I think that this weeks reading demonstrated a lot of interesting things. The first (King Sumner) showed how, like every other science, linguists must propose an initial hypothesis, run their experiments and accept their results confirmation or denial of said hypothesis. In this way the first paper revisited the point made in a previous weeks' reading that linguistics is, in fact, a science.
The second reading (Lupyan) was difficult to get through. At times it was hard to read the experiments and grasp in what ways there were actually different or how they were actually open-ended questions (for instance, to me as a mathematician, the prompt "Draw a triangle" and "Draw a three sided polygon" are equivalent because a triangle is the only three sided polygon). This made it hard to move through the paper because, in my mind, each experiment was asking the same question or the prompts weren't asking anything different so how could people respond differently. But the Lupyan paper does a great job of showing the nuance Linguistics can take in its investigations. Having someone take the time, exhibit the critical thinking, and calculate how to test the ever-so-slight degree of differentiation is rather impressive. Whereas most sciences go for general structure or over-arching theory this study shows that Linguistics as a subject really lies in the minute differences exhibit across populations. Then we cannot go about it by suggesting hypotheses that are broad because the true information lies in the details.
The final paper a landmark paper amidst our readings thus far. It was the most approachable paper diction-wise that we've seen in my opinion. Rickford managed to talk about a specific topic but was able to use language that ordinary people (i.e. us who haven't been in the field for decades) could easily gather meaning from. He also, brought up an issue that hadn't been addressed until now: What does Linguistics give back to the world? Most sciences theorize and speculate but the ultimate goal is to give back something tangible and Rickford, I contend, is the first to suggest what that may be. Sure, he says that Linguistics has yet to give much back to those that it studies, but he champions the idea of correction and a movement towards giving back through our understanding.Though the section where he talked about not having more African Americans on faculty in linguistics doesn't necessarily correlate to an injustice being continually served; it may just be that people generally aren't interested in pursuing the subject. But anyway, Rockford's paper is my favorite because it brings society as a whole into the discussion whereas prior readings have painted Linguistics as this sterile, purely analytical subject.
Hi Alec,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that it's exciting we are finally looking at linguistics as it relates to society. It's interesting you point out that Rickford may be wrong in assuming that the lack of African Americans in linguistics is an injustice - I didn't think about that when I was reading, but it seems valid. I wonder if there actually is any correlation, as Rickford believes, or if people just generally aren't interested like you said.
I also liked reading your perspective about the triangle experiment - I am not a mathematician at all, so it is cool to hear what you as a mathematician think. It just goes to show how the way people perceive languages comes into play; if a triangle really is the only three-sided polygon, what are people interpreting differently in the cues that causes variation in drawings?