George Y. Shevelov and the Kharkiv linguistic school.

Abstract

The purpose. The paper is aimed to trace the methodological features of the Kharkiv linguistic school and, having compared them with George Y. Shevelov’s linguistic approaches, to give comprehensive fundamentals that he reasonably represents this circle.

Approaches. The paper utilises the methods of linguistic historiography (namely the heuristic and hermeneutic methods) accompanied by comparative method and elements of epistemology.

Research achievements. On the basis of the studies on the Kharkiv linguistic (philological) school cultivated namely by G.Y. Shevelov himself, Lidia and Tetiana Lysychenko and Olga Cheremska, a possibility to draw some, albeit not rather clear, criteria and methodological features of this realm has been managed. A comparative analysis of approaches in language standardization applied by Oleksa Syniavs'kyj and G.Y. Shevelov reveals evident parallels – this helps to distinguish one more criterion regarding the Kharkiv school, and certainly proves the scholarly cohesion between these two linguists. The similarity in Shevelov’s and Potebnia’s modus operandi ascertains the continuity of the scholarly thought, particularly in the history of language. 

Conclusions. In their methodology the Kharliv scholars manifest, on the one hand, “novelty”, “encyclopaedism”, “syncretism” (as O. Cheremska suggests), on the other hand, they accounted for the evolutional trends toward both the language facts and the language standardization since they regarded a language as a changeable substance in historical and psychological facets; moreover they would prefer an objective look at the language phenomena rather than following dominating ideological or methodological biases of the epoch. All these traits are verified in Potebnia’s, Syniavs'kyi’s and Shevelov’s research works, thus we can regard the latter as the partisan of his predecessors as well as a representative of the Kharkiv linguistic school.