Article published In:
Historiographia LinguisticaVol. 30:3 (2003) ► pp.407–427
Lexicography and the Evolution of Consciousness
A study of Owen Barfield’s History in English Words
Owen Barfield (1898–1997), a cultural critic and historian, has been appreciated by literary scholars and artists including C. S. Lewis, T. S. Eliot, and W. H. Auden, but he has been relatively unnoticed by linguists despite the fact that he advanced a thoughtfully reasoned and documented theory of language history throughout his many writings. In his theory of etymological semantics, Barfield asserted that the etymology of words reveals an evolution of human consciousness. Barfield’s relationship between language and consciousness is significant to the history of linguistics because he not only described what changed in a language’s history, but he also explained why it changed. In his seminal History in English Words (1926), a book written at the beginning of his nearly 70-year career as a scholar and writer, Barfield initially presented his theory with examples from the history of English beginning with its origins in Indo-European. This theory became a central and unifying theme in all of his work – a theory which he refined and expanded in many later writings, especially in Poetic Diction (1928), Speaker’s Meaning (1967), and History, Guilt, and Habit (1979).
References
Adey, Lionel
1978 C. S. Lewis’ ‘Great War’ with Owen Barfield. Victoria, B. C.: University of Victoria.
Auden, W. H.
1985 “Introduction”. History in History in English Words by Owen Barfield, new ed., 4–9. West Stockbridge, Mass.: Lindisfarne Press.
Barfield, Owen
1964[1926] History in History in English Words. London: Faber & Faber.
1967[1946] Romanticism Comes of Age. 2nd ed. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press.
1967 Speaker’s Meaning. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press.
1971 What Coleridge Thought. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press.
1973[1928] Poetic Diction: A study in meaning. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press.
1979 History, Guilt, and Habit. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press.
1988[1957] Saving the Appearances: A study in idolatry. 2nd ed. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press.
Baugh, Albert C. & Thomas Cable
2001[1934] A History of the English Language. 5th ed. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall.
Carruthers, Peter
1996 Language, Thought, and Consciousness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
Dennett, Daniel C.
1996 Kinds of Minds: Toward an understanding of consciousness. New York: Basic Books.
Gumperz, John J. & Stephen C. Levinson
1966 Rethinking Linguistic Relativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jespersen, Otto
1982[1905] Growth and Structure of the English Language. 10th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Krapp, George Philip
1926 “Introduction”. History in History in English Words by Owen Barfield, first ed., xii–xvi. New York: George H. Doran.
Lee, Penny
Lewis, C. S.
1955 Surprised by Joy: The shape of my early life. London: Geoffrey Bles.
1958[1936] The Allegory of Love. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lavery, David
2003 [URL]
Ogden, C. K. & I. A. Richards
1947[1923] The Meaning of Meaning: A study of the influence of language upon thought and of the science of symbolism. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.
Olender, Maurice
1992 The Languages of Paradise: Race, religion, and philology in the nineteenth century. Transl. by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Pyles, Thomas & John Algeo
1993[1964] The Origins and Development of the English Language. 4th ed. London: Thomson.
Robertson, Stuart
1960[1934] The Development of Modern English. Rev ed. by Frederick G. Cassidy. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall.
Reilly, R. J.
1971 Romantic Religion: A study of Barfield, Lewis, Williams, and Tolkien. Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press.
Smith, Logan Pearsall
1912 The English Language. New York: Henry Holt & Co.
Sugerman, Shirley
ed. 1976 Evolution of Consciousness: Studies in polarity. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press.
Tennyson, G. B.
1976 “Etymology and Meaning”. Sugerman, ed. 1976.168–182.
ed. 1999 A Barfield Reader: Selections from the writings of Owen Barfield. Hanover, N. H.: Wesleyan University Press.
Whorf, Benjamin Lee
1956 Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected writings by Benjamin Lee Whorf. Ed. by John B. Carroll,. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Wilkins, John
1668 An Essay Toward a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language. London: Samuel Gellibrand & John Martyn.
Cited by
Cited by 5 other publications
Gidley, Jennifer M.
2009. Educating for Evolving Consciousness: Voicing the Emergency for Love, Life and Wisdom. In International Handbook of Education for Spirituality, Care and Wellbeing [International Handbooks of Religion and Education, 3], ► pp. 553 ff. 
Gidley, Jennifer M.
2016. Pedagogical Voice: An Empowering Force. In Postformal Education, ► pp. 249 ff.
Subbiondo, J.L.
2005. Benjamin Lee Whorf’s theory of language, culture, and consciousness: A critique of western science. Language & Communication 25:2 ► pp. 149 ff.
Subbiondo, Joseph L.
2015. Whorf, Benjamin Lee (1897–1941). In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, ► pp. 575 ff.
Subbiondo, Joseph L.
2017. Federico Garlanda’s The Philosophy of Words (1886) and The Fortunes of Language (1887): models in their class. Language & History 60:3 ► pp. 167 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 3 july 2024. 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.