What is linguistics? What is it good for?

[alex gross]

Since translation has recently been mentioned under our topic, this
review in The Economist of a new book by David Bellos may be of interest:

http://www.economist.com/node/21528575/

I've been pretty well behaved over the past few months, so I
wonder if I can get away with rephrasing Prof. Bischoff's questions
somewhat:

How about "mainstream" generative linguistics?  What is it good for?

All the best to everyone!

alex

http://language.home.sprynet.com


All the best to everyone!

alex

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "s.t. bischoff" <bischoff.st at gmail.com>
To: <funknet at mailman.rice.edu>
Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2011 12:04 PM
Subject: [FUNKNET] What is linguistics? What is it good for?


>  Hi all,
>
> I've been asked by my Dean to give a talk which he has titled "What is
> linguistics? What is it good for?". This talk will be given to a general
> audience of faculty, students, and administrators.  I have several ideas 
> how
> to approach this, but I wanted to ask folks how they might go about
> answering the two questions in the title in such a situation.
>
> Thanks,
> Shannon
>