Thinking about Categories

The Lupyan article examined how people interact with the concept of a triangle. Though “triangle” and “three-sided polygon” are semantically equivalent in theory, we see that in practice, prompting someone to draw a shape based on each phrase yields different results. People prompted to draw a triangle almost always drew an equilateral triangle with a horizontal base. There was much more variation in response drawings when the respondents were prompted to draw a three-sided polygon, despite the fact that most people, when asked to define what a triangle is, gave “three-sided” descriptions. What this tells us about language is that it is not entirely based on logic. Words that are defined in logical terms can take on idealized forms in an unpredictable way. People were also quicker and more accurately able to categorize the “ideal” equilateral, horizontal base triangle as a triangle than people were able to categorize scalene and isosceles triangles, in the minority. There is a huge body of research on the fact that part of what makes humans such efficient thinkers is the fact that we categorize. As discussed in Kahneman’s book, Thinking Fast and Slow, we humans frequently over-categorize in a way that makes us prone to bias. With effort and awareness, implicit bias against different objects/people that don’t fit into our most frequently referenced categories can be mitigated.

This has connections to the Rickford article, which posits that follwing work done by linguists on African American Vernacular English (AAVE), linguists need to make a greater effort towards actions that benefit the minority communities they study. Linguists are in an interesting position to help speakers of non-standard English and other languages because they are not prescriptive about the correctness of language. Labov’s article, The logic of non-standard English, made a profound case for the systematicity and logic in AAVE, thereto written off as “improper” or a corrupted version of SE. Rickford argues that linguists can help represent AAVE-speaking and other minority communities in a positive light by selecting interview excerpts for publication that reverse stereotypes, a concrete step against racism/oppression I find fascinating.

My questions does remain: Are academic linguists really in a great position to “give back” to the AAVE-speaking community beyond actively positive representation in research? Rickford’s proposals are interesting, and his incorporation of service learning into his own curricula stand as excellent models for classrooms so that students are connected to the communities they study. That being said, I remain unsure that academic linguists are best positioned to create action plans for a total paradigm shift, enacting projects like alternative AAVE readers alongside SE texts in classrooms. Significant partnerships beyond academia would need to occur for this to be feasible. Academic linguists are, however, uniquely positioned to advocate for the legitimacy of the dialects in minority communities through research. I think widely distributing research on the legitimacy of non-standard English is a better goal than trying to make academic linguists activists in a way that the paradigm of academia prevents.