- Linguists are trying to turn language into science, to boil it down to a mathematical formula. Duff? Ryan? Is this a slight to math? to language? Maybe I haven't gotten a broad enough picture of things, but I don't really see how language can be an equation. It changes. Does math change?
- All the seating at Stanford is made for people with longer legs than I have. It's getting uncomfortable.
- The cafeteria has some kind of bagel with chocolate chips in it. I must find this bagel.
- I have quads of steel---after 'hovering' over public toilet seats for a month. Our showers and toilets are in the community arrangement.
- I am going to miss being able to leave my window open 24/7.
7.23.2007
things of note after three weeks
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Duff and I had a discussion on this last night. He may post something on math, and the specific kinds of similarities there are between language and math. I'll leave that part to him.
As the one who studied linguistics, though, I'll comment on the language part: Yes, linguists are trying to do this, and, with the exception of some older-school morphologists and pragmatists (and sometimes some syntacticians, but the type who use autolexical grammar or lexical-functional grammar rather than the drivel known as minimalism, and of course some connectionists and the optimality types--but in short, not the people who seem to be getting press), they are doing this like it ain't no thang. It's an odd phenomenon, because language does change with even the slightest change in circumstances--in the mood of the speaker, in the introduction of a topic that hasn't been discussed before with the other interlocutor, with an unexpected comment from the interlocutor... not to mention more diachronic changes that one can witness mid-step, having occurred in some of the population and not others. To use myself as a more synchronic example, though, one need only look at a conversation I have with Duff, and then another with Ted, and another with Mia, and another with Alex. In all four of them I can be in the exact same mood, and can be joking around without intending to express any particular content to any of them. And yet, the rules of language change with each person, even, in some cases, on the syntactic level, and that's even excluding cases where one of us might say something intentionally ungrammatical for effect. Many people will notice this, if they look at how they actually talk with their different friends, and so I'm surprised that some linguists don't notice this? (I won't suggest that these linguists don't have friends, though the thought did occur to me.(see what I did there? i suggested it while saying I wouldn't! a-ho-ha-ha!))
In the end: it's a slight to language the way people talk, even if it's useful(?) for describing standard and industry language. But it fails in dialects, which is arguably the most 'natural' form of language.
BUT--knowing that, those who do decide to use the form of this slighting linguistics as a base, and describe the social intrigue behind what people do in dialect as a difference from the standard, or even just what people do pragmatically as a noted difference from the pure semantics of a sentence (cf Grice), get much closer at saying something that even people who hold this kind of criticism can get excited about. The tough part is learning all the tools at the lower levels from people who seem convinced that this is all there is to language.
A reading suggestion: Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. You wouldn't have to read the whole thing--the points relevant to this discussion are found in the first 100, or maybe 150 numbered sections (each about a paragraph or three), and he sort of trails off into other ideas at that point. From what I can tell, many people don't make it through the book--Duff will agree, I think. But the relevant portions are really interesting and present a view of language dependent on context for just about everything. It's worth reading his account of it.
the huge scientific problem i see with this is that english majors are usually in their chosen field because they are bad at math, and vice versa for mathematics majors
there's a window in your soon-to-be new room which I leave open practially 24-7. So you could - if you wanted to brave the weather.
I don't get the hovering thing...I used to do it 'cause mom told me to. But I've come to the conclusion that I don't care if there are germs on the back of my thighs.
As for math language and science, I think that it is our western mode of thinking...note music theory. Very mathematical break down of art. I think that we might just like to think about things in this manner.
Nate as for Math and language being mutually exclusive...well I guess many people suffer from this, but not as much as one might expect.
I become fearful when germs other than my own come near any mucus membrane, hence the commitment to hovering. They do have those sanitary seat covers at all the toilets out here, but it's so inconvenient to pull them and place them and etc.
I think my one semester of nursing school ruined me on the germ issue. Maybe I'll be more lax after I have kids?
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