When is the total not the whole?

Authors

  • Robert B. Kaplan University of Southern California

Keywords:

Nationalism; language origin; language acquisition; language and world.

Abstract

It seems possible that a basic misunderstanding of the importance of nationalism among those charged with undertaking language planning and especially those responsible for language-in-education planning may actually be an underlying cause for failure. The issue of nationalisminvolves the junction of two distinct domains -- the domain of ethnic and cultural issues and the domain of political organization. In addition, the matter of nationalism requires some understanding of what language is and what role it plays. Defining language starts by discussing the origin of language ”“ where did it come from? The origin of language is difficult to study in the absence of any direct evidence, so scholars have had to draw inferences from other kinds of information; e.g., from fossil records, archeological evidence, the vast diversity of living languages, language acquisition and language learning, as well as comparisons between human languages and the various modes of communication employed by animals, birds, and insects. The language one uses is shaped by the society in which one lives; that society is shaped by the language used by speakers who inhabit the society. The difference between languages lies not in grammar and vocabulary but rather in the world of metaphor.

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Author Biography

Robert B. Kaplan, University of Southern California

Professor Emérito em Linguística Aplicada da University of Southern California.  Foi Visiting Distinguished Professor of Applied Linguistics at Meikai University in Japan. É cofundador da revista Current Issues in Language Planning. Organizou o Oxford Handbook of Applied Linguistics. Publicou e organizou cerca de 50 livros e 200 artigos e capítulos de livros, tanto nos Estados Unidos quando em outros países. Foi professor visitante em diversas universidades do mundo. Foi presidente NAFSA (1983”“84), TESOL (1989”“90) e da AAAL (1993”“94).

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Published

2016-02-17

How to Cite

Kaplan, R. B. (2016). When is the total not the whole?. Ecolinguística: Revista Brasileira De Ecologia E Linguagem (ECO-REBEL), 2(1), 75–94. Retrieved from https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/erbel/article/view/9900

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2016)

Section

Articles

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