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Linguistics Table of Contents 1 Computational Linguistics 2 Semantics 3 Sociolinguistics 4 Syntax 5 Theoretical Linguistics 6 Discourse Analysis 7 News 8 Bookstores 2 Semantics
The argument from "Two Dogmas" supplies the "missing" argument
in the case for the inderminancy of translation. The argument
plays a role in the indeterminacy thesis because Quine's reason
for thinking that independent controls do not exist in
translation takes its force from the argument that there are no
linguistically neutral meanings. The absence of linguistically
neutral meanings is a prerequiste for the indeterminacy of
translation.
5 Theoretical Linguistics
"It seems clear that knowledge of grammatical rules is an
essential component of the interactive competence that speakers
must have to interact and cooperate with others. Thus if we can
show that individuals interacting through linguistic signs are
effective in cooperating with others in the conduct of their
affairs, we have prima facie evidence for the existince of shared
grammatical structure. One need not as the nineteenth-century
normative grammarians did, and many modern educators continue to
do, attempt to judge an individual's basic linguistic ability in
reference to an a priori set of grammatical standards." --
Gumperz,
 Discourse Strategies, p. 19.
In Harris and Taylor's chapter on Plato's "Cratylus" in Landmarks in Linguistic Thought, Cratylus takes the position that the form and meaning of a word are inextricably related. For Cratylus, "everything," including Hermogenes, "has a right name of its own, which comes by nature" even though some people, like Hermogenes, are named incorrectly (Cratylus 383, as quoted in Harris and Taylor, p. 1).
6 Discourse Analysis
Throughout the essay, I will argue a hard line: the exact meaning of a speaker's
utterance in a contextualized exchange is often indeterminate. Within the
context of the analysis of the teacher-pupil exchange, I will argue for
the superiority of interactional linguistics over speech act theory because
it reduces the indeterminacy and yields a more principled interpretation,
especially when the interactional approach is complemented by elements from
other sociologically influenced methods, namely the ethnography of communication
and Labovian sociolinguistics.
This essay seeks to take Wittgenstein's influence on
discourse analysis a step further by using his writings as the theoretical foundation for an
approach to analyzing discourse that is distinct from speech act theory,
which
stems from the analytic tradition in philosophy, and to suggest that a
Wittgenstein-inspired approach may actually be closer in spirit and content to
that of an unlikely candidate whose views, in contrast to the analytic school,
harbor a distinctly Continental flavor which has come to influence critical
theory: Mikhail Bakhtin.
Ethnomethodology is "the study of
common social knowledge, in particular as it concerns the
understanding of others and the varieties of circumstance in
which it can take place." -- Simon Blackburn,
 The
Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, p. 126. For more on discourse analysis, see the discourse analysis menu.
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