Politics and the Theory of Language in the USSR 1917-1938

The Birth of Sociological Linguistics

Edited by Craig Brandist, Katya Chown

Publication date:

01 March 2010

Publisher

Anthem Press

Dimensions:

229x153mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781843318408

‘Politics and the Theory of Language in the USSR 1917-1938’ provides ground-breaking research into the relationship between linguistic theory and politics during the first two decades of the USSR. This work introduces some of the era's most notable figures whose achievements have been largely overlooked in the West, and provides a thought-provoking discussion of the innovative approaches they developed. Some of these insights still have a progressive role to play in scholarship today.

Introduction; Soviet Linguistics of the 1920s and 1930s and the Scholarly Heritage; 'Sociology' in Soviet Linguistics of the 1920-30s; Theoretical Insights and Ideological Pressures in Early Soviet Linguistics; Early Soviet Linguistics and Mikhail Bakhtin’s Essays on the Novel of the 1930s; Language as a Battlefield - the Rhetoric of Class Struggle in Linguistic Debates of the First Five-Year Plan Period; The Tenacity of Forms; The Word as Culture; Language Ideology and the Evolution of Kul´tura iazyka ('Speech Culture') in Soviet Russia; Psychology, Linguistics and the Rise of Applied Social Science in the USSR; Appendix 1: Introduction to Japhetidology: Theses - Ivan Meshchaninov; Appendix 2: Glossary of Names; Appendix 3: Contributors; Index of Names

'Examining the interpenetration of linguistics, psychology, sociology and political thought, this collection makes an excellent interdisciplinary contribution to our knowledge of Soviet cultural and intellectual history.' —Galin Tihanov, University of Manchester