William Dwight Whitney’s study of language acquisition in The Life and Growth of Language (1875): His entry point to his scientific method and theory of language and mind

ABSTRACT

William Dwight Whitney (1827–1894) began The Life and Growth of Language: An Outline of Linguistic Science (1875) with an initial chapter fully devoted to language acquisition. He began his study of linguistic science with language acquisition because for him it was the logical starting point for a study of language, and it introduced his scientific method and his theory of language and mind. Throughout the chapter, Whitney exemplified the centring of his scientific method on direct observation. By beginning his study of language with language acquisition, he rejected the prevailing divine origin theory of his time, which contended that language was divinely created, given to humans, and in decline ever since. Rather, Whitney argued that language began with language acquisition, and that it was continually evolving to meet the ever-changing social and personal needs of its speakers. He also used language acquisition to introduce his reader to his theory of language and mind: a theory that would run consistently throughout his book. Whitney’s scientific method and his theory of language and mind positioned linguistics prominently among the emerging sciences of the late nineteenth century and would significantly influence a new course for linguistics in the twentieth century.

KEYWORDS:

• language acquisition
• language evolution
• language and mind
• common-sense philosophy
• science of linguistics

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This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17597536.2024.2313855)

Notes

¹ Reid’s collection Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785) is especially relevant to our understanding of the eighteenth-century Scottish Common-Sense Philosophy which he inspired, and which greatly influenced Whitney. Reid pointed out that philosophers traditionally used the word ‘sense’ solely to identify the human senses like sight, touch, and taste, and not judgement. In Chapter II ‘Of Common Sense’ of his ‘Essay 6 - Of Judgement’, he referred to the popular meaning of ‘sense’ as used in ‘common sense’ as one would today: ‘ … in common language, sense always implies judgment. A man of sense is a man of judgment. Good sense is good judgment. Nonsense is what is evidently contrary to right judgment. Common sense is that degree of judgment which is common to men with whom we can converse and transact business’ (Reid [1785] 1815, 99).

Drawing on the popular and not the philosophical meaning, Reid laid out his scientific method: ‘For if the sole province of the senses, external and internal, be to furnish the mind with the ideas about which we judge and reason, it seems to be a natural consequence; that the sole province of judgment should be to compare those ideas, and to perceive their necessary relations’ (Silverstein 1971, xlv). He added: ‘All knowledge, and all science, must be built upon principles that are self-evident and of such principles, every man who has common sense is a competent judge, when he conceives them distinctly’ (Reid [1785] 1815, 101).

² See E.F.K. Koerner (2004) for an in-depth study of how Whitney drew on geology to argue for linguistics as a science.

³ See David Valone (1996) on the origin of the Whitney-Müller debate and the transformation of the human sciences.

⁴ As Roman Jacobson (1896–1982) aptly concluded: ‘Hitherto in all interpretations of Whitney’s contributions to general linguistics the invariant idea is on the subjects he discussed, he made no fallacious statements, and thus in questions of general linguistics, he remarkably surpassed his predecessors and contemporaries (Silverstein 1971, xlv)’. In his insightful discussion of the Müller/Whitney debate and its impact on the history of linguistics, John Joseph (2002) documented: ‘Yet with the 1875 book [The Life and Growth of Language] and Whitney’s selection of topics, the way he treats them, and in particular the relative weight he accords to philosophical, historical, cultural, ethnological, social, psychological, philological, typological and grammatical considerations, the originality of his approach becomes much clearer. It is this book that would set much of the agenda for the modern “general linguistics” that would eventually emerge in the 20^th century’ (Joseph 2002, 20).

⁵ In the late nineteenth century to early twentieth century, data on child language acquisition was collected in parental diaries (see Ingram 1989; Khodareza, Shabani & Shokoufeh Abbasi 2015; Salim & Mehawesh 2014).

⁶ See Stephen G. Alter (2008) and Hellal & Lorch (2010) for a fuller context of Whitney’s positioning of psychology.

⁷ In their insightful study of the contrast between Müller and Whitney regarding langue and thought, Lorch & Hellal (2016) convincingly pointed out that the divide between Müller and Whitney could not be starker than it was regarding their views of the importance of language acquisition. They noted that Müller ‘makes clear that he sees the study of language development in infants to be entirely irrelevant to his own interests’ (Lorch & Hellal 2016, 117).

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Joseph L. Subbiondo

Joseph L. Subbiondo is a member of the International Editorial Committee of the Beijing International Review of Education. He is President Emeritus of the California Institute of Integral Studies where he served as President for 17 years. He has been Academic Vice President at the University of the Pacific, Dean of Arts and Sciences at Santa Clara University, and Dean of Liberal Arts at Saint Mary’s College of California. Prior to his administrative positions, he taught English literature and composition at Villanova University, and English literature and general linguistics at Santa Clara University. He currently publishes and presents on the history of linguistics, higher education leadership, integral education, and language and consciousness. He received his undergraduate education at St. John’s University (NY) and graduate education at the University of Southern California and Temple University.