Editing Functional linguistics (section)

==History==
===1920s to 1970s: early developments===
The establishment of functional linguistics follows from a shift from structural to functional explanation in 1920s [[sociology]]. Prague, at the crossroads of western European [[structuralism]] and [[Russian formalism]], became an important centre for functional linguistics.<ref name="Daneš_1987">{{cite book |last=Daneš |first=František |editor-last=Dirven |editor-first=R. | editor-last2=Fried |editor-first2=V. | title=Functionalism in Linguistics |publisher=John Benjamins |date=1987 |pages=3–38 |chapter=On Prague school functionalism in linguistics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dKpLAwob95wC |isbn= 9789027215246}}</ref>

The shift was related to the [[Organicism|organic analogy]] exploited by [[Émile Durkheim]]<ref name="Hejl 2013">{{cite book |last=Hejl |first=P. M. |editor-last=Maasen |editor-first=Sabine |editor2-last=Mendelsohn |editor2-first=E. |editor3-last=Weingart |editor3-first=P. | title=Biology as Society, Society as Biology: Metaphors |publisher=Springer |date=2013 |pages=155–191 |chapter=The importance of the concepts of "organism" and "evolution" in Emile Durkheim's division of social labor and the influence of Herbert Spencer |isbn=9789401106733}}</ref> and [[Ferdinand de Saussure]]. Saussure had argued in his ''Course in General Linguistics'' that the 'organism' of language should be studied anatomically, and not in respect with its environment, to avoid the false conclusions made by [[August Schleicher]] and other [[social Darwinism|social Darwinists]].<ref name="Saussure_1959">{{cite book |last=de Saussure |first=Ferdinand |title=Course in General Linguistics |place=New York |publisher=Philosophy Library |date=1959 |orig-year=First published 1916 |url=https://monoskop.org/images/0/0b/Saussure_Ferdinand_de_Course_in_General_Linguistics_1959.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190808231716/https://monoskop.org/images/0/0b/Saussure_Ferdinand_de_Course_in_General_Linguistics_1959.pdf |archive-date=2019-08-08 |url-status=dead |isbn=9780231157278 |author-link=Ferdinand de Saussure |accessdate=2020-07-07 }}</ref> The post-Saussurean [[Structural functionalism|functionalist]] movement sought ways to account for the 'adaptation' of language to its environment while still remaining strictly anti-Darwinian.<ref name="Sériot_1999">{{cite book |year=1999|author-last=Sériot | author-first=Patrick | editor-last1=Hajičová |editor-last2=Hoskovec| editor-last3=Leška | editor-last4=Sgall | editor-last5=Skoumalová| title=Prague Linguistic Circle Papers, Vol. 3| publisher=John Benjamins | chapter=The Impact of Czech and Russian Biology on the Linguistic Thought of the Prague Linguistic Circle|pages=15–24 |isbn=9789027275066 }}</ref>

Russian émigrés [[Roman Jakobson]] and [[Nikolai Trubetzkoy]] disseminated insights of Russian grammarians in Prague, but also the [[evolutionary theory]] of [[Lev Berg]], arguing for [[teleology]] of language change. As Berg's theory failed to gain popularity outside the [[Soviet Union]], the organic aspect of functionalism diminished, and Jakobson adopted a standard model of functional explanation from [[Ernst Nagel]]'s [[philosophy of science]]. It is, then, the same mode of explanation as in biology and social sciences;<ref name="Daneš_1987" /> but it became emphasised that the word 'adaptation' is not to be understood in linguistics in the same meaning as in biology.<ref name="Andersen_2006">{{cite book |last=Andersen |first=Henning|editor-last=Nedergaard |editor-first=Ole |title=Competing Models of Linguistic Change : Evolution and Beyond |publisher=John Benjamins |date=2006 |pages=59–90 |chapter=Synchrony, diachrony, and evolution |isbn= 9789027293190 }}</ref>

Work on functionalist linguistics by the Prague school resumed in the 1950s after a hiatus caused by World War II and Stalinism. In North America, [[Joseph Greenberg]] published his 1963 seminal paper on language universals that not only revived the field of [[linguistic typology]], but also the approach of  seeking functional explanations for typological patterns.<ref name="Newmeyer2001"/> Greenberg's approach has been highly influential for the movement of North American functionalism that formed from the early 1970s, which has since been characterized by a profound interest in typology.<ref name="Newmeyer2001"/> Greenberg's paper was influenced by the Prague School and in particular it was written in response to Jakobson's call for an 'implicational typology'.<ref name="Newmeyer2001">[[Frederick Newmeyer|Newmeyer]] (2001) ''[https://www.jstor.org/stable/4176644 The Prague School and North American Functionalist Approaches to Syntax]'', in Journal of Linguistics, Mar., 2001, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Mar., 2001), pp. 101–126</ref> While North American functionalism was initially influenced by the functionalism of the Prague school, such influence has been later discontinued.<ref name="Newmeyer2001"/>

===1980s onward: name controversy===
The term 'functionalism' or 'functional linguistics' became controversial in the 1980s with the rise of a new wave of [[evolutionary linguistics]]. [[Johanna Nichols]] argued that the meaning of 'functionalism' had changed, and the terms formalism and functionalism should be taken as referring to [[generative grammar]], and the [[Interactional linguistics|emergent linguistics]] of [[Paul J. Hopper|Paul Hopper]] and [[Sandra Thompson (linguist)|Sandra Thompson]], respectively; and that the term ''structuralism'' should be reserved for frameworks derived from the [[Prague linguistic circle]].<ref name="Nichols_1984">{{cite journal |last=Nichols |first=Johanna |date=1984 |title=Functional theories of grammar |journal=Annual Review of Anthropology  |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=97–117 |doi=10.1146/annurev.an.13.100184.000525 }}</ref> [[William Croft (linguist)|William Croft]] argued subsequently that it is a fact to be agreed by all linguists that form does not follow from function. He proposed that functionalism should be understood as autonomous linguistics, opposing the idea that language arises functionally from the need to express meaning:

<blockquote>"The notion of autonomy emerges from an undeniable fact of all languages, 'the curious lack of accord ... between form and function'"<ref name="Croft_19953">{{cite journal|last=Croft|first=William|date=1995|title=Autonomy and functionalist linguistics|journal=Language|volume=71|issue=3|pages=490–532|doi=10.2307/416218|jstor=416218}}</ref></blockquote>

Croft explains that, until the 1970s, functionalism related to semantics and pragmatics, or the '[[Semiotics|semiotic]] function'. But around 1980s the notion of function changed from semiotics to "external function",<ref name="Croft_19953"/> proposing a [[Neo-Darwinism|neo-Darwinian]] view of language change as based on [[natural selection]].<ref name="Croft_2006">{{cite book|last=Croft|first=William|title=Competing Models of Linguistic Change: Evolution and Beyond|publisher=John Benjamins|year=2006|editor-last=Nedergaard Thomsen|editor-first=Ole|pages=91–132|chapter=The relevance of an evolutionary model to historical linguistics|series=Current Issues in Linguistic Theory|volume=279|doi=10.1075/cilt.279.08cro|isbn=978-90-272-4794-0}}</ref> Croft proposes that 'structuralism' and 'formalism' should both be taken as referring to generative grammar; and 'functionalism' to [[Usage-based models of language|usage-based]] and [[cognitive linguistics]]; while neither [[André Martinet]], [[Systemic functional linguistics]] nor [[Functional discourse grammar]] properly represents any of the three concepts.<ref name="Croft_1995">{{cite journal |last=Croft |first=William |date=1995 |title=Autonomy and functionalist linguistics |journal=Language |volume=71 |issue=3 |pages=490–532 |doi=10.2307/416218 |jstor=416218 }}</ref><ref name="Croft_2015">{{cite book |last=Croft|first=William |editor-last=Wright |editor-first=James|year=2015| title=International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences | chapter=Functional approaches to grammar |publisher=Elsevier |isbn= 9780080970875 }}</ref>

The situation was further complicated by the arrival of [[Evolutionary psychology|evolutionary psychological]] thinking in linguistics, with [[Steven Pinker]], [[Ray Jackendoff]] and others hypothesising that the human [[language faculty]], or [[universal grammar]], could have developed through normal [[evolution]]ary processes, thus defending an [[adaptation]]al explanation of the [[Origin of language|origin]] and evolution of the [[language faculty]]. This brought about a functionalism versus formalism debate, with [[Frederick Newmeyer]] arguing that the evolutionary psychological approach to linguistics should also be considered functionalist.<ref name="Newmeyer_1999">{{cite book |year=1999|author-last=Newmeyer | author-first=Frederick | editor-last1=Darnell|editor-last2=Moravcsik| editor-last3=Noonan | editor-last4=Newmeyer | editor-last5=Wheatley| title=Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics, Vol. 1| publisher=John Benjamins  | chapter=Some remarks on the functionalist–formalist controversy in linguistics|pages=469–486 |isbn=9789027298799 }}</ref>

The terms functionalism and functional linguistics nonetheless continue to be used by the Prague linguistic circle and its derivatives, including [[Société internationale de linguistique fonctionnelle|SILF]], [[Copenhagen School (linguistics)#Danish functional school|Danish functional school]], Systemic functional linguistics and Functional discourse grammar; and the American framework [[Role and reference grammar]] which sees itself as the midway between [[Formal linguistics|formal]] and functional linguistics.<ref name="VanValin_1992">{{cite book |last=Van Valin|first=Robert D. Jr. |year=1992| title=Advances in Role and Reference Grammar |publisher=John Benjamins |isbn=9789027277510 }}</ref>