8. Conclusion

As an academic discipline, the development of linguistics has been relatively recent and rapid, having become particularly widely known and taught in the twentieth-century. This reflects partly an increased popular and specialist interest in the study of language and communication in relation to human beliefs and behavior (for example, in theory, philosophy, information theory, literacy criticism), and realization of the need for a separate discipline to deal adequately with the range and complexity of linguistic phenomena; partly the impact of the subject’s own internal development at this time, arising largely out of the works of the well-known American linguist Noam Chomsky and his associates, whose more sophisticated analytic techniques and more powerful theoretical claims gave linguistics an unprecedented scope and applicability. Linguistics is the empirical study of natural language. Philosophy of language is concerned with the underlying nature of the phenomena that linguists study.

Throughout this chapter, all attempts have been made to deal with and discuss the main points of language and philosophy of language, and especially of the historical background of the Buddhist Pāli Tipiṭaka. In the first section of this chapter, as mentioned above, I have basically introduced the definition of linguistics and pointed out some main points on language, and specially, the philosophy of language and its relation; that is, philosophy of mind. In second section, I have then taken an attempt to generally introduce the historical background of the Buddhist Pāli Tipiṭaka in which the Five Nikāyas emerge as one of the three Collections of the Buddhist Canon, namely Sutta Piṭaka presented from the outset of the First Buddhist Council, and were the first Buddhist texts recorded earliest in Pāli Buddhist literature. For this, an overview on the Buddhist Councils has briefly been taken as providing the historical evidence of establishing the Tipiṭaka. Further, I have sought to fully present the Five Nikāyas, and to list the names of Suttas in detail respectively, and their outlines as well as their primary contents. In the third section I have also particularly provided the necessary accounts to introduce the objective and significance of the study. And sources of research have been dealt with in detail in section four. Sections five and six have presented the scope and methodology of research respectively. The seventh section has made the chapterization for the thesis with totally six chapters, and their chapter titles and summarized contents have been displayed.

Before embarking in studying the essential chapters of this research work, the theoretical background on philosophy of language is necessary to be made, and this will be dealt with and discussed in great detail in the next chapter.