Dwight Le Merton Bolinger (August 18, 1907 – February 23, 1992) was an American linguist and Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

. He began his career as the first editor of the "Among the New Words" feature for '' American Speech''. As an expert in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

, he was elected president of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese in 1960. He was known for the support and encouragement he gave younger scholars and for his hands-on approach to the analysis of human language. His work touched on a wide range of subjects, including

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...

, intonation,

phonesthesia In linguistics, sound symbolism is the resemblance between sound and meaning. It is a form of linguistic iconicity. For example, the English word ''ding'' may sound similar to the actual sound of a bell. Linguistic sound may be perceived as simil ...

, and the politics of language. His 1971 book ''The Phrasal Verb in English'', heretofore a subject of concern primarily to teachers of English as a foreign language, brought the need for a scientific treatment of

phrasal verbs In the traditional grammar of Modern English, a phrasal verb typically constitutes a single semantic unit composed of a verb followed by a particle (examples: ''turn down'', ''run into'' or ''sit up''), sometimes combined with a preposition ...

to the attention of many linguists. His 1977 work ''Meaning and Form'' was instrumental in establishing the principle that a difference in form implies a difference in perceived meaning. He was elected president of the

Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: '' Language'' ...

in 1972 and awarded the Orwell Award by the National Council of Teachers of English in 1981 for ''Language—The Loaded Weapon'', a book that inspired other linguists to restore a role for the application of common sense in the study of language. Stanford linguist Geoffrey Nunberg has described Bolinger as "one of the most distinguished semanticists" of the mid-twentieth century, pointing to his "uncanny ear for the nuances of words."

References

* Geoffrey Nunberg (1992)
LINGUIST List 3.255, Mon 16 Mar 1992, FYI: Online Spanish, Hayakawa & Bolinger

External links

Bolinger bibliography
1907 births 1992 deaths Harvard University faculty Linguists from the United States Sociolinguists Fellows of the British Academy Linguistic Society of America presidents 20th-century linguists {{US-linguist-stub