Revisiting Whitney: on the social and political dimensions of language studies
Abstract
We aim at reflecting on the ideas of the American linguist William Whitney (1827-1894), considering: (i) a certain role (not) attributed to him as the precursor of modern linguistics; (ii) the socio-political context of production of his ideas; (iii) the connection between language, individual and community, establishing the concept of language as a human/social institution; (iv) the political and institutional role of Whitney’s work, focusing on his conception of education and his contributions to language policy. We assume that revisiting some of Whitney’s works is an important step, on one hand, to relativize genealogical discourses of linguistics that erase or minimize his contributions and, on the other hand, to highlight the way his ideas still dialogue with contemporary linguistic questions. We recognize that by taking a step backwards – to the 19th century writings – we can comprehend the present moment in a broader way, relativizing possible fads or hurried claims of what counts as ‘contemporaneity’ in language studies.
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