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Chapter 8: History of the Department of Linguistics: The Ohio State University. The Ohio State University Centennial Histories, College of Humanities. 1970. OCLC# 46792187
I. Founding and early development
The Ohio State University has played no small role in the development of linguistics in this country, even though it was relatively slow in giving administrative shape to the discipline. One of the founding members of the Linguistic Society of America, the official learned body of the discipline, was George M. Bolling, late Professor Emeritus of the Department of Classics. Professor Bolling was also editor of the journal Language, the leading publication in linguistics in this country.
Leonard Bloomfield, who was one of the major figures in American linguistics, and whose book, Language, remains a classic in the field, was Professor of German and Linguistics here from 1921 to 1927. Bloomfields and Bolling were two of the three members of the organizing committee that first conceived the possibility of the Linguistic Society of America. The original appeal for signers of the call for the foundation of this Society was issues from the Ohio State University.
For a while, interest in linguistics seemed to lack focus and direction on this campus—but in 1961, with the encouragement of Dr. J. Osborn Fuller, then Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, a planning committee was set up for the development of a program in linguistics. The committee was chaired by Francis L. Utley of the English Department, who had long advocated stronger developments in linguistics at Ohio State University. It included Leonard Newmark, then of the English Department, and William S-Y. Wang. Wang had the task of drawing up a program of study which could lead to an M.A. degree in linguistics. This program, as modified by the planning committee, was approved by the University in 1962.
A Division of Linguistics was created in 1962, as a unit directly under the College of Arts and Sciences; shortly thereafter Wang was appointed chairman of the Division. Charles J. Fillmore, who also came to this campus in 1961, was another member of the Division. It was recognized at its creation that the Division was a temporary unit, and would develop into a department as soon as warrented by the growth of its program and resources.
A Linguistics Advisory Committee was then appointed by Dean Fuller and charged with the development of a Ph. D. program. This committee, chaired by Wang, consisted of David W. Griffin, Ilse Lehiste, Leon L. Twarog, and Francis L. Utley. In October 1963, Dean Richard H. Armitage of the Graduate School invited a distinguished team of linguists to this campus to evaluate the curriculum and resources for a Ph. D. program in linguistics. The members of that team were C. F. Hockett of Cornell University, F. W. Householder of Indiana University, and W. P. Lehmann of the University of Texas. The visiting linguists agreed that Ohio State should go ahead with the proposed Ph. D. program in linguistics. A formal proposal was submitted to the University in February 1964; the Ph. D. program was approved as of July 1, 1965.
A proposal to grant departmental status to the Division of Linguistics was approved by the Trustees at their meeting on December 8, 1966, to take effect in the beginning of summer quarter, 1967. On june 19, 1967, Linguistics became the 91st department of the Ohio State University. Ilse Lehiste, who had been appointed chairman of the Division of Linguistics in 1965, became the first chairman of the Department of Linguistics.
II. Development of Curriculum
The curriculum of the Department of Linguistics has grown from very modest beginnings to being quite comprehensive in scope. The first linguistics course offered in the English Department under the English Department's course number, English 522, was a sophomore-level course. Before the appointment of Wang and Fillmore in 1961, the course had been taught by Leonard Newmark, who had also taught another linguistics-oriented course in the anthropology program (in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology). With the development of the master's degree program in linguistics, new course began to be added to the linguistics curriculum at a rapid rate. A survey of these courses is presented below. (Several courses have been re-numbered; the old number is given in parentheses.)
1961-62 English 522
1962-62 Ling 601, 602, 603, 693 (701), 795 (720)
1963-64 Ling 201 (522), 650, 671, 999 (950)
1964-65 Ling 672, 697, 801 (761), 802 (762), 811 (771)
1965-66 Ling 202 (523), 821, 822
1966-67 Ling 820
1967-68 Ling 600, 673, 681, 803, 812
1968-69 Ling 211, 212, 213, 611, 621, 622, 623, 624, 625, 626, 685, 694, 695, 850
1969-70 Ling 214, 221, 222, 223, 609, 993
At present, the Department offers 35 graduate courses, some of which are offered every quarter. The introductory level courses include course in phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax; and introduction to historical linguistics; linguistic field methods, and linguistic typology. More advanced courses range from history of linguistics, psycholinguistics, and algebraic linguistics to a two-year sequence in Sanskrit, and seminars in general linguistics and anthropological linguistics. A number of courses are designed primarily for students at a doctoral level: advanced seminars in syntax, phonology, and historical linguistics; transformational analysis; structural semantics; a two-quarter sequence in Indo-European, and special topics in Indo-European linguistics; and individual research. Applied linguistics is represented by a course in contrastive structures and a seminar in applied linguistics. The structure of a different (usually non-Indo-European) language is treated every quarter in a repeatable course, Languages of the World. Seminars are likewise offered every quarter. One of the topics regularly treated in the seminar in linguistics is experimental phonetics, in which students get laboratory experience in the Department's well-equipped Linguistic Research Laboratory. A complete listing of courses offered in the Department in 1969-70 is given in Appendix A.
III. Faculty
Considering the interdisciplinary origins of linguistics at The Ohio State University, it is not surprising that in the beginning, many members of other departments were co-opted to offer courses in linguistics. This kind of cooperation has continued, although the number of primary appointments has increased considerably over the past four years. The full-time appointments in linguistics has been as follows:
1961-62 William S-Y. Wang, Charles Fillmore
1962-63 Wang, Fillmore
1963-64 Wang, Fillmore, Terence Kaufman
1964-65 Wang, Fillmore, D. Terence Langendoen
1965-66 Fillmore, Langendoen, Ilse Lehiste, Catherine Callaghan, Sandra (Annear) Thompson
1966-67 Fillmore, Langendoen, Lehiste, Callaghan, Thompson, Gaberell Drachman, David L. Stamp
1967-68 Fillmore, Langendoen, Lehiste, Callaghan, Drachman, Stamp, George M. Landon
1968-69 Fillmore, Lehiste, Callaghan, Drachman, Stamp, Landon, Jag Deva Singh
A list of current faculty is included in Appendix B.
IV. Students
The enrollment in the department has shown a steady increase. Complete statistics are available for graduate students and for degrees awarded by the department. A list of graduate students is given in Appendix C. The Department does not have complete records of undergraduate majors, since up to now these records have been kept by the College office; however, an indication of the growth of our undergraduate program may be seen in the enrollments in our general introduction to language, Ling 201, which incidentally is the direct continuation of the first linguistics course on the campus, English 522.
Ling 201
- 1963-64
Spring - 20 - 1964-65
Autumn - 20
Winter - 27 - 1965-66
Autumn - 41
Winter - 27
Spring - 65 - 1966-67
Autumn - 90
Winter - 88
Spring - 102 - 1967-68
Autumn - 83
Winter - 82
Spring - 83 - 1968-69
Autumn - 144
Winter - 188
Spring - 152*
* for the first time, enrollment had to be limited.
V. Future Plans
The major efforts of the Department are presently directed toward serving as host to the Linguistic Summer Institute of the Linguistic Society of America in the summer of 1970.
The Department is likewise reconsidering its curriculum with a view toward increasing the number of offerings for non-majors at the undergraduate level. In doing this, the Department hopes to provide greater service to the College and the University.
Appendix A
Course offerings 1969-70
- 201 Intro to Language
Offered Autumn, Winter and Spring Quarters - 211 Elementary Swahili
Offered Autumn Quarter - 212 Elementary Swahili
Offered Winter Quarter - 213 Intermediate Swahili
Offered Spring Quarter - 214 Intermediate Swahili
Offered Autumn Quarter - 221 Elementary Hindi
Offered Autumn Quarter - 222 Elementary Hindi
Offered Winter Quarter - 223 Elementary Hindi
Offered Spring Quarter - 600 Phonetics
Offered Autumn Quarter - 601 Intro to Linguistics
Offered Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer Quarters - 602 Intro to Syntax
Offered Winter and Spring Quarters - 603 Introduction to Phonology
Offered Winter and Spring Quarters - 609 Morphology
Offered Autumn Quarter - 611 Historical Linguistics
Offered Winter Quarter - 621 Elementary Sanskrit
Offered Autumn Quarter - 622 Classical Sanskrit
Offered Winter Quarter - 623 Vedic
Offered Spring Quarter - 624 Advanced Sanskrit
Offered Autumn Quarter - 625 Readings in Indic Ling
Offered Winter Quarter - 626 Indo-Aryan Studies
Offered Spring Quarter - 650 Field Methods
Offered Spring Quarter - 671 Psycholinguistics
Offered Winter Quarter - 672 Languages of the world
Offered Autumn Quarter - 673 History of Linguistics
Offered Autumn Quarter - 679 Classic Ling Structure
Offered Autumn Quarter - 681 Algebraic Linguistics
Offered Spring Quarter - 685 Contrastive Structures
Offered Winter Quarter - 693 Individual Studies
Offered Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer Quarters - 694 Special Group Studies
Offered Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer Quarters - 695 Seminar in Anthro Ling
Offered Autumn Quarter - 795 Seminar in Linguistics
Offered Autumn, Winter and Spring Quarters - 801 Historical Ling I
Offered Winter Quarter - 802 Historical Ling II
Offered Spring Quarter - 803 Topics in Indo-Europeanx
Offered Winter and Spring Quarters - 811 Transformational Analysis
Offered Summer Quarter - 812 Structural Semantics
Offered Autumn Quarter - 820 Seminar in Syntax
Offered Spring Quarter - 821 Seminar in Phonology
Offered Winter Quarter - 822 Seminar in Hist Ling
Offered Autumn Quarter - 850 Seminar in Applied Ling
Offered Summer Quarter - 993 Special Group Studies
Offered Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer Quarters - 999 Research in Ling
Offered Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer Quarters
Appendix B
Faculty 1969-1970
Catherine A. Callaghan, Associate Professor of Linguistics appointed 1965
A.A., University of California, Berkeley 1952
B.A., University of California, Berkeley 1954
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley 1963
Gaberell Drachman Assistant Professor of Linguistics appointed 1966
M.A., University of St. Andrews, Scotland, 1952
M.A., University of Chicago, 1965
Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1965
Charles J. Fillmore, Professor of Linguistics appointed 1961
B.A. University of Minnesota, 1951
M.A. University of Michigan, 1958
Ph.D. University of Michigan, 1962
George M. Landon, Assistant Professor of Linguistics, appointed 1967
B.A. Northwestern University, 1958
Ph.D. Indiana University, 1964
Ilse Lehiste, Professor of Linguistics; appointed 1963; Chairman of the Department of Linguistics since 1965.