ABSTRACT

Reading a book about the history of linguistics resembles in some ways a long day spent wandering the galleries of a museum. In both instances, the reader or visitor confronts a large array of artifacts, whose selection, juxtaposition and manner of display are imposed by the writer or curator. Some of those artifacts seem conspicuously alien; others are easy to relate to one’s own experience; the extent of their independence or connectedness is often ambiguous. The cognitive demands on the reader or visitor are high, given the quantity and variability of stimuli and the natural drive to synthesize some kind of pattern or generalization out of them. As the day wears on, it becomes increasingly difficult to modulate and sustain one’s attention. Inevitably, ‘museum fatigue’ (Melton 1972: 397) sets in.