There are thousands of human languages, each one unique. For the last five hundred years, people have argued about how important langauge differences are. This book traces that history. It shows how the same arguments have come up again and again, with language diversity being seen either as of no importance or as all-important, depending on broader views of human life and knowledge. A more adequate attempt to engage with language specificities emerged in the twentieth century, in the work of Franz Boas and his students. Since the 1950s, this work has been largely dismissed as yet another claim that language differences are all-important, particularly by cognitive scientists and philosophers, who see such differences as peripheral. This book seeks to correct this misrepresentation and point to the new directions taken by the Boasians, direction being rediscovered in the most recent work in psychology, linguistics, and anthropology.
"... a must-read for anyone concerned with the language-thought interface." Asifa Majid, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
There are thousands of human languages, each one unique. For the last five hundred years, people have argued about how important language differences are. This book traces that history. It shows how the same arguments have come up again and again, with language diversity being seen either as of no importance or as all-important, depending on broader views of human life and knowledge. A more adequate attempt to engage with language specificities emerged in the twentieth century, in the work of Franz Boas and his students. Since the 1950s, this work has been largely dismissed as yet another claim that language differences are all-important, particularly by cognitive scientists and philosophers, who see such differences as peripheral. This book seeks to correct this misrepresentation and point to the new directions taken by the Boasians, directions being rediscovered in the most recent work in psychology, linguistics, and anthropology.
Industry Reviews
'... a must-read for anyone concerned with the language-thought interface.' Asifa Majid, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
'This volume has an intriguing, not wholly transparent title. It is a stimulating account of three distinct topics, the first belonging to linguistic theory (what is linguistic relativity?), the second to the history of linguistics (how is/was language diversity treated in linguistic thought?), and the third to the history of philosophy (in what way does/did a philosophical perspective contribute to clarifying these questions?).' Giulio Lepschy, Modern Language Review
'I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone interested in the relation between language and thought, linguistic diversity and to everyone who is seriously concerned with the development of central issues in the field of linguistics.' Katerina Stathi, Languages in Contrast
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