SummaryThis paper offers a historiographie account of the fate of B. F. Skinner’s famous 1957 bookVerbal Behaviorand N. Chomsky’s more-famous review of it that appeared inLanguagein 1959. For the period from the late 1950s, four reasons are identified to explain the repression of Skinner’s behaviorist approach to language with respect to Chomsky an generativism: (i) cognitive taste; (ii) the legacy of the 1960s; (iii) the power of essentializing humanism, and (iv) the discipline of linguistics as it conceived of itself through its textual tradition. The paper argues, furthermore, that changes in the same four categories have provided a more positive climate for behaviorism in the late 1980s. As a result of these recent changes, the paper proposes that Skinner’s place in the historical record of linguistics be reconsidered, along with that of V. N. Vološinov whose approach to language is favorably compared to Skinner’s.
Evolutionary linguistics - an approach to language study that takes into account our origins and development as a species - has rapidly developed in recent years. Informed by the latest findings in evolutionary theory, this book sets language within the context of human biology and development, taking ideas from fields such as psychology, neurology, biology, anthropology, genetics and cognitive science. By factoring an evolutionary and developmental perspective into the theoretical framework, the author replaces old questions - such as 'what is language?' - with new questions, such as 'how do living beings become 'languaging' living beings?' Linguistics and Evolution offers readers the first rethinking of an introductory approach to linguistics since Leonard Bloomfield's 1933 Language. It will be of significant interest to advanced students and researchers in all subfields of linguistics, and the related fields of biology, anthropology, cognitive science and psychology.
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