linguistic questions

[Timothy Mason]

On Thu, 2003-04-17 at 20:51, hmfaller at umich.edu wrote:

> No linguist worth his or her snot can think comparatively without deep
> knowledge of more than one linguistic system. Have you ever tried to teach
> anything about sociolinguistics to monolinguals? Do monolinguals ever tell
> us anything of interest about language?
>
Although this is patently untrue - linguists get much of their
information from monolinguals, and many monolinguals - even with no
training in linguistics - have interesting things to say about language
- it is, I suspect, also inaccurate to claim that everyone is their own
linguist. Very few people make the linguist's fundamental error of
believing that you can talk about the system without having an interest
in meaning. Which is perhaps why many linguists would find Robert
Lawless's child's question of little linguistic interest. The answer to
it is something along the lines of 'Well, we talk to each other.'

Best wishes
	Timothy Mason