Linguistics: Reconstructing the Discipline through Universals Research

这个项目是一个现代语言学的历史调查，包括人类学和认知传统的纪律。语言学是惊人的异质性，包括几乎涉及人类生活的各个方面的子领域-从人类谱系学的研究到二十世纪计算机科学的发展。因此，对这一学科的全面介绍很少，本项目将有助于填补这一空白。随着当代社会正在努力解决谁应该有权研究和管理人类多样性的问题，迫切需要了解语言学核心的特殊方法和一般方法之间的紧张关系，而不是只关注其中一个。资金将支持档案访问，会议参与和翻译服务，它将导致一本书，学术论文，教材和社区发展计划的生产，将阐明语言学作为一门学科的利害关系和范围。相应地，该项目将为实践语言学家提供历史见解，这些见解可能会为保护语言多样性的政策提供信息。20世纪60年代出现了两个突出的，但相互孤立的，致力于语言共性的研究项目。一个是经验主义的，与约瑟夫·格林伯格有关;另一个是逻辑主义的，以诺姆·乔姆斯基为首。利用斯坦福大学和马萨诸塞州理工学院的档案材料，本项目将全面描述这两个项目的特点。它将使用它们通过引用，合作和随后的参与模式来重建现代语言学的最大包容性历史。通过语言共性的棱镜，它将调查现代语言学历史上的主要流派和发展，包括结构主义，机器翻译，类型学和转换生成语法。通过最近的科学和技术研究工作，关注数据的性质和历史性，研究实践，科学交流和知识的组织，该项目将促进对现代学科形成过程的理解，并随着时间的推移捍卫其社会意义。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

This project is a historical investigation of modern linguistics, embracing anthropological and cognitive traditions in the discipline. Linguistics is strikingly heterogeneous, consisting of sub-fields that touch on almost every aspect of human life—from the study of human genealogy to the development of twentieth-century computer science. Accordingly, there are few comprehensive accounts of the discipline, a gap that this project will help to fill. As contemporary society is grappling with questions about who should have the authority to research and manage human diversity, there is an urgent need to understand the tension between particular and general approaches at the heart of linguistics, rather than focusing exclusively on one or the other. Funding will support archival visits, conference participation, and translation services, and it will lead to the production of a book, scholarly papers, teaching materials, and community development initiatives that will shed light on the stakes and scope of linguistics as a discipline. Correspondingly, the project will give practicing linguists historical insights that may inform policies around the preservation of linguistic diversity. Two prominent, yet mutually isolated, research programs dedicated to language universals emerged during the 1960s. One was empirical, and associated with Joseph Greenberg; the other was logical, with Noam Chomsky at the fore. Drawing on archival materials at Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this project will characterize these two programs in full. It will use them to reconstruct a maximally inclusive history of modern linguistics via patterns of citation, collaboration, and subsequent engagement. Through the prism of language universals, it will survey major schools and developments in the history of modern linguistics including structuralism, machine translation, typology, and Transformational-Generative Grammar. Informed by recent work in science and technology studies concerned with the nature and historicity of data, research praxis, scientific communication, and the organization of knowledge, the project will promote understanding of the processes by which modern disciplines have taken shape and defended their societal relevance over time.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.