tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098923048367476504.post7167898680682443757..comments2023-06-03T06:59:53.616-07:00Comments on Language Hippie: Language: jump in!Joe Kesslerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17966665423344313130noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098923048367476504.post-82776024055532256312011-08-20T12:11:31.337-07:002011-08-20T12:11:31.337-07:00Okay, thanks for clarifying. In response, I would ...Okay, thanks for clarifying. In response, I would say that I think it's important to look at all data that crosses our path, and not discount something just because it doesn't fit our preconceptions of what we're studying. There are many communication systems such as creoles or sign languages that were dismissed and ignored for years, because they didn't match someone's existing idea of what a language should be. Today those systems are recognized as full-fledged languages, and studying them has greatly increased our understanding of everything that language can be. So I would say it is just good science to keep those prescriptivist blinders off. Preconceptions can and should guide our research, but we should always be open to the idea that our earlier conclusions can be revised. It may be, in the light of new evidence, that we have to revise our definition of jumping!<br /><br />As scientists, we also have to accept our inability to test everything, everywhere. No one, in any field, can examine every possible instance of their research topic, so we shouldn't expect students of language to do so either. We base our conclusions on everything we have examined, so that our work always comes with the caveat, "...or so we've seen thus far." I would say that everything in science, from gravity to the gas laws, fits this model. When we have a rich enough evidence bank, we can be reasonably confident in the universality of our conclusions -- but, as I said before, it's important to not take those conclusions as hard facts when potential counter-evidence comes along.<br /><br />I'm still not sure I entirely understand the "anything goes" attitude toward language that you've mentioned, but I'll try to answer your question about what grammaticality / ungrammaticality is to a descriptivist. The short answer is simply that everything a person says is grammatical. That's just how language works -- it turns your thoughts into grammatical speech. If you think of language as an input-output machine, the output is always grammatical. (This ignores actual slip-of-the-tongue speech errors, which are a breakdown of the machinery that the speaker generally recognizes and corrects.)<br /><br />The reason this may seem like an "anything goes" approach to language is that people do not always share an identical grammar, even when they supposedly speak the same language; what is grammatical for speaker A may be ungrammatical for speaker B, and vice versa. It's thus important to not conflate an individual's grammar with the grammar of a language, such as "English grammar." This latter concept is always an aggregate, a stylized average of what's grammatical for most speakers. If you'll forgive the analogy, this is similar to how two members of the same religion might not believe the exact same things as one another. As a result, any statement about the beliefs of the religion is going to be a generalization that doesn't hold true for all of its members. But if A and B's beliefs are different from one another, that doesn't mean that the notion of belief is meaningless from a descriptivist point of view. We just have to generalize anytime we're describing the patterns of a larger group.<br /><br />The reason I object so much to prescriptivism is that it takes the aggregate, the generalized version of a language's grammar, as a set standard and attempts to enforce it on a very heterogenous population of individual speakers. This disenfranchises the speakers whose grammar is far from the standard, and it stifles the very natural process of healthy language change.Joe Kesslerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17966665423344313130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098923048367476504.post-60569877271763524962011-08-19T19:18:07.999-07:002011-08-19T19:18:07.999-07:00Hi Joe,
Yes, I do mean that the person counts fle...Hi Joe,<br /><br />Yes, I do mean that the person counts flexing a single leg as jumping.<br /><br />As for "language laisser-faire", it's just my way of describing the "anything goes" attitude prescriptivists usually accuse descriptivists of taking when talking about language.<br /><br />My issue is basically: what counts as ungrammatical for a descriptivist? To go back to the jumping metaphor: if we are to accept that jumping can be defined as flexing one leg just because one person swears they consider that to be jumping, at which kind of movement do we stop accepting that it's a jump? As I wrote, we can't possibly ask everyone to jump in front of us. How can we know there's no one out there that considers tiptoeing to be jumping, for instance?<br /><br />If that sounds a bit like the "slippery slope" prescriptivists sometimes talk about, it's because it's similar. But here I am not discussing about the "quality" of someone's language, but only about the definition of ungrammaticality according to a descriptivist. You write that grammaticality is still important to a descriptivist, but I just cannot find a definition of grammaticality in a descriptivist framework that doesn't devolve into nothingness when I really analyse it fully.<br /><br />I hope I've managed to make myself clear. It's a complex issue and I'm not quite sure I'm giving it a good description.Christophehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10129806464745634126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098923048367476504.post-25439526344899085262011-08-19T15:29:51.264-07:002011-08-19T15:29:51.264-07:00That's an interesting thought, Christophe. I t...That's an interesting thought, Christophe. I think I'd like to hear a little bit more about your example before I respond in full. Are you suggesting that the person in question is mistaken about jumping? (That is, if they reviewed the videotape, would they concede that they hadn't jumped after all? And if they saw someone else performing the exact same action, would they say that it wasn't a jump?) Or is this a person whose very definition of jumping is such that flexing a leg counts as a jump? I think you're suggesting the latter, but I want to make sure before I respond.<br /><br />While you're answering that question, perhaps you could also flesh out the idea of "language laisser-faire" a little bit. I have a suspicion that my answer to your question is going to hinge on that issue.Joe Kesslerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17966665423344313130noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098923048367476504.post-20592154589751041712011-08-19T05:06:11.380-07:002011-08-19T05:06:11.380-07:00Great post, but I'm not sure about your next-t...Great post, but I'm not sure about your next-to-last paragraph. You write:<br /><br />"When someone is asked to jump, and attempts to jump, and considers what they have done to be a jump, we should surely accept that they have in fact jumped."<br /><br />But what if what they did is in fact flexing their left leg while their right leg stayed put and their right foot never left the floor? What if after they did that they swear they have actually jumped, despite the video clearly showing one foot never left the floor? Should we agree with them and consider what they did to be a jump, or should we disagree and insist that for a movement to be a jump both feet must at some point not be touching the floor at the same time?<br /><br />My point here is simple: does a descriptivist consider *all* (as in 100%) utterances of a subject (that the subject insists are "OK" to him) to be actually grammatical, or is there also some kind of external criterion (like the jumping definition of having both feet off the ground at the same time) that one can also test the utterances against? Because if only the first alternative is considered, then I don't know how to distinguish descriptivism from language laisser-faire.<br /><br />I hope I'm not antagonising you while saying this. I am a descriptivist myself. I know language is dynamic and always in flux (although there's always a tiny prescriptivist in me that laments how people should pay more attention to what they say and how they say it :P), but I'm uneasy in that using this stance I can't find a satisfying definition of grammaticality and ungrammaticality (and "nobody says this" isn't a good definition because we can't possibly ask everyone, except in communities speaking very endangered languages).<br /><br />I guess as an engineer I have difficulties with fuzzy definitions.Christophehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10129806464745634126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098923048367476504.post-44212091698890728852011-08-04T08:23:28.372-07:002011-08-04T08:23:28.372-07:00I really like this post. I've always thought t...I really like this post. I've always thought that language classes focus too much on studying vocabulary from a textbook and not enough on actually speaking. Definitely better to "jump in."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7098923048367476504.post-30701990876432293532011-08-01T06:52:28.689-07:002011-08-01T06:52:28.689-07:00It's worth noting Dryer's 4-way distinctio...It's worth noting Dryer's 4-way distinction between "acceptable" and "grammatical" such that any given utterance can be one of the following:<br />1. acceptable & grammatical<br />2. acceptable but ungrammatical<br />3. unacceptable but grammatical<br />4. unacceptable & ungrammaticalChrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09558846279006287148noreply@blogger.com