Tagmemik

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The Tagmemik is a linguistic direction within the American structuralism .

theory

Tagmemik tries to describe linguistic regularities in a socio-cultural context . Linguistic and extra-linguistic behavior should therefore not only be assessed according to a certain grammar, but also within the framework of the communicative, sociological and cultural contexts in which people perform linguistic activities. The theories of Leonard Bloomfield and the model of descriptive linguistics provide the theoretical foundation for tagging . Tagmemik is primarily associated with the linguists and missionaries of the Summer Institute of Linguistics and Wycliffe Bible Translators and is used in practice when translating the Bible into languages ​​that have so far only been partially explored. Outside the circle of SIL / WBL, Tagmemik has only a few representatives.

Kenneth Lee Pike is the founder and best-known representative of Tagmemik. In 1954, with Language in relation to a unified theory of the structure of human behavior , he tried to show a general taxonomy of human behavior. The German title was language in relation to an integrated theory of the structure of human behavior .

At the core of his explanations is the assumption that the individual linguistic levels of description are very closely interwoven. The individual levels are hierarchically structured under syntax in word , phrase , sentence , sentence complex , paragraph and discourse .

As the smallest unit of the grammatical description ( i.e. not the smallest linguistic unit) of a sentence, Pike adopts the tag meme that Bloomfeld already defined. He describes tag memes as “ correlates of syntagmatic functions and paradigmatic fillings” ( slot-filler correlation ). Syntagmatic functions (the difficult term function has been replaced by slot ) are the object or the subject. Paradigmatic fillers replace the subject such as proper names, personal pronouns or nouns. Syntagmemes are represented in so-called tagmemes formulas .

Several tag memes together result in syntagmemes (also constructions ). The interweaving of the individual levels makes it necessary in the analysis to isolate and consider the components of a higher-order tag meme as syntagmemes of the level below. The analysis of a paragraph therefore also requires an analysis of the sentence complexes contained in the paragraph, which in turn consist of phrases that are composed of words.

Tagmemik differentiates between "emic" and "etic" elements in contrast to the other structuralist grammatical concepts . Pike uses this distinction in all of his linguistic descriptions.

The main focus of research in Tagmemik relates to semantic - ethnolinguistic problems (e.g. investigations of relatives in different languages), but above all to the inclusion of non-verbal, paralinguistic aspects in the description of language.

PM Postal sees Tagmemik as a “subtype of PSG theory” ( phrase structure grammar ). He proved that the tag-mixed formulas represent a finite set of context-free phrase structure rules that are only handled differently in the tag-mixed notation .

Quotes

  • “The tag memes unites in a single unit a function (= slot, d. Author.) In a larger structure and a class of items fulfilling that function (= fillers, d. Author.); it is defined as the correlation of a grammatical function or slot with a class of mutually substitutable items occurring in that slot. " (B. Elson, V. Pickett, 1964, 54)

literature

  • Kenneth Lee Pike: Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior. Mouton, The Hague 1967, 1971.
  • Walter A. Cook: Introduction to Tagmemic Analysis. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, London 1969, Georgetown Univ. Pr., Washington DC 1978 (Repr). ISBN 0-87840-171-7 (useful introduction)
  • Kenneth Lee Pike: Linguistic Concepts, an Introduction to Tagmemics. University of Nebraska Press, London 1982, Prentice-Hall International, London 1993. ISBN 0-8032-3664-6 , ISBN 0-13-484528-5
  • Kenneth Lee Pike: A Guide to Publications Related to Tagmemic Theory. In: Current Trends in Linguistics. Mouton, The Hague 3.1966, 365-394. (Bibliography)
  • Hadumod Bußmann (Ed.) With the collaboration of Hartmut Lauffer: Lexikon der Sprachwissenschaft. 4th, revised and bibliographically supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-520-45204-7 .
  • Werner Welte: Modern Linguistics. Terminology - bibliography, a manual and reference work based on generative-transformational language theory . Vol. 1. Hueber, Munich 1974, pp. 193-194.
  • Helmut Glück (Ed.): Metzler Lexicon Language . Metzler, Stuttgart 2010. ISBN 3-476-02335-4

Web links