Words Are Also Deeds

T H HE SUBJECT of the following observations is both important and, methodologically, deeply unsound. For one thing it is much too large for what I know and for the framework of such a paper as this. But quite apart from that, the evidence on which I, or indeed anybody, has to rely in speaking about language consciousness is bound to be, in part at any rate, highly speculative. The reasons why writers, and people generally, think about language are as often as not implicit in what they say, and they are likely to differ; yet these reasons are bound to affect the thinking itself, that is, they are likely to affect the view of language that emerges as the result of such thinking. Though these observations are incomplete, reflecting an individual choice of texts, they are intended to show the development of an idea

Art · Consciousness · Epistemology · Linguistics · Literature · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · Linguistic Education and Pedagogy · Linguistic research and analysis · Philosophy