| |
The STUDIA UNIVERSITATIS BABEŞ-BOLYAI issue article summary
The summary of the selected article appears at the bottom of the page. In order to get back to the contents of the issue this article belongs to you have to access the link from the title. In order to see all the articles of the archive which have as author/co-author one of the authors mentioned below, you have to access the link from the author's name. |
|
| |
Abstract: This article is meant to sketch a comparison between two important linguistic theories, concerning their way of approaching the methodological aspect of language study. We developed our research starting from a fragment of the book Knowledge of Language. Its Nature, Origin and Use. The author of this book, Noam Chomsky, initiated the transformational-generative direction in linguistics. We tried to compare his own and his disciples’ point of view about the adequate methods for the study of language with the one elaborated within the integral linguistics, the theory created by Eugeniu Coseriu. The article is organised in four sections, referring to the aspects discussed by Chomsky in the fragment we mentioned. In each of the sections Chomsky’s opinion about the problem considered is presented, then it is analysed from an integral point of view. The place of linguistics among the other sciences is analysed in the first part of our paper. The debate is concerned with placing the study of language in the domain of natural sciences or in the one of cultural sciences. The second section treats about the way in which language is conceived as an object of study within the two theories, especially about the role of syntax and semantics in linguistic research. The truth or falsity character of the sentences elaborated about language and its importance in finding the proper place of linguistics as a science represent the topics of the third section. The last part of our work is concerned with a very important method used in the generative research, the one of formulating hypotheses which are then verified through confronting them with real facts of language. From an integral point of view, this method is considered inadequate for the study of language because it is specific to the natural sciences, which use it for discovering laws about phisical objects. In our article, we are concerned especially with the theoretical fundamentals involved in the two theories, the space provided for examples being limited. Another work of ours, part of the doctorate programme, treats about more methodological aspects and contains more details about the ones discussed here. |
|
