"Éstas que fueron pompa y alegría": The Life Cycle of Romance Linguistics

Abstract

"ESTAS QUE FUERONPOMPA Y ALEGRÍA"-. THE LIFE CYCLE OF ROMANCE LINGUISTICS John N. Green University of Bradford, UK There is something faintly absurd about arguing for the intellectual respectability' of a discipline that can lav claim to a pedigree of almost two centuries and a distinguished list of practitioners spanning five continents. Yet contributors to the first Critical Cluster took up the challenge and set forth with vigour serious arguments lor the vitality, adaptability and potential of the discipline. Who had claimed the contrary? The Guest Editor had been scrupulous onlv to pose a hypothetical question. Reading the responses with the benefit of a conspectus denied to the individual contributors, I am struck bv their willingness and determination to answer in intellectual terms a question that has at least as many political and educational dimensions. Whether market forces and governmental philistinism (or at least indifference) have brought Historical Romance Linguistics to its knees in many of our universities is a question that certainly deserves debate, csjiecially if we believe that, we can, collectively, do something about it. Only a minority of the contributions confront these issues, and then after establishing intellectual credentials. I shall try to complement the minority. Debates on the supposed crisis in Romance linguistics and its expected demise are not. new. Malkiel diagnosed a period ofself-doubt in the period 1900-1930, partly ascribed to an arid Verschalung (1972: 856-58); Posner reported an eclipse and crisis of confidence in the 1950s and 1960s (1970: 412-14); and more recently, anguished debates have been taking place in Germany on the future directions and sustainability ofRomanistik (see Kramer 2004, responding to discussion L\ coronila 34.1 (Fall, 2005): 190-201 Historical Romance Unguistics: The Death ofa Discipline?191 too rich to document here). So who would read the elegant, erudite, but ultimately self-serving disquisitions in the first Cluster? Fellow Romanists no doubt, and hopefully, since La corónica has been kind enough to host die debate, a wider audience ofHispanists; but probably not those whose attention should be most urgendy engaged. From time to time, it is agreeable -and reassuring- to remind oneselfof the manifest advantages of one's field of study (Estienne would no doubt have said itsprécellence). But we do not need to convince ourselves of its virtues. Apparently, we are failing to convince others. Increasing numbers ofstudents, including the most able graduate students, resist its blandishments, in Europe as well as North America. University administrators and auditors scrutinize where students fail to go. Iris listado de oro, nievey grana Golden, multi-faceted, passionate, controversial - Romance linguistics has a glorious past. In terms of research productivity and publications, it is not difficult to show a discipline in good heart and probably still expanding. Contributors to the 2003 Cluster righdy draw attention to the brisk activity of the triennial congresses of the Société de Linguistique Romane, of the annual Linguistic Symposia on Romance Languages, the Linguistisches Kolloquium, die "Going Romance" meetings, and numerous more localized or more specialized groups. Even since dieir essays were penned, impressive new tides have been published: six tomes ofproceedings from die Salamanca congress (Sánchez Miret 2003), manageable collections elsewhere, limited to a single volume only by rigorous sifting and refereeing (Auger, et al. 2004; Bok-Bennema, et al. 2004; Solin, et al. 2003). Not only has the volume of production continued to swell in established fields, but new fields have also been added and existing ones reshaped in directions diat could scarcely have been envisaged by our founding fathers. Taking just one example, "historical semantics", at least in its purely lexical manifestation, might have figured as a section in the acts of many previous congresses of die Société de Linguistique Romane, but not with die scope and new dynamism manifest at a recent symposium (Lebsanft and Gleßgen 2004), where cognition and pragmatics rub shoulders widi traditional historical lexicology. The healdi of a discipline can be partly gauged by the vigour and regularity ofitsjournals - die one sphere of activity largely overlooked 192ForumLa colònica 34.1. 2005 in the Critical Cluster. Here, Romance linguistics is eminently well sen'ecl. having long been distinguished bv its "own...