Abstract
With large corpora, one can identify a second turn in the automation- mathematisation of linguistics in the early 1990s, brought about through drastic technological changes, the appearance of micro-computers and generalised use of the Internet. Large corpora have modified the linguists’s practical approaches towards data and mark a real renewal of empiricism in linguistics. However, this upheaval, which impacts many other domains of knowledge and society in general, does not justify that some linguists calling it a new discipline, “a new linguistics” and this for legitimisation purposes. In this chapter, three points will be examined: the British sources of corpus linguistics; the debates between the Chomskyans and the British empiricists on the use of corpora; and the new linguistic objects which appeared at the crossroads of the empiricist approach and automation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Henry Sweet (1845–1912) was a phonetician, one of the pioneering leaders of the International Phonetic Association and of the Reform Movement. This movement, created at the end of the nineteenth century by the major phoneticians of the period, aimed at reforming language teaching from three main principles: primacy of speech; centrality of text; language teaching by spoken language (see Howatt 2004, Chapter 14 and here Chap. 3, Sect. 3.1).
- 3.
Besides, some linguists belonged to both groups, such as MAK Halliday, one of Firth’s pupils and a pioneering member of the CLRU.
- 4.
After his PhD on syntax at University College of London, Quirk spent two years in the USA (1951–1952) where he met several Neo-Bloomfieldians.
- 5.
- 6.
In Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein (1961 [1953] I, 2, p.116) refers to language functions as tools. He gives the example of a primitive language constituted only by a few words, “blocks”, “pillars”, “slabs” and “beams”, which could be sufficient to serve for communication for two builders. Firth was directly inspired by this idea when he promoted a restricted language allowing pilots to communicate with each other in Japanese (see his example 2 below).
- 7.
See Léon (2019).
- 8.
“Human language is not autonomous; it is not an activity sphere per se. To function as a mean of communication, it should be situated within a given world and among social habits. There is no possible human language without hyperlanguage’… A Québécois (or a Brazilian) indeed uses the same expression as a Frenchman (or a Portuguese) when he speaks of a ’big tree’. Yet, from many textual indices, one notices that the expressions have different meanings: grammatical language has not changed, it is the world that has changed, producing a change in the hyperlanguage” (Auroux, 1997, p.114–115).
- 9.
TAUM means “Traduction Automatique à l’Université de Montréal”.
- 10.
In the edition of Sapir’s complete works, Swiggers (2008) points out Sapir’s involvement in international auxiliary languages. Sapir dedicated four articles to that topic between 1925 and 1933.
- 11.
“Philosophy of linguistics is the philosophy of science as applied to linguistics. This differentiates it sharply from the philosophy of language, traditionally concerned with matters of meaning and reference.” (Scholz, Barbara C., Pelletier, Francis Jeffry and Pullum, Geoffrey K., ’Philosophy of Linguistics’, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta ed., http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/linguistics/.
- 12.
See Léon 2010b.
- 13.
For a critical study of corpus linguistics, see Cori and David (2008).
Bibliography
Aarts, J., and W. Meijs, eds. 1984. Corpus Linguistics: Recent Developments in the Use of Computer Corpora in English Language Research. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Auroux, S. 1997. La réalité de l’hyperlangue. Langages 127: 110–121.
———. 1998. La raison le langage et les normes. Paris: PUF.
Brown, K., and V. Law, eds. 2002. Linguistics in Britain: Personal Histories. Oxford: Publications of the Philological Society.
Cerquiglini, B. 1998. Le Trésor de la langue française. Modèles Linguistiques 19 (2): 31–36.
Chevalier, J.-C. 2006. Combats pour la linguistique, de Martinet à Kristeva. Lyon: ENS Éditions.
Chomsky, N. 1955. The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory. MIT.
———. 1957. Syntactic Structures. London: Mouton.
———. 1962. Explanatory models in Linguistic. In Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, ed. E. Nagel, P. Suppes, and A. Tarski, 528–550. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
———. 1964. The Logical Basis of Linguistic Theory. In Proceedings of the 9th International Congress of Linguists 1962, ed. H. Lunt, 914–978. The Hague: Mouton.
———. 2002. On Nature and Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chomsky, N., and G.A. Miller. 1963. Introduction to the Formal Analysis of Natural Languages. In Handbook of Mathematical Psychology 2, ed. D. Luce, R. Bush, and E. Galanter, 269–321. New York: Addison-Wiley.
Cori, M., and S. David. 2008. Les corpus fondent-ils une nouvelle linguistique ? Langages 171: 111–129.
Firth, J.R. 1930. Speech. London: Benn’s Sixpenny Library.
———. 1957e [1951]. Modes of Meaning. Papers in Linguistics (1934-1951), 190-215. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 1957d [1950a]. Personality and language in society. Papers in Linguistics (1934–1951), 177–189. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 1968a [1955]. Structural Linguistics. In Selected papers of J.R. Firth (1952–59), ed. F.R. Palmer, 35–52. London/Harlow: Longmans, Green and Co Ltd.
———. 1968b [1956]. Descriptive linguistics and the study of English. In: Selected papers of J.R. Firth (1952–59), ed. F.R. Palmer, 96–113. London/Harlow: Longmans, Green and Co Ltd.
———. 1968c [1957]. A synopsis of linguistic theory 1930–55. In Selected papers of J.R. Firth (1952–59), ed. F.R. Palmer, 168–205. London/Harlow: Longmans, Green and Co Ltd.
Fuchs, C., and B. Victorri. 1996. La polysémie, construction dynamique du sens. Paris: Hermès.
Girault, S., and B. Victorri. 2009. Linguistiques de corpus et mathématiques du continu. Histoire Épistémologie Langage 31 (1): 147–170.
Habert, B. 2005. Instruments et ressources électroniques pour le français. Paris: Ophrys.
Habert, B., A. Nazarenko, and A. Salem. 1997. Les linguistiques de corpus. Armand Colin. Paris: Masson.
Halliday, M.A.K. 1966. Lexis as a Linguistic Level. In In memory of J.R. Firth, ed. C.E. Bazell, J.C. Catford, M.A.K. Halliday, and R.H. Robins, 148–162. London: Longmans.
———. 2002. The Collected Works of MAK Halliday 1, ed. Jonathan Webster. London/New York: Continuum.
Harris, Z.S. 1951a. Methods in Structural Linguistics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
———. 1951b. Review of Mandelbaum ed. 1949 Selected writings of Edward Sapir in language, culture and personality. Language 27: 288–333.
———. 1962b. A Language for International Cooperation. In Preventing World War III: Some Proposals, ed. Q. Wright et al., 299–309. New York: Simon & Schuster.
———. 1988. Language and Information. New York: Columbia University Press.
———. 1991. A Theory of Language and Information: A mathematical approach. Oxford/New York: Clarendon Press.
Howatt, A.P.R. 2004 [1984]. History of English Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Joseph, J.E. 2003. Rethinking Linguistic Creativity. In Rethinking Linguistics, ed. H.G. Davis and T. Taylor, 121–150. London/New York: Routledge Curzon.
Kertész, A., and C. Rákosi. 2012. Data and Evidence in Linguistics. A plausible Argumentation Model. Cambridge: CUP.
Kucera, H., and W.N. Francis. 1967. Computational Analysis of Present Day American English. Providence: Brown University Press.
Leech, G. 1992. Corpora and theories of linguistic performance. In Directions in Corpus Linguistics, ed. J. Svartvik. Proceedings of Nobel Symposium, 4–8 August 1991. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp 105–122.
Léon, J. 2007b. From Linguistic events and restricted languages to registers. Firthian legacy and Corpus Linguistics. The Bulletin of the Henry Sweet Society for the History of Linguistic Ideas 49: 5–26.
———. 2007c. Meaning by collocation. The Firthian filiation of corpus linguistics. In History of Linguistics 2005, ed. D. Kibbee, 404–415. Amsterdam: Benjamins (SiHoLS 112).
———. 2008b. Aux sources de la ’corpus linguistics’: Firth et la London School. In Construction des faits en linguistique: la place des corpus, ed. M. Cori, S. David, and J. Léon. Langages 171: 12–33
———. 2008c. Empirical traditions of computer-based methods. Firth’s restricted languages and Harris’ sublanguages. Beiträge zur Geschichte der. Sprachwissenschaft 18 (2): 259–274.
———. 2010b. British Empiricism and Transformational Grammar: A Current Debate. In Chomskyan (R)evolutions, ed. D. Kibbee, 421–442. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
———. 2013a. Quand usage et prescription sont fondés sur la description systématique de l’usage: Randolph Quirk et le “Survey of English usage”. In Bon usage et variation sociolinguistique: Perspectives diachroniques et traditions nationales, ed. W. Ayres-Bennett and M. Seijido, 161–170. Lyon: ENS Éditions.
———. 2019. Les sources britanniques de l’ethnographie de la communication et de l’analyse de conversation. Bronislaw Malinowski et John Rupert Firth. Linha d’Agua 32 (1): 23–38.
Malinowski, B. 1923. The problem of meaning in primitive languages. In The Meaning of Meaning, ed. C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards. London: Kegan Paul Supplement 1.
———. 1935. Coral Gardens and their Magic, The Language of Magic and Gardening 2. London: Allen & Unwin.
Pereira, F. 2002. Formal grammar and Information Theory: Together again? In The Legacy of Zellig Harris, ed. E. Nevin Bruce, 13–32. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Pullum, G.K. 2007. Ungrammaticality, rarity, and corpus use. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 3: 33–47.
Quirk, R. 1960. Towards a description of English usage. Transactions of the Philological Society 59: 40–61.
Quirk, R., and J. Mulholland. 1964. Complex prepositions and related sequences. English Studies 45: 148–160.
Quirk, R., and J. Svartvik. 1966. Investigating linguistic acceptability. The Hague: Mouton.
Riemer, N. 2009. Grammaticality as evidence and as prediction in a Galilean linguistics. Language Sciences 31: 612–633.
Sampson, G. 2001. Empirical Linguistics. London/New York: Continuum.
Schütze, C.T. 1996. The Empirical Base of Linguistics: Grammaticality Judgments and Linguistic Methodology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sinclair, J. McH. 1965. When is a Poem like a Sunset? A Review of English Literature 6 (2): 76–91.
———. 1991. Corpus, concordance, collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sinclair, J. McH, S. Jones, R. Daley, and R. Krishnamurthy, eds. 2004. English collocation studies: The OSTI Report. London/New York: Continuum.
Sweet, H. 1884. Practical Study of Language. Transactions of the Philological Society 4: 577–599.
Swiggers, P. 2008. Introduction: The Problem of an International Auxiliary Language. In The Collected Works of Edward Sapir, ed. P. Swiggers, 245–250. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Wittgenstein, L. 1961 [1953]. Tractatus logico-philosophicus suivi de Investigations philosophiques. French Translation Pierre Klossowski. Paris: Gallimard.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Léon, J. (2021). The Empiricist Turn of Automation- Mathematisation: Large Corpora, Restricted Languages and Sublanguages. In: Automating Linguistics. History of Computing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70642-5_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70642-5_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-70641-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-70642-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)