Louis Hjelmslev
From Freepedia
Louis Hjelmslev (October 3, 1899 - May 30, 1965) was a Danish linguist whose ideas formed the basis of the Danish School in linguistics. Born into an academic family, Hjelmslev studied comparative linguistics in Copenhagen, Prague and Paris (with A. Meillet). In 1931, he helped to found the Cercle Linguistique de Copenhague. Together with Hans-Jørgen Uldall he developed a new theory on language, they dubbed Glossematik (glossematics was coined to combine the explanation of words in a glossary with a scientific approach similar to calculus in mathematics).
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The Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen
The Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen was founded by Hjelmslev and a group of colleagues in 1931. Their inspiration was the Prague Linguistic Circle, and the purpose was to create a study circle of active members who would develop a new kind of linguistic research. Initially, their interest lay in phonology but it later developed into Structuralism. Membership of the group grew rapidly and a significant list of publications resulted including an irregular series of larger works under the name Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Copenhague. A "Bulletin" was produced, followed by an international journal for structuralistic research in language, Acta Linguistica (later called Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. With one short break between 1934-37 when he worked with Uldall on the Glossematik, Hjelmslev acted as chairman of the Circle until shortly before his death in 1965.
His theoretical work
His landmark book, Prolegomena, was first published in 1943 and represents a critique of the then prevailing methodologies in linguistics as descriptive and not systematising. He proposed a linguistic theory intended to form the basis of a more rational linguistics and a contribution to general epistemology. Like Saussure (1857-1913), he accepted language as a system of signs. In his analysis, a sign was a form, i.e. it is possible to decribe it empirically, but its substance was ontologically speculative, i.e. what the sign would go on to mean when interpreted may be quite different from what was intended. A sign also had a function. Two elements which he termed "functive", content and expression, were associated with that function. He also refered to purport as a non-linguistic element in his calculus of language, i.e. a level of connotation independent of linguistic form. In short, he was proposing an open-ended, scientific method of analysis as a new semiotics. In proposing this, he was reacting against the conventional view in phonetics that the focus of the enquiry should be the sounds. This begins a more serious philosophical tradition. When the individual's ear detects the sound waves, a cognitive process begins to translate the wave forms into meaningful data. Similarly, when the eye receives light carrying data about the world, it must be interpreted. Hjelmslev reacted against the notion that images had to be translated into a phonetic “substance” or a concrete perceptual object in order to be understood. He argued that no sign can be interpreted unless it is contextualised, treating his functives, expression and content as the general connotative mechanisms, which anticipated the Greimas school's view that all meaning is of a kind. So not only do pictures and literature manifest the same organising principles, but, more broadly, visuality and aurality must be taken to be identical on a deeper level.
Assessment
He made a bold proposal to transform technical analysis into a broad enquiry, emphasising that the true focus of linguistics should be the language and the human culture that continually reinvents it, and all society's memory of its accumulated knowledge preserved through language. This was a challenging but constructive argument that still has relevance today.
References
Hjelmslev, Louis (1953). Prolegomena: A Theory of Language. Baltimore: Indiana University Publications in Anthropology and Linguistics (IJAL Memoir, 7) (2nd OD (slightly rev.): Madison: Univ. Of Wisconsin Press, 1961. Dt.: Hjelmslev 1974.
