The End of Linguistics

[Ronald Kephart]

John McCreery sends us some stuff from Michael Halpern's "The End of
Linguistics," (The American Scholar Winter, 2001, p. 13-26). John
then asks:

>How would you answer these charges?

My short answer would be "nonsense." Halpern does not, apparently,
understand the goals of modern linguistics; does not understand much
about the nature of language; and does not understand the difference
between language and communication. And, as Celso pointed out, he
confused "dialectal" with "dialectical," a fatal error for someone
writing about language (there's an appropriate place for Jesse's
"sic"!).

But let me focus on one part of Halpern's "indictment":

>"A lesser but still serious problem linguists face is one that
>besets all the human sciences: they are studying creatures who are
>increasingly aware of being studied...

This, of course, is true of all studies of living things; humans
aren't special in this regard. And in some areas greater attention
needs to be paid to this than in others, but it depends on what
you're interested in. When I'm questioning consultants on structures
in Creole English I have to be sure that they know what I'm
interested in, I have to establish a context. Otherwise, they may
give me what they think is the standard English form that they think
I want (I used "they think" twice because sometimes what they *think*
is the standard form is also interesting!). But whatever they do,
they're going to do it thru language; and we can still learn
something about linguistic behavior from them.

If people are aware of the fact that we're studying their digestive
system, maybe they'd eat differently. But, they're not likely to
start eating rocks. Halpern doesn't scare me.

Ronald Kephart
English & Foreign Languages
University of North Florida