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Humanism and linguistic diversity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2009

Ebbe Spang-Hanssen
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Extract

Traditional humanism emphasized equal rights for all human beings, and consequently the similarity of human beings. Recently it has been pointed out that postmodernism, which can be considered as a modern humanism, focuses on the diversity of mankind. In this paper it is claimed that these two aspects – sameness and diversity of human beings – are both essential to humanism. The history of linguistics, which is closely correlated with the history of humanism, demonstrates that the focus has constantly shifted between uniformity (universality) and diversity.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Review , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , October 1999 , pp. 519 - 527
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 1999

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