John Rupert Firth
John Rupert Firth (born June 17, 1890 in Keighley , Yorkshire , † December 14, 1960 in Lindfield , West Sussex ) was an English linguist and university professor.
Live and act
He first studied history , which he graduated with first class honors in 1911 . Firth was also qualified to graduate in 1913 as a Master of Arts (MA) from the University of Leeds . He briefly taught history at the City of Leeds Training College .
He joined in 1915 the Indian Education Service (IES) at and performed his duties in British India until 1928, only interrupted by the war years of the First World War . From 1916 to 1919 he served in the British Army in Afghanistan, Africa and India.
From 1919 to 1928 he was professor of the English language at the University of the Punjab . He then worked in the Phonetic Research Department , Department of Phonetics at University College London , where he lectured as senior lecturer under Daniel Jones . Although he was a member of the staff of University College London until 1938, Firth temporarily took on other activities. As assistant for sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science , then as special lecturer for phonetics of the Indian languages at the Indian Institute in Oxford .
With the support of the Leverhulme Fellowship , Firth traveled back to India for fifteen months in 1937 ; he was interested in the Gujarati and Telugu languages .
After his stay in India, he was appointed Professor of General Linguistics, General Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London in 1938 . He held this position until his retirement in 1956. Many scientific works were carried out under his aegis. His thinking also influenced the later known linguists such as Terence Frederick Mitchell , who worked in the field of Arabic and the Berber languages, Frank Robert Palmer with his studies of the Ethiopian languages, Michael Halliday for Chinese and Richard Keith Sprigg (1922-2011), who specialized in the phonology of Asian languages.
Works (selection)
- Speech. Benn's Sixpenny Library, London 1930
- The Tongues of Men. Watts & Co, London 1937
- Papers in Linguistics 1934-1951. Oxford University Press, London 1957
literature
- Frank R. Palmer (Ed.): Selected papers of John Rupert Firth (1952-59). Longman and Indiana University Press, London / Bloomington 1968
- Nigel Love: The Linguistic Thought Of JR Firth. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 15, 1986, 31-60 doi : 10.5774 / 15-0-96
Web links
- Chapman, S. & Routledge, P. (eds) (2005) Key Thinkers in Linguistics and the Philosophy of Language. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Pp 80-86.
- Biography in English
- Firthian Phonology Archive - 2012
- Robert de Beaugrande: Linguistic Theory: The Discourse of Fundamental Works.
Individual evidence
- ↑ John R. Firth. on the Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013
- ^ RH Robins (ed.); John Rupert Firth: Language. Vol. 37, No. 2 (Apr.-Jun., 1961), pp. 191-200
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Firth, John Rupert |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Firth, JR |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English linguist and university professor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 17, 1890 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Keighley , Yorkshire |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 14, 1960 |
| Place of death | Lindfield , West Sussex |