Outsiders' views of the value of linguistics

[Thomas E. Payne]

If this is teachers' experience with linguists, I can understand why they are suspicious of us! No one likes to be told how to do their jobs by "ivory tower" idealists.

I realize this is off the track from Fritz's original question (sorry Fritz), but this is something I'm interested in. For any of you who are bothered by this "disconnect" between linguists and school teachers in the USA, please consider coming to the meeting of the "Language in the School Curriculum" committee at the LSA meeting in January. 

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu [mailto:funknet-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of A. Katz
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2010 08:32
To: john at research.haifa.ac.il
Cc: Richard Hudson; funknet at mailman.rice.edu; Danielle E. Cyr
Subject: Re: [FUNKNET] Outsiders' views of the value of linguistics

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
>>> 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]
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> ---- 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
>>
>
>
>
>
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