A rebuttal of essentialist sociolinguistics

The term "essentialist sociolinguistics" has been coined to refer to the Aristotelian viewpoint that all things have their form or essence & that definitions are of assistance in determining the essence of things. K. Popper's criticism of this viewpoint (eg, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2, London: Routledge, 1945) resides in the claim that this leads to an infinite recursion of definitions & that intellectual intuition is not an acceptable means of establishing truth or knowledge. It is shown that essentialism still persists in sociolinguistics. The formulation of many definitions in sociolinguistics gives the impression that the writer is an essentialist, even when he or she may not be. Ways in which this apparent essentialism may be avoided are suggested. 19 References. B. Annesser Murray