Cover not available
Part of
History of Linguistics 2017: Selected papers from the 14th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences, (ICHoLS 14), Paris, 28 August – 1 September
Edited by Émilie Aussant and Jean-Michel Fortis
[Studies in the History of the Language Sciences 127] 2020
► pp. 65–78

Why is it so hard to establish gestalt ideas within linguistics?

| Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

I call holistic and relativistic approaches to language gestalt linguistics. Although there have been some efforts to integrate them into linguistics, they have never formed part of mainstream linguistics. This article tackles the “why” of this diagnosis. Historic exclusion of psychology from linguistics, the fact that the perceptual gestalt theory is not a genuine linguistic theory and that it deals with preconscious grouping principles but not with symbolic linguistic units, the vagueness of gestalt concepts, and the lack of a proper formalism are aspects of the answer.

Keywords: gestalt formalism, gestalt laws, gestalt linguistics, gestalt psychology, perception, phenomenology, phonology, structuralism, wholeness
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Gestalt psychology and gestalt linguistics
  • 3.Epistemological premises of structuralist and gestalt linguistics
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 20 May 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sihols.127.05kal
References
Albano Leoni, Federico
2009 “Bühler et le Cercle Linguistique de Prague”. Verbum 31:1/2.89–114.Google Scholar
2016 “Les parties et le tout: Jakobson, Husserl et la phonologie”. Histoire Épistémologie Langage 37:1.27–42. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Albertazzi, Liliana, Massimo Libardi & Roberto Poli
eds. 1996 The School of Franz Brentano. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Amann, Anton
1993 “The Gestalt Problem in Quantum theory: Generation of Molecular Shape by the Environment”. Synthese 97:1.125–156. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anttila, Raimo
1976 “The Metamorphosis of Allomorphs”. The second LACUS Forum 1975 ed. by P. Reich, 238–248. Columbia: Hornbeam Press.Google Scholar
1977 “Dynamic Fields and Linguistic Structure: A Proposal for a Gestalt Linguistics”. Die Sprache 23:1.1–10.Google Scholar
Ash, Mitchell G.
1995 Gestalt Psychology in German Culture, 1890–1967: holism and the quest for objectivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Auer, Peter
2005 “Syntax als Prozess”. Interaction and Linguistic Structures 41.1–35.Google Scholar
Blutner, Reinhard & Peter beim Graben
2015 “Quantum cognition and bounded rationality”. On-line: [URL] (last access: 2 April 2018).
Bolinger, Dwight L.
1951 “Intonation: Levels versus Configurations”. Word 7:3.199–210. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1986 Intonation and Its Parts: Melody in Spoken English. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bregman, Albert
1990 Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound. Boston, MA: The MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bühler, Karl
1913 Die Gestaltwahrnehmungen. Experimentelle Untersuchungen zur psychologischen und ästhetischen Analyse der Raum- und Zeitanschauung. Stuttgart: Spemann.Google Scholar
1931 “Phonetik und Phonologie”. Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague 4.22–52.Google Scholar
1965 2 [1934] Sprachtheorie. Die Darstellungsfunktion der Sprache. Stuttgart: Fischer.Google Scholar
1935 “Psychologie der Phoneme”. Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, London, 162–169.Google Scholar
Delattre, Pierre
1966 “Les dix intonations de base du français”. French Review 40.1–14.Google Scholar
Desolneux, Agnès, Lionel Moisan & Jean-Michel Morel
2008 From Gestalt Theory to Image Analysis: A Probabilistic Approach (= Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematics, 34). New York: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deutsch, David
1998 [1997] The Fabric of Reality. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Diver, William
1995 “Theory”. Meaning as Explanation: Advances in Linguistic Sign Theory ed. by Ellen Contini-Morava and Barbara Sussman Goldberg, 43–111. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Enzyklopädie der Psychologie
2005 Allgemeine Musikpsychologie. vol. D, VII, 1. Ed. by Thomas H. Stoffer & Rolf Oerter. Göttingen: Hogrefe.Google Scholar
Friedrich, Janette
2004 “Les idées phonologiques de Karl Bühler”. Karl Bühler. Science du langage et mémoire européenne (= Dossiers d’HEL n° 2, supplément électronique à la revue Histoire Épistémologie Langage) ed. by Janette Friedrich & Didier Samain. Paris. On-line: [URL] (last access: 2 April 2018).
Harrington, Anne
2002 Die Suche nach Ganzheit. Die Geschichte biologisch-psychologischer Ganzheitslehren: Vom Kaiserreich bis zur New-Age-Bewegung. Reinbek: Rowohlt.Google Scholar
Hinzen, Wolfram
2000 “Minimalism”. Handbook of the Philosophy of science, vol. 14: Philosophy of Linguistics ed. by Ruth Kempson, Tim Fernando & Nicholas Asher, 93–142. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Hymes, Dell & John Fought
1975 American Structuralism (= Janua linguarum, 102). The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Jäkel, Frank, Manish Singh, Felix A. Wichmann & Michael H. Herzog
2016 “An Overview of Quantitative Approaches in Gestalt Perception”. Vision Research 126.3–8. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Janke, Wilhelm
1999 Hundert Jahre Institut für Psychologie und Würzburger Schule der Denkpsychologie. Göttingen: Hogrefe.Google Scholar
Kalkhoff, Alexander M.
2016 Gestaltphonologische Interpretation der komplex-vokalischen Wortgestaltung im Portugiesischen, Spanischen, Französischen, Italienischen und Rumänischen. Habilitation thesis, Universität Regensburg.Google Scholar
Kanizsa, Gaetano
1980 Grammatica del vedere: Saggi su percezione e gestalt. Bologna: Mulino.Google Scholar
Krefeld, Thomas
1999 Wortgestalt und Vokalsystem in der Italoromania (= Dialectologia pluridimensionalis Romanica, 7). Kiel: Westensee Verlag.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas Samuel
1962 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (= International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, 2,2). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ladd, D. Robert
2008 2 [1996] Intonational Phonology (= Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 119). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George
1977 “Linguistic gestalts”. Papers from the Thirteenth Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, April 14–16, 1977 ed. by Woodford A. Beach, Samuel E. Fox, & Shulamith Philosoph, 236–287. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago.Google Scholar
López García, Ángel
1994–1998 Gramática del español, 3 vols. Madrid: Arco Libros.Google Scholar
Marandin, Jean-Marie
2006 “Contours as constructions”. Constructions SV 1. On-line: [URL] (last access: 2 April 2018).
Martinet, André
1949 “La double articulation linguistique”. Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Copenhague 5.30–37. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Metzger, Wolfgang
1975 3 [1936] Gesetze des Sehens. Frankfurt a.M.: Kramer.Google Scholar
Meyer-Abich, Klaus Michael
1989 “Der Holismus im 20. Jahrhundert”. Klassiker der Naturphilosophie ed. by Gernot Böhme, 313–329. Munich: C. H. Beck.Google Scholar
Moltmann, Friederike
1997 Parts and Wholes in Semantics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Moulines, Carlos Ulises
1996 “Structuralism: The Basic Ideas”. Structuralist Theory of Science (= Perspektiven der Analytischen Philosophie, 6) ed. by Wolfgang Balzer & Carlos Ulises Moulines, 1–14. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Müller, Stefan
2010 Grammatiktheorie (= Stauffenburg Einführungen, 20). Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, Janet B., Mary E. Beckman & D. Robert Ladd
2012 [2000] “Conceptual Foundations of Phonology as a Laboratory Science (reprint)”. The Oxford Handbook of Laboratory Phonology, 17–39. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Popper, Karl
1963 Conjectures and Refutations, 33–39. London: Routledge and Keagan Paul. (Repr. in Readings in the Philosophy of Science ed. by Theodore Schick, 9–13. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company 2000.)Google Scholar
Primas, Hans
1983 Chemistry, Quantum Mechanics and Reductionism, 2 nd edition. Berlin: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya
1984 “Principles of Gestalt Perception in the Temporal Organization of Narrative Text”. Linguistics 22.779–809.Google Scholar
Rosch, Eleanor
1975 “Cognitive Representation of Semantic Categories”. Journal of Experimental Psychology 104:3.192–233. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sabar, Stephanie
2013 “What’s a Gestalt?”. Gestalt Review 17:1.6–34. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sapir, Edward
1925 “Sound patterns in language”. Language 1:2.37–51. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Saussure, Ferdinand de
1995 [1916] Cours de linguistique générale. Publié par Charles Bally et Albert Sechehaye avec la coopération de Albert Riedlinger. Édition critique préparée par Tullio de Mauro. Paris: Éditions Payot & Rivages.Google Scholar
Šķilters, Jurģis
2005 “Gestalt Theory and Linguistics, Introduction to GT and Linguistics’ Project”. On-line: [URL] (last access: 2 April 2018).
2008 “Sprache, Gestalttheorie und Semantik”. Handbuch zur Gestalttheorie, vol. 1: Gestalttheorie aktuell ed. by Hellmuth Metz-Göckel, 203–231. Wien: Krammer.Google Scholar
Sternefeld, Wolfgang & Frank Richter
2012 “Wo stehen wir in der Grammatiktheorie? Bemerkungen anlässlich eines Buches von Stefan Müller”. On-line: [URL] (last access: 2 April 2018).
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science
2016 Ed. by Paul Humphreys. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Trager, Georges L. & Bernard Bloch
1941 “The Syllabic Phonemes of English”. Language 17:3.223–246. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trubetzkoy, Nikolai Sergejewitsch
1939 Grundzüge der Phonologie (= Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague, 7). Prague: Jednota Československých Matematiků a Fysiků.Google Scholar
Weinrich, Harald
2001 [1964] Tempus: Besprochene und erzählte Welt. München: C.H. Beck.Google Scholar
Wertheimer, Max
1925 “Über Gestalttheorie. Vortrag vor der Kant-Gesellschaft, Berlin, am 17. Dezember 1924”. Philosophische Zeitschrift für Forschung und Aussprache 1.39–60.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Leoni, Federico Albano
2021. »Die Sprachen sind instabile und ungeordnete Systeme«. Journal für Psychologie 29:2 ► pp. 120 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 april 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.