Outsiders' views of the value of linguistics

[Daniel Everett]

Here is a recent talk that author Tom Wolfe gave on the subject of The Human Beast at Bentley University (Friday October 15, 2010). He argues that humans should be referred to as Homo loquax. It is an interesting take, partially based on my work. A similar lecture was given as the Jefferson lecture, sponsored by the NEH/US Government.

Dan

http://academics.bentley.edu/tom-wolfe



 
On 20 Oct 2010, at 15:25, Tom Givon wrote:

> 
> 
> There is a current lead article in the ON THE HUMAN forum (you may google it), also co-published by the NY Times. The topic is the evolution of morality and religion, and the author is the celebrated primatologist and evolutionary thinker Frans de Waal. Somewhere in there, he expresses his profound disappointment at the Cartesian Exceptionalism pursued by 'some linguists'. De Waal is too gentle to name names, but for those of us who know the evolutionary discussion (Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch 2002), the reference is rather transparent. And it expresses the recurrent mystification of scientists I know (biologists, evolutionary psychologists, cognitive neuro-scientists) about linguistics.
> 
> A fairly recent conference convened four discussion groups (evolutionary biologists, neuro-scientists, computer modelers, linguists) to talk about the biology and evolution of grammar. Members of the non-linguist groups dropped in periodically to sit on the linguists' discussion. Their uniform private reaction to me was bafflement--at the supreme irrelevance of the linguists' discussion to the topic at hand. I told them 'welcome to the club'.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> TG
> 
> ==========================
> 
> 
> Frederick J Newmeyer wrote:
>> Hello,
>> 
>> For a survey article that I'm writing, I plan to assemble quotes from people outside the field of linguistics on what they see as the value, or lack of value, of work done in linguistics. So I would like to cite published quotes from psychologists, anthropologists, literary specialists, etc. on their views about the value/relevance of linguistics for their particular concerns and its value/relevance in general. Can anybody help me out by pointing me to relevant quotes?
>> 
>> Let me give one example of the sort of thing that I am looking for. The late computational linguist Fred Jelinek reportedly wrote: 'Whenever I fire a linguist our system performance improves'. 
>> Thanks. I'll summarize.
>> 
>> Best wishes,
>> 
>> --fritz
>> 
>> fjn at u.washington.edu
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Frederick J. Newmeyer
>> Professor Emeritus, University of Washington
>> Adjunct Professor, University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University
>> [for my postal address, please contact me by e-mail]
>> 
>>  
> 
>