Does the autonomy of linguistics rest on the autonomy of syntax?
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Michael Silverstein✝
Abstract
The presenting semiotic fact of language is its thoroughly indexical character, its contextualization as the mediating text or message in interactional context, necessitating the methods of the interpretative social and behavioral sciences. Farthest removed from this as an object of study is its semiotic character as theorized in the modern structural-functional tradition of linguistic theory that, since Saussure, has transformed from trying to explain the autonomy of diachronic phonetic change to modeling a synchronic system of mutually internally distributed categories of syntactic form. A critique of several approaches to bridging the chasm between these two semiotic poles of language re-situates the “autonomy of syntax” thesis as a small, though vital part of what linguistic theory needs to be about.
Abstract
The presenting semiotic fact of language is its thoroughly indexical character, its contextualization as the mediating text or message in interactional context, necessitating the methods of the interpretative social and behavioral sciences. Farthest removed from this as an object of study is its semiotic character as theorized in the modern structural-functional tradition of linguistic theory that, since Saussure, has transformed from trying to explain the autonomy of diachronic phonetic change to modeling a synchronic system of mutually internally distributed categories of syntactic form. A critique of several approaches to bridging the chasm between these two semiotic poles of language re-situates the “autonomy of syntax” thesis as a small, though vital part of what linguistic theory needs to be about.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- On how to pragmaticize understanding 1
- Does the autonomy of linguistics rest on the autonomy of syntax? 15
- Classifying illocutionary acts, or, a tale of Theory and Praxis 39
- Spatial indexicalities and spatial pragmatics 53
- Pragmatics as a facilitator for child syntax development 77
- Pragmatics, linguistic competence, and Conversation Analysis 101
- Pragmatics and dialogue phenomena 113
- Roots of the wakimae aspect of linguistic politeness 121
- “Laura! Laura! Wake up” 139
- Knowledge, discourse and domination 151
- The public face of language 197
- The compleat angle on pragmatics 213
- Tabula Gratulatoria 219
- Index 229
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- On how to pragmaticize understanding 1
- Does the autonomy of linguistics rest on the autonomy of syntax? 15
- Classifying illocutionary acts, or, a tale of Theory and Praxis 39
- Spatial indexicalities and spatial pragmatics 53
- Pragmatics as a facilitator for child syntax development 77
- Pragmatics, linguistic competence, and Conversation Analysis 101
- Pragmatics and dialogue phenomena 113
- Roots of the wakimae aspect of linguistic politeness 121
- “Laura! Laura! Wake up” 139
- Knowledge, discourse and domination 151
- The public face of language 197
- The compleat angle on pragmatics 213
- Tabula Gratulatoria 219
- Index 229
