PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: linguistics

28 Biographies
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Chomsky, Noam
Noam Chomsky

American linguist

Noam Chomsky, American theoretical linguist whose work from the 1950s revolutionized the field of linguistics by treating language as a uniquely human, biologically based cognitive capacity. Through his…...
Lancelot Thomas Hogben

English scientist

Lancelot Thomas Hogben, English zoologist, geneticist, medical statistician, and linguist, known especially for his many contributions to the study of social biology. Hogben’s birth was premature by two…...
Kristeva, Julia
Julia Kristeva

French author

Julia Kristeva, Bulgarian-born French psychoanalyst, critic, novelist, and educator, best known for her writings in structuralist linguistics, psychoanalysis, semiotics, and philosophical feminism. Kristeva…...
Joseph H. Greenberg

American anthropologist and linguist

Joseph H. Greenberg, American anthropologist and linguist specializing in African languages and in language universals. Greenberg was the first to present a unified classification of African languages.…...
Roman Jakobson

American linguist

Karl Brugmann

German linguist

Karl Brugmann, German linguist who gained a position of preeminence in comparative Indo-European linguistics during the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a result of his comprehensive and still-authoritative…...
John R. Firth

British linguist

John R. Firth, British linguist specializing in contextual theories of meaning and prosodic analysis. He was the originator of the “London school of linguistics.” After receiving an M.A. in history from…...
Oswin Köhler

German linguist and ethnologist

Oswin Köhler, German linguist and ethnologist specializing in African languages and culture. In 1962 Köhler was appointed to the first professorship of African studies at the University of Cologne, where…...
Peter Nielsen Ladefoged

American linguist

Peter Nielsen Ladefoged, British-born American linguist and phonetician (born Sept. 17, 1925, Sutton, Eng.—died Jan. 24, 2006, London, Eng.), , traveled to remote villages around the world in an effort…...
Karl Verner

Danish linguist

Karl Verner, linguist and formulator of Verner’s law, which provided convincing evidence of the regularity of sound change in the historical development of languages. His findings were a decisive influence…...
William Labov

American linguist

William Labov, American linguist. After working for many years as an industrial chemist, Labov began graduate work in 1961, focusing on regional and class differences in English pronunciation on Martha’s…...
Mary R. Haas

American linguist

Mary R. Haas, U.S. linguist. She studied with Edward Sapir at Yale University, where her dissertation was on Tunica, a moribund American Indian language. She continued her fieldwork on, and comparative…...
Gottfried Hermann

German classical scholar

Gottfried Hermann, German classical scholar who led a school contending that the emphasis in classical philology should be on linguistic, rather than historico-antiquarian, research. His entire professional…...
Pinker, Steven
Steven Pinker

Canadian-American psychologist

Steven Pinker, Canadian-born American psychologist who advocated evolutionary explanations for the functions of the brain and thus for language and behaviour. Pinker was raised in a largely Jewish neighbourhood…...
Kenneth L. Pike

American linguist

Kenneth L. Pike, American linguist and anthropologist known for his studies of the aboriginal languages of Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, New Guinea, Java, Ghana, Nigeria, Australia, Nepal, and the Philippines.…...
Ferdinand de Saussure, c. 1900.
Ferdinand de Saussure

Swiss linguist

Ferdinand de Saussure, Swiss linguist whose ideas on structure in language laid the foundation for much of the approach to and progress of the linguistic sciences in the 20th century. While still a student,…...
Mikhail Bakhtin

Russian philosopher and literary critic

Mikhail Bakhtin, Russian literary theorist and philosopher of language whose wide-ranging ideas significantly influenced Western thinking in cultural history, linguistics, literary theory, and aesthetics.…...
George Steiner

American literary critic

George Steiner, influential European-born American literary critic who studied the relationship between literature and society, particularly in light of modern history. His writings on language and the…...
Sayce, detail of an oil painting by an unknown artist, c. 1920; in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Archibald H. Sayce

British language scholar

Archibald H. Sayce, British language scholar whose many valuable contributions to ancient Middle Eastern linguistic research included the first grammar in English of Assyrian. During his lifetime Sayce…...
Leonard Bloomfield

American linguist

Leonard Bloomfield, American linguist whose book Language (1933) was one of the most important general treatments of linguistic science in the first half of the 20th century and almost alone determined…...
Friedrich Müller

Austrian linguist

Friedrich Müller, Austrian linguist who worked on many different languages and language families; he is often cited for his contributions to the study and classification of African languages. Among the…...
Mario Pei

American linguist

Mario Pei, Italian-born American linguist whose many works helped to provide the general public with a popular understanding of linguistics and philology. Pei immigrated to the United States with his parents…...
Sydney M. Lamb

American linguist

Sydney M. Lamb, American linguist and originator of stratificational grammar, an outgrowth of glossematics theory. (Glossematics theory is based on glossemes, the smallest meaningful units of a language.)…...
Jan Niecisław Baudouin de Courtenay

Polish linguist

Jan Niecisław Baudouin de Courtenay, linguist who regarded language sounds as structural entities, rather than mere physical phenomena, and thus anticipated the modern linguistic concern with language…...
Holger Pedersen
Holger Pedersen

Danish linguist

Holger Pedersen, Danish linguist of exceptional accomplishment, especially in comparative Celtic grammar. After receiving his doctorate in 1897, Pedersen proceeded, as professor at the University of Copenhagen,…...
J.L. Austin

British philosopher

J.L. Austin, British philosopher best known for his individualistic analysis of human thought derived from detailed study of ordinary language. After receiving early education at Shrewsbury School and…...
Michael Halliday

British linguist

Michael Halliday, British linguist, teacher, and proponent of neo-Firthian theory who viewed language basically as a social phenomenon. Halliday obtained his B.A. in Chinese language and literature from…...
Eduard Hermann

German linguist

Eduard Hermann, German linguist who specialized in comparative studies of Indo-European languages and whose exhaustive linguistic exegesis of passages from Homer is a model of its kind: Sprachwissenschaftlicher…...
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