American Structuralism

American Structuralism Structuralism background Language is a system of values, which are set by social facts: values of linguistic signs are based on the use and community consensus. A system element has no value but in relation to the entire system, language is a system in which all elements are integral and in which each value results from the simultaneous presence of the other. The notion of value is verified at both meaning in terms of the signifier. For Saussure and the structuralists, signs are interconnected to form the structure of language. Language would be a closed system of structural relationships in which the meanings grammar usage of linguistic elements depend on the set of positions created between all the system elements. The American structuralism must be understood in the context of philosophical and empirical positivism. Indeed, this school is distinguished by a strong psychological emphasis anchored on the assumption of considering the human mind a “tabula rasa” as postulated by empiricism. Thus, only the observable can be considered reliable and intuition or semantic evidence would be misleading and uncertain. Main authors of American structuralism The school of linguistic relativism represented by Franz Boas, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf has been noted for field work, and that begins the systematic collection of direct evidence of exotic minority languages, non Indo- European and unwritten. In addition to using this methodology, these authors have claimed the same scientific value for all languages, contrary to certain deviations from the nineteenth- century European comparativism. Franz Boas (1858-1942) In contrast to those nineteenth- century linguistics were based on Darwin’s ideas to justify the supremacy of certain peoples and languages in an evolution parallel to the natural selection. Boas emphasized the equal value of each type of language regardless of race and cultural level of the people associated. He further argues that there are no real “pure races” and that is no race innately superior to another. From a linguistic point of view, and under the influence of the great nineteenth century German linguistics, as Herder or Humboldt, Boas argued that each language represents an implicit classification of experience and that these classifications are different according to the languages, but this has no effect on the “level” of thought or culture. Edward Sapir (1884 1939) Germany, The focus of Sapir in language is not on the linguistic form itself (e.g. if a language use or not bending), or linguistic meaning as such (e.g. if a language can express or not referent), but rather in the organization of formal meaning which is proper to a particular language, that is how meanings are systematized or grammaticalized (e.g. grammatical categories or patterns of composition). Sapir’s research on the role of meaning in grammatical form and the importance of this in the use of language and the development and transmission of ideas contributed to what is known as the Sapir and Whorf (or linguistic relativity hypothesis). In fact the hypothesis was developed after Sapir’s death by his student Benjamin lee Whorf (1897 1941). Whorf says that each language can process an infinite variety of experiences through a finite set of formal categories (lexical and grammatical) and that the experiences are classified by means of a process of analogy. Languages vary considerably not only in the basic distinction that recognize, but also on the manner in which they are grouped into a coherent system. This means that the system of categories that each language has to its speakers is not universal but particular. Central to the hypothesis formulated by Whorf is that linguistic categories are used as guides in the habitual thought. Thus, if the speakers are able to interpret the experience in terms of a particular category available in his language, automatically will group by analogy other meanings in that category. These categories, in turn, will naturalize speakers tend to view intrinsic experience in relation to the categories they use, even if these are the result of a process of linguistic analogy.