Renowned Linguists and Their Contributions

 

Who are linguists? What are their duties? What are the contributions that changed the concept of language from a narrow sense to a broader sense? In general, many of them believed that linguist is the one who knows so many languages and linguistics is the subject that teaches how to speak, how to write, and of course how to listen.

A linguist deals with the analysis of any language. He is one who analyzes, formulates, and perpetuates a particular language and defines the uniqueness of that language. They can work on discrete languages, implement scientific methods to understand, defines the functions, and uncover the nature of that particular language. Every language in this universe has equal importance and relevance to document.

Here follows a shortlist of the well-renowned linguists who widen the area of linguistics: 

Panini (400-350 BCE) – Indian - Sanskrit Grammarian - Philologist

Specialization: Father of linguistics

Contribution: The Ashṭādhyāyī of Panini (1891).

                                          

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) - Swiss Linguist-Semiotician

Specialization: Founding member of semiotics, modern linguistics- developed the theory of linguistics sign; signifier and signified – the structural study of language- discriminate between synchronic and diachronic linguistics.

Contributions: Course in General Linguistics (1916) is the most popular book among his contributions.

 

Edward Sapir (1884-1939) – American Anthropologist-Linguist

Specialization: Developed the discipline of Linguistics

Contributions: Time perspective in aboriginal American culture (1916), Language; An Introduction to the Study of Speech (1921), Culture, language, and personality (1949), The Phonology and Morphology of the Navajo Language (1967).

 

Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949) – American Linguist

Specialization: Founding member of the Linguistics Society of America- developed Structural Linguistics – Ethnolinguistics.

Contributions: An Introduction to the Study of Language (1914), Tagalog Texts with Grammatical Analysis (1917), Language (1933), Linguistic aspects of Science (1939), Let’s read: A Linguistic Approach (1961).

 

Nikolai Sergeyevich Trubetzkoy (1890- 1938) – Russian Linguist

Specialization: Prague School of Structural Linguistics – interested in Phonology

Contributions: Principles of Phonology (1969). 

 

Roman Jakobson (1896-1982) – Russian-American Linguist – a Literary Theorist

Specialization: A pioneer of Structural linguistics- developed the discipline of modern phonology - later extended to morphology and syntax.

Contributions: Child Language, Aphasia and Phonological Universals (1941), Fundamentals of Language (1956), Language in Literature (1969), Word and Language (1971), Brain and Language (1980) are certain notable contributions.

 

Roland Barthes (1915- 1980) – Semiotician – Literary Theorist – Philosopher

Specialization: Developed the field of semiotics – sign systems – structuralism.

Contributions: Elements of Semiology (1964), Introduction to the Structural Analysis of the Narrative (1966), The Rustle of Language (1984), The Semiotic challenge (1985).

 

Charles Francis Hockett (1916-2000) – American Linguist

Specialization: Developed taxonomic structuralism

Contributions: A Course in Modern Linguistics (1958), A Manual of Phonology (1955), Language, Mathematics, and Linguistics (1967). 

 

Dell Hymes (1927-2009) – Linguist-Sociolinguist-Anthropologist-Folklorist

Specialization: Developed the discipline of comparative ethnographic study.

Contributions: Language in Culture and Society: A Reader in Linguistics and Anthropology (1964), American Structuralism, (1975) Ethnography Linguistics (1996), Foundations of Sociolinguistics (1974).

 

William Labov (1927- ) – American Linguist

Specialization: Founder of sociolinguistics –a pioneer in variationist sociolinguistics - introduced the research on the relationship between language and society.

Contributions: Sociolinguistic Patterns (1972), What is a Linguistic Fact? (1975), Principles of Linguistic Change (1992), The Language of Life and Death (2013). 

 

Noam Chomsky (1928- ) – American Linguist

Specialization: Father of modern linguistics – founder of Cognitive science - developed syntactic structures, universal grammar theory, generative grammar theory, minimalist theory.

Contributions: Syntactic Structures (1957), Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965), The Theory of Generative Grammar ( 1966), Cartesian Linguistics; A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought (1966), Language and Mind (1968), Reflections on Language (1975), The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory (1977), Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (1977), Rules and Representation (1980), Lectures on Government and Binding ( 1981), Knowledge of Language; Its Nature, Origin, and Use (1986), New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind (2000) are some of his contributions to the field of Linguistics.

 

Peter Hugoe Matthews (1934 - ) – British Linguist

Specialization: Known for Linguistic Morphology.

Contributions: Inflectional Morphology: A Theoretical Study Based on Aspects of Latin Verb Conjugation (1972), Morphology: An Introduction to the Theory of Word-structure (1974), Generative grammar and linguistic competence (1979), Syntax (1981), Morphology (1991), Grammatical Theory in the United States: From Bloomfield to Chomsky (1993), The Concise Dictionary of Linguistics (1997), A Short History of Structural Linguistics (2001), Linguistics (2003), Syntactic Relations (2007).

 

George Lakoff (1941 - ) – American Cognitive Linguist – Philosopher

Specialization: Known for cognition and conceptual metaphor.

Contributions: Irregularity in Syntax (1970), Linguistics and Nature (1971), Ten lectures on Cognitive Linguistics (2007).

 

Steven Pinker (1954- ) - Canadian-American Linguist- Cognitive Psychologist

Specialization: Known for evolutionary psychology, computational theory of mind.

Contributions: Language Learnability and Language Development (1984), Visual Cognition (1985), The Language Instinct (1994), How the mind works (1997), Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language (1999), The Stuff of Thought (2005), The Language, Cognition, And Human Nature (2013). 

Norman Fairclough (1941- ) - United Kingdom Linguist 

Specialization: Founder of Critical Discourse Analysis 

Contributions: Langauge and Power (1989), Discourse and Social Change (1992),  Critical Langauge Awareness (1992), Critical Discourse Analysis (1995), Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research (2003), Discourse and Contemporary Social Change (2007), Political Discourse Analysis (2012). 

Henri Hecaen (1912-1983) - France - Neuropsychologist 

Specialization:  One of the founders of the term Neurolinguistics

Contributions: Human Neuropsychology (1978)

Alexander Luria (1902-1977) - Russian - Neuropsychologist 

Specialization: known as Father of modern neuropsychological assessment 

Contributions: Human Brain and Psychological processes (1966), Traumatic Aphasia (1970), Cognition Development: its Cultural and Social Foundations (1976), Neurophysiological studies (1977).