£126.00
Published 1994.
Based on extensive archival research, interviews, and participant observation over the course of two decades, Theory Groups in the Study of Language in North America provides a detailed social history of traditions and ?revolutionary? challenges to traditions within North American linguistics, especially within 20th-century anthropological linguistics. After showing substantial differences between Bloomfield's and neo-Bloomfieldian theorizing, Murray shows that early transformational-generative work on syntax grew out of neo-Bloomfieldian structuralism, and was promoted by neo-Bloomfieldian gatekeepers, in particular longtime Language editor Bernard Bloch. The central case studies of the book contrast the (increasingly) ?revolutionary rhetoric? of transformational-generative grammarians with rhetorics of continuity emitted by two linguistic anthropology groupings that began simultaneously with TGG in the late-1950s, the ethnography of communication and ethnoscience. The history of linguistics in North America provides a continuum from isolated scholars to successful groups dominating entire disciplines. Although focused on groupings ? both ?invisible colleges? and readily visible institutions ? Murray discusses those writing about language in society who were not participants in ?theory groups? or ?schools? both before and after the three central case studies. He provides a theory of social bases for claiming to be making ?scientific revolution? in contrast to building on sound ?traditions?, and suggests non-cognitive reasons for success in the often rhetorically violent contention of perspectives about language in North America during the last century and a half