om the Trivium and Quadrivium of European Liberal Art
to Haugen’s Ecology of Language and beyond

1sfr

the place of language

Linguistic Ecology 言語生態学
Linguistic Ecology is linguistic; i.e., it is about language.
German zoologist Ernst Haeckel coined theword ökologie to refer to the relation of ananimal to its environment. The Greek wordοίκος (oikos) means “home”, but Haeckel
intended a more general meaning of home as“habitat” or “environment”. Ecology studies
the relation of something to its environment.
Linguistic Ecology is about the environments of languages.
2language in the context of other knowledge
Language is a cultural skill, and it was conceived by the ancientGreeks to be one skill among other important cultural skills whichwere learned via education. For the ancient Greeks, theenvironment of language was our other cultural skills
The Greeks asked: Where does language t in the context of ourother cultural knowledge
In the Middle Ages, Europeans made three aspects of language
study the foundation of university education: the Trivium.
.

fi?

3

the Trivium and the Quadrivium
The European “Trivium” included the three studies ofgrammar, logic, and rhetoric
The European “Quadrivium” included the four studies ofarithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy
The original goal of a liberal arts education was mastery of
the Trivium and the Quadrivium.
.

.

4language in European philosophy
European philosophers conceived the use of linguistic symbols forthinking and communicating to be the most basic educational skills of
the Trivium
Grammar was about inventing symbols and combining them toexpress thought
Logic (or dialectic) was about the art of thinking and valid reasoning
Rhetoric was about the communication of ideas and the use oflanguage to affect or in uence others.
.

fl.

.

5

the Quadrivium and numbers
After the Trivium in importance were the skills of the Quadrivium,
which featured numbers
Arithmetic was about numbers; counting and basic operations
Geometry was about numbers in space; as spacial measures
Music was about numbers in time; e.g., about rhythm or pitch
Astronomy was about numbers in time and space; the movement ofcelestial bodies.
.

.

.

.

6

Today’s SAT scores: Verbal and Math
The modern SAT exam, which many US universities use toselect applicants, has two parts: (1) a test of language skills;and (2) a test of mathematics skills
These two parts of the SAT exam are direct descendants of theTrivium and Quadrivium of the medieval European
university curriculum.

.

7

a very different Chinese model
The historical Chinese model of education was very different
from the European model. China emphasized the “four arts” 四藝
which a Chinese gentleman must master: qin, qi, shu, and hua
Qin 琴 was the ability to play the guqin 古琴, a type of zither
Qi 棋 was the ability to play a game like chess on a board like go
Shu 書 was skill in Chinese calligraphy
Hua 畫 was skill in Chinese painting.
.

.

.

.

8

the “place” of language in learning
Thus, historically, the academic environment of language was very
different for the Europeans and the Chinese
Although the Chinese recognized the value of writing and gamestrategy, they did not place abstract components of language (e.g.,symbols) at the foundation of learning
Especially since the time of Augustine of Hippo, this European bias
in favor of language over painting and music and even mathematics
signi cantly in uenced the development of linguistics.
.

.

flfi9

the evolution of linguistic environments
Medieval European scholars thought about language in the context of othertypes of knowledge or academic skills
Later, as Latin language use declined, Europeans thought about language as
an individual dialect in the context of other dialects or languages
Eventually, Haugen de ned “language ecology” as the study of language in its
sociolinguistic environment of dialects and contact languages
More recently, Halliday de ned “ecolinguistics” as the entirety of interactions
between a language and its linguistic, anthropological, biological, and physicalenvironments.
.

.

.

fifi10Haeckel, Darwin, and Schleicher
Although he visited Darwin’s home and hepopularized Darwinism in Germany (cf.
Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte, 1868), Haeckel
was not a strict Darwinian. Haeckel believed thatthe characteristics of an organism were acquired
through interactions with the environment
Haeckel was also in uenced by AugustSchleicher, who was the rst linguist to describe
language trees. Schleicher also describedlanguages as living organisms.
.

fifl11

F. M. Voegelin & C. F. Voegelin
The German ideas of ecology and of language as anorganism became popular in the USA in the latter 20thCentury (cf. Hoenigswald & Weiner, 1987: passim)
The phrase “linguistic ecology” was rst published inVoegelin & Voegelin (1964; cited by Haugen, 1972: 328):“in linguistic ecology, one begins not with a particularlanguage but with a particular area”, which emphasized
the importance of place or environment in the study oflanguage
The term “linguistic ecology” was also used in an article
on the language situation in Arizona (Voegelin, Voegelin
and Schutz, 1967).
.

fi.

12

Einar Haugen: The Ecology of Language
Subsequently, Einar Haugen pioneered a form of
linguistics which used the idea of an ecosystem todescribe the relationships among the diverse formsof language found in the world, and the groups ofpeople who speak them. Haugen’s “The Ecology ofLanguage” (1972) was extremely in uential.
Haugen often illustrated his approach withdescriptions of the language situation in Norway.
He was a native bilingual who wrote The
Norwegian language in America: A Study in BilingualBehavior (1969). 

fl13

Haugen’s ecological questions
Einar Haugen de ned language ecology as “the study of interactions between any given language and its environment” (TheEcology of Language. Stanford University Press, Language science and national development, 1972)
How did Haugen elaborate on this ecology metaphor? First, Haugen wanted researchers to become more interested in“ecological questions” about a language, such as these(1) What is the historical linguistic description of the language? How is it diachronically related to other languages? (cf.
Ferdinand de Saussure, Cours de linguistique générale (1916), about the distinction between diachronic and synchronic linguistics)(2) Who uses the language? What is its linguistic demography? What are the human geographic dimensions of this usage? In
which places, among which groups, with which religious practices, by which socioeconomic classes, in which professions,etc. is this language used? (cf. Language in Society(3) What are the sociolinguistic domains of usage which limit or restrict its usage in certain ways(4) What other languages are concurrently used by its users? What is the multilingual nature of its users(5) What internal variation does the language show? What is the range of dialectal and sociolectal variation(6) Is the language written? and what is the nature of its written tradition? (cf. Serbo-Croatian before the Yugoslavian civil war(7) To what degree has the language, especially its writing, been standardized? uni ed? codi ed(8) What sort of language policy support does the language have from governments, schools, or other public or privateinstitutions(9) In terms of intimacy or status, what are the attitudes of its users which characterize personal identi cation(10) How does a comprehensive ecological classi cation of the language compare with that of other languages?
)

?

?

?

fi.

?

?

fifi:)

fifi?

14

The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics
In 1994, Pergamon published The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics,
R. E. Asher (ed.), a 10-volume set [ELL]
Because of the increasing importance of language ecology, Asher insisted
that ELL include a “Language Situation” article for each of the world’snations. ELL thus considered languages from the various perspectives ofstammbaums, sprachbunds, sprachräume, and political areas
In the coming weeks, we will consider language situations of areas
which illustrate some interesting relationships of linguistic ecology.
.

.

15

16