"fieldwork"

[Mark P. Line]

Karl Teeter wrote:
>
> The "flame" comes in when one
> indulges in ad hominem personal attacks, and fellow readers of this list
> know what I am referring to {if Whorf's (or anybody's) analysis is
> inadequate one demonstsrates it by fact-based argument, not by the
> comment that he did his field work in a hotel room}.

Could somebody explain where the ad hominem personal attack is hiding in
this?

The criticisms of Whorf's analyses of Hopi time and space concepts are
easily accessible to the linguistic community and didn't need to be
repeated here, since the debate wasn't about Hopi semantics (it was about
linguistic methodology, Whorf's Hopi fiasco being a famous example of how
the armchair methodology can fail miserably).

I stand by my criticism of Whorf's armchair methodology, and I'm not
alone.

And I believe that my definition of fieldwork (which makes "fieldwork in a
hotel room" as in the Whorf Hopi case an oxymoron) is much closer to the
consensus definition than one which subsumes any linguistic work which
involves the interviewing of a native speaker.

So I repeat: Could somebody please explain where the ad hominem personal
attack is hiding in this, which Karl finds so objectionable?

Thanks.


-- Mark

(Mark P. Line   ----   Bellevue, Washington   ----   mline at ix.netcom.com)

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