Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

XL Samy Friedman
and endeavours to show that ‘the problem will be ... to discover the basis
common to language and society, and the principles governing these two struc-
tures, by first defining the units in each which are comparable and bringing out
their interdependence’. Linguistics also has close links with the natural sciences,
particularly biology. Jakobson lays stress on the child’s acquisition of language
which, although subject to strict biologial limitations, does not appear to presup-
pose specific genetic instructions. On the other hand, the recent deciphering of
the DNA code has shown that specific genetic information is conveyed by
means of an alphabet. The genetic code is based on the use of discrete com-
ponents which, by themselves, are meaningless but become senseful if grouped
in a particular way. Linguists and biologists are thus discovering the consistent-
ly hierarchical design of genetic and verbal messages and their integration into
what are termed syntactical units.
Whereas modern linguistic theory seems, on the one hand, to reveal a great
variety of sometimes conflicting doctrines, Roman Jakobson claims that closer
study reveals the existence of a linguistic ‘monolithic whole’, the contradictions
being only superficial whereas the basic tenets show a remarkable general
similarity. The present aim of research is to examine verbal structures, i.e.,
their coherence and the relational and hierarchistic character of their component
parts. Historically influenced by Husserl’s thought and Hegelianlphenomenol-
ogy, the development of structural linguistics is traced back from the efforts of
Baudoin de Courtenay and Kruszewski to Ferdinand de Saussure and his Cows
de linguistique gknkrale, which marks the beginning of a new era in the study
of language. The whole modern science is derived from this, as Jakobson seeks
to show, even when this science develops or corrects Saussure’s thinking. The
chapter concludes with a bibliography of the major linguistic problems studied
between 1958 and 1968, providing very useful references.
A chapter so full of matter may well cause the reader to wonder whether the
extensions that the author attributes to linguistics can in themselves contribute
to the progress of the social sciences or whether they are not to a certain extent
metaphorical. In particular while the linguistic theory of money is suggestive,
does it really advance our knowledge in this field? There is no doubt that Jakob-
son considers that these are much more than merely external correspondences.
At the very least, this should be regarded as the beginning of a rapprochement
between the different disciplines - which is not the least interesting aspect of
this chapter.
The next four chapters deal with the interdisciplinary dimensions of research.
The preceding examination of the main branches of the social sciences, one by
one, has already brought out the many links between them and, to a certain
extent, between them and the natural sciences. It is now necessary to analyse
these interconnections in themselves, and to investigate two special fields in
which the interdisciplinary approach is proving particularly encouraging.
Emphasis is incidentally laid on a characteristic feature of present-day social
sciences which prompts them to work together in examining problems approach-
ed simultaneously from various points of view and by convergent methods.