Advertisement
There seems to be no snappy one-word name for "someone who studies language(s)".
Isn't "linguist" most often a reference to someone who works with or is studying (one or more) foreign languages in order to speak and use them?
Linguistics, on the other hand, is the study of language in general - without the primary aim of speaking many languages.
So is there a word? "lingualogist"???? ("Sprachwissenschftler"???)
"Linguistic Scientist" is too clumsy.
Isn't "linguist" most often a reference to someone who works with or is studying (one or more) foreign languages in order to speak and use them?
Linguistics, on the other hand, is the study of language in general - without the primary aim of speaking many languages.
So is there a word? "lingualogist"???? ("Sprachwissenschftler"???)
"Linguistic Scientist" is too clumsy.
Advertisement
Advertisement
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Thu, April 14, 2005 - 4:02 PMLinguistics means the science of language.
A linguist is one who studies language as a science.
So, "linguistics community" is used much like "physics community," meaning those who participate in the development of this science.
"Linguistic scientist" is redundant.
There is also a popular usage of the word "linguist" to mean polyglot, or multilingual individual, especially if the person has acquired multiple languages in adulthood. (So the first question one frequently encounters when it is learned that one is a linguist is "how many languages do you speak?" Many of my linguistics professors were not fluent in any language but English, even though they may have studied the morphology and syntax of many languages.)
So there is confusion due to these two usages, but I have never heard "linguist" used to mean someone who studies a particular foreign language (especially only one language) in order to just speak and use it. I would call such a person a "student of languages" (or a student of a particular language).
That's not one word, but "student of languages" still seems quite usable, to distinguish from "linguist" or student of language as a scientific field.
You can study a foreign language (or your own) from a linguistics point of view, though. For example, if you studied Spanish linguistics, that would mean scientifically studying the phonology and morphosyntax of Spanish. -
-
why linguistics is a cool science
Thu, April 14, 2005 - 4:08 PMWhy linguistics is a cool science is 'cause it is at the cusp between the quantifiable data-driven hard sciences and the soft touchy-feely social sciences, and it has room for people who lean either way.
And the other cool thing about linguistics is a science is the fact that it is the only science that uses intuition as data. Just your native speaker intuition of whether something in your native language sounds right or not -- that is actual data. -
-
Re: why linguistics is a cool science
Thu, May 12, 2005 - 9:27 AMWhy linguistics is a cool science is 'cause it is at the cusp between the quantifiable data-driven hard sciences and the soft touchy-feely social sciences, and it has room for people who lean either way.
===
LOL. :-) I love the hard science types of lingustics. they are so, not me. :-) We had two very friendly, but truly distinct approach in our dept at Colorado. There were those who approaced langauge and lingustics more like a math - and who often enjoyed the world of Computer translations, computer interfaces, artificial languages, etc.
then there were the soft scienct (or non science) types like me, more interested in language and people. how language allows us to communicate important ideas, and why languages develop with particular verbal trends and tenses, and why a culture developes a highly encoded langage, etc.
that is actual data.
---
see, and i'm just not ready to go there. I'm not ready to reduce the complexty of native language and intiutive understanding to sets of data that are retrieveable and recreatable. My husband would love you, though. :-) -
-
Re: why linguistics is a cool science
Thu, May 12, 2005 - 11:30 AM"I'm not ready to reduce the complexty of native language and intiutive understanding to sets of data that are retrieveable and recreatable."
Well, that is what everyone does who creates a text for learning a foreign language.
But, beyond the structural basics, it is seemingly impossible to do, as shown by the fact that half a century and millions of personhours spent in an effort to get computers to simulate natural language have been almost fruitless.
-
-
-
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Sat, April 16, 2005 - 2:27 AMlinguaphile?
tho' maybe that would be a lover of language in general--like a poet--as opposed to a lover of languages...
tho' i guess it could have both meanings...
a related question:
what do you call somebody who loves accents? i've had friends who don't speak other languages but are damned good at doing accents...i love learning languages and have spoken other languages like a native, but i *suck* at imitating accents in English... -
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Sat, April 16, 2005 - 8:47 AMI think linguaphile is a good word.
Lover of accents -- there NEEDS to be a word for that, for sure.
"i love learning languages and have spoken other languages like a native, but i *suck* at imitating accents in English... "
I'm the same way -- I can pass as a native Spanish speaker in Spanish-speaking countries -- but I can't imitate regional accents well =on purpose= .... but I often discover I am =unconsciously= picking up the accents of the people around me.
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Sat, April 16, 2005 - 11:30 AM<snip>
what do you call somebody who loves accents? i've had friends who don't speak other languages but are damned good at doing accents
<snip>
A mimic! :)
(Accent is my strongest suit when learning a language) -
-
accents & mimicry
Sat, April 16, 2005 - 9:33 PM=)
a mimic indeed!
i'm good at learning to speak with the appropriate accent and all.
and i'm pretty good at quickly being able to reproduce new sound patterns...
i'm just not good at imitating, say, a Brazilian speaking English. (or a Kentuckian speaking English, etc.)
to speak so folk think you're a native definitely takes a kind of mimicry. (and, in my case, months of total immersion!)
but maybe it's a different kind than the kind it takes to mimic accents of different folk--native or foreign--speaking English?
on a related tip, a buddy of mine is really good at speaking gibberish that sounds like a particular language! to hear him speak is brilliant!
on the other hand, i'm just good at speaking gibberish that sounds like some unidentified language...
-
Unsu...
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Sat, April 16, 2005 - 11:48 PMI have learned the more-useful-than-you-might-think ability to make people unfamiliar with french think that I speak french by singing "O' Christmas Tree" in non-sense french sounding phonemens. I'm not very good at inflecting English with a french accent though -- but would my other penchant still make me a mimic? -
-
Unsu...
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Sat, April 16, 2005 - 11:49 PMerr phonemes, not phonemenons, which nontheless does sound like an obscure linguistics term despite the fact that it is just a typo.
-
-
-
-
Unsu...
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Sat, April 16, 2005 - 11:41 PMAs far as I know only in the military do they call a polyglot, i.e. and interpreter, a "linguist."
This is just do to the wider military practice of making mundane jobs sound much more important and exciting than they really are, which they've presumably found helps them reel in more recruits than they do by calling jobs by their usual, and less evocative, titles.
Another example, no joke , besides calling an interpreter a "linguist" is the quite exciting sounding "Logistics Supply Coordinator." It really makes it sound like they are going to have to give you something like a college education to do that job -- or so it seems until the future Logistic Supply Coordinators find that in their post-bootcamp technical school their most exciting class is learning how to drive a forklift with the most erudiite task being how to organize shelves in the warehouse proprely.
Outside the military a linguist usually refers to somebody who studies linguistics. I suppose this reply's subject could fall into some category called behavorialist linguistics. Has anyone ever heard of "behavioralist linnguistics." I suppose it would also be the sub-discipline of linguistics that Chomsky actually touches upon in his otherwise linguistics free political works right? Although Chomsky would probably like if it were called something better since he has an animosity towards behaviorlism -- anyone have a better name for it? -
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Sun, April 17, 2005 - 12:04 PMOkay. I always thought "linguist" was someone who learned languages or spoke many languages as part of their occupation, while a polyglot simply means someone who speaks many languages (regardless of the purpose or reason). That's why I thought there was no term for someone who studies the structure and origin of languages. -
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Sun, April 17, 2005 - 12:34 PM>>I always thought "linguist" was someone who learned languages or spoke many languages as part of their occupation,
Telly's perceptions plus Brennt's thingy about the military usage brings us back to the core insight of lingustics as empirical science:
Language is as language does.
Because folk in the military decided to call interpreters/translators "linguists", the notion that *anyone* who uses multiple languages professionally is called a "linguist" spread--at least partially--beyond military circles.
By using the language, we change the language.
and it also speaks to the socio-linguistic notion of "linguistic community". the military could be considered a linguistic community, with its own particular codes and jargon and institutional practices. yet that community interacts with and is enmeshed with and overlaps with many other communities... -
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Sun, April 17, 2005 - 12:41 PM"and it also speaks to the socio-linguistic notion of "linguistic community". the military could be considered a linguistic community, with its own particular codes and jargon and institutional practices. "
That's true. That's why one letter is so important in "linguisticS community."
-
-
-
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Sun, April 17, 2005 - 4:38 PM"Isn't "linguist" most often a reference to someone who works with or is studying (one or more) foreign languages in order to speak and use them? "
i have never heard this use, but as mentioned it is a common misconception that linguists are multilingual people.
i think the word for people who study languages is "X (insert name of langauge here) student". French student. French and German Student etc. Foreign Language student. More simply and depending on the degree of fluency they associate with the term - they may also be called mulilinguals.
-
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Wed, April 20, 2005 - 6:52 AMI think the use of "linguist" or cognate term to designate someone who can use multiple languages professionally, is common in some other countries like Russia. I suspect the usage predates what we now know as "linguistics", much of which took shape only in the 20th century, and much of which went by other labels like "philology" earlier. -
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Wed, April 20, 2005 - 11:07 AM" I think the use of "linguist" or cognate term to designate someone who can use multiple languages professionally, is common in some other countries like Russia. I suspect the usage predates what we now know as "linguistics" "
I think you are probably right, but those of us who study the science of linguistics (which, pre-Chomsky, used to be about the study of different languages) have claimed the term for ourselves. Anybody else who wants it will have to fight us for it. ;-) -
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Wed, April 20, 2005 - 1:12 PM"I think you are probably right, but those of us who study the science of linguistics (which, pre-Chomsky, used to be about the study of different languages) have claimed the term for ourselves. "
I'm sorry, Gayle, but I think many historians of linguistics would disagree with you. Think about five classics of (pre-Chomskian) linguistics: Saussure's Course in General Linguistics (1917), Sapir's Language (1921), Jespersen's Language (1922) and his Philosophy of Grammar (1924), and Bloomfield's Language (1933). These works concern language in general. In fact some critics of post-Chomskian linguistics have complained that many facts of universal grammar, back in the day, were posited on a single language (English). Going back past the great 19th century diachronic linguists (usually known as philologists), you come to linguists like von Humboldt, as well as earlier philosophers of language like Herder, Condillac, Leibnitz, and Wilkins. The first generation generativists did the following generations of linguists a diservice by emphasizing the back to zero quality of Chomsky's own work. His work owes great debts (which he occasionally acknowledged) to his advisor, Zelig Harris, and to earlier linguists like Rulon Wells. And, of course, you have non-Western linguists like Panini, too.
I think that linguist is just one of those words that has multiple meanings. One of which meanings is a practioner of linguistcs and another polyglot. -
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Wed, April 20, 2005 - 1:23 PM> I think that linguist is just one of those words that has multiple > meanings. One of which meanings is a practioner of linguistcs
> and another polyglot.
I would go along with this statement. Obviously there is more than one meaning of the word - I have never before noticed the word "linguist" being used to refer to people involved in the field of linguistics. -
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Wed, April 20, 2005 - 3:48 PM"I have never before noticed the word "linguist" being used to refer to people involved in the field of linguistics."
It's the only one that linguists today use. The first use of linguist as a person who studies languages is 1922 in Jespersen's Language. Another term, linguistician, had been coined in 1895. Here's an interesting article I found while googling:
www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/staff/...istician.pdf -
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Thu, June 9, 2005 - 4:09 PMLinguistician! I love it! Sounds like a philologist that does electrical wiring:-)
When I do linguistics presentations for education students, I show them the ironies of the use of the word "linguist":
'When people ask me what I do, I say I'm a linguist, their first question is 'How many languages do you speak?' I then tell them that linguistics is the study of Language (with a big L), not any one or several languages (with little l's.) Irony #1 is that, if you're like me, you started learning other languages before you found out about the study of linguistics, so, yeah, most linguists are also polyglots. Irony #2 is that linguists study "real" rather than just prescribed language. So, if the general use in English of the word "linguist" indeed comes to mean "polyglot", then that's what it is!
Enjoying this tribe very much.
Craig in Arcata, CA
-
-
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Wed, April 20, 2005 - 7:18 PMWhat I mean is that, pre-Chomsky, there was much more focus on documenting endangered languages and exploring the =differences= among languages (certainly that was Sapir's focus) and what is lost when a language is lost. The main focus in linguistics is no longer on linguistic diversity, or on documenting and saving endangered languages, just at a time when linguistic diversity is most threatened. (It is no accident that, worldwide, there is a general correlation between areas of greatest linguistic diversity and areas of greatest biological diversity.)
-
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Wed, May 11, 2005 - 9:37 AMChomsky: "Oh, you wanted me to work on my prose?! I thought you wanted me to work on my PROs...."
-
-
-
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Sun, May 22, 2005 - 6:54 PMwikipedia:
"Broadly conceived, linguistics is the study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study." -
-
Re: = "a member of the linguistics community" ?
Mon, May 23, 2005 - 7:07 PMre: "Broadly conceived, linguistics is the study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study."
In a sense, we are all members of the linguistics community because we all engage in the study of human language.
I volunteer as a tutor of English as a second language. For me, one of the main reasons to study language is to honor language (and information exchange) as an essential human right.
-
