Chapter published in:
From Pragmatics to Dialogue
Edited by Edda Weigand and Istvan Kecskes
[Dialogue Studies 31] 2018
► pp. 29–44

Humboldt, Bhartrihari, and the dialogic

Drawing on the work of von Humboldt (1963, 1997, 1999) and the 5th century BCE Indian Grammarian Bhartrihari (1971), this essay sketches how dialogue is neither a special-use of language nor a specific mode of pragmatics, but forms instead the primordial character of all language. When the study of language is restricted to Saussure’s bifurcated paradigm, the ontologically basic character of dialogue is concealed. In what follows, I will first briefly sketch a history of ancient Indian linguistics and its influence on European linguistics, then briefly review Saussure’s bifurcated conceptions of langue and parole, and then illustrate several ways that Bhartrihari and Humboldt saw language as, at heart, dialogic.
Keywords: communicative consciousness and praxis, dialogue, Indian philosophy of language, interlistening, intersubjectivity, linguistics, pragmatics, speech, speaking, and listening
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Indian philosophy of language
  • 3.Humboldt’s context
  • 4.Saussure and language use
  • 5.Dialogical language
  • 6.Dialogical thought
  • 7.Conclusion: Dialogical world-making
  • References
Published online: 05 October 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/ds.31.03lip
References
Bakhtin, Mikhail M.
1981 The Dialogic Imagination. Translatedby Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas.Google Scholar
1984 Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics. ed. by Michael Holquist, translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1986 Speech Genres & Other Late Essays. Translatedby Vern McGee. Austin: University of Texas.Google Scholar
Beck, Guy L.
1993 Sonic Theology: Hinduism and Sacred Sound. Studies in Comparative Religion. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Bhartrhari
1971 Vākyapadīya: Critical Text of Cantos I and II. Translated by K. Raghavan. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.Google Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard
1933 Language. New York: Henry Holt.Google Scholar
Bopp, Franz
1885 A Comparative Grammar of the Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Gothic German and Sclavonic Languages. University of California Libraries.Google Scholar
Bronkhorst, Johannes
1992 “Pānini’s View of Meaning and Its Western Counterpart.” In Current Advances in Semantic Theory, ed. by Maxim I. Stamenov, 455–464. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
2001 “The Peacock’s Egg: Bhartrhari on Language and Reality.” Philosophy East and West. 51(4): 474–491. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2005 “Bhattoji Diksita on Sphota.” Journal of Indian Philosophy. 33: 3–41. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Buber, Martin
1958 I and Thou. New York: Scribner.Google Scholar
Colebrooke, H. T.
1801/1873 “On the Sanskrit and Prakrit Languages.” In Miscellaneous Essays, ed. by H. T. Colebrooke, with Life of the Author, by His Son, Sir T. E. Colebrooke, vol. 1, new edition. London: Trubner.Google Scholar
Deshpande, Madhav
2011 “Language and Testimony in Classical Indian Philosophy.” In Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy, ed. by Edward N. Zalta. Available online at http://​plato​.stanford​.edu​/archives​/spr2011​/entries​/language​-india/.Google Scholar
Goddard, Cliff
2003 “Whorf Meets Wierzbicka: Variation and Universals in Language and Thinking.” Language Sciences. 25: 393–432. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Golubovs’ka, Iryna
2009 “Language World Models: Universal and Specific Features.” Philologica Jassyensia, Anul V, Nr. 1 (9): 131–140.Google Scholar
von Humboldt, Wilhelm
1963 Humanist without Portfolio: An Anthology of the Writings of Wilhelm von Humboldt. Translated by Marianne Cowan. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.Google Scholar
Humboldt, Wilhelm von
1997 Essays on language, ed. by Theo Harde and D. Farrelly. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
1999 On Language: On the Diversity of Human Language Construction and Its Influence on the Mental Development of the Human Species, ed. by Michael Losonsky, Translated by Peter Heath. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Itkonen, Esa
1991 Universal History of Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Johnstone, Christopher Lyle
2012 Listening to the Logos: Speech and the Coming of Wisdom in Ancient Greece. The University of South Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Lipari, Lisbeth
2014a Listening, Thinking, Being: Toward an Ethics of Attunement. State College, PA: Penn State University Press.Google Scholar
2014b “Interlistening and the Idea of Dialogue.” Theory and Psychology. 24(4): 504–523. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2017 “The Speech We Do Not Speak: Dialogic Mind, Praxis, and Ethics.” Language and Dialogue. 7(1): 45–62Google Scholar
Luria, Alexander R.
1981 Language and Cognition. Edited by James V. Wertsch. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Longhurst, C. A.
2011 “Unamuno, Schleirmacher, Humboldt: A Question of Language.” Hispanic Review, Autumn: 573–591.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Master, Alfred
1946 “The Influence of Sir William Jones upon Sanskrit Studies.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 11(4): 798–806. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Matilal, Bimal Krishna
1981 “Error and Truth: Classical Indian Theories.” Philosophy East and West. 18: 321–333. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1988 “Śābdabodha and the Problem of Knowledge-Representation in Sanskrit.” Journal of Indian Philosophy. 16: 107–122. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1990 The Word and the World: India’s Contribution to the Study of Language. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McElvenny, James
2016 “The Fate of Form in Tradition.” Language and Communication 47: 30–42.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mohanty, Jitendra N.
1993 Essays on Indian Philosophy Traditional and Modern, ed. by Purush-ottama Bilimoria. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mueller-Vollmer, Kurt and Messling, Markus
2017 “Wilhelm von Humboldt.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by Edward N. Zalta.Google Scholar
Müller, F. Max
1869 Lectures on the Science of Language. From the 2nd London ed. rev. New York: Charles Scribner.Google Scholar
Murti, Tiruppattur Ramesehayyar Venkatachala
1974.“ Some Comments on the Philosophy of Language in the Indian Context ” Journal of Indian Philosophy. 2: 321–331. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1983 Studies in Indian Thought: Collected Papers of Prof. T. R V.Murti, ed. by Harold G. Coward.Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.Google Scholar
Pajevic, Marko
2014 “Translation and Poetic Thinking.” German Life and Letters 67: 6–21.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pānini
1897 Ashtadhyayi. Translated by Srisa Chandra Vasu. Benares.Google Scholar
Pillai, K. Raghavan
1971 “Translator’s note on Karika 145.” In Vākyapadīya: Critical Text of Cantos I and II. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.Google Scholar
Pollock, Sheldon
2009 “Future Philology? The Fate of a Soft Science in a Hard World.” Critical Inquiry. 35: 931–961. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Saussure, Ferdinand
1959 Course in General Linguistics, ed. by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, Translated by Wade Baskin. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Schlegel, Friedrich
1849 On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians. Translated by E. Millington. London: Henry G. Bohn.Google Scholar
Shastri, Gaurinath
1974 A Concise History of Classical Sanskrit Literature. Delhi: MotilalGoogle Scholar
Smith, J. Mark
2009 “The Rippling of Verschiedenheit: Wilhelm von Humboldt on Philology, Usage and Intra-linguistic Diversity.” European Romantic Review 20(2): 237–245.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Vygotsky, Lev
1986 Thought and Language. Translated by Alex Kozulin. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Weigand, Edda
2010 Dialogue: The Mixed Game. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2011 “Introducing Language and Dialogue.” Language and Dialogue 1(1): 1–3. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wilhelm, Friedrich
1961 “The German Response to Indian Culture.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 81(4): 395–405. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Săftoiu, Răzvan
2019. The Dialogic Turn in Language Study. Language and Dialogue 9:3 ► pp. 471 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 31 march 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.