London School of Linguistics

The London School of Linguistics had three main representatives:

Henry Sweet (1845 - 1912). English philologist and phonetician. An authority on Anglo-Saxon and the history of the English language, Sweet was also a pioneer in modern scientific phonetics. His History of English Sounds (1874) was a landmark in that study. In 1901 he was made a reader in phonetics at Oxford. Among his other writings are A Handbook of Phonetics (1877), A New English Grammar (2 parts, 1892–95), The History of Language (1900), The Sounds of English (1908), and works on Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, and Icelandic. Sweet was the model for Professor Higgins in G. B. Shaw's play Pygmalion.

Daniel Jones (1881 - 1967). British phonetician. He was involved in the development of the International Phonetic Alphabet from 1907 and went on to invent the system of cardinal vowels and produce the English Pronouncing Dictionary (1917).

J. R. Firth (1890 - 1960): professor of English at the University of the Punjab, Lahore (1920-1928), senior lecturer at University College London (1928-1938), then senior lecturer, reader and Professor of General Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (1938-1956). An important figure in the foundation of linguistics as an autonomous discipline in Britain; known for his original ideas on phonology and the study of meaning.

The London School of Harry Sweet (1845-1912) and Daniel Jones (1881-1967) stressed the practical side of phonetics, and trained its students to perceive, transcribe and reproduce each minute sound distinction very precisely — far more than the American behaviourists, for example, and of course the Chomskians, who are extending models rather than testing them. And this phonetic competence was much needed when J.R. Firth (1891-1960) and others at the School of Oriental and African Studies helped to plan the national languages and their writing systems for the new Commonwealth countries. Overall, the School has been very far ranging — noting, for example how stress and tone co-occur with whole syllables, and developing a terminology to cope: a basis for poetic metre. Firthian analysis also finds a place for aesthetic considerations and develops a system of mutually exclusive options, somewhat like Saussure but more socially and purposively orientated.

Firth himself tried to base a theory of meaning on such choice-systems, but the approach has not been generally accepted. Not only was it rather simplistic, but confused the scientific invariance of linguistic rules with the unregimented and creative way that human beings get their meaning across.

The London approach to phonology has bequeathed many fruitful ideas to current theorizing and the theory of syntax known as systemic grammar also owes its origins to the London School.

Bibliography

Chapman, S. & Routledge, P. (eds) (2005) Key Thinkers in Linguistics and the Philosophy of Language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Pp 80-86.

Encyclopedia: Sweet, Henry. (s.f.). Recuperado el 29 de febrero de 2012, de Infoplease: http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0847401.html

Jones, Daniel. (s.f.). Recuperado el 29 de febrero de 2012, de Oxford Dictionary: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/Jones,+Daniel

Linguistics: a brief history. (s.f.). Recuperado el 29 de febrero de 2012, de Textetc: http://www.textetc.com/theory/linguistics.html

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