American

structuralism
descriptivism
 American structuralism, or descriptivism (from the English
"descriptive") is a linguistic direction for which it is a formal
approach to the study of language facts (connectivity of units,
their place in speech in relation to other units, etc.) characterized.
 development of linguistic
science in the USA:

the spread of philosophies

01 neopositivism 02 pragmatism and behaviourism

problems related to the study of

native languages American Indians diverse ethnic groups
03 04
 Franz Boas
He proved the unsuitability of the methods
and principles developed on the material of
Indo-European languages for the study of
Indian languages.
Boas's ideas were developed in two different
directions by his students

Edward Sapir and

Leonard Bloomfield
 Descriptive linguistics was not a homogeneous
movement. In it, two schools were clearly
distinguished

Ann Arbor
the Yale school School
 ● Yale school linguists focused their attention on the
description of the external formal elements of the
language structure, avoiding everything that has any
relation to logic, psychology and other disciplines.

● They did not develop a general theory of

language, but only methods of synchronous
description of language.
 prolinguistics

microlinguistics

metalinguistics
 Microlinguistics is actually linguistics,
which is the main object of research of
descriptivists. Metalinguistics studies the
meaning of language signs, which does not
belong to linguistic phenomena proper, but
belongs, according to Bloomfield, to the
"physiological sphere of stimuli and
reactions".
● The general method of descriptivists is based on the
structural properties of language, which can be
expressed in abstract terms and concepts.

● The main methods of language research by

descriptivists are distributive and immediate
components.
 "The main goal of research in descriptive linguistics, and at
the same time the only relationship that will be considered in
this work, is the relationship of the order of location
(arrangement) or distribution (distribution) in the speech
process of its individual parts or features in relation to each
other".
 The essence of this technique was reduced to the following
procedures:

dividing the text establishing the construction of building a general

into minimal distribution of language models model of the language
units for a certain structural units and at a certain level structure that would
level combining them into of its structure reflect the interaction
distributive classes of all levels
Descriptivists created a doctrine about different
types of distribution, formed general principles
of identification of variants of language units.
They believed that it is possible to completely
describe a language solely on the basis of
distribution.
Syntax was considered as a
continuation of morphology:
constructions were described
through the morphemes that
belonged to them, as a linear model
consisting of a core and adjuncts.
● A detailed description of the descriptive
methodology is given in the textbook by G.
Gleason, "Introduction to Descriptive
Linguistics".
● Harris's work "Method in Structural
Linguistics".
New for linguistics was the background — phoneme —
introduction of triads of terms for allophone, morph —
designation of speech units, morpheme — allomorph
language units and their variants.
 American descriptivists developed the methodology of linguistic
research, began to actively apply mathematical methods, which
objectified the results of research and brought linguistics closer to the
exact sciences. At the same time, they narrowed down the linguistic
issues.

Already in the 60s of the XX century. N. Chomsky, who was one of

the structuralists, and his supporters proved the inability of
descriptivism to solve many theoretical and practical problems.
Techniques of segmentation and distribution were useful at certain
stages of phonological and morphological analysis, but did little to
solve other problems.
A simplified understanding of
language
exaggeration of the importance of the
distributive aspect of language, ignoring
the socio-historical conditions of language
functioning and the human factor in
general, led in the early 1960s to crises of
descriptive linguistics.