In the centenary year of Leonard Bloomfield's birth, this abridgment makes available a representative selection of the writings of this central figure in the history of linguistics. "Hockett has achieved his purpose—to reveal Bloomfield's way of working, the general principles that guided his work, and last, but by no means least, to indicate how Bloomfield's interests and attitudes changed with the passing years."—Harry Hoijer, Language

Perhaps the single most influential work of general linguistics published in this century, Leonard Bloomfield's Language is both a masterpiece of textbook writing and a classic of scholarship. Intended as an introduction to the field of linguistics, it revolutionized the field when it appeared in 1933 and became the major text of the American descriptivist school.

“We frequently see one idea appear in one discipline as if it were new, when it migrated from another discipline, like a mole that had dug under a fence and popped up on the other side.” Taking note of this phenomenon, John Goldsmith and Bernard Laks embark on a uniquely interdisciplinary history of the genesis of linguistics, from nineteenth-century currents of thought in the mind sciences through to the origins of structuralism and the ruptures, both political and intellectual, in the years leading up to World War II. Seeking to explain where contemporary ideas in linguistics come from and how they have been justified, Battle in the Mind Fields investigates the porous interplay of concepts between psychology, philosophy, mathematical logic, and linguistics. Goldsmith and Laks trace theories of thought, self-consciousness, and language from the machine age obsession with mind and matter to the development of analytic philosophy, behaviorism, Gestalt psychology, positivism, and structural linguistics, emphasizing throughout the synthesis and continuity that has brought about progress in our understanding of the human mind. Arguing that it is impossible to understand the history of any of these fields in isolation, Goldsmith and Laks suggest that the ruptures between them arose chiefly from social and institutional circumstances rather than a fundamental disparity of ideas.

This is a fac simile edition of Bloomfield's An Introduction to the Study of Language (New York 1914), with an introductory article by Joseph S. Kess. Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949) was responsible for two classic textbooks in the field of linguistics. The earlier, reproduced here, shows some striking differences to his later views, reflecting much of the then-current thinking on language matters. As such, it represents not only an interesting commentary on the theoretical development of an extremely influential linguist, but more importantly, it is a telling document in the evolving history of the discipline and a rich source for the (psycho)linguist interested in how and why we got from where we were to where we are.

First published in Great Britain in 1935, this Routledge Revival reissues one of the most influential works ever published in the field of linguistics. Leonard Bloomfield's Language is both a masterpiece of textbook writing and a classic of academic scholarship, which examines the fundamentals of language and linguistics in a clear, precise manner. Intended as an introduction to the field of linguistics, for both the general reader and for students of linguistics, this detailed study covers a breadth of topics, ranging from: world languages, phonetic structure and syntax, through to morphology, semantics and dialectics.

Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949) was one of the greatest linguists of the twentieth century. He devoted his entire life to a thorough-going study of language, its structure and its use, summed up in masterly fashion in his book Language (1933). After his premature death at the age of 62, his work was at first acclaimed as an exemplary application of the scientific method to linguistics, but then fell into unjustified neglect. Now that the centenary of his birth has passed, the time has come for the story of Bloomfield's life and work to be recounted in a biography. Accordingly, basing his discussion on all available materials (including some information not accessible until recently), Professor Hall has presented Bloomfield's life history in its intellectual and cultural setting. This book is not only a biography, but also a personal memoir, in which Hall draws on his contacts with Bloomfield, who was his teacher at Chicago and a senior colleague at Yale. There emerges from this study a fuller picture than we have had heretofore, presenting both Bloomfield's recognized achievement in establishing the study of language as a scientific discipline, and the less-known aspects of his character and of his personal life, which in certain respects was very tragic and sad.