Q: course ideas - Lg & Culture, Lgs of the World

[Enrique Figueroa E.]

No argument about THAT, if you reread me! Problem is: haven't the
students the right (and isn't it convenient for them as students) to be
given information as to a) other possible approaches, beside the one
preferred by the teacher, and b) the proper historical and scientific
frame to which refer the selected (imposed?) *modeling model*...?

Max E. Figueroa

On Tue, 15 Apr 1997, PAMELA PRICE KLEBAUM wrote:

>
>       One of the core questions linguistics asks is, how do we acquire
> our first language?  Describing that undertaking entails modeling
> languages, which entails "esoteric and highly formalized" rules. This is b)
> below..
>
>       Pamela Price Klebaum
> On Tue, 15 Apr 1997, Enrique Figueroa E. wrote:
>
> > Which, on the other hand, does NOT mean, I surely hope, that taking
> > linguistics itself and -most important!- its history is NOT necessary,
> > useful and healthy. My experience is almost the opposite to that
> > mentioned by David Tuggy: many students are forced to assimilate and
> > apply esoteric and highly formalized LX to one or the other language,
> > without having been ever given at least the chance to a) choose a
> > different perspective and b) find out whence cometh and whither goeth the
> > "theory" imposed upon him...
> >
> > Best regards! Max
> >
> > On Mon, 14 Apr 1997 David_Tuggy at SIL.ORG wrote:
> >
> > >      On 4/9/97 Noel Rude wrote:
> > >
> > >         'A number of years ago I helped develop an intro-level undergrad course
> > > titled "Languages of the World".  The course sprang from the observation
> > > that in our obsession with scientific principles most of our students
> > > were terribly ignorant of basic facts.  It seemed good that they should
> > > know something about Bantu.  In all our other courses we teach
> > > principles, methodology, how to DO linguistics, and this is good.  But
> > > we were old fashioned.  We thought students ought to know some specific
> > > facts too.  ...  I may sound cynical, but I still think the effort is
> > > worthwhile.'
> > >
> > >      Too much of the linguistics that I have seen taught didn't even deal
> > >      with how to DO linguistics, but rather with the history of
> > >      linguistics, the philosophies involved in this or that model, etc.
> > >      Instead of using linguistics to look at language (much less any
> > >      particular language) it is easy to take linguistics as the object of
> > >      study. I agree that knowing and having to deal with some specific
> > >      facts is a much-needed antidote.
> > >
> > >      --David Tuggy
> > >
> >
>