American linguistics out of the scholarly isolation

In a sense this has been merely a return to some of the prime interests of our nineteenth century predecessors—Wilhelm von Humboldt, for ex­ample. It has also brought American linguistics out of the scholarly isolation from which it suffered for a time, and into closer contact with such related disciplines as psychology and philosophy. (The contact with anthropology has always been close.)

How aretwo people able to talk together? Since most of us never ask this question, but take the matter for granted, it is useful to consider just what goes on. Let us assume that we have a speaker A and a hearer B, that A says something to B, and that B understands him without difficulty. Here an act of communication via language has taken place. But how did it take place ? What went on inside of A ? How did the communication move from A to B? And what went on inside of B? The process seems to consist of at least eleven different steps. [See the diagram on page 217.J