imported>Chunbum Park |
imported>John Stephenson |
| (158 intermediate revisions by 8 users not shown) |
| Line 1: |
Line 1: |
| == '''[[Linguistics]]''' ==
| | {{:{{FeaturedArticleTitle}}}} |
| ''by [[User:John Stephenson|John Stephenson]] <small>(and [[User:Gareth Leng|Gareth Leng]] and [[User:Stephen Ewen|Stephen Ewen]])</small>''
| | <small> |
| ----
| | ==Footnotes== |
| [[Image:Spoken-language-naples.jpg|right|thumb|175px|{{#ifexist:Template:Spoken-language-naples.jpg/credit|{{Spoken-language-naples.jpg/credit}}<br/>|}}Language is arguably what most obviously distinguishes humans from all other species. Linguistics involves the study of that system of communication underlying everyday scenes like this.]]
| |
| '''[[Linguistics]]''' is the scientific study of language. Its primary goal is to learn about the 'natural' language that humans use every day and how it works. Linguists ask such fundamental questions as: What aspects of language are universal for all humans? How can we account for the remarkable grammatical similarities between languages as apparently diverse as English, Japanese and Arabic? What are the rules of grammar that we language users employ, and how do we come to 'know' them? To what extent is the structure of language related to how we think about the world around us? A ''linguist'', then, here refers to a linguistics expert who seeks to answer such questions, rather than someone who is multilingual.
| |
| | |
| ''Theoretical'' linguists are concerned with questions about the apparent human 'instinct' to communicate,<ref>The view that language is an 'instinct' comparable to walking or bird song is most famously articulated in Pinker (1994).</ref> rather than authorising 'rules' of style or 'correctness' as found in grammar textbooks or popular guides.<ref>A popular recent example is Truss (2003).</ref> For example, *''dog the''<ref>An asterisk (*) indicates that what follows is unacceptable to speakers of that language.</ref> is unacceptable in English, but children recognise as much long before they receive any formal grammatical instruction. It is such recognitions, and the implicit rules they imply, that are of primary concern in linguistics, as opposed to rules as prescribed by an authority.
| |
| | |
| Although interesting in its own right as one of the directions we follow to learn more about ourselves and the world around us, the study of linguistics is also highly relevant to solving real-life problems. ''Applied'' linguists may bring their insights to such fields as foreign language teaching, speech therapy and translation.<ref>Increasingly, however, applied linguists have been developing their own views of language, which often focus on the language learner rather than the system itself: see for example Cook (2002) and the same author's [http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA website].</ref> While in universities and research institutions worldwide, scholars are studying the facts of individual languages or the system of language itself to find evidence for theories or test hypotheses, applied linguists are at work in classrooms, clinics, courts and the highest levels of government. They use their knowledge to bridge linguistic divides, coax speech from the mouths of the disabled or abused, supply forensic evidence in courtroom trials, find out how language comes to children - in fact, they are everywhere people in need or in conflict over language are to be found.
| |
| | |
| In virtue of the fact stated in the first paragraph, that the primary goal of linguistics "is to learn about the 'natural' language that humans use every day and how it works", we recognize that core areas of linguistics qualify as biological science, a recognition reinforced by the kinds of questions studiers of linguistics ask and seek answers to, detailed in that first and the succeeding two paragraphs.<ref name=bioling>Di Sciullo AM, Boeckx C. (editors) (2011) ''The Biolinguistic Enterprise: New Perspectives on the Evolution and Nature of the Human Language Faculty''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0199553270. | [http://books.google.com/books?id=aHbNVjpvqU4C&source=gbs_navlinks_s Google Books preview].</ref>
| |
| | |
| ''[[Linguistics|.... (read more)]]''
| |
| | |
| {| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width: 90%; float: center; margin: 0.5em 1em 0.8em 0px;"
| |
| |-
| |
| ! style="text-align: center;" | [[Linguistics#Footnotes|notes]]
| |
| |-
| |
| |
| |
| {{reflist|2}} | | {{reflist|2}} |
| |}
| | </small> |
Latest revision as of 09:19, 11 September 2020
Paramhansa Yogananda circa 1920.
Paramhansa Yogananda (5 Jan 1893–7 Mar 1952) was one of the first Indian teachers from the Hindu spiritual tradition to reside permanently in the West, and in particular, he was the first to teach yoga to Americans. He emphasized the universality of the great religions, and ceaselessly taught that all religions, especially Hinduism and Christianity, were essentially the same in their essence. The primary message of Yogananda was to practice the scientific technique of kriya yoga to be released from all human suffering.
He emigrated from India to the United States in 1920 and eventually founded the Self-Realization Fellowship there in Los Angeles, California. He published his own life story in a book called Autobiography of a Yogi, first published in 1946. In the book, Yogananda provided some details of his personal life, an introduction to yoga, meditation, and philosophy, and accounts of his world travels and encounters with a wide variety of saints and colorful personalities, including Therese Neumann, Mohandas K. Gandhi, Luther Burbank, and Jagadis C. Bose.
Paramhamsa, also spelled Paramahamsa, is a Sanskrit title used for Hindu spiritual teachers who have become enlightened. The title of Paramhansa originates from the legend of the swan. The swan (hansa) is said to have a mythical ability to sip only the milk from a water-and-milk mixture, separating out the more watery part. The spiritual master is likewise said to be able to live in a world like a supreme (param) swan, and only see the divine, instead of all the evil mixed in there too, which the worldly person sees.
Yogananda is considered by his followers and many religious scholars to be a modern avatar.
In 1946, Yogananda published his Autobiography of a Yogi. It has since been translated into 45 languages, and in 1999 was designated one of the "100 Most Important Spiritual Books of the 20th Century" by a panel of spiritual authors convened by Philip Zaleski and HarperCollins publishers.
Awake: The Life of Yogananda is a 2014 documentary about Paramhansa Yogananda, in English with subtitles in seventeen languages. The documentary includes commentary by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar, among others.[1][2]
