Die ‘Boppsche Wissenschaft’?. Een onderzoek naar de institutionalisering van de historisch-vergelijkende taalstudie als aparte wetenschappelijke discipline.

Abstract

This thesis is a contribution to two fields of study. First, the research is directed at an episode in the history of linguistics. It discusses the rise of a new field of study, historical and comparative linguistics, which gained ground in the German academic world from the 1820's onwards. Franz Bopp was the leading figure in this development. The thesis offers some new interpretations of him and his work as a result of studying the field from the perspective of 'discipline formation'. Thus secondly, as a case study, the thesis also offers general conlusions with respect to the theme of 'discipline formation' of which the most important are: the different tasks of the 1st and 2nd generation researchers, the notion of hybridization and the bridging function of the comparative method.