Editor's Introduction This selection of Edward Sapir's best-known writings has been made at the publisher's request so that a wide circle of readers can come to know and find pleasure in his thought and style. These essays, nine in number, representative of his contributions in three fields of learning, have been chosen from the larger collection entitled Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture, and Personality published in 1949 by the University of California Press.
Sapir continues to be honored, not only by those who knew the rare quality of the man, but also by those who discover, from reading what he had to tell us, that they grow intellectually taller than they were before.
The first three essays deal with language, Sapir's principal field of study. In the long essay on language, compact and tightly written though it is, we can see something of Sapir's broad and sure grasp of the subject and of his illuminating explorations in various aspects of linguistics. The opening essay begins with a trenchant summary of the formal characteristics of language and then discusses language as an attribute of man. After taking note of various notions concerning the origin of language, Sapir goes on to an analysis of the functions of speech, and then to a description of structural and genetic classifications. The discussion of genetic affiliations among languages leads to observations on change in language and that, in turn, to the relations between language and the rest of a culture.
Practical, social considerations are central in the essay, "The Function of an International Auxiliary Language." Sapir gave much thought to this subject and his views can now be gauged in the light of events which have occurred in the years since they were first propounded. C. K. Ogden's rejoinder to Sapir appeared in the same issue of Psyche and also in a volume of the Psyche Miniature Series entitled Debabelization.
The dominant note of "The Status of Linguistics as a Science" is one which Sapir stressed in various of his writings. "Language is a cultural or social product and must be understood as such." He reminded linguists that, if their subject was to be scientifically productive and aesthetically satisfying, it could not be narrowly circumscribed, but had to be an integral and integrated part of the study of man.
"Culture, Genuine and Spurious" is an example of Sapir's comments on culture in general. In this essay he boldly offers value judgments on cultures, a procedure that was at variance with the relativistic tone of anthropology at that period. The essay on "The Meaning of Religion" presents in noteworthy style penetrating ideas on a human characteristic.
The interplay of culture and personality was a field of study in which Sapir was a pioneer. The essay "Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry" plots the scope and gives the rationale of culture-personality studies. The short essay on "Personality" offers definitions and suggests uses for them. The relevance of the various social sciences, especially economics, to the realities of life are discussed in "Psychiatric and Cultural Pitfalls in the Business of Getting a Living." The final essay in this collection, "The Emergence of the Concept of Personality in a Study of Cultures," offers a number of research leads which have proved to be stimulating and fruitful.
This selection of Sapir's notable essays includes only a sampling of the many that deserve the attention of a wide public. None of his technical studies in American Indian languages, and in Indo-European, Semitic, and African languages could be included within the compass of this volume. Those who want to know more about Sapir and his work may refer to Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture, and Personality; in the bibliography therein are listings o! Sapir's contributions to belles-lettres, of his writings in musical criticism, and of his poetry. For a review of Sapir's linguistic ideas, see the article by Zellig Harris in Language, vol. 27 (1951), pp. 288-333.
Edward Sapir was born in Lauenberg, Germany, in 1884. When he was five years old his parents came to the United States. Sapir's early education was in Richmond, Virginia, and, after the age of ten, in the New York City schools. At the age of fourteen he entered a city-wide scholarship competition and was ranked first: "the brightest boy in New York City," said one newspaper. This scholarship award assisted him through high school and Columbia University, where he was graduated in 1904. At Columbia he came to know Franz Boas, one of the founders of American anthropology, who interested him in the anthropological approach to linguistics. With Boas' encouragement and help Sapir took an M.A. in German in 1905 and four years later received the Ph.D. in anthropology. In the summer of 1905 he made a field trip to the state of Washington to study the language of the Wishram Indians and, from that time on, much of his work concerned American Indian languages and cultures.
Following his graduate work at Columbia, Sapir spent a year as research assistant in anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and then two years as an instructor at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1910 he was appointed chief of the Division of Anthropology in the Geological Survey of the Canadian National Museum at Ottawa. In 1925 he was invited to the University of Chicago and six years later went to Yale University to be Sterling Professor of Anthropology and Linguistics. Before his death, February 4, 1989, Sapir had received many high academic honors, among them an honorary degree from Columbia, and the presidencies of the American Anthropological Association and of the American Linguistic Society.
Contents
LANGUAGE
THE FUNCTION OF AN INTERNATIONAL AUXILIARY LANGUAGE
THE STATUS OF LINGUISTICS AS A SCIENCE
CULTURE, GENUINE AND SPURIOUS
THE MEANING OF RELIGION
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY
PERSONALITY
PSYCHIATRIC AND CULTURAL PITFALLS IN THE BUSINESS OF GETTING A LIVING
THE EMERGENCE OF THE CONCEPT OF PERSONALITY IN A STUDY OF CULTURES
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