Supplementary data to presentation entitled 'What do we talk about, when we talk about the history of linguistics? A view from the United States'

Abstract

A collection of documents that illustrate or elaborate on the contents of the 2014 conference presentation. Includes: (1) a text describing the methodology and an overview of the results of a survey carried out in 2008 that probed the orientation of students of linguistics, primarily Americans, to the history of linguistics. The study was the starting point for the 2014 presentation. (2) A searchable 'pivot table' in Excel and open (zip) formats that records one key subset of data derived from the 2008 survey. The pivot table records the extent of familiarity that respondents reported with 44 key figures in the history of linguistics. (3) A tutorial text that shows how to manipulate and filter the content of the pivot table. (4) A list of 21 textbooks that introduce the study of linguistics, written by US-based scholars and published between 1950 and 2010. These books are the focus of analysis in the 2014 presentation. The list gives full publication details for the 21 textbooks, including their multiple editions, and also indicates the number of libraries worldwide that hold copies of each one, as an estimate of their influence.