Is linguistics a science?

[vijayjohn]

Oh, OK. I thought maybe you meant there was evidence for the Chomskyan approach to syntax from language acquisition.

[OldBoring]

Huh

[vijayjohn]

?

[mōdgethanc]

Oh, OK. I thought maybe you meant there was evidence for the Chomskyan approach to syntax from language acquisition.

I have no idea what he says about that. In my field, whenever anyone says "Chomskyan linguistics" they mean universal grammar or language acquisition device or whatever. (These names make it sound like the universal translator on Star Trek to me.) You probably knew already that there's lots of evidence for this capability in humans, although it's not clear how it works. What does his approach to syntax have to do with language acquisition?

[vijayjohn]

People in your field talk about linguistics? And know that Chomsky is a linguist? I thought all anybody else knew about him was his politics!

What does his approach to syntax have to do with language acquisition?

Well, he has (or at least had - I don't really remember to what extent he's stuck with his original ideas) certain ideas (don't remember all of them off the top of my head or anything, but I definitely remember something about switches in our brains that we use subconsciously to tell what word order a language we speak has, etc.) about how we process syntax, which of course is also part of language acquisition. I also just think it would be ideal if we had an approach to syntax that reflected more accurately how we actually process it in our brains.

[mōdgethanc]

People in your field talk about linguistics?

Sure. We talk about psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics, and it comes up in fields like neuropsychology, developmental psychology, and clinical stuff (learning disorders, aphasias, etc.). It's very important to understand basic linguistics if you want to understand this stuff.

And know that Chomsky is a linguist? I thought all anybody else knew about him was his politics!

Nobody cares about his politics IME.

Well, he has (or at least had - I don't really remember to what extent he's stuck with his original ideas) certain ideas (don't remember all of them off the top of my head or anything, but I definitely remember something about switches in our brains that we use subconsciously to tell what word order a language we speak has, etc.) about how we process syntax, which of course is also part of language acquisition. I also just think it would be ideal if we had an approach to syntax that reflected more accurately how we actually process it in our brains.

I don't know of any neurological evidence for that. It's possible we might use different neural networks for different kinds of syntax, but the evidence for that would probably be very subtle and hard to see with the imaging methods we have now (I'm not talking about major tracts, but closer to the levels of individual neurons).

[vijayjohn]

Sure. We talk about psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics, and it comes up in fields like neuropsychology, developmental psychology, and clinical stuff (learning disorders, aphasias, etc.). It's very important to understand basic linguistics if you want to understand this stuff.

Wow, cool! I didn't know anybody had to know linguistics except like language teachers or something (and of course linguists).

Nobody cares about his politics IME.

Actually, that's true IME, too. My dad told me that that was what he was known for, though.

I don't know of any neurological evidence for that.

Yeah, me neither (at least I can't remember any).

[mōdgethanc]

Wow, cool! I didn't know anybody had to know linguistics except like language teachers or something (and of course linguists).

I don't know if you strictly need to, depending on the area you're interested in, but it's definitely helpful and it does come up. A psychologist, psychiatrist, or neurologist would come across several kinds of language impairment (dyslexia, Tourette's, apraxia of speech, auditory processing disorder, various aphasias etc.) and knowing what a grapheme is or what syntax is would definitely help with that. I mean, they wouldn't have to know as much as a speech-language pathologist would, but still. In my classes there was a lot of time spent on aphasias and reading disorders, especially those caused by strokes, and that including knowing the different types of them, what areas are affected, what kind of deficits are involved (semantic, phonological, etc.) and even some IPA was used. All of it was stuff you would see in a first-year linguistics course, but not everyone had taken one before.

If you look at this, you'll see what I mean. Or even better, look at the page on aphasia. There is a lot of stuff on language impairment on Wikipedia that's pretty interesting.

Actually, that's true IME, too. My dad told me that that was what he was known for, though.

In some fields, he is. But in the sciences, nobody gives a shit about that. So linguistics must be a science!

[ZON]

And there are just factual disputes, like researcher A says that the linguistic situation in such-and-such place is one way, but researcher B says it's another way, researcher C agrees with one of them, and researcher D says it's some totally different way and everybody else can go fuck themselves. (Or alternatively, some researcher says it's one way, but people who actually come from the area are like "wuuut? Fuck no!").

Indeed. When you realize there are disputes regarding the grammatical and phonological features of little-known languages spoken in remote, hard to travel to regions, it becomes even less clear if there is any science involved in the process of documenting them. If not a single native speaker has ever been howsoever involved in the study and description of said language, it is likely the only information comes from snobs with their minds set only to validate their preconceived notions. Unverifiable anecdotes are not evidence but I've heard that sometimes field linguists prohibit the native speakers of the language they're documenting from contributing to the scientific aspects because they lack formal education in linguistics and would corrupt the process somehow - but the only personal experience I have of this type of conduct has been online that native speakers of minority languages are always influenced by nationalist politics and thus unreliable, which of course is not true.

As mōdgethanc put it of an expontentially more appropriate situation in another thread:

That's doubtlessly because some weird Brazilian guy with a boner for Fluminense (probably a native speaker) has been editing everything to include it. This is why I said it's good to be skeptical of Wikipedia. Original research abounds.

It has been some years since I read some papers on Burushaski and don't remember the details, but I believe two linguists that had spent some time with the Burusho people disagreed about major aspects of the grammar and number of phonemes? Not only are linguists very suspectible to bias, there is so much elitist snobbery and elitism that it's so off-putting that I gave up on professional linguistics altogether. Perhaps it could even be said that linguistics is the last stronghold of scientific racism if you take into account the overwhelming majority of linguistic "experts" are elderly white men who refuse to recognize as valid any linguistic research by people of color, or by women. Then considering what Wikipedia calls "spurious languages", languages that a random outsider decrees to have never existed based on his not having met any speakers on a one day trip to the general region where the language has been reported to have been spoken by somebody a decade or two before - with his mind set on the notion that the language does not exist.

For instance, Macedonian nationalists demand they be recognized as originating from a lineage of ancient Macedonians and claim their language is not Slavic - that is just silly, and they should not be entertained seriously. However, there is a long way to go in between: there can be research into whether certain features peculiar to the Macedonian language may indeed be traced back to the ancient Macedonian language without giving support to the ethnic nationalists who deny reality for their ideology. However unlikely, it is after all possible given that the modern Macedonians inhabit roughly the same region that the ancient Macedonians inhabited, that some words or sounds would derive from the ancient language.

My opinion remains that linguistics is social science, not objective science - it is an important part of recording the cultural heritage of the human race.

[linguoboy]

Perhaps it could even be said that linguistics is the last stronghold of scientific racism if you take into account the overwhelming majority of linguistic "experts" are elderly white men who refuse to recognize as valid any linguistic research by people of color, or by women.

It could be said, but it would need a significant body of evidence to back it up. I'd be surprised if you could find me one expert in the field who systematically discounts all linguistic research by people of colour or by women. IME, it's hard to find linguists who haven't co-authored papers with members of both groups. (I'm not sure what the percentage of women is in the field today, but I wouldn't be surprised that it's close to 50%. Nearly half [31 out 75] of the founding members of the Linguistic Society of America were women and that was back in 1924. More than one of the female professors in my linguistics programme stressed that the discipline had been welcoming of women long before other academic fields were.)

[vijayjohn]

I have something to say about racism in linguistics, but I'm scared to say it.

[linguoboy]

I have something to say about racism in linguistics, but I'm scared to say it.

I'm very interested in hearing it, so if you're not willing to share it here, please PM me.

(I should add that of course racism and sexism exist in linguistics, because they do in every academic discipline, and ZON isn't wrong that elderly White men wield disproportionate influence. But the idea that anyone in the field can completely disregard the contributions of women or POCs and still be taken seriously is pure hyperbole.)

[mōdgethanc]

Perhaps it could even be said that linguistics is the last stronghold of scientific racism if you take into account the overwhelming majority of linguistic "experts" are elderly white men who refuse to recognize as valid any linguistic research by people of color, or by women.

Scientific racism has found a niche in some fields like evolutionary psychology and population genetics, but generally people in these fields don't take these ideas seriously.

I also doubt very much that the majority of linguistics don't recognize research by women or POC. Maybe there's an implicit bias against it, but if it were that blatant then I would think there would be more of a conversation about it. Basically, I agree with what linguoboy said, and I trust his opinion more than my own on this. It would be good to get Vijay's opinion too.

Then considering what Wikipedia calls "spurious languages", languages that a random outsider decrees to have never existed based on his not having met any speakers on a one day trip to the general region where the language has been reported to have been spoken by somebody a decade or two before - with his mind set on the notion that the language does not exist.

Isn't it equally probable that some random linguist was genuinely mistaken about the existence of a language, reported it under the wrong name or just repeated hearsay from the locals, and nobody bothered to look into it further?

My opinion remains that linguistics is social science, not objective science - it is an important part of recording the cultural heritage of the human race.

Social science is capable of being objective. It's just harder.

[ZON]

It was indeed hyperbole, however I don't see why it matters if they lose credibility for not recognizing the research by women or people of color if they continue to be involved in the public face of the field. 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.

There is only one argument I see any validity in, namely that if all anonymous contributions were published alongside those of professionals, it would lead to deterioration of quality and accuracy due to increased chance of human errors and intentional distortions and even hoaxes. But even this argument tumbles if it is considered that the anonymous contributions could and should be labeled as unverified and possibly inaccurate. 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?

Then considering what Wikipedia calls "spurious languages", languages that a random outsider decrees to have never existed based on his not having met any speakers on a one day trip to the general region where the language has been reported to have been spoken by somebody a decade or two before - with his mind set on the notion that the language does not exist.

Isn't it equally probable that some random linguist was genuinely mistaken about the existence of a language, reported it under the wrong name or just repeated hearsay from the locals, and nobody bothered to look into it further?

That is equally or more possible in a majority of cases, but the one that was mistaken should be the judge of whether it was the same language that they previously reported. However as far as I can tell, it rarely if not ever is. Several languages being known by several different names is a two way street - there also are several languages being known by a single name, though this admittedly comes to a matter of language vs dialect in nearly all cases I've known about.

[linguoboy]

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?

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.

[vijayjohn]

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.

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?

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.

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

[vijayjohn]

You know what? I just realized that there's this right on the faculty profile of my advisor in grad school, Ian Hancock. I think this is a good example of how linguistics is not exactly free from racism (and this is far from the only example of antigypsyism in linguistics departments and elsewhere in academia):

Even in the academic discipline of Romani studies, the Roma are not masters of their own destiny. Non-Romani linguists have discovered the Romani language and are being given huge grants to study it, to the tune of half a million pounds and more. Meanwhile, Romani families are forced to deal with Romaphobia on a daily basis while struggling to find decent jobs, housing, education and healthcare, seeking no less and no more opportunity than that enjoyed by their non-Romani neighbours. It is surely a collective insult to the twelve million Roma that no university to this day in North America sponsors a chair of Romani Studies, while much smaller populations enjoy such privileges, as in the Basque Studies Center at the University of Nevada, which is devoted to the half-million-strong Basque people. It is a collective slight to the Roma that Ian has gotten no formal recognition from The University of Texas, where he works, although his contributions have merited recognition by the Texas House of Representatives in a public ceremony in the state Capitol, and where he is a member of the State Commission on Holocaust and Genocide.

[linguoboy]

It is surely a collective insult to the twelve million Roma that no university to this day in North America sponsors a chair of Romani Studies, while much smaller populations enjoy such privileges, as in the Basque Studies Center at the University of Nevada, which is devoted to the half-million-strong Basque people.

This is the only criticism I have trouble getting behind. Chairs get sponsored because there is money to do so. The reason there is funding for a Basque Studies Center is that wealthy members of the Basque-American population gave University of Nevada the money for it. It has nothing to do with the relative importance of each language worldwide. If you want to look at things that way, then how much more of a slight is it to the 200+ million Bengalis that there is (correct me if I'm wrong) no chair of Bengali Studies at any North American university?

Now, sure, it's ultimately due to a racist distribution of resources and opportunities that the Basques (and specifically the Basque-descended population of North America) have more money to endow chairs with than the Romanis and others. But that's racism of a more indirect sort than the other examples of discrimination detailed in that summary.

[vijayjohn]

It is surely a collective insult to the twelve million Roma that no university to this day in North America sponsors a chair of Romani Studies, while much smaller populations enjoy such privileges, as in the Basque Studies Center at the University of Nevada, which is devoted to the half-million-strong Basque people.

This is the only criticism I have trouble getting behind. Chairs get sponsored because there is money to do so.

Ian told me he was promised a chair before a certain person, who he said was clearly antigypsy, became the dean of Liberal Arts, so I think this is a reference to that (but Dileep Karanth, who wrote that, presumably didn't want to come right out and say it).

[linguoboy]

Ian told me he was promised a chair before a certain person, who he said was clearly antigypsy, became the dean of Liberal Arts, so I think this is a reference to that (but Dileep Karanth, who wrote that, presumably didn't want to come right out and say it).

Thanks for clarifying. The politics of academia is so unbelievably Borgian.