Words and Service

The Lupyan reading discussed traditional cognitivist theories about words, concepts, and their representations, and offered experimental support suggesting that, while there is an abstract underlying concept of triangles and a canonical orientation of triangles at the horizontal, different labels for triangles make people manifest different specific representations of the concept. For example, when subjects were asked to draw a “triangle” or a “figure with three sides”, their representations significantly differed in size, orientation, and frequency of being isosceles versus other forms.  Despite the two labels being logically indistinguishable, people put forth different specific representations of the concept (they always did, in fact, draw triangles).   This concept of this result was corroborated in a variety of other experiments of similar and different natures, including those based on labelling and visual recognition of presented shapes. 

               This reading and these results bring up the essentialness of language in communication and in thought itself.  It appears vital to interpreting and transition between categories, prototypes, and abstract representations.  Are deaf children who are never taught a language unable to make these distinctions at all?

               The Rickford reading was, in my opinion, the most engaging reading in the class so far.  The author’s point was that linguists have a duty to give back to communities that have helped them a great deal, specifically speakers of African American Vernacular English. In order to make this point and give a thorough introduction to the issue, he detailed some research that has been done with AAVE, the contributions the study of AAVE has made to sociolingustics, some details about the dialect AAVE, in what ways linguists have supported speakers of AAVE (like the ILT program in courts and supporting the Oakland Resolution). Finally, he concluded by suggesting a plethora of ways linguistics can give back to AAVE speaking communities, such as recruiting African-American students to be linguists, developing more programs the BRIDGE or other reading initiatives, engaging in more service-learning, or simply working in soup kitchens. 

               Throughout this reading, I was thinking about the work that field linguists do to help the communities they work in, like the creation of word lists or dictionaries.  This seems like useful work, as does the improvement of current dictionaries as discussed in the recent reading that discussed lexicography.  Thinking back to the reading on lexicography, would it be useful for linguists and lexicographers to create a dictionary of AAVE or at least much more inclusive of AAVE?  Would that be a fruitful way of giving back to the community, or would it not have use?

On another note, should each person in our class should now give back a few hours to the frequenters of Palo Alto cafes or the café owners themselves?