<div dir="ltr"><div>Now I'm wondering about a related question. Has anyone studied the following?</div><div><br></div><div>If "hit" is such a<i> good</i> example of our theories, then does that mean that other verbs are <i>bad</i> examples of our theories? (So that our theories are bad explanations for those other examples, in other words, bad theories.)<br></div><div><br></div><div>How much do stereotypical/prototypical examples affect how we describe and categorize properties of languages?</div><div><br></div><div>This reminds me of the questions about definitions for phenomena, but from the perspective of the data collected. It's notoriously difficult to define "basic" concepts such as subject, object, patient, accusative, absolutive, agent, patient, etc. (Consider for example dative subjects in some languages.) We often rely on prototypical examples as a starting point assumed to best represent these, but does that mean we're just skewing the data to try to bring some order to it?</div><div><br></div><div>Furthermore, in principle, though I don't know how much this is actually the case, different cultures might have different stereotypical/prototypical actions, which might also be reflected in the language.* The most "basic" verbs like "hit" might not be the most basic verbs in other languages (even assuming that they're "basic" in some sense in at least English to begin with). I think one reason we are drawn to examples like that is because they seem to reveal cross-linguistic similarities and clearer instantiations of categories/categorization, but if in doing so we're skewing what those categories look like with predetermined prototypes, that's an even bigger problem.</div><div><br></div><div>*See for example this paper that argues only culturally relevant combinations of actions can be used in serial verb constructions:</div><div>Enfield, N. J. 2002. Cultural logic and syntactic productivity: Associated posture constructions in Lao. In N. J. Enfield (ed.), Ethnosyntax: Explorations in Culture and Grammar, 231–258. Oxford: Oxford University Press. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199266500.003.0010">https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199266500.003.0010</a></div><div><br></div><div>Daniel<br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Mar 21, 2022 at 5:47 PM Felicity Meakins <<a href="mailto:f.meakins@uq.edu.au" target="_blank">f.meakins@uq.edu.au</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<p><span>No you’re right, those verbs are not. But maybe I should frame this in terms of this comment “</span><span style="color:black">it is arbitrary and discriminatory to try policing them only with respect to one or more
favored victim groups”.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span style="color:black">It is not about favouring victim groups. It is about how we construct and respect the people we are working with and writing about where they don’t have the agency in their self-presentation, we do (insider linguists notwithstanding
of course).<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p><span style="color:black">This comes back to verbs of violence and who are chosen to occupy the A-S-O roles and therefore the perpetrators, victims and pre-existing stereotypes.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">From: </span></b><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">Lingtyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>> on behalf of "JOO, Ian [Student]" <<a href="mailto:ian.joo@connect.polyu.hk" target="_blank">ian.joo@connect.polyu.hk</a>><br>
<b>Date: </b>Tuesday, 22 March 2022 at 10:07 am<br>
<b>To: </b>"<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>" <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>><br>
<b>Subject: </b>Re: [Lingtyp] On policing linguistic examples<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Is “hug” and “carry” as transtive as “hit”, though?<br>
According to Hopper and Thompson (1980), one of the factors of transitivity is the affectedness of the patient.<br>
Hugging or carrying someone does not affect them as much as hitting does.<br>
Also “hug” is not so basic a word as “hit” is, which is in the Swadesh List or the Leipzig-Jakarta List.<br>
Of course, hitting someone is a bad thing to do. But I don’t think linguists should avoid certain sentences because they depict something morally bad.<u></u><u></u></p>
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Regards, <u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Ian<u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">On 22. Mar 2022, 00:54 +0100, Felicity Meakins <<a href="mailto:f.meakins@uq.edu.au" target="_blank">f.meakins@uq.edu.au</a>>, wrote:<br>
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<u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span>Hi all,</span><u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span><u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>We also comment on this in our field methods textbook (p. 129) and use a reflection from Torres Strait Islander linguist Al Harvey about
this issue to illustrate how it can affect communities:</span><u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span><u></u><u></u></p>
<p>Meakins, F., Green, J., & Turpin, M. (2018). <i>Understanding linguistic fieldwork</i>. London: Routledge.<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span>“</span>One of the problems with publishing some of the sentences made up by linguists is that they become instantiations of culture and
may perpetuate negative stereotypes about often already marginalised people. For example, grammars are full of sen- tences exemplifying transitivity using verbs that denote violence. ‘Hit’ is a classic transitive verb, but so is ‘hug’ or ‘carry’. When you
construct sentences for elicita- tion, avoid topics that refer to violence, sex, alcohol, drugs (including smoking), child abuse or neglect, as these may upset people down the track. Also bear in mind that descendants of the speakers may read the grammar in
years to come, or may be an audience member in a presentation using data you collected. Imagine that you are trying to re-construct your language and the only verb in the corpus is ‘hit’!<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Perpetuating negative stereotypes of communities – Al Harvey</b><u></u><u></u></p>
<p>My name is Al Harvey, I am of Saibai Island descent and am currently work- ing on a project to preserve, document and protect the Top Western Torres Strait Island dialect of Kalaw Kawaw Ya (KKY).<u></u><u></u></p>
<p style="text-indent:36pt">Today KKY, like many other Australian Indigenous languages, is endan- gered. The loss of languages is more than just the loss of spoken word. It has always been explained to me that languages are a reflection of a peo- ple’s soul
and way of living in the world. Speakers and descendants of a language have a role to play in the preservation and maintenance of that language but so too do people who work with those languages, including linguists. It’s important that linguists are cognisant
of the role they play in acting as a facilitator in the preservation of languages. Linguists also need to be aware that language data gathered is presented in a way that reflects the good faith in which it was given. <u></u><u></u></p>
<p style="text-indent:36pt">I was at a linguistics workshop recently where the presenters offered sen- tences from an Aboriginal language. One of the sentences presented in the targeted language translated into English as ‘The man hit the woman’. For the
purpose of the exercise it seemed to me to be an unnecessary display of a negative stereotype in a forum of predominately non-Indigenous linguists.<u></u><u></u></p>
<p style="text-indent:36pt">Thinking of language data beyond something to be scientifically analysed and being cognisant that the language you’re working with comes from the soul of a people would surely go some way to avoiding such unnecessary representations.”<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Regards, Felicity<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black" lang="EN-GB">_________________________________________</span><u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:8pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:gray" lang="EN-GB">Prof Felicity Meakins FASSA | Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow |</span><u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">From:</span></b>
<span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">Lingtyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>> on behalf of Hagay Schurr <<a href="mailto:hschurr@gradcenter.cuny.edu" target="_blank">hschurr@gradcenter.cuny.edu</a>><br>
<b>Date:</b> Saturday, 19 March 2022 at 4:19 am<br>
<b>To:</b> "<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>" <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Lingtyp] On policing linguistic examples</span><u></u><u></u></p>
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<p><span style="color:black">Dear Sebastian, </span><u></u><u></u></p>
<p><span style="color:black"> </span><u></u><u></u></p>
<p><span style="color:black">I'm only aware of the debate around LSA guidelines in the early 2000's, including, among others, Postal's (2003, 187) reply :</span><u></u><u></u></p>
<p><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black"> </span><u></u><u></u></p>
<p><span><span style="font-family:"Code2000",serif;color:black">"it is arbitrary and discriminatory to try policing them only with respect to one or more favored victim groups, the policing code is necessarily incompatible with the principle
of free speech, and, finally, it is in any event not possible to actually codify usage conditions that genuinely pick out all and only the offensive. Given all this, codes like the LSA guidelines are in part harmful and in part useless." (Postal 2003, 187).</span></span><u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black"> </span><u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">Postal's paper will lead you to some relevant publications that defends policing to some extent.</span><u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">Best,</span></span><u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:12pt;color:black">Hagay</span></span><u></u><u></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34);background:white none repeat scroll 0% 0%">Postal, P. M. (2003). Policing the content of linguistic
examples. <i>Language</i>, <i>79</i>(1), 182-188.</span></span><u></u><u></u></p>
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<b>Subject:</b> [EXTERNAL]Lingtyp Digest, Vol 90, Issue 21</span><u></u><u></u></p>
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Today's Topics:<br>
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1. Reference for violence (hit, kill) in articles in linguistics<br>
needed (Sebastian Nordhoff)<br>
<br>
<br>
----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
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Message: 1<br>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2022 12:51:15 +0100<br>
From: Sebastian Nordhoff <<a href="mailto:sebastian.nordhoff@glottotopia.de" target="_blank">sebastian.nordhoff@glottotopia.de</a>><br>
To: "<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>"<br>
<<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>><br>
Subject: [Lingtyp] Reference for violence (hit, kill) in articles in<br>
linguistics needed<br>
Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:7a23c27d-4cc4-e57b-37c6-ac5570a6d144@glottotopia.de" target="_blank">7a23c27d-4cc4-e57b-37c6-ac5570a6d144@glottotopia.de</a>><br>
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<br>
Dear all,<br>
I have occasionally been part in discussions where the frequent use of<br>
violent concepts such as 'hit' or 'kill' in linguistics is mentioned and<br>
sometimes criticized.<br>
<br>
I believe there is some research article providing empirical evidence<br>
for linguistic articles being unnecessarily "violent", but I am unable<br>
to locate it. Could the list members help me?<br>
<br>
Best wishes<br>
Sebastian<br>
<br>
PS: I am aware that 'hit' and 'kill' have a number of semantic<br>
properties which make them very suitable for a number of research questions.<br>
<br>
<br>
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