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razlem wrote:I almost covered this in my conlang documentary, one of the interviewers was super passionate about linguistics NOT being a "science", needing the associated culture and human elements to be able to see the whole picture (and I tend to agree). At the core, we are trying to figure out how language works, sometimes with a solid scientific method, other times by recording the subjective. It is a "science" insofar as it is a search for truth and knowledge.
uzferry wrote:Who cares
why not all of them?
vijayjohn wrote:Yes, exactly! It's just like the number of linguists it takes to screw in a light bulb.
When you put it that way, I agree with you.md0 wrote:There were even guys who spend years tracking the neural implementation of consonants (phonetics and acoustics). That's sort of my point. A lot of things are under the domain on neurology neuroscience (basically anything that has humans perceiving or thinking), but there's varying degrees of usefulness in analysing everything at that level. So I think we actually agree.
I do think that sociolinguistics are, inevitably, explained by stuff that happens in individual brains, but I finally accepted that we do not the sociolinguists and their theoretical tools, otherwise we would either be able say nothing about sociolinguistics because it requires nearly-impossible brain imaging resolution to find anything useful, or we would stick to computational representations.
That's another good example of scientism. Academia shouldn't base its funding on the fields that are more practical and bring in more money (and let's face it, linguistics is not the best field for finding a job). If they did, we wouldn't even have humanities.razlem wrote:Well "science" is such a nebulous term in itself, and is mainly used classificationally for funding or award purposes. If something is a "science" in terms of money, it's something naturally objective like math or physics.
I've been to conferences and seen linguists who will sit and talk about how to convince boards that it's a "science", because "sciences" get more funding. They'll come up with some abstract theory in syntax to present, probably in conjunction with computational applications, and it's kind of ridiculous.
That's the original meaning of science.I almost covered this in my conlang documentary, one of the interviewers was super passionate about linguistics NOT being a "science", needing the associated culture and human elements to be able to see the whole picture (and I tend to agree). At the core, we are trying to figure out how language works, sometimes with a solid scientific method, other times by recording the subjective. It is a "science" insofar as it is a search for truth and knowledge.
Because traditionally sciences are considered wholly separate from humanities and they have different goals and ways of doing things. That's kind of like asking "why isn't astronomy a fine art?". Some things can't be both.uzferry wrote:Who cares, why not all of them?
And you would say that. I find this attitude often comes from people who either haven't been exposed to them much, or are looking at the wrong areas. If all you look at is cultural anthropology and political studies, then you'll get the feeling that it looks like humanities, but if you look at biological anthropology and neuropsychology, you won't.Levike wrote:I put it as Social Science, but then even social science doesn't feel like science to me.
I don't think so either. I think it's pretty clear-cut that if something is a humanity it probably can't be a science, because they deal with completely different questions.vijayjohn wrote:That would seem to imply that all of these categories mean basically the same thing, so I guess it depends on your definition of each of them. I don't think mōdgethanc's definition of them (in his latest post in this thread) allows for linguistics to be in all of them, and he's the one who started the poll in the first place.
linguoboy wrote:vijayjohn wrote:Yes, exactly! It's just like the number of linguists it takes to screw in a light bulb.
I always heard this as, "How many sociolinguists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" "It varies."
lelvijayjohn wrote:I should've known. Linguistics is a science after all! THREAD DIES
vijayjohn wrote:Well, the recording of the subjective can still be objective, can't it?
vijayjohn wrote:Language revitalization can be done by linguists, too, but they're not the only people who do that.
linguoboy wrote:In fact, I would argue that they're not the people who do that, full stop. Languages are revitalised by a community of speakers who use it in their daily lives. If a language is only (or chiefly) spoken by linguists, it's not a living language, it's a hobby.
vijayjohn wrote:Just because language revitalization may depend on language documentation
vijayjohn wrote:I think the context in which I most commonly see people emphasizing that something is science is when they're trying to point out that they're (or somebody else is) using factual information that you can verify yourself rather than relying on their personal beliefs.
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