Is linguistics a science?

[mōdgethanc]

After talking to Vijay about the discipline of cultural studies and its more ridiculous aspects, out of curiosity I typed "cultural studies is" into my search bar and it returned "cultural studies is bullshit". Amused, I decided to try it out with a few other topics:

"philosophy is a waste of time"
"history is bunk"
"geography is easy"
"biology is a social construct" (the Cult Studs people would love that)
"physics is applied math"
"chemistry is applied physics"
"psychology is not a science" AND "psychology is considered a science"
"sociology is a martial art" (WTF?)

And the kicker, as relevant to this thread:

"linguistics is a subfield of anthropology"

Make what you will of that, I guess.

[vijayjohn]

What does it say for anthropology?

[mōdgethanc]

"anthropology is the study of ancient primates"

Which is somewhat true at least, but if it is, how is linguistics a branch of it?

[mōdgethanc]

Oh, and "gender studies is worthless", and it doesn't even say anything for indigenous studies, which is probably because it was censored for being horribly racist.

[linguoboy]

Oh, and "gender studies is worthless", and it doesn't even say anything for indigenous studies, which is probably because it was censored for being horribly racist.

Y'all're nicer in the North. Mine say "gender studies is/are bullshit" and "african american studies is bullshit".

[vijayjohn]

Wait, what does it say for math?! Lol

And do you really only ever get one for each subject, or is this just the first result you get each time? I keep getting multiple ones.

[mōdgethanc]

Nah, about five options show up on a drop-down menu. I just selected the ones I thought were funniest. Math just says boring stuff like "math is hard", so I didn't include it.

It seems like folks in law are the most miserable, according to what I got: "law school is it worth it/is killing me/is how many years".

[vijayjohn]

It seems like folks in law are the most miserable, according to what I got: "law school is it worth it/is killing me/is how many years".

Yeah, that sounds about right.

[ZON]

You're definitely right about recognition within academia, but I'm referring to those lacking formal education and qualifications - like myself. There is no convenient means as far as I'm aware to submit research for professional linguists to evaluate and conduct proper research on, in a manner that focuses on the actual observations or theory, or other content, but not than the person behind it. Linguists wanting credit for their research is silly but understandably part of the human process - what I fail to grasp is its necessity and the rejection of anonymous contributions to linguistic journals and what have you.

Is it really a common thing in other fields of social science to accept anonymous articles for publication? Particularly those featuring findings which cannot be independently verified?

Not that I know of but that does not mean it should be this way. The window for abuse is not greatly different in anonymity than it is in public personality on the important issues concerning major languages, and with smaller languages it only makes it difficult to share research because of largely financial factors, elitism and politics. Everything in linguistics that ultimately matters can be independently verified. A good example is that I don't think anyone really cares if some undocumented language in Papua New Guinea or some tiny island in Polynesia disappears before it has been researched by professionals, and even after research has been done it would only matter to a minority within academia. Perhaps more would care if the speakers of the language were massacred by foreign invaders, however this is not the case with most of the rapidly disappearing languages in the world as you know, much more often the speakers just gradually switch to another language.

Native speakers of less prestigious dialects and more nationalistic speakers of endangered languages would certainly push the system, with the odd conlanger promoting their project, but does that not already happen in wildly more inappropriate places?

I'm struggling to think of a more inappropriate place for someone to attempt to pass off their conlang project as a real language than an academic journal.

It may be depend on how we define inappropriate, but I see its use in a political movement as more inappropriate than an academic journal as the potential damage is much higher. For academics it would only bring embarrassment and loss of credibility in the worst case, with propaganda it can contribute to terrorism in the worst case. Linguistic purificationism and conlanging share much land in common, take the Pashto purification. I don't know any research on the connection but certainly there is some to the Taliban and other militants in the Pashto-speaking region in Afghanistan and Pakistan. More definite connections existed between Basque terrorists and Basque purificationists, and looks to be on the rise again.

I'm not sure what you mean by "lacking formal education and qualifications." The first time I got a (linguistics) paper published, I was just some high school student who had met with the department chairman, who was impressed with what I'd learned on my own. Does that count as either formal education or qualifications?

It probably is not, however I never had even the chance to go to high school and later it was already too late. I suppose I gave up on pursuing formal education after failing to get into any because I lacked the foundational education, and refused to seek benefit from affirmative action programs or other types of special treatment I could maybe apply for. Abusing the past is not an honest way to get work or education.

Why is it silly for linguists to want credit for the work they have done?

I believe in the free distribution of information. It is silly to want credit for descriptive work, which linguistics mostly is. Wanting credit for productive work is understandable but the description of a language's phonology or grammar, even as the first researcher, is not productive work. I see nothing wrong in linguists publishing books that they've written about languages that they've studied, and making a profit from people buying their book, but if the book's content deals with information that is not particular to the author, the information in the book should be free to be distributed by anyone so long as word for word quotes were attributed to the author:

1. If the book contained the sentence "the Malayalam word for bone, അസ്ഥി, is a Sanskrit loan, which has no relation to Gothic astē, meaning of twigs", it would be absurd for the author to demand credit for every time anyone notes the fact that the Malayalam word for bone is a Sanskrit loan and that it has no relation to Gothic.

2. If the book contained the sentence "the Malayalam word for bone is അസ്ഥി, which M. Night Shyamalan would claim originated not from Sanskrit but from Gothic astē, meaning of twigs", it would make sense for the author to want credit if it was quoted by another author.

[aaakknu]

For example, there's the well-known problem of Chomsky theorizing about syntax without using actual empirical data as a basis.

Does math use actual empirical data?
I don't know much about either math or theory of syntax, that's why I ask.
I found this discussion interesting. I haven't read all the comments, but based on what I've read I would say that linguistics is a science (I voted for formal science, although maybe that's not completely true for all the branches).

[linguoboy]

For example, there's the well-known problem of Chomsky theorizing about syntax without using actual empirical data as a basis.

Does math use actual empirical data?

Applied mathematics does, pure math does not.

[md0]

My impression on the other hand is that contemporary GG (1990s onwards) is actually grounded on empirical data.

[Vlürch]

Somehow I missed this thread entirely before, but ZON's post here is exactly something I have to respond to with a long ass rant... he (or she?) will probably never see my reply since it seems like he/she hasn't been active here in a year, but whatever, I'm still responding.

The window for abuse is not greatly different in anonymity than it is in public personality on the important issues concerning major languages, and with smaller languages it only makes it difficult to share research because of largely financial factors, elitism and politics. Everything in linguistics that ultimately matters can be independently verified. A good example is that I don't think anyone really cares if some undocumented language in Papua New Guinea or some tiny island in Polynesia disappears before it has been researched by professionals, and even after research has been done it would only matter to a minority within academia. Perhaps more would care if the speakers of the language were massacred by foreign invaders, however this is not the case with most of the rapidly disappearing languages in the world as you know, much more often the speakers just gradually switch to another language.

But if a language goes extinct, it can't be researched through field work anymore. That means people could claim to have worked on it before it went extinct, anonymously submitting their bullshit to whatever journals years later, and no one could "idenpendently verify" any of it. You may think it wouldn't matter because the language was extinct, but what if the claims were so ridiculous that it absolutely had to be bullshit? It couldn't be debunked, but if it turned out that it was actually not bullshit, it couldn't be verified either. It's also funny how you claim to be against elitism but imply that small languages don't matter as much as big languages.

Anyway, since anyone can upload stuff on academia.edu or wherever, it's already close to a non-issue. I personally have never uploaded anything there since I haven't even tried to write anything close to academic so I can't really say if it's a good way to gain exposure, but even if it isn't, it's still something.

Also, I'm pretty sure at least Vijay would care if some obscure language in Papua New Guinea went extinct.

Linguistic purificationism and conlanging share much land in common

No, they don't.

As a conlanger, let me tell you why that's bullshit. Conlanging is about creating languages for any purpose, often personal enjoyment and/or for works of fiction. Linguistic purism (assuming that's what you meant) is often at least in part about eliminating foreign influences from a language for nationalistic purposes, but can be just about wanting to keep a language from acquiring new loanwords. Neither conlanging nor linguistic purism is inherently good or bad, although the latter has potential to be harmful if it increases the gap between the upper and lower classes, with the upper class speaking the "purer" version of the language. It has literally nothing to do with conlanging in at least 99% of cases, though...

Also, if you're implicitly referring to the conspiracy theory that modern Hebrew is a conlang... it's not. It's influenced by European languages far more than Arabic or other Semitic languages, yeah, and it could be argued that said influence is "artificial", but that doesn't make it a conlang or creole or whatever; I'm far from an expert on anything at all (let alone Hebrew), but if anything, logically it having more influences from other languages makes it proportionally less a conlang than if stuff was made up from thin air as it was revived. Measuring the proportions of conlanginess isn't really a thing, but well.

I believe in the free distribution of information. It is silly to want credit for descriptive work, which linguistics mostly is. Wanting credit for productive work is understandable but the description of a language's phonology or grammar, even as the first researcher, is not productive work.

Well, I believe in the free distribution of information too, but how is wanting credit for descriptive work any different from wanting credit for productive work? It's not like credit is a concrete thing... like, if you credit someone for their work, it doesn't take anything away from you (nor do they automatically gain anything by being credited), and if anything it'll probably get you more hits on whatever stuff you do (assuming you publish it online), since you'll have mentioned a name that more people may search for. That's why name-dropping is a thing, you know.

I mean, I get that for people who're 100% hardline opponents of identity politics as a whole, identities influencing people's opinions on something is an inherently bad thing, but in that case it doesn't make any sense to treat productive work any differently because everyone has an identity. People can't become a literal hivemind. Besides, where do you draw the line between "descriptive" and "productive" work? If you draw a line at all, it'll easily lead to a slippery slope situation where eventually more and more rights are taken away from people (workers, artists, etc.) because what they do isn't considered "productive" anymore. That's one of the reasons communism never works out.

I see nothing wrong in linguists publishing books that they've written about languages that they've studied, and making a profit from people buying their book, but if the book's content deals with information that is not particular to the author, the information in the book should be free to be distributed by anyone so long as word for word quotes were attributed to the author:

But that pretty much contradicts everything you said before... if people are forced to credit the author under certain circumstances but shouldn't credit them under others, how are the circumstances defined? If it's only exact quotes, what about accidentally "quoting" someone by simply saying the same thing?

And if you want more anonymity, how exactly would that work then? Quoting the publication number or something? In terms of conspiracy bullshit, that's a step closer to a dystopian world where people no longer have names or any other identification, only numbers...

...and what about distributing the entire book for free? I think that should be fine, too; is that too much freedom for you? In my opinion piracy shouldn't be illegal as long as it was for free, eg. if pirates didn't make money by selling stuff that's either sold by someone else officially or is available for free officially. When it comes to research and stuff, I think that being the goal in the future is actually important; for everything else it's unfortunately so unlikely that there's no point in even hoping for any change in that direction, and of course society would have to change on a fundamental level for that to be possible to begin with.

1. If the book contained the sentence "the Malayalam word for bone, അസ്ഥി, is a Sanskrit loan, which has no relation to Gothic astē, meaning of twigs", it would be absurd for the author to demand credit for every time anyone notes the fact that the Malayalam word for bone is a Sanskrit loan and that it has no relation to Gothic.

2. If the book contained the sentence "the Malayalam word for bone is അസ്ഥി, which M. Night Shyamalan would claim originated not from Sanskrit but from Gothic astē, meaning of twigs", it would make sense for the author to want credit if it was quoted by another author.

I kinda agree, but if the sentence is so distinctive, couldn't people just google it and find out who originally said it in most cases? And if it isn't so distinctive, it can't really be "owned" by anyone in the first place... I think what you're saying only applies to stuff where the quote is used as a quote to support a certain point or something, but in all other cases it makes no difference. Like, the way I see it is that if the context is one where it's the norm to give credit, then credit should be given, but if the context is one where it's not the norm to give credit, it shouldn't be.

For example, nobody credits the people who originally made reaction images when they post them on imageboards or forums or wherever simply because it's not the norm, and it'd get really awkward really fast to always credit the artist/photographer/whatever... by your definition, credit should be given in contexts like that, right? But what if no one even knows who the original artist/photographer/whatever is, like is the case with a lot of memes? It simply doesn't matter who made them originally. They collectively belong to the people of the internet.

With true free distribution of information, it's not so much the information itself that matters, it's people's right to distribute that information freely. It has nothing to do with identity. However, based on your post, it sounds to me like you understand that and simply want to rebel against a system that you feel betrayed by, which makes sense if you're a literal teenager... but if you're older than that... I mean, I don't want to sound like an asshole especially since my opinion on this is pretty close to yours, but like others already said, the system is probably not as bad as you make it out to be.

I don't know anything about your educational background, but you said you never went to highschool; I didn't either. I have only the bare minimum education and couldn't get any job even if I wanted to, but that doesn't mean I'd reject higher education as worthless and something to be no longer required for academic stuff; if anything, I hope that in the future higher education will be required by law for everyone so that they won't have to get to a situation where they can't get certain jobs or whatever because they're not educated enough in the first place. And of course, it should go without saying that all people should get all education for free.

Oh, and speaking of M. Night Shyamalan... I always forget how his name is spelled. For some reason I often think it's "Shemaleyum" even though that's a transgender porn site that I only know of because of pics posted on imageboards...

~

"sociology is a martial art" (WTF?)

Apparently, it's a book by Pierre Bourdieu and a film about him or something. Sorry for making it harder for you to ignore me, but I googled it because I was expecting something hilarious.

~

Also, to answer the thread's original question, I think linguistics is a science. Probably both a "science" and "social science", but most of the things that make up linguistics seem like things that can be "purely scientific" independent of each other, and only together there'll be a lot of fuzz on that matter. Then again, that could be used as an argument against linguistics being a science, so I don't know...

Anyway, since there is generally agreed to be such a thing as pseudolinguistics that includes pseudoscientific language comparison and whatnot, that means anything linguistics-related that doesn't fall into that category is science... right?

...and that's the paranoid emoticon used four times in a single post. Why do I use it so much?

[aaakknu]

After talking to Vijay about the discipline of cultural studies and its more ridiculous aspects, out of curiosity I typed "cultural studies is" into my search bar and it returned "cultural studies is bullshit". Amused, I decided to try it out with a few other topics:

"philosophy is a waste of time"
"history is bunk"
"geography is easy"
"biology is a social construct" (the Cult Studs people would love that)
"physics is applied math"
"chemistry is applied physics"
"psychology is not a science" AND "psychology is considered a science"
"sociology is a martial art" (WTF?)

And the kicker, as relevant to this thread:

"linguistics is a subfield of anthropology"

Make what you will of that, I guess.

When I typed "linguistics is" I got "linguistics is the scientific study of language"

"Philosophy is":
1. Philosophy is everybody's business
2. Philosophy is dead
3. Філософія - це мистецтво виживати. (Philosophy is the art of survival).

[aaakknu]

I found this article today which discuses the same question.