Historicism

Shazia Khokhar
14 Eng-Linguistics-38

HISTORICISM
Historicism is a mode of thinking that assigns a
central andbasic significance to a specific
context, such as historicalperiod, geographical
place .
History is a container.
Everything happens inhistory.
History is itself an aim, because phenomenon
happen swithin the frameworkof history.

HISTORICISM

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Historicism therefore tends to be

hermeneutical, because itplaces great
importance on cautious, rigorous and
contextualized interpretation of information.
Historicism is relativistic because it rejects
notions ofuniversal, fundamental and
immutable interpretations.

HISTORICISM

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Otto Jespersen in 1922 held that the distinctive

feature ofthe science of language is its historical
character.
Herman Paul Stated :
As soon as one goes beyond the mere statement ofindividual
facts, as soon as one tried to grasp theirinterconnection ,to
understand a phenomena, one enters upon the domain of
history, albeit perhaps unconsciously

HISTORICISM

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Herman Paul was a leading figure in neogrammarian

orthodoxy.
The Neogrammarians(also Young Grammarians) werea German
school of linguists, originally at the University of Leipzig, in
thelate 19th century.
Neogrammarian contributionto linguistics:
The object of linguistic investigation is not the
languagesystem.Languageisdirectlyobservable.
The chief goal of linguistic investigation is the description of the
historical change of a language

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While the Neogrammarian tradition has dominated the history of

linguistics, there was another once influential orientation, a
philosophical-psychological typological-evolutionary outlook on
the nature and evolution of language, now largely forgotten.
In the nineteenth century, there was a clash between views of
linguistics as a
Naturwissenschaft (physical science) and
Geisteswissenschaft (humanities).
Leading linguists attempted to place linguistics in the natural
(physical) sciences, denying any value for the more humanistic,
sentimental intellectual orientations.

Criticism of Historicism
Two Senses of the Term History
It is a tautology that everything (other than God) is
history if history is used to mean the totality of all
that has been and will be in time. But in that case the
word would -confusingly - mean the same as the
universe, and historic-ism would not comprise an
interesting or informative theory about human
experience and knowledge.

Criticism of Historicism
Dilthey said:
The historical world-view has broken the
last chain not yet broken by philosophy
and natural science. Everything is flowing,
nothing remains. But where are the
means to conquer the anarchy of opinions
which threatens us?