LINGUISTS CONTRIBUTIONS TO LINGUISTS AND ITS DIFFERENT BRANCHES.

NOAM CHOMSKY.

Noam Chomsky, born in 1928 in Philadelphia, is a professor of linguistics at MIT, United States, and one of the most prominent figures in linguistics of the twentieth century, with great contributions in the field of computer science. 

Among his scientific contribution we can highlight a fundamental contribution to modern linguistics, consisting of the theoretical formulation and development of the concept of transformational and generative grammar. This contribution perfected the works of his teacher, Zellig Harris, creating techniques for the scientific analysis of meaning, giving rise to a true revolution in the field of linguistics, incorporating the concept of transformation into linguistics, moving away from the prevailing structuralism and behaviorism until then.

It also departs from traditional descriptive methods to ensure that linguistics rigorously follow the scientific method, with false theories and predictions, by searching for the explanatory principles of its evolution; and that it becomes a science with its own objectives, and not merely a technique at the service of other disciplines, and for this it starts from the similarities between languages, rather than the differences, focusing on a few well-known languages to explain their operation .

As a result of all this, it supports the existence of a universal grammar, integrated in the genetic heritage of human beings, which already from its birth has a pattern to which the different existing languages adapt, which is evidenced by current use of language and the ability with which children learn a language even with little external experience.

STIVEN PINKER.

Steven Pinker is a linguist, psychologist, and 

writer known primarily for his role in disseminating ideas related to evolutionary psychology, communication, visual perception and cognition, and computational theory of mind, as well as his own theories about language development, Steven Pinker's theory and contributions, focusing on his perspectives on communication, human nature and the decline of violence.

Today Pinker is a professor of psychology at Harvard University and continues his work as a theorist, researcher, writer and science communicator. He is also a relevant figure in the press and frequently participates in conferences and debates on various topics related to science and the human being in general.

He has written 14 books on these topics and human nature in general, with an emphasis on cognitive and evolutionary perspectives. The most celebrated are "The instinct of language: how the mind creates language", "How the mind works", "The clean sweep: The modern denial of human nature" and "The decline of violence and its implications". Early in his professional career, Pinker conducted research on the development and characteristics of language in children. His results led him to publicly support Noam Chomsky's theory, which states that human beings have innate brain capacities that allow language understanding.

Pinker's methodology at this time was based on studying the behavior of people and going back in phylogenetic evolution in order to explain the development of brain functions. Using this method, he developed hypotheses about language and other phenomena, such as three-dimensional vision and logical reasoning.

According to Pinker, the innate capacity of human beings for language depends fundamentally on two cognitive processes: the memorization of words and their manipulation through grammatical rules, also learned. These approaches of a biological nature have received criticism focused on moral or philosophical aspects.

ENOCH POWER.

John Enoch Powell, 16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998, was a British politician, classical scholar, author, linguist, soldier, philologist, and poet. He served as a Conservative Member of Parliament 1950–1974, then Ulster Unionist Party 1974–1987, and was Minister of Health 1960–1963.

ROLAND BARTHES.

The continuity in the development from structuralism to text semiotics is particularly evident in t he works of Roland Barthes (1915-1980). In the 1960s, Barthes was both a leading structuralist and one of the earliest propagators of Saussure's semiological program. In this tradition, he contributed to text semiotics to the semiotics of visual communication, and even to the semiotics of medicine.

After his phase of more systematic research in semiotics, which reached a climax with his Fashion System, Barthes returned to more essayistic, sometimes even poetic writings on literature and culture.

The concept of connotation is a key to Barthes's semiotic analyses of culture and literature. Barthes used a greatly simplified version of the glossematic sign model. Neglecting the dimensio ns of form and substance, Barthes defined a sign as a system consisting of E, an expression (or si gnifier), in relation (R) to C, a content (or signified). Such a primarysign system can beco me an element of a more comprehensive sign system. If the extension is oneof content, the prima ry signbecomes the expression of a secondary sign system. In this case, the primary sign is one of denotative while the secondary sign is one of connotative semiotics. Barthes represented these relations in his model of a staggered system.

An example of such a semiotic system is a cover photo of the French magazine Paris-Match publ ished in the mid-1950s.  The photo (= expression1) shows ("denotates") 'a black African in a French uniform saluting a French flag' (= content1). But beyond this denotative sign there is the implicit content  that "France is a great colonial Empire with loyal black citizens in its army.

As a consequence of his thesis of the dependence of nonlinguistic semiotic phenomena on language, Barthes concluded that "linguistics is not a part of the general science of signs, even a privile ged part, it is semiology which is a part of linguistics". This thesis is the most radical antithesis to Saussure's theory of linguistics as a branch of semiotic

NOAH WEBSTER.

He was an American lexicographer, editor, political and textbook writer, recognized as the father of schooling and education in that country. His blue-cover first-letter books helped five generations in the United States learn to read: hence his surname has become synonymous with dictionary,  since the publication of the An American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828.

He wanted the children to adapt to other customs because he created his dictionary, and that is how English was born. "Let's take advantage of the moment and establish a national language just as we created a national government," he added.

The dictionary was his masterpiece, but already during the previous years he was proposing a purely American spelling of British words.

For example, remove the "u" from words such as "color" (color) and "honor" (honor) and change the order of the "r" and "e" in others such as "theater" (theater) and "center" (center) and thus his theory called center or center was born.

FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE

Ferdinand de Saussure was born in Geneva (Switzerland), on November 26, 1857 and is known today as the "father of Linguistics", more precisely, of Structural Linguistics, because his theories gave rise to this current and their corresponding schools. 

Saussure explains what language consists of and how it is composed, demonstrating his theory through different dichotomies.

The first dichotomy, and the most relevant, holds that language can be divided into two parts: language and speech.

Another dichotomy to highlight in Saussurean theory is the separation made between synchrony and diachrony.

Another essential dichotomy is the differentiation between external linguistics and internal linguistics.

The sign is a unit with two faces, composed of a Significant and a Meaning. The Significant is the sensory representation of something, such as a word that gives a name to a thing: “dog”. The Meaning is the concept, the mental representation or idea that we have about something, in this case, it would be the idea of a dog, a domestic animal with four legs.

Both the Significant and the Meaning are two sides of the same coin, they are intimately united and require each other and make up what Saussure calls the linguistic sign. These signs create the language as a system.

RONALD WARDHAUGH

Is a Canadian retired professor of linguistics.