8
CHAPTER 2
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
2.1 Introduction
Good scholarship requires that any potentially useful procedure, approach, or technique be used in the attempt to understand the complexities of the Hebrew text as
well as possible. If certain linguistic models are proving themselves to be beneficial in the research of other languages, full consideration should be given to the implementation
of these models with their accompanying insights in ongoing research in biblical Hebrew. Previous eras of scholarship should also be considered, even if the same type of
analytical tools of current research were not employed. Notice that this is a textual study, which is the reason for the extensive text-in-
context examples. It is recommended that all the examples be read and processed in each section. This is the best way for the textual examples to make their own case. It is also
recommended that constant reference be made to the biblical Hebrew text from which the examples are taken. However, if the reader’s time does not permit systematic study of all
the examples, each section includes a summary of the most pertinent examples.
9
2.2 Historical Overview of Descriptive Linguistics
Since the end of the nineteenth century, there have been many significant developments in the history of Linguistics. These developments have shaped the
conceptual basis for the way language is studied in what is commonly referred to as Descriptive Linguistics. Since certain aspects of this conceptual basis underlie the present
study, they’ll be briefly discussed here. The study of language obviously did not begin in the nineteenth century, but this is an adequate time-frame for tracing the most relevant
concepts for this study. Every era of scientific inquiry is shaped by general intellectual trends and
movements. Eighteenth and early nineteenth century linguistic studies were greatly influenced by Romanticism: “the history-centred outlook of nineteenth-century linguistic
scientists was related to the general state of science at the time” Sampson 1980, 14. This diachronic outlook gave rise to the emphasis on historical reconstruction and a very
developmental, law-governed view of language. This view was also deeply influenced by Darwinian principles of evolution and natural selection, to the extent that some linguists
“saw the Indo-European language-family as having reached a dominant position linguistically, as Man has become dominant zoologically” Sampson 1980, 19. In the
study of language in general, this led to a perception of the superiority of European languages and the linguistic structures they employ.
With increased exposure to the diversity of the world’s languages, serious questions arose concerning the validity of the diachronic model. Impetus for this shift
came from greater awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity. Ferdinand de
10 Saussure’s Cours de linguistique générale is representative of the shift from this
diachronic perspective to a focus on synchronic studies. Saussure, commenting on the priority of synchronic over diachronic analyses, stated that “[t]he first thing that strikes us
when we study the facts of language is that their succession in time does not exist insofar as the speaker is concerned” Saussure 1916, 81. Saussure’s interest was in how
language is actually used by speakers at a given period in time. Linguistics was also heavily impacted by ethnography in the early twentieth
century. In American Linguistics, in particular, the work of researchers such as Edward Sapir 1921 and Franz Boas 1911 was foundational.
In contrast to the diachronic model which had assumed that all languages were developing toward some ideal
structure, the “characteristic of the school founded by Boas was its relativism. There was no ideal type of language, to which actual languages approximated more or less closely”
Sampson 1980, 59. As a result, one of the hallmarks of American Linguistics is the principle that every language is to be studied and described in its own right.
Another fundamental characteristic of Descriptive Linguistics as it developed during the twentieth century is its focus on working from the data. As Leonard
Bloomfield stated, “[t]he only useful generalizations about language are inductive generalizations” Bloomfield 1933, 20. Within this perspective, linguistic terms are
defined in relation to each other in order to derive the linguistic system from the language being studied. As Lyons comments:
each language is regarded as a system of relations more precisely, a set of interrelated systems, the elements of which—sounds, words, etc.—have
no validity independently of the relations of equivalence and contrast which hold between them. Lyons 1969, 50
11 In the middle of the twentieth century, a theoretical revolution took place that has
had an immense impact on the field of Linguistics. As Robins comments: What is probably the most radical and important change in direction in
descriptive linguistics and in linguistic theory that has taken place in recent years may be located in 1957, when Chomsky’s Syntactic
Structures was published, inaugurating the transformational-generative phase of linguistics…. Robins 1968, 226
Under the influence of Chomsky’s publications and teaching, the transformational-generative school developed in directions not shared by others in the
field of descriptive linguistics. One of the basic conceptual distinctions in Chomsky’s view is between competence and performance. In essence, this distinction represents the
two main schools that developed. Chomsky’s transformational-generative school focused on competence, i.e., the more abstract, mental conception of language, whereas those not
involved in transformational-generative approaches typically focused more on performance, i.e., actual speech.
Additionally, it was characteristic of Chomsky’s school to emphasize grammar at the level of the sentence, seen in the phrase structure rules and transformations. The
sentence is certainly a valid level of linguistic analysis, but it has typically been out of the approaches whose focus has been on actual speech and data that the more functional,
language-in-use models of discourse analysis have developed. In fact, Brown and Yule’s brief definition of discourse analysis is simply that it is the study of “language in use”
Brown and Yule 1983, 1, highlighting the communicative functions of language. In contrast to what was happening in the Chomskyan school, the field research of
Pike, Grimes, and Longacre constrained them to develop models of linguistic analysis
12 that were descriptive in the sense of being inductive and focused on data obtained in
actual language-use situations Pike 1967; Grimes 1974; Longacre 1996. Their models and theoretical concepts were also developed with a fundamental awareness of the
context-sensitive nature of language. Pike’s Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior in particular emphasizes the interrelated nature of
language and human behavior in general in the model known as Tagmemics. In the shadow of Chomsky’s influence, there was significant conceptual
development in other schools of Linguistics that was laying an important theoretical foundation for later models of language use. The work of Pike, Grimes, and Longacre
may not be the primary theoretical predecessor to later models, but their work is representative of certain conceptual trends that would later converge with broader
currents of discourse analysis carried out within a functional approach to language. One of the common denominators in the work of Pike, Grimes, and Longacre is
that their theoretical approaches were developed as they themselves were directly involved in the study and analysis of a wide variety of non-Indoeuropean languages.
Their models were developed with a vivid awareness of language use in context. Also, during the mid- to late-twentieth century, there was an increasing awareness in general
Linguistics of the social dimension of Language. Labov’s Sociolinguistic Patterns 1972 and Hymes’ Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach 1974 are two
of the seminal publications in the field of Sociolinguistics, which is now one of the main sub-fields within general Linguistics, with its particular concerns, methods and
objectives. The impact of Sociolinguistic studies has been such that many areas of
13 linguistic study have developed a greater sensitivity to the many dimensions of language
use. Schools of Linguistics which are functional in approach are also the result of
increased attention to how language is used. Halliday 1973, Foley and Van Valin 1984, and Givón 2001 are some of the main theoreticians in Functional Linguistics.
There are, of course, many nuances in the individual approaches, but the theme unifying the various functional approaches is the belief that
language must be studied in relation to its role in human communication. Language is thus viewed as a system of human communication, rather
than as an infinite set of structural descriptions of sentences. Foley and Van Valin 1984, 7
Not only has the field of Linguistics been impacted by functional, language-use models, but there has also been significant development of cognitive approaches. As
mentioned above, the important distinction between performance and competence gave rise to approaches and schools which focused respectively on language use and the
mental aspects of language. It is not surprising, then, that in addition to the development of functional approaches which tend to focus on performance and language use, a variety
of cognitive approaches have developed which are more directly concerned with matters of competence defined as the human capacity to use and interpret language. Sperber and
Wilson 1995, Lambrecht 1994, Fauconnier 1985, Lakoff and Johnson 1980, and Jackendoff 1994 are principal scholars promoting cognitive models of linguistic study.
In summary, the attempt to adequately account for the human linguistic capacity drives linguistic theoreticians and analysts to keep refining their models and methods.
14 This brief sketch has highlighted only the most rudimentary concepts which underlie the
analysis implemented in the present study: 1 Descriptive, with a conceptual basis shaped by Tagmemics
2 Functional in its commitment to the study of language use in context; and 3 Cognitive in its attention to the interpretive processes involved in
understanding communication.
2.3 Historical Overview of the Study of Biblical Hebrew
Kategori