Linguistics in the United States
The history of linguistics in the United States began to discover a greater understanding of humans and language. By trying to find a greater ‘parent language’ through similarities in different languages, a number of connections were discovered. Many contributors and new ideas helped shape the study of linguistics in the United States into what we know it as today. In the 1920s, linguistics focused on grammatical analysis and grammatical structure, especially of languages indigenous to North America, such as Chippewa, Apache, and more. In addition to scholars who have paved the way for linguistics in the United States, the Linguistic Society of America is a group that has contributed to the research of linguistics in America. The United States has long been known for its diverse collection of linguistic features and dialects that are spread across the country. In recent years, the study of linguistics in the United States has broadened to include nonstandard varieties of English speaking, such as Chicano English and African American English, as well as the question if language perpetuates inequalities.
Important Linguists in the United States
William Dwight Whitney, the first U.S.-taught academic linguist, founded the American Philological Association in 1869. During Whitney's professional career he served as president of the Convention of American Philologists. He was also the first editor-in-chief of The Century Dictionary, 1889–1891. He has also written many books including 'A Sanskrit Grammar', 'A Compendious German Grammar', 'A German Reader', 'The Life and Growth of Language', and more can be found listed in The Encyclopedia Americana.Leonard Bloomfield, professor at the University of Chicago from 1927-1940, founded the Linguistic Society of America in 1924 as presented in the A History of the American Philological Association. Other linguists active in the first half of the 20th century include Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf.
Noam Chomsky is an American linguist who is often described as the "father of modern linguistics". He theorized on language from a biological standpoint, and referred to it as a cognitive ""module"" in the human brain. Chomsky outlined key differences between language cognition in humans and in other animals as head author of "The Language Faculty", published in 2002. He also contributed the theory of Universal Grammar. From the 1950s, American linguistic tradition began to diverge from the de Saussurian structuralism taught in European academia, notably with Noam Chomsky's "nativist" transformational grammar and successor theories, which during the 1970s "linguistics wars" gave rise to a wide variety of competing grammar frameworks.
American linguistics outside the Chomskyan tradition includes functional grammar with proponents including Talmy Givón, and cognitive grammar advocated by Ronald Langacker and others. John McWhorter, who has a background in teaching African-American studies, is another American linguist.
Linguistic typology, and controversially mass lexical comparison, was considered by Joseph Greenberg. Winfred P. Lehmann introduced Greenbergian typological theory to Indo-European studies in the 1970s.