LINGUIST List 8.304

Sat Mar 1 1997

Disc: Myths in linguistics

Editor for this issue: T. Daniel Seely <seelylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Stefan Kaufmann, Re: 8.286, Disc: Myths in linguistics

Message 1: Re: 8.286, Disc: Myths in linguistics

This might, after all, lead to an interesting discussion on what a "myth" 
in science is after all. I would like to remind people that the word
"myth" has already been used in a way related to what the initiator of
this discussion had in mind. An example would be Roy Andrew Miller's
"Japan's Modern Myth. The Language and Beyond" where he relies on previous
non-linguistic work in his definition of a myth (in science, that is). 
More recently, Miller's book inspired V.M. Alpatov to call his book on the
history of Marrism in the Soviet Union "Istoriaja odnogo mifa. Marr i
Marrizm", where he explicitly refers to Miller and devotes some discussion
to why he chose the title.

One must say, though, that Miller and Alpatov talk about very, very
different phenomena. I'd like to know what others think about this.

Stefan Kaufmann

Stefan Kaufmann
Dept. of Linguistics and CSLI
Stanford University
http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~kaufmann