Qs: 'Review article' on functionalism

[Masatsugu Yamazaki]

I apologize if this is a duplicate.

===========================================
On Wed, 30 Dec 1998, Guy Deutscher wrote:

> Dear funknetters,
>
> I have been asked by a palaeontologist colleague if there is a good article
> which summarises the differences between the functionalist and generativist
> approaches to language. Can anyone recommend an article (or even a book)
> which (1) would be accessible to non-linguists and (2) would give a fair
> assessment of the functionalist view of  language and its development?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Guy Deutscher
>
> =========================
> Dr Guy Deutscher
> St. John's College
> Cambridge CB2 1TP
> England
>

Dr. Deutscher,

The following journal issue might also be of use:

    Language and Communication, 1991, vol 11, num 1/2, pp 3-114.

This can be seen as a special issue on 'formalism vs. functionalism',
although no such designation per se appears on the covers. It starts with
a stage-setting article dealing with (and supporting) "the autonomy
thesis", followed by 16 response articles from the same number of noted
scholars (many on the functional side, see below), and ends with the first
author's counter-response. This collection may thus not constitute a pure
introduction to formalism or functionalism for those with 'no' background
at all in linguistics, but I gather that it will nonetheless interest
paleontologists, as the central theme concerns "the role of natural
selection in the origin of and ... the 'progress' of language" (from the
prefatory statement to the issue). The table of contents might help you
get a better idea:

Opening:
F. J. Newmeyer/ Functional explanation in linguistics and the origins of
        language

Commentary:
J. T. Andersen/ On genetic encoding and communication

A. L. Becker/ Language and languaging

D. Bickerton/ Language origins and evolutionary plausibility

R. S. Fouts/ Dirty bathwater, innateness neonates and the dating game

O. J. Hopper/ Functional explanation in linguistics and the origins of
        language

D. Hymes/ Is poetics original and functional?

G. Lakoff/ Cognitive versus generative linguistics: how commitments
        influence results

P. Lieberman/ Preadaptation, natural selection and function

D. Lightfoot/ Subjacency and sex

N. Love/ Generativism, genes and grammar

P. Muhlhausler/ Comments on Newmeyer's 'Functional explanation in
        linguistics and the origins of language'

E. F. Prince/ On 'Functional explanation in linguistics and the origins of
        language'

S. Romaine/ Last tango in Paris

J. Scancarelli/ An unwarranted dismissal of functional linguistics

S. G. Shanker/ Selective forces at work

S. A. Thompson/ On addressing functional explanation in linguistics

Author's Response:
F. J. Newmeyer/ O, what a tangoed web they weave ...


As noted above, this issue may be a bit too rich in content, but it does
make clearer some of the fundamental differences between 'formalism' and
'functionalism'.

I hope this helps.


Masa Yamazaki
East Asian Studies
University of Arizona