Talk:Linguistics/Archive 1

Suggestions for editing this page

Hi, all. I'm one of the authors of the Linguistics Workgroup. As not much is happening here at the moment I'm going to try to get to work on this page and hope others join in!

Some suggestions:

• Join the workgroup if you haven't already. At the moment we have no registered editors (I'm applying) and only six registered authors. To do this put Category:Linguistics Authors|Yourlastastname, Yourfirstname in [ ] at the bottom of your user page (or the equivalent editor tag if you are an editor).
• Citizendium's first 'editor approved' page is Biology. Take a look and compare it to the Wikipedia version [1]. The CZ one is much easier to read: it doesn't get bogged down in technicalities, nor prioritise less-than-useful information (such as the origin of the word 'biology').
• I think we should prioritise this page before moving on to others, except where your area of expertise focuses on another article. By default, let's try to work on this one.
• The page should focus simply on what linguistics is, without going into details of e.g. the history of the field (that can be put on the History of linguistics page). So it should focus on identifying the core topics - syntax, phonology, morphology, (linguistic) semantics, language acquisition, and the difference between theoretical and applied. This should be fairly concise.

I'm planning to manually refresh the page with the latest Wikipedia version (which I've also been editing, but developing the view that it's a lost cause), then make the page 'live' before editing it.

Good luck!

John Stephenson 21:23, 15 December 2006 (CST)

First edits

I've now refreshed the page with the 16th December Wikipedia version and started hacking away at it. The old article is under my user page here if you want to examine it and revert things. Also, the page is now 'live'. John Stephenson 21:38, 15 December 2006 (CST)

For a non-expert bystander it reads fairly well David Tribe 05:45, 23 January 2007 (CST)

Thanks - though I've only edited the first few paragraphs. There really is a lot to do here, so anyone with an interest, dive in. John Stephenson 19:09, 23 January 2007 (CST)

Other Things

I know a few linguistics who might take issue with the statement that phonetics "complement linguistics rather than form a central component." I strongly urge putting phonetics out at the level of the other theoretical levels (as I did in my edit). --Joshua Tauberer 19:39, 3 February 2007 (CST)

First, well done for the recent edits - you're right to strip out the stuff about UG in the introduction, and also the prescription part is now in much better shape.

As for phonetics: in taking this line I'm following firstly the distinction between linguistics and phonetics (e.g. as Crystal's dictionary title does), and secondly the view that phonetics and phonology should not be conflated. As Aitchison argues in her (2003) introductory book, phonetics is about speech sounds, rather than the study of abstract patterns as most linguistics concerns itself with. Crystal's definition refers to phonetics as being about transcription, description and classification. This seems to be followed in much work:

• The fact that you have books devoted to phonology rather than phonetics (e.g. Kenstowicz, 1994);
• That there are books that treat them separately (e.g. Davenport and Hannahs, 2005);
• The observation that phonology underlies many writing systems, sign languages (e.g. Brentari, 1999) and other communication systems in which phonetics plays no role;
• That describing phonemic units in terms of articulation fails to capture essential behaviour and relationships (Davenport and Hannahs, 2005: 92-94);
• That this distinction is taught to undergraduates (e.g. here);
• That there are linguists who argue they're not related (e.g. David Odden and Jonathan Kaye);
• That even the phonetics-based phonology approach (e.g. Hayes et al., 2004) leaves room for controversies (e.g. Harris and Lindsey in Burton-Roberts et al., 2000, who argue that phonology can't be described satisfactorily through either articulation or raw acoustics; and Hale and Reiss in the same volume, who see it as a branch of psychology).

To this we can add that phonological rules are largely independent of articulatory facts: for example, though I was taught by English teachers that assimilation occurs to make words easier to pronounce, in fact this is not universal (Russian lacks assimilation in words like bank) and applies to only some features and not others, e.g. place but not manner.

The late phonetician Peter Ladefoged certainly saw phonetic study as informing phonology, but in his well-known coursebook wrote that a phonetician's knowledge of language concerns how the vocal apparatus and auditory systems are used; their field is describing speech in terms of perception and production. Observing where a change in speech entails a change in meaning is helpful in doing this, but nowhere in his book does he actually get into a real, abstract phonological theory.

So for these reasons I can't see the justification for making phonetics as prominent as you would like; it deserves its own page, and relationships should be pointed out, but phonology does not really treat phonetics as its starting point.

• Aitchison, J. (2003). Teach Yourself Linguistics. London: Hodder. 6th edition.
• Brentari, D. (1999). A Prosodic Model of Sign Language Phonology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Crystal, D. (2002). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Oxford: Blackwell. 5th edition.
• Davenport, M. & S.J. Hannahs (2005). Introducing Phonetics and Phonology. London: Hodder. 2nd edition.
• Harris, J. & G. Lindsey (2000). Vowel patterns in mind and sound. In N. Burton-Roberts, P. Carr & G. Docherty (eds) Phonological Knowledge: Conceptual and Empirical Issues. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp.185-205.
• Hale, M. & C. Reiss (2000). Phonology as cognition. In N. Burton-Roberts, P. Carr & G. Docherty (eds) Phonological Knowledge: Conceptual and Empirical Issues. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp.161-184.
• Hayes, B., R. Kirchner & D. Steriade (eds) (2004). Phonetically-Based Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Kenstowicz, M. (1994). Phonology in Generative Grammar. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Ladefoged, P. (2006). A Course in Phonetics. London: Thomson. 5th edition.

Comments from an interested amateur. On subject-verb agreement - could you add examples of dialect speech where this rule is broken, to make the example clearer? I guess "I sez-he sez" is one. On references - could I suggest please that you try if possible to choose references available on or via the web, or give IBSN numbers or database numbers. I think we need to see references as there to be used by the reader, not as remote but perhaps inaccessible sources of authority.Gareth Leng 04:52, 4 February 2007 (CST)