The Psychological Roots of Bloomfields Linguistic Thinking

(Samih Ahmed Mohamed Miqdadi)

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Abstract

The Formal Analytical School of Linguistics is an approach that started in United States during the first half of the twentieth century. It was founded by Leonard Bloomfield and dominated the linguistics’ study field until 1957. Bloomfield explanation of speech in his book “Language” dominated the views and approaches of American rhetoric during the thirties and the forties of the last century. This study aimed to explore the relationship between linguistic thinking according to Bloomfield with psychology as most of his important ideas were driven from psychology. The work concluded that the main principles of linguistic thinking, according to Bloomfield that construct his “Formal Analytical School”, originated from behavioral psychology. The start point of Bloomfield psychological response was due to developmental psychology school. Such response dominated his scientific productivity. However, within the last two decades of his life, the effect of behavioral psychological school was so clear. Key Words: Bloomfield, behavioral school, developmental school, formal Analytical School, Psychology.
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