🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <199407062210.PAA17283@netcom12.netcom.com>, Karen Kay <karenk@NETCOM.COM> writes:
> In article <2vf6b3$sqo@csi0.csi.uottawa.ca>, misrael@csi.uottawa.ca (Mark Israel) writes:

>> Linguistics is to a large extent based, not on experimentally
>> verified theories, but on dogmas
>
> Like any religion, not everyone believes all the dogma.

   Was the "like any religion" just for my benefit, or can you
really see the resemblance?

   Yes, not all linguists believe all the linguistic dogma.  
Nonetheless, the dogma is taught to linguistics students from the 
very beginning, and is the basis for much of the research that is 
done.

   In what I regard as a true science (you ask below what I think
of theoretical physics; yes, I think that's a true science), any 
dogmas are the private pets of certain researchers.  Certainly they 
would not be shoved down the throats of beginning students.

> I believe only the first:
>
>> "The relation between words in a language and their meanings is 
>> arbitrary";

   I remember reading that this has been been experimentally 
refuted.  Subjects were given pairs of antonyms in a language 
unrelated to any that they knew, and were asked to match them with
their English translations.  They were found to have better-than-
random chances of doing so.  No matter:  in the introductory 
linguistics course that I took, the experiment was not mentioned;
even the possibility of doing such an experiment was not mentioned;
we were just told the above and expected to believe it.

> I don't know of any linguist who believes the following:
>
>> "Speech is more important than writing";

   When I made a comment in sci.lang about the relative importance 
of speech and writing, Richard Goerwitz flamed me for not "adding to 
what modern linguists since Saussure have had to say on written vs. 
spoken language".  What did Saussure have to say about it?  Saussure
said, "Language and writing are two distinct sign systems; the only 
raison d'^etre of the latter is to represent the former; the object 
of linguistics is not defined by the combination of the written and 
the spoken word; the latter is its only object."  (Thank you, Bert.)
Did Saussure do experiments to justify this choice of methodology?
Apparently not.

>> "Unconscious processes are more important than conscious decisions";
>
> More important in what regard???

   In a post to sci.lang last year, Edmund Grimley-Evans wrote:  "Not 
all linguists are Chomskyites, though the great majority of North 
American linguists are.  The reason Chomskyan linguists ignore 
writing is that they are interested in instinctive linguistic 
behaviour and are worried that written language might be influenced 
by conscious thought."

>> "A valid linguistic theory need not match speakers' actual 
>> psychological mechanisms";
>
> I do know people who believe this, unfortunately. I think they're 
> wacko. (Actually, many of them have switched to AI.)
>
>> "A valid description of a language need not account for its 
>> history";
>
> I couldn't ever believe that.

   These two are so deeply ingrained in linguists that they have 
redefined the word "why".  When Jim Scobbie made a statement of the 
form "A accounts for why B", and I asked in what way (historical or 
psycholgical) he thought A caused B, he replied, "what I mean is 
'account for the fact that'. 'Why' in the linguo-speak sense is 
neither psychological nor historical but purely linguistic."

>> "Complete specification of a language's syntax without reference 
>> to semantics is both possible and worth doing";

   You omitted this one.  Was that an oversight?  Did you mean to 
include this among the dogmas that you disbelieve?  You're in a very
small minority among linguists if so.

>> "The rate of change of a language is a constant"...)
>
> Where did you get this from?

   From Rich Alderson (an apparent expert on historical linguistics 
who posts frequently to sci.lang and to alt.usage.english).  I had 
written, "What I recall reading in the book _In Search of the Indo-
Europeans_ is that among recorded ancient languages, Sanskrit and 
Latin were closest to the reconstructed original; and that among 
modern languages, Lithuanian is closest."  He responded, "Point of 
order.  They have all, *by definition*, diverged to the same 
extent."  In e-mail, he clarified that he was not nit-picking about
a definition; by "by definition", he really means "by dogma".

>>  Linguists, in their more candid moments, admit the unscientific
>> nature of their discipline.  Richard Goerwitz said, "Linguistics 
>> is not a science (at least, as most linguists practise it)."  Jim
>> Scobbie said, "The status of evidence in many branches of 
>> linguistics is tendentious....  Trying to refute a piece of 
>> linguistic theory is  sort of like trying to refute a piece of 
>> literary criticism."
>
> It depends on the practitioner, as both of these fellows indicate.
> There are different types of linguistics after all.

   Yes, under the great umbrella of linguistics, *some* scientific
research manages to get done.

   But what would you think of a university astronomy department 
that not only had astrologers among its professors, but required 
that students take astrology courses?

> Is theoretical physics a science?

   Absolutely!  Theoretical physics makes correct practical 
predictions.  Look at the recent discovery of variations in the 
background radiation, at exactly the level that theoretical 
physicists had predicted.  What comparable triumph has linguistics 
had?

misrael@csi.uottawa.ca			Mark Israel