williams@kirk.DEC (John Williams 223-3402) (06/13/85)
> Could you provide examples? This would be very exciting if true. > It goes against what I have observed as a linguistics student, > however. Counter-examples that come to mind are the evolutions of > Latin, Greek, Sanskrit and Arabic into widely differing dialects > and languages. Briliant minds studied each language, sometimes > with results that modern linguists envy (e.g, Panini's Sanskrit > grammar), but I have not heard of anyone showing how these > grammarians influenced the evolution of these languages. Unfortunately, I can't sight any specific examples, but notice something: You have directed the conversation towards my providing some form of conclusive evidence. If I were to simply state that I don't have any specific examples, and leave it at that, then you would be safe to assert that linguistics is able to maintain isolation from any sort of influence on the language. I'm going to try to appeal to your theoretical mind, however, with the thought in mind that these theories have yet to be verified through objective experiment, and in essence what I am saying is that objective experiment is that much more difficult in linguistics, that there is a strong influence asserted by linguists in their study of the language. One of the more dramatic effects would be that of documentation. The formulation of grammatical rules, even if observed on an ideal objective perspective, would tend to stabilize the language, by providing an accurate reference that was not available beforehand. In addition to this, there is the effect of expanding the meanings of words, or even formulating new ones, that describe the characteristics of this language. These are only the direct effects. There are lots of others that are a lot more subtle. What I wish to assert is that there can be no ideal isolation between the phenomenon and the observer, that there will always be some kind of influence from the observer to the study subject. It is even more difficult to perform in linguistics due to the fact that linguists must use the same language that they are studying. What this amounts to is that I inevitably anticipate what the results and conclusions will be, that I suspect very strongly that the language is effected by it's study, which is something I feel should be taken into account. The magnitude of this influence is still unknown, but I suspect what this means is that the results from research are a lot less accurate than some linguists would like you to believe. I certainly hope that this does not bother you. I really would have to do some more research to come up with examples, and I'm not sure what sort of detail you would require for you to believe me on this matter. It is a hypothesis, an educated guess, that I don't feel should be dismissed for lack of specific example, but should be considered and evaluated in some way in all linguistic research. I am not currently in the position to assist in this research, but the idea came to mind, and I felt it was worth sharing. > Huh? If you are saying that language is a mirror of our world, > which in turn includes language, I agree. And a linguist uses terms that describe linguistics, wouldn't you say? > No! Please name ONE linguist who has the power to do the above > and give an example of what was done. My experience indicates > that linguists have no influence on the way people speak (He > pointed the gun at me and said,"You will use 'they' to refer only > to two or more people or things, or else!"). I don't know what > you mean by the phrase "enforce terms that are unsuitable for > popular use". There are less direct methods of enforcing something. For language, this usually involves simply the use of the words and grammatical structure that correspond to your interpretation of what these mean. Your interpretation is affected by language, and language is affected by your interpretation. The more authority you have in a particular field, the more likely that your terms will be adopted. Again, I am unable to give specific examples, only generalized theory. I understand that this reduces the amount of accuracy to what I am saying, but then again, I am not an authority when it comes to linguistics. I am applying general observations to what I believe to be a valid analogy. > I think that you are using the word "linguistics" to refer to > something other than e.g, what is taught in univerities as > linguistics. If so, would you explain further? School is highly formalized. This effect is not easily subjected to formal scrutiny. It is likely that they simply did not include it. This is common practice. Schools will only teach you things that may be formally defined, and skip by all the less tangable concepts. By asserting a certainty to the information presented in classrooms, or documented in some way, they are in a better position to advance in that field. Especially when dealing with the public, which is in a meaningful sense, ignorant, presenting ideas that can not be rigidly described has a tendency to look bad. What I am saying is that it would be in their self interest to overlook these things, at least until the time that these things become better understood. You will always find that schools are incomplete in very specific ways. They tend to leave out some of the less attractive aspects. The general theory which I believe applies to this is: There does not exist any clear seperation between observer and participant. In linguistics, I believe, and you have confirmed this for me, that this has yet to be measured. As far as specific examples, I do not personally know of any, let alone know that any would have been documented in the first place. But it's a new science, and you have to start somewhere. John.