1863–1945: social Darwinism Although pre-Darwinian theorists had compared languages to living organisms as a
metaphor, the comparison was first taken literally in 1863 by the
historical linguist August Schleicher who was inspired by
Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. At the time there was not enough evidence to prove that Darwin's theory of
natural selection was correct. Schleicher proposed that linguistics could be used as a testing ground for the study of the evolution of
species. A review of Schleicher's book
Darwinism as Tested by the Science of Language appeared in the first issue of
Nature journal in 1870. Darwin reiterated Schleicher's proposition in his 1871 book
The Descent of Man, claiming that languages are comparable to species, and that
language change occurs through
natural selection as words 'struggle for life'. Darwin believed that languages had evolved from animal
mating calls. Darwinists considered the concept of language creation as unscientific. August Schleicher and his friend
Ernst Haeckel were keen gardeners and regarded the study of cultures as a type of
botany, with different species competing for the same living space. Highly influential until the end of
World War II,
social Darwinism was eventually banished from human sciences, leading to a strict separation of natural and sociocultural studies. Chomsky became an influential opponent of the French intellectuals during the following decades, and his supporters successfully confronted the
post-structuralists in the
Science Wars of the late 1990s. The shift of the century saw a new academic funding policy where interdisciplinary research became favoured, effectively directing research funds to biological humanities. The decline of structuralism was evident by 2015 with Sorbonne having lost its former spirit. Chomsky eventually claimed that syntactic structures are caused by a random
mutation in the human
genome,
From 1976 onwards: Neo-Darwinism At the same time when the Chomskyan paradigm of
biological determinism defeated
humanism, it was losing its own clout within sociobiology. It was reported likewise in 2015 that
generative grammar was under fire in
applied linguistics and in the process of being replaced with
usage-based linguistics; a derivative of
Richard Dawkins's memetics. It is a concept of linguistic units as
replicators. Following the publication of memetics in Dawkins's 1976 nonfiction bestseller
The Selfish Gene, many biologically inclined linguists, frustrated with the lack of evidence for Chomsky's
Universal Grammar, grouped under different brands including a framework called
Cognitive Linguistics (with capitalised initials), and 'functional' (adaptational) linguistics (not to be confused with
functional linguistics) to confront both Chomsky and the humanists. The replicator approach is today dominant in evolutionary linguistics, applied linguistics, cognitive linguistics and
linguistic typology; while the generative approach has maintained its position in general linguistics, especially
syntax; and in
computational linguistics. ==View of linguistics==