Is linguistics a science?

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What area does linguistics primarily belong to in your opinion?

Science (general)
20
50%
Art/humanity (classics, literature etc.)
2
5%
Social science (sociology, anthropology etc.)
15
38%
Formal science (computer science, math etc.)
3
8%
Engineering is the only real science. Women are just bad at math
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 40

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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2016-07-17, 3:41

I don't know whether to call it social science or humanities, but it usually is called a humanity, probably because it predates the term "social science" by over two millennia. It's also kind of doubtful if you can call it a science when it doesn't use the scientific method, although as has been pointed out, not all science involves experiment.
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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-17, 3:57

I don't see how history uses the scientific method any less than linguistics does. :? I mean, it even relies heavily on archeology, chemistry, carbon dating, and such.

Whether it should be called a social science or humanities seems to be a debateable issue, but I don't even see why it can't just be considered a science if linguistics can be called one.

EDIT: That reminds me, I was wrong when I said languages were the only thing my parents let me learn on my own. They left me alone with world history, too, which I also have a longstanding interest in (though I also suck at it more).

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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2016-07-17, 6:55

vijayjohn wrote:I don't see how history uses the scientific method any less than linguistics does. :? I mean, it even relies heavily on archeology, chemistry, carbon dating, and such.

Whether it should be called a social science or humanities seems to be a debateable issue, but I don't even see why it can't just be considered a science if linguistics can be called one.
You're thinking of archaeology itself, imo, which is more clearly a science. History mainly uses written texts as sources. Or at least, I think it does - I've never studied history itself, but I've never heard of it doing anything else as its primary method. But it's generally pretty telling when a discipline is only offered as an arts degree without even the option for a science degree that it's a humanity.
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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-17, 14:53

mōdgethanc wrote:History mainly uses written texts as sources.

Don't most branches of linguistics do that, too, though?

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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby OldBoring » 2016-07-17, 17:14

When I think of "science" I have in mind two concepts.
To me science in the strict sense makes me think of subjects where you make experiments, use a lot of math to calculate the results, and there are a lot of formulas. Basically, anything based on math.
While science in a broader sense is anything that studies something analysing data. For example, geography is defined as a science that studies...
mōdgethanc wrote:I've never studied history itself

History is not a school subject?

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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-17, 19:26

OldBoring wrote:While science in a broader sense is anything that studies something analysing data. For example, geography is defined as a science that studies...

The Earth?
mōdgethanc wrote:I've never studied history itself

History is not a school subject?

I think he means as a university subject.

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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2016-07-17, 20:48

vijayjohn wrote:Don't most branches of linguistics do that, too, though?
They mainly use them to collect data, though, not to reconstruct what happened in the past. I think the difference is that linguistics is all about using written evidence to describe language while history is more interested in constructing a narrative. Linguistics is interested in what the features of this language are or whatever while history is interested in why things happened. That makes it more subjective because it's based less on hard data and more on personal interpretation.

Or I could be completely wrong. I don't know a lot about history and I'm kind of out of my depth here.
OldBoring wrote:To me science in the strict sense makes me think of subjects where you make experiments, use a lot of math to calculate the results, and there are a lot of formulas. Basically, anything based on math.
Biology really puts paid to the idea that science = math. Economics has way more math than biology.
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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-17, 21:14

I'm still skeptical that it's less of a science than linguistics is, but I'll admit I don't know that much about history, either, and I can agree to disagree. :)

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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2016-07-17, 21:59

One reason history can't be considered a science is because science is all about making predictions and testing them. You can't predict the future based on history (Karl Marx be damned) and you can't even do quasi-experimental designs, let alone actual experiments, because of the vast scale of what you're trying to predict (entire societies over centuries or more). It's hard enough to predict what will happen in the short term (like sociology and economics try to) or model what some tectonic plates will do a hundred million years from now in geology.

Or maybe it's all based on arbitrary snobbery. Who knows.
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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-17, 22:23

Just in case you're curious, here are the problems I see with considering linguistics to be a science and history not to be, given what we've said so far:

- as we've said, the extent to which linguists conduct experiments is limited
- history doesn't rely exclusively on written data (in fact, there is none for us to rely on for certain time periods where we do nevertheless have clues to things that happened); I think it's just that it's useful to have it
- there is such a thing as historical linguistics, which, you know, I majored in :P
- it does use written data to (help) reconstruct what happened in the past (at least if it's available)
- linguistics also uses prior research, which is also written data, as a reference to what's already been said about something, and further research may improve on it by disagreeing and revising it or adding on to it
- I think history does this, too
- linguists are also interested in constructing narratives and in why changes take place, rather than merely describing language(s) and what changes took place
- languages are not entirely predictable, either
- but you can predict some things about both history and languages

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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2016-07-17, 23:18

vijayjohn wrote:Just in case you're curious, here are the problems I see with considering linguistics to be a science and history not to be, given what we've said so far:

- as we've said, the extent to which linguists conduct experiments is limited
- history doesn't rely exclusively on written data (in fact, there is none for us to rely on for certain time periods where we do nevertheless have clues to things that happened); I think it's just that it's useful to have it
- there is such a thing as historical linguistics, which, you know, I majored in :P
- it does use written data to (help) reconstruct what happened in the past (at least if it's available)
- linguistics also uses prior research, which is also written data, as a reference to what's already been said about something, and further research may improve on it by disagreeing and revising it or adding on to it
- I think history does this, too
- linguists are also interested in constructing narratives and in why changes take place, rather than merely describing language(s) and what changes took place
- languages are not entirely predictable, either
- but you can predict some things about both history and languages
I'm not sure myself about whether history is a science or not. It does aim to discover facts, which is what all sciences do. I think there is more room for interpretation in history, though. Linguists might argue over exactly what cases a language has, but they won't argue that Latin was an analytic language. Historians might all agree that Germany invaded Poland, but they might have dozens of competing ideas about why exactly (was it to secure land and resources? racism? was Hitler insane? was it revanchism for losing World War I? was it because they needed a stepping stone to invading the USSR, which was their long-term goal all along? was it just because Poland was allied with their enemies and seemed like an easy target? was it because the wind was blowing east that day?). Disputes in linguistics seem to be more along the lines of "does this language have a word for blue or just blue-green", "this sound is a uvular and technically not a velar", and shit like that. (Or major ones like "does the Chomskyan language apparatus really exist", but that's more philosophy and cognitive science than pure linguistics.)

Oh, and I didn't know you majored in historical linguistics, or that it was even a thing to major in. I thought you just majored in linguistics. Or do you mean your master's?
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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-17, 23:51

mōdgethanc wrote:Linguists might argue over exactly what cases a language has, but they won't argue that Latin was an analytic language.

They won't? They don't even agree as to what "analytic" means! :lol: (Referencing this discussion again)
Disputes in linguistics seem to be more along the lines of "does this language have a word for blue or just blue-green", "this sound is a uvular and technically not a velar", and shit like that. (Or major ones like "does the Chomskyan language apparatus really exist", but that's more philosophy and cognitive science than pure linguistics.)

Those are some of the disputes in linguistics but not even close to all of them.
► Show Spoiler

But of course, I've never seen any of this covered in undergrad classes on linguistics because they're desperate to get people interested in it before they see any of this shit. :D
do you mean your master's?

Yes.

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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2016-07-18, 1:39

vijayjohn wrote:They won't? They don't even agree as to what "analytic" means! :lol: (Referencing this discussion again)
Have you ever seen anyone say that?
Those are some of the disputes in linguistics but not even close to all of them.
► Show Spoiler

But of course, I've never seen any of this covered in undergrad classes on linguistics because they're desperate to get people interested in it before they see any of this shit. :D
I'm sure there are acrimonious debates at the higher levels of the field. There also are in well-established Real True Pure Hard Sciences, like over whether string theory has any validity and what it would mean if it did. But the fundamentals, like what a dental consonant is or what a verb is, seem to be pretty settled.
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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-18, 1:49

mōdgethanc wrote:Have you ever seen anyone say that?

That Latin isn't analytic? No, because I've never seen linguists talk about Latin (much) before. Or that it isn't clear what an analytic language is? Apart from that discussion, I haven't seen people talk about competing definitions for it before, so no again.
I'm sure there are acrimonious debates at the higher levels of the field. There also are in well-established Real True Pure Hard Sciences, like over whether string theory has any validity and what it would mean if it did. But the fundamentals, like what a dental consonant is or what a verb is, seem to be pretty settled.

So you don't think the fundamentals of history are? (I'm not asking that to be facetious, btw. I'm just wondering because I'm genuinely curious :)).

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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2016-07-18, 2:36

vijayjohn wrote:That Latin isn't analytic? No
I doubt you will find any who do.
So you don't think the fundamentals of history are? (I'm not asking that to be facetious, btw. I'm just wondering because I'm genuinely curious :)).
Again, I really don't know much about history, but I think historians widely agree on what major events happened and when. What they might not agree on as much is why. I also think that philosophers agree on the fundamentals of their field (like what a right is, or what the common good is) but interpret these things very differently. History seems more like that to me. In linguistics, you might have different models of the sound laws of Old Chinese, but they will all arrive more or less at the same place eventually. In fields like history and philosophy, this might not ever happen, because the goal isn't really to prove something wrong, but to generate discussion and form new ideas.
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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby razlem » 2016-07-18, 6:46

vijayjohn wrote:- as we've said, the extent to which linguists conduct experiments is limited

Strongly disagree. There are/have been numerous experiments in Phonology, Syntax, and Language Acquisition.

vijayjohn wrote:- linguists are also interested in constructing narratives and in why changes take place, rather than merely describing language(s) and what changes took places

Also disagree. Descriptive linguists don't create stories to explain things, we rely on data and trends, like any other objective field. That Indo-Europeans had a "Sky Father" wasn't a fabrication made up by historical linguists, it's based on historical evidence and a century of linguistic reconstruction.
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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-18, 7:36

razlem wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:- as we've said, the extent to which linguists conduct experiments is limited

Strongly disagree. There are/have been numerous experiments in Phonology, Syntax, and Language Acquisition.

Sure, but how many are there outside of a few subfields? And it seems to me that the fact that there "have been numerous experiments" is not saying much in favor of arguing that the extent to which linguists conduct experiments is not limited if this is not a requirement of people specializing in any of these subfields.
- linguists are also interested in constructing narratives and in why changes take place, rather than merely describing language(s) and what changes took places

Also disagree. Descriptive linguists don't create stories to explain things, we rely on data and trends, like any other objective field. That Indo-Europeans had a "Sky Father" wasn't a fabrication made up by historical linguists, it's based on historical evidence and a century of linguistic reconstruction.

But we don't rely on data a lot of times - often we rely entirely on data from one limited study, and in some cases we rely on no data at all.

I'm not claiming we make things up about the Indo-Europeans, but I have to wonder about a lot of things I have seen linguists claim. For example, there's the well-known problem of Chomsky theorizing about syntax without using actual empirical data as a basis. Or for some other examples: How strong exactly is our evidence for language change starting with a particular social class? In fact, what is our evidence for that? What about sound changes? When we attempt to explain why certain sounds change to certain other sounds, to what extent are those explanations actually corroborated by hard data (and I'm sure they are to some extent), and to what extent are they just people speculating?

What about things like the 1971 study by Gumperz and Wilson of structural convergence in the village of Kupwar in India? That study is cited over and over again in the literature on language contact even though the actual paper is pretty vague about its findings, gives next to no background information about the village, makes no attempt at all to place this situation in the context of language contact in India (or even in the state, region, or district that it's located in), and apparently, no one has bothered to try going to the village and investigating the linguistic situation there themselves in 45 years. Why does it make sense for a science to rely on such a study?

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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2016-07-19, 0:19

When I say a narrative I don't mean historians make stuff up. (That's kind of the opposite of what historians try to do.) I mean they try to find a causal link between events, and this is a highly subjective process, but more objective than say, art criticism. I think this leaves history in a weird place between humanities and social sciences.
vijayjohn wrote:Sure, but how many are there outside of a few subfields? And it seems to me that the fact that there "have been numerous experiments" is not saying much in favor of arguing that the extent to which linguists conduct experiments is not limited if this is not a requirement of people specializing in any of these subfields.
Those are some pretty major subfields though! I could say "psychology isn't a science because stuff like positive and humanistic psychology don't use the scientific method" but that would ignore biological, cognitive and other major branches that do use experimental methods for everything.
But we don't rely on data a lot of times - often we rely entirely on data from one limited study, and in some cases we rely on no data at all.
All sciences do this sometimes though. Going back to my example of string theory in physics, that's pretty much all theorizing without much if any data.
For example, there's the well-known problem of Chomsky theorizing about syntax without using actual empirical data as a basis.
There is definitely is a ton of evidence to show he is right about language acquisition, but it has always bothered me somewhat that his theories aren't based on much hard evidence.
What about things like the 1971 study by Gumperz and Wilson of structural convergence in the village of Kupwar in India? That study is cited over and over again in the literature on language contact even though the actual paper is pretty vague about its findings, gives next to no background information about the village, makes no attempt at all to place this situation in the context of language contact in India (or even in the state, region, or district that it's located in), and apparently, no one has bothered to try going to the village and investigating the linguistic situation there themselves in 45 years. Why does it make sense for a science to rely on such a study?
This is unfortunately a problem in every science. Sometimes a paper will be written, nobody else will do research on that topic for whatever reason, it keeps getting cited for several decades, then we find out eventually that it wasn't correct. This is why replication is so important.
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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-07-19, 0:23

mōdgethanc wrote:
For example, there's the well-known problem of Chomsky theorizing about syntax without using actual empirical data as a basis.
There is definitely is a ton of evidence to show he is right about language acquisition

There is? From what I vaguely recall, studies of language acquisition seem to contradict his ideas of how we acquire language quite a bit, and where's the evidence in favor of things like switching parameters in our brains?

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Re: Is linguistics a science?

Postby mōdgethanc » 2016-07-19, 0:53

vijayjohn wrote:There is? From what I vaguely recall, studies of language acquisition seem to contradict his ideas of how we acquire language quite a bit
There is plenty of indirect evidence that language acquisition is an innate ability:
- except for feral or severely abused children (who have virtually no exposure to language) all children acquire language rapidly and generate many novel sentences that their parents or peers never said (the famous "poverty of the stimulus" argument)
- it has been known for over a hundred years that Wernicke's area is essential for understanding language and its location and function are the same in almost every normally developing human
- deaf communities worldwide can and do spontaneously form their own sign languages, whose grammar is just as complex as spoken languages, and there is a lot of evidence they are similar at the neurological level (for example, sign aphasias and schizophasias in deaf people much like in hearing people, involving damage to the same brain areas)
- deaf children whose parents do not sign fluently still acquire it perfectly
- even great apes can use some form of grammar and syntax

Now, this is just what I know from psychology. I don't know what the linguistic literature says about this stuff today. If you're interested in language acquisition, I strongly recommend reading Hearing Voices by Oliver Sacks, in which he talks a lot about studies on language acquisition and impairment in both deaf and hearing children.
and where's the evidence in favor of things like switching parameters in our brains?
That's the problem. There isn't enough neurobiological evidence for it (except general stuff like that synaptic pruning happens around the time of the critical period).
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