Proceedings Fonetik 2009 - Institutionen för lingvistik

Proceedings, FONETIK 2009, Dept. of Linguistics, Stockholm UniversityThe starting date, “the terminus a quo” chosenfor the study is set in 1939, the year of thefirst publication by Malmberg, entitled "Vad ärfonologi?" (What is phonology?). The “terminusad quem” is fixed to 1969 when Malmbergleft phonetics for the newly created chair ingeneral linguistics at the University of Lund.CorporaMalmberg's authorship continued in an unbrokenflow until the end of his life. The list of hispublications, compiled as “Bertil MalmbergBibliography” by Gullberg (1993), amounts to315 titles (articles, monographs, manuals, reports).The first corpus on which I propose to conductmy analysis is the set of 216 contributions,the full authorship of Bertil Malmberg publishedbetween 1939 and 1969. The second corpusis his archive, owned by Lund University(“Lunds universitetsarkiv, Inst. f. Lingvistik,Prefektens korrespondens, B. Malmberg”) Itincludes semi-official and official letters, administrativecorrespondence, inventories, fundingapplications, administrative orders, transcriptsof meetings. In its totality, this corpusreflects the complexity of the social and scientificlife at the Institute of Phonetics. Malmbergenjoyed writing. He sent and received considerablenumbers of letters. Among his correspondentswere the greatest linguists of his time(Benveniste, Delattre, Dumezil, Fant, Halle,Hjelmslev, Jakobson, Martinet), as well as colleagues,students, and representatives of thenon-scientific public. Malmberg was a perfectpolyglot. He took pleasure in using the languageof his correspondent. The letters are inSwedish, German, English, Spanish, Italian,and in French, the latter obviously the languagefor which he had a predilection.The first corpus consists of texts in phonetics.They will be analysed primarily in terms oftheir scientific content (content-oriented analysis).The second corpus will be used to describethe social and institutional context (contextorientedanalysis). The two are complementary.The study of both is necessary for achieving asystematic description of the development ofphonetic knowledge. While the articles publishedin scientific journals are meant to ensurethe validity of the obtained knowledge by followingstrict research and writing procedures,the merit of the correspondence is to unveil in aunique, often friendly, sometimes astonishingway that, on the contrary, knowledge is unstableand highly subject to negotiation.The phoneticianBertil Malmberg was born on April 22, 1913 inthe city of Helsingborg, situated in Scania insouthern Sweden (see also Sigurd 1995). In theautumn of 1932, then aged nineteen, he beganto study at the University of Lund. He obtainedhis BA in 1935. During the following academicyear (1936-1937), he went to Paris to studyphonetics with Pierre Fouché [1891-1967].That same year he discovered phonologythrough the teaching of André Martinet [1908-1999]. Back in Lund, he completed his highereducation on October 5, 1940 when he defendeda doctoral dissertation focused on a traditionaltopic of philology. He was appointed"docent" in Romance languages on December6, 1940.After a decade of research, in November 24,1950, Malmberg finally reached the goal of hisambitions, both personal and institutional. Phoneticsciences was proposed as the first chair inphonetics in Sweden and established at theUniversity of Lund, at the disposal of Malmberg.Phonetics had thus become an academicdiscipline and received its institutional recognition.Letters of congratulation came from farand wide. Two of them deserve special mention.They are addressed to Malmberg by twomajor representatives of contemporary linguistics,André Martinet and Roman Jakobson.Martinet's letter is sent from Columbia University:« Cher Monsieur, / Permettez-moi toutd’abord de vous féliciter de votre nomination.C’est le couronnement bien mérité de votrebelle activité scientifique au cours des années40. Je suis heureux d’apprendre que vous allezpouvoir continuer dans de meilleures conditionsl’excellent travail que vous faites enSuède.» Jakobson's letter, sent from HarvardUniversity early in 1951, highlights the factthat the appointment of Malmberg meant theestablishment of a research centre in phoneticsand phonology in Sweden: “[...] our warmestcongratulations to your appointment. Finallyphonetics and phonemics have an adequate centerin Sweden”. As can be seen, both are delightednot only by Malmberg's personal successbut also by the success of phonetics as anacademic discipline.209