Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
and so forth
For Fishman, Ferguson remained his main
teacher of linguistics.15 While their research paths
diverged, with Ferguson firmly on the linguistic
and Fishman firmly on the sociological side, their
early conversations and continuing association
had a major influence on the growth and shape of
the field.
1.3 ORGANIZING A NEW FIELD
Left to work alone, there is little doubt that the
founders of sociolinguistics would have continued
their individual scholarly paths investigating the
complex relations between language and society,
and the structure and interplay of the two systems
evolved to deal with the evolutionary inadequacies
of human physiology, rejecting the ideology established
in mainstream linguistics by Chomskys
lack of interest in meaning and his focus on the
competence of an idealized monolingual. Each
of them had come with a different goal and was
attracted by a different inspiration. William Bright,
for instance, had been trained in American Indian
linguistics by M. B. Emeneau and Mary Haas,
both of whom continued the interest of Edward
Sapir in language in culture; he was thus open to
influence in writing his first published paper on
lexical innovation in Karuk by a lecture on bilingualism