Introduction

From the very first pages of this book we've seen how closely the history of thinking about language and the history of thinking itself are connected. We've followed people's priorities and preferences in linguistic research, and found echoes in their epistemology, education, philosophy, science – in every area of their life touched by thinking. The period of time covered, the fifth century BC to the sixteenth century AD, is bounded by two major moments of change in the history of thinking generally, and so in the history of linguistics too; and, as we've seen, there were various lesser turning-points along the way. Even in the much shorter span of time since 1600 – a mere four hundred years – further changes have taken place in thinking and outlook, reflected just as clearly in linguistics as anywhere else. In this chapter we'll recapitulate by surveying the broad trends in linguistics in the two millennia covered in this book; and then we'll glance ahead at the four hundred years that take us up to the present day. That's not to say that what happened in that relatively brief period has not been significant in its own way; of course it has, and you've probably come across writers and lecturers who have dismissed everything that happened before the Neogrammarians, or Saussure, or even Chomsky, as not worth a glance. Some of the attitudes held by these scornful contemporary practitioners – such as the tendency to despise the old because it's old – took shape during this intervening period, while others go right back to the Greeks.