Outsiders' views of the value of linguistics

Frederick J Newmeyer fjn at u.washington.edu
Thu Oct 21 15:44:15 UTC 2010 

Dear all,

The comments so far re language pedagogy, language policy, language revitalization, etc. are all very interesting and I thank you for them. But what I am really looking for are quotes from cognitive scientists, anthropologists, philosophers, and others in research-oriented (rather than applied) fields on the great value / great worthlessness of current linguistic theory (of whatever variety).

--fritz


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]

On Thu, 21 Oct 2010, A. Katz wrote:

> John,
>
> I have some experience with linguists running language pedagogy seminars in 
> the United States. The people running the seminars had never taught a foreign 
> language, and they were mostly monolingual English speakers. The people 
> teaching the foreign languages who were forced (yes, forced!) to attend the 
> seminar were mostly native speakers of the languages they taught who did not 
> have tenure. (The tenured foreign language professors were apparently spared 
> this.) It was a complete farce.
>
>   --Aya
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, 21 Oct 2010, john at research.haifa.ac.il wrote:
>
>> Exactly my point. Where language teaching is taken seriously, the need for
>> linguistics is self-evident. In the United States, it's much harder.
>> John
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Quoting "Danielle E. Cyr" <dcyr at yorku.ca>:
>> 
>>> Canada's official bilingualism makes the teaching of linguistics very
>>> important
>>> both in English departments, French Studies and general linguistics. In my
>>> French Studies department, for example, students enter with the mere
>>> intention
>>> to learn and teach French. All of them have to take an introductory course 
>>> to
>>> linguistics and 18 more credits in more advanced courses in linguistics. 
>>> At
>>> the
>>> introductory course level I make sure that, for every aspect of internal 
>>> and
>>> external linguistics, I make my students aware of the jobs attached to 
>>> that
>>> chunk of knowledge:
>>> 
>>> INTERNAL LINGUISTICS:
>>> - for phonetics/phonology :speech re-education, voice recognition, 
>>> cochlear
>>> implants, digital song editing, and even linguistic spying;
>>> - for morphology : speech therapy, language teaching and language teaching
>>> materials, lexicography, artificial intelligence, among others;
>>> - for syntax : language teaching, artificial intelligence, language
>>> re-education;
>>>  - for semantics : lexicography, literature; philosophy, psychology, 
>>> history,
>>> intercultural studies, political studies, law, commerce, diplomacy;
>>> EXTERNAL LINGUISTICS:
>>> - for socio- and psycholinguistics: a better access to individual and 
>>> social
>>> understanding, among others workplace relationships, psychology, ethics,
>>> intercultural studies, etc.
>>> - for historical linguistics: the history of social change, the history of
>>> international contacts through time and space, the history of ideas, etc.
>>> - for political linguistics (history of language laws in Canada): a better
>>> understanding of Canada's history, ofCanada's populations's history, of 
>>> the
>>> making of ideas and identities, of the role of languages in the building 
>>> of
>>> nationhoods, etc.
>>> 
>>> They also say that linguistics helps them in their acquisition of French 
>>> and,
>>> for those who are in a concurrent program in Education, that it helps them 
>>> in
>>> their teaching practicum. Most of them reckon that linguistics helps them 
>>> in
>>> all areas of their college courses and contribute their linguistic 
>>> knowledge
>>> in
>>> their other class discussions.
>>> 
>>> In the end many of my students are convinced that studying linguistics 
>>> makes
>>> them more enlightened human beings and citizens. They are also aware that
>>> their
>>> studies in linguistics can make them better teachers, lawyers, jurists,
>>> diplomats, psychologists, writers, physicians, journalists, translators,
>>> merchants, parents, caregivers, etc. etc. etc.
>>> 
>>> Not bad after all. And, when after twenty years in the profession of
>>> linguist, I
>>> count that I have help producing at least 2,000 such citizens, I have no
>>> problem
>>> explaining to the general population that linguistics is really useful and
>>> also
>>> a source of pleasure and happiness :)
>>> 
>>> Danielle
>>> 
>>> P.S. By the way, some years ago I picked the following quotation 
>>> somewhere. I
>>> liked it so much that I use it in my signature. However, I don't know who 
>>> the
>>> author i and it makes me feel bad that I am using someone's wisdom without
>>> acknowledging him/her. Would any of you recognize its source?
>>> 
>>> "The only hope we have as human beings is to learn each other's languages.
>>> Only
>>> then can we truly hope to understand one another."
>>> Quoting john at research.haifa.ac.il:
>>> 
>>>> It isn't just grammar teaching, it's also foreign language teaching in
>>>> general.
>>>> English speakers tend not even to think of this since in English-speaking
>>>> countries there is no serious expectation that foreign language classes
>>> will
>>>> produce students who can actually practically use the language that 
>>>> they're
>>>> supposedly learning. But in countries in which foreign language teaching 
>>>> is
>>>> taken seriously, people naturally recognize the connection to 
>>>> linguistics.
>>>> When people in Israel ask me what being a linguist entails, my first 
>>>> stock
>>>> answer is 'we train people to be English teachers.'
>>>> John
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Quoting Richard Hudson <dick at ling.ucl.ac.uk>:
>>>> 
>>>>> Dear Fritz,
>>>>> I agree entirely with Olga. The discussion has a very anglo-phone bias
>>>>> away from education - the UK, USA etc all have a tradition in which
>>>>> school teachers aren't expected to have learned anything about language
>>>>> at university, so academic research on language isn't relevant to
>>>>> education. We're very different from many parts of Europe, where grammar
>>>>> teaching is an important part of the school curriculum and trainee
>>>>> teachers update their understanding at university. I'm sure in a country
>>>>> like that, linguistics would be justified in part by its contribution to
>>>>> education. I don't know of any bibliographical source for this - if
>>>>> anyone does, I'd love to see it. I've written quite a bit about the
>>>>> value of linguistics for education (see
>>>>> www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/papers.htm) but haven't been able to do
>>>>> much on that line except pick up odds and ends from gossip. (I do have
>>>>> evidence that school kids know a great deal more grammar in countries
>>>>> such as Spain - see
>>>>> http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/ec/ba-kal/ba-kal.htm.)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Dick (Hudson)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Richard Hudson www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/home.htm
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 20/10/2010 18:43, Yokoyama, Olga wrote:
>>>>>> Fritz,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I take it that your article is about the academic community's attitudes
>>>>> towards linguistics. Although not part of your topic but still very
>>>> important
>>>>> for the status of linguistics and the budgetary decisions made 
>>>>> especially
>>>> in
>>>>> public institutions are attitudes towards linguistics in the lay 
>>>>> society.
>>>> We
>>>>> all have experienced the routine questioning along the lines of "Oh,
>>> you're
>>>> a
>>>>> linguist? So how many languages do you know?". Misunderstandings out
>>> there
>>>>> are vast and we linguists need to address them. One way my department 
>>>>> did
>>>> it
>>>>> this summer was by addressing the Arizona ruling on teachers with
>>> accented
>>>>> English in a public conference, which combined international scholars 
>>>>> and
>>>>> practitioners in one room
>>>>> (http://sites.google.com/site/uclalinguisticdiversconf2010/). U. 
>>>>> Oregon's
>>>>> Olympiad for secondary school students is another step in the right
>>>>> direction. Linguists need to start talking to the public at large and
>>> make
>>>>> sure that the future generations don???t vote for closing linguistics 
>>>>> and
>>>>> language departments (cf. the latest SUNY Albany case) based on budget
>>>>> considerations combined with glaring ignorance about what language
>>> studies
>>>>> are.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Olga
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Olga T. Yokoyama
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Professor and Chair
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Department of Applied Linguistics and TESL
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> University of California, Los Angeles
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Tel. (310) 825-4631
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Fax (310) 206-4118
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> http://www.appling.ucla.edu
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu
>>>>> [mailto:funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of Frederick J
>>> Newmeyer
>>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 10:13 AM
>>>>>> To: Funknet
>>>>>> Subject: [FUNKNET] Outsiders' views of the value of linguistics
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 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
>>>> ???re
>>>>> 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]
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> This message was sent using IMP, the Webmail Program of Haifa University
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> "The only hope we have as human beings is to learn each other's languages.
>>> Only
>>> then can we truly hope to understand one another."
>>> 
>>> Professor Danielle E. Cyr
>>> Department of French Studies
>>> York University
>>> Toronto, ON, Canada, M3J 1P3
>>> Tel. 1.416.736.2100 #310180
>>> FAX. 1.416.736.5924
>>> dcyr at yorku.ca
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> This message was sent using IMP, the Webmail Program of Haifa University
>> 
>

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