe vernacular languages from the 17th century onwards. Over the centuries, philosophers, grammarians, translators and language critics etc. wrote of the ‘genius of language’ in a wide range of text types and with reference to various linguistic positions so that a set of rather diverse types of the concept was created. This paper traces three prominent stages in the development of the ‘genius of language’ argument and, by identifying some of the most frequent types as they evolved in the context of the various linguistic discourses, endeavours to show the major transformations of the concept. While early on, discussion of the stylistic and grammatical type of the ‘genius of language’ concentrates on surface features in the languages considered, during the middle of the 18th century, the ‘genius of language’ is relocated to the semantic, interior part of language. With the 19th-century notion of an organological ‘genius of language’, the former static concept is personified and recast in a dynamic form until, taken to its nationalistic extremes, the ‘genius of language’ argument finally ceases to be of any epistemological and scientific value.
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Richard Böckh (1824–1907): Sprachenstatistik zwischen Nationalitätsprinzip und Nationalstaat
Author(s): Torsten Leuschnerpp.: 389–421 (33)More LessThe present article discusses politically relevant aspects of the work of the Prussian statistician Richard Böckh (1824–1907), a renowned specialist on language statistics, nationality policy and general demographics in his day. Two of his publications are focused on: the article “Über die statistische Bedeutung der Volksprache” (‘On the Statistical Significance of the National Tongue’, 1866), in which Böckh expresses the view that nationality is defined exclusively by virtue of language, and the book Der Deutschen Volkszahl und Sprachgebiet in den europäischen Staaten (‘The Number and Areal Extension of Germans in the States of Europe’, 1869), in which he proposes a catalogue of linguistic human rights. The purpose of the present article is to analyse the public reception of Böckh’s works in two contexts: the Franco-German war of 1870/71, when the German public interpreted Böckh’s ideas as justifying the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, and the debates over the Official Language question in Prussia in 1873–1876. Finally, two characteristic aspects of Böckh’s activities in his later years are highlighted: his active support of Auslandsdeutschtum (German minorities outside the Reich), and his protest at the misuse of statistics for anti-semitic propaganda around 1880. The latter issue in particular, though courageous, proves just how much the formerly popular language-based concept of nationality was already on the defensive ten years after the foundation of the German Reich in 1871.
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Wincenty Lutosławski (1863–1954): Philosophe, helléniste ou fondateur sous-estimé de la stylométrie?
Author(s): Adam Pawłowski and Artur Pacewiczpp.: 423–447 (25)More LessStylometry is a branch of linguistics concerned with the quantitative description of stylistic proprieties of texts. In certain cases, it allows one to solve problems of authorship of disputed texts and to discover the probable chronology of works by a given author. An historical overview of stylometry demonstrates that there was no single scholar whose work could be considered decisive in its development. At the same time, perusal of studies devoted to the history of stylometry shows that their authors treat the available material selectively, preferring some scholars while wholly disregarding others. Wincenty Lutosławski (1863–1954) is a good example of a scholar forgotten (or underestimated) by contemporary researchers. However, it was he who coined the term ‘stylometry’ already at the end of the 19th century and defined the principles of this ‘new science’. This paper presents and discusses the following issues : the importance of chronology in the interpretation of Platonic philosophy, the definition and objectives of stylometry, the most important platonic chronologies, a description and evaluation of Lutosławski’s contribution to the development of stylometric methodology, and the origins of stylometry. Finally, we shall try to (re)determine Lutosławski’s position in the history of the language sciences.
Volumes & issues
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Volume 50 (2023)
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Volume 49 (2022)
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Volume 48 (2021)
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Volume 47 (2020)
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Volume 46 (2019)
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Volume 45 (2018)
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Volume 44 (2017)
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Volume 43 (2016)
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Volume 42 (2015)
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Volume 41 (2014)
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Volume 40 (2013)
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Volume 39 (2012)
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Volume 38 (2011)
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Volume 37 (2010)
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Volume 36 (2009)
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Volume 35 (2008)
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Volume 34 (2007)
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Volume 33 (2006)
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Volume 32 (2005)
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Volume 31 (2004)
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Volume 30 (2003)
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Volume 29 (2002)
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Volume 28 (2001)
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Volume 27 (2000)
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Volume 26 (1999)
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Volume 25 (1998)
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Volume 24 (1997)
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Volume 23 (1996)
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Volume 22 (1995)
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Volume 21 (1994)
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Volume 20 (1993)
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Volume 19 (1992)
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Volume 18 (1991)
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Volume 17 (1990)
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Volume 16 (1989)
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Volume 15 (1988)
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Volume 14 (1987)
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Volume 13 (1986)
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Volume 12 (1985)
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Volume 11 (1984)
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Volume 10 (1983)
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Volume 9 (1982)
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Volume 8 (1981)
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Volume 7 (1980)
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Volume 6 (1979)
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Volume 5 (1978)
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Volume 4 (1977)
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Volume 3 (1976)
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Volume 2 (1975)
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Volume 1 (1974)
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