The modal delimitation of the field of linguistics

Abstract

Die organisasie van ? universiteit in sub-institusionele entiteite soos departemente, skole, fakulteite en so meer is die uitkoms van ? komplekse stel historiese en ander kondisies en kragte, wat nie noodwendig ? refleksie is van die akademiese onderskeidings op grond waarvan dissiplines geïdentifiseer kan word nie. Taaldepartemente verwys dus soms verkeerdelik na hulself as ‘dis siplines’. Tog onthul selfs ? oppervlakkige analise dat hulle dikwels talle dissiplines en selfs, oor departmente heen, dieselfde dis siplines huisves. ? Verantwoordelike grondslaganalise sal aantoon dat ? taaldepartement soms tot drie dissiplines kan huisves: taal kunde, estetika (in die studie van die letterkunde) en toegepaste linguistiek (Weideman, 2011b) Hierdie bydrae fokus slegs op een van die drie: die taalkunde. Hoe kan ons sy akademiese fokus definieer? Die sentrale argument van hierdie artikel is dat ons ver antwoordelik hierop kan antwoord as ons ? aantal grondslag onderskeidings maak. Dan blyk dit dat dissiplines soos hierdie nie konkrete fenomene soos taal bestudeer nie, maar eerder hoe hierdie fenomene werksaam is in unieke dimensies van ons bestaan. So kan linguistiek as die studie van fenomene vanuit hoek van die linguale gedefinieer word, soos wat in die gangbare analises van die reformatoriese wysbegeerte gedoen is. Wat egter verder van belang is, is dat hierdie modale fokus ook die konkrete entiteite of objekte definieer wat deur so ? aspek gestempel word, tesame met die funksionele karakterisering van die menslikesubjekte wat  binne so ? sfeer optree. ? Verantwoordelike definisie sal aandag skenk aan sowel die modale as aan die entiteitshorison.

The organisation of a university into sub-institutional entities like departments, schools, or faculties is the outcome of complex historical and other conditions and forces, that do not necessarily reflect the academic foundations on which disciplines may be identified. So language departments sometimes erroneously refer to themselves as ‘disciplines’. Yet even a superficial analysis will reveal that they often harbour more than one academic field and may, across departments, house the same disciplines. A foundational analysis demonstrates that a language department may straddle three disciplines: linguistics; aesthetics, and applied linguistics (Weideman, 2011b). This paper looks at just one of the three, linguistics. How does one define its focus? The central thesis of this paper will be that the most responsible way of defining disciplines is by employing a number of foundational distinctions. These define academic disciplines as studying not concrete objects, such as language, but rather all manner of phenomena operating within a unique dimension of reality. Thus linguistics is best defined as the study of phenomena from the vantage point of the lingual aspect of experience, a definition that is wholly in line with some of the most noteworthy conceptualisations of reformational philosophy. What is often forgotten, though, is that the modal focus of a discipline also defines the concrete entities or objects that are stamped by it, as well as the functionally characterised behaviour of human subjects within such a sphere. A responsible definition will attend to both the modal horizon and that which embraces the functioning of entities.