A brief introduction of Leonard Bloomfield and his theiories

A brief introduction of Leonard Bloomfield and his theiories

Abstract: Leonard Bloomfield is a famous American writer who devoted his entire life to a thorough-going study of language.Leonard Bloomfield played a very important role in the history of structural linguistics study. His methodology in structural linguistics emphasizes on the objective description of reality, focusing on the acquisition process on the basis of the “stimulus-reaction”model. He advocated that the researchers should use the method of classification to study the language and do their best to avoid the study of meaning. He drove the American linguistics study into a Bloomfield Times.

Key Words: Leonard Bloomfield's life; classical works; structural linguistics study; Achievement and influence.

Leonard Bloomfield is considered to be one of the best Linguists who was born on April 1, 1887, in Chicago Illinois . He attended Harvard College from 1903 to 1906, graduating with the A.B. degree and then he attended the University of Chicago in 1908-1909, graduating with the Doctor’s degree.He devoted his entire life to a thorough-going study of language, its structure and its use. His influence dominated the science of linguistics from 1933— when his most important work, Language, was published—to the mid-1950s.He drove the American linguistics study into a Bloomfield Times.

He used to be instructor of Cincinnati University , Illinois University and Assistant Professor of Comparative Philology at the University of Illinois; however,after teaching German at the University of Cincinnati for a year, Bloomfield became assistant professor of comparative philology and German at the University of Illinois, where he remained until 1921. Then he became professor of German and linguistics at Ohio State University. He was one of the founders of the Linguistic Society of America in 1924. In 1927 he went to the University of Chicago and linguistics at Yale University. He died in New Haven, Conn., on April 18, 1949.

Leonard Bloomfield's major works are :An Introduction to the Study of Language ，published in 1919 ,based on the psychology to illustrate the language ;Language，published in 1933 which is a revised version of An Introduction to the Study of Language.Of the two, Language is the most famous.In this book,Bloomfield adopted Ferdinand de Saussure’s concept of language structure.and was deeply Influenced by the behaviorist psychologist A. P. Weiss whom he met when he worked at Ohio State University, Bloomfield took a logical positivist approach to science.This book is divided into28chapters.The first 16 chapters is called Synchronic linguistics and the latter is called diachronic linguistics.T(1—4chapter):he study and use of language, speech communities and the languages of the world(5—9chapter) Phoneme, semanteme and speech sound(10—16chaper)Grammatical forms and terms .(17—19chapterLiterary records and comparative method)(19—28chapter)Evolution of the Language, semantic change and Language borrowing.He mainly expressed The basic principle of Americanstructuralist linguistics and a comprehensive description of American structuralist linguistics in this book. As a textbook, Bloomfield’s Language started American structuralism as a school of thought.

L. Bloomfield (1887-1949). is such a landmark figure in the history of American linguistics that the period between 1933 and 1950 is known as Bloomfield Era, in which American descriptive linguistics formally came into being and reached its prime development. According to Bloomfield’s theory, language can be regarded as a system, and can be described it into three levels: phonetic level semantic level syntactic level .It was held as the model of scientific

methodology and the greatest work in linguistics on both sides of the Atlantic in the twentieth century and for Bloomfield, linguistics is a branch of psychology, and specifically of the positivistic brand of psychology known as Behaviorism which is a view which draws on behaviorist psychology when trying to define the meaning of linguistic forms. When the behaviorist methodology entered linguistics via Bloomfield’s writings, the popular practice in linguistic studies was to accept what a native speaker says in his language and to discard what he says about it.And he proposes the "Stimulus --- Response --- Reinforcement" theory.From that, Bloomfield put forward the well known formula:

S→r --------------------- s→R

Here S stands for practical stimulus, r stands for the substitute reaction of speech, s stands for the substitute stimulus, and R stands for external practical reaction.He said that learning a language involves constant practice and repetition in real situations rather than merely teaching language learners grammatical theories; traditional practice, being sometimes confusing and far from being economical, cannot help the learners much.

Though Bloomfield’s particular methodology of descriptive linguistics was not widely accepted, his mechanistic attitudes toward a precise science of linguistics, dealing only with observable phenomena, were most influential. He lead the development of structuralist linguistics in the United States during the 1930s and the 1940s, even In the history of American linguistics,these years between 1933 - 1950 is called "the century of Bloomfield.He makes significant contributions to Indo-European historical linguistics, Sanskrit study and the description of Austronesia language, and the Algonquian linguistics.He finally became One of the founding members of the Linguistic Society of America The representative of American structuralist linguistics.

Works cited:

[1 ] Bloomfield. 语言论[ M] . 北京: 商务印书馆,1985.193.

[2 ] 胡壮麟. 语言学教程[M] . 北京:北京大学出版社,2001. 6.

(3)德·索绪尔《普通语言学教程》（Cours de Linguistique Générale），

高名凯译，商务印书馆

（4）熊兵.“美国结构主义语言学:回顾与反思”[J ] .外语与外语教学,2003

（5）问芳莲.布龙菲尔德语义思想及其阐释[J].陕西师范大学学报(哲学社科

版),2004,(10):165-167