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Publication

The art of transforming traditions: Conceptual developments in early modern American missionary grammar writing

Book - Dissertation

This research project, situated in the interdisciplinary field of the historiography of linguistics, takes as its object the grammatical work on non-European languages produced in the period 1500-1800 by European missionaries as part of their evangelization efforts. It aims to examine the internal history of the linguistic contents and conceptual frameworks present in these works, while not losing sight of the external history (i.e., the historical contextualization) of the texts and the ideas expressed in them. The main focus lies on discerning patterns of (dis)continuity, tradition and innovation, the principal research questions being: (1) Which models were used, and how were they adapted to 'deviant' or 'exotic' features of described languages? (2) To what extent do missionaries adopt conservative attitudes toward the traditional models? To what extent and in which ways do innovations take place? To what extent are innovations by one author adopted by other authors? (3) Which similarities and differences are to be found between the different missionary traditions (languages, regions, missionary orders…)? In order to answer these questions, particular consideration is given to clues provided by the specific terminological and glottonymical practices adopted by these missionaries.
Publication year:2020
Accessibility:Open