What Linguists Do

One of the most prototypical questions linguists get asked is, "How many languages do you speak?"

Linguists get asked this question so often because the number one misconception about linguists is that we sit around all day and learn new languages.  While linguists study language, we don't necessarily study languages.  How does that make sense?  Studying language means you're studying the system that allows humans to communicate--for spoken languages, this means you're studying how sounds are made, transmitted, and perceived; how sounds are put together and which sounds are meaningful; how words are built to create meaning; how words come together to form sentences; and so on.  For signed languages, you're studying how gestures are made and perceived; how the differing aspects of those gestures work together to create meaning; and so on.  For all types of language, you can study how societies create meaning, how our brains can handle language input and output, how language changes over time, how our language use reflects our identity, how we can acquire language, and more.  The important thing to remember is that you could feasibly study linguistics without ever once studying another language.  You could be a morphologist, studying how individual morphemes are put together to form meaningful words, without speaking any language but your native language because you can study the patterns found in the world's languages without speaking them.

Even though speaking another language is not necessary for being able to perform linguistic analyses, many linguistics programs require that their students take at least two years of a foreign language at the collegiate level (as does our minor here at SFA).  Learning another language opens your mind and helps you, as a student, get past thinking that all languages work like your native language.  Even if you never become fluent in that language you are studying, learning the new vocabulary and new grammatical structures of another language can open up doors for making connections in your linguistics courses that you would otherwise not be able to make.  A simple example is the History of the English Language course.  Students in that course who had studied other languages constantly found connections between that other language and the concepts being learned to study the history of our own language.  Students who studied Latin noticed that Old English had a rich case system like Latin; students of German noticed that the Old English vocabulary sounded more German-ish than English-ish; students of French noticed that Middle English gained familiar-sounding words after the Norman Conquest.

Another misconception about linguists that I have been facing lately is that linguists study grammar.  It is true that one area of linguistics is grammatical analysis; however, grammar in linguistics is not the grammar of middle school textbooks or college style guides.  In linguistics, we do not study things like punctuation placement, subject-verb agreement errors, or faulty parallelism unless we are looking at them in a wider context.  For instance, we might study punctuation placement in the terms of societal conventions used to standardize written language.  Or we might study so-called errors in language to better understand the different patterns available within a language for expressing the same idea and society's judgments on those patterns.  Linguistics, though, is so much more than grammar.  Some of us (like myself) rather enjoy grammar, but that doesn't mean that is all we do.  So if you take Structures of English at SFA, you will not once be tested on where commas should be placed within a sentence.

If you are interested in learning more about studying linguistics, the Linguistic Society of America has an online publication titled "Why Major in Linguistics?" that covers the basics of linguistic study and the possibilities for jobs as a linguistics student.  The link to this article is also in the LingLinks section in the sidebar of this blog, along with other valuable links to linguistic resources.  And, of course, linguists are happy to field questions about linguistics--if you're at SFA, feel free to stop by my office if you'd like to chat about just how fascinating studying linguistics is.

What misconceptions about linguistics have you heard?  Or, what questions do you have about what linguists actually study?

Advantages of Multilingualism

The advantages of being able to speak more than one language have long been touted, but recently, with advances of scientific technology, the benefits of multilingualism are being studied in new ways with more specific findings of just how speaking more than one language can help us.

About a year-and-a-half ago, a study was released from Tel Aviv University that stated being multilingual helped fight off aging of the brain.  While their report doesn't list specifics, it hints that even taking the time to learn new languages in adulthood (even if you don't reach fluency) can still provide those same benefits.  Speaking more than one language basically provides exercise for your mental muscles.  If you're interested in the full article, you can find it here.

More recently, a study published in Psychological Science in January states that being multilingual helps reading skills in your native language.  The following sentence sums up the results of the study quite profoundly:

The findings suggest that after learning a second language, people never look at words the same way again.

Through eye-tracking studies, researchers found that bilingual (or multilingual) speakers took less time to process words that were cognates in their native and second languages.  This study is remarkable because it turns the metaphorical table to provide insights to how speaking more languages can lead you to being more fluent in your own, native tongue.  If you're interested in reading the full write-up published in Scientific American, you can find it here.

As I am writing this, my son is watching a bilingual show:

Both Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go! provide dialogue primarily in English but have Spanish-speaking characters and include Spanish lyrics in memorable songs.  While I am glad children in America can get at least a little exposure to another language at a young age (though watching the show will, by no means, turn those children into bilingual speakers), I find myself wishing for an adult equivalent--a TV show that features a character who speaks another language so that I can get input without being completely lost in the plot.

I hope that if you have never considered learning a new language, these studies might inspire you to try to pick up a new language, whether it's through sitting in on a class or picking up a language textbook or listening to radio shows in another language online or watching movies in a foreign language.  If you are learning another language or have already learned another language, go ahead and thank yourself for taking care of your brain and allowing it to expand its neural connectivity.

Spotlight on Linguistic Tools: IPA TypeIt Keyboard

Anyone in my courses right now is either already working on or will shortly be working on learning the IPA and putting it to use through transcriptions.  As someone who has had to use the IPA quite a bit--and has had to type it into documents--I understand the frustration of trying to easily put IPA symbols right into a typed document.  I used to be "old school" about how I did it: As I typed, when I came to a place I needed to insert a special IPA character, I'd go to "Special Characters" (when working on my Mac) or "Insert Character" (when working on a PC) and manually insert the character I needed.  That works fine and all, but it can get quite cumbersome--especially if the document is a lengthy one or requires a lot of IPA.  I've spent the last few months trying to get more tech-savvy with linguistics tools so that I can more readily put together fancy-looking linguistic analyses and so that I can help my students find shortcuts to putting together professional-looking documents, whether they're working on homeworks or a final project.  As a new feature of the blog, I will be spotlighting some of the more useful tools I've found (not all of them will focus on using the IPA), in the hopes that other people will benefit from them as much as I already have.

The first tool is an online IPA keyboard: IPA TypeIt.  When you click on the link, you will be take to a screen that looks something like this:

The bulk of the screen is a blank text box, where you can simply type using the keys on your keyboard; then, when you reach a symbol you need that your keyboard doesn't already have, you simply move your cursor to the row of symbols above the text box and click on the one you need.  The symbol is automatically put into the text where the cursor is, and you can keep typing from there.  Once you've finished creating your text, all you have to do is copy the text from the webpage and then paste it into whatever you're working on--whether it's a document or another webpage or even an online chat.  You can even specify the font you want and the size of that font.

Here is another screenshot, this one with text typed into the box:

Notice that you can enter down to start new lines and that you can type in regular orthography side-by-side with the IPA you're using.  Here is that same text, copied and pasted into the body of the blog:

You can more easily type in IPA

ju kæn mɔr izəli tɑɪp ɪn ɑɪ pi eɪ

The only drawback is that you can't use the tab key while in the text box; what that means is that if you want everything lined up so that each word's IPA transcription appears directly below the orthographical word, you'd have to rely on the spacebar to make that alignment happen.

The advantages of the online keyboard are that you don't have to download anything because it's an online tool, it's user-friendly, and you can use it for more than just IPA (look down the options on the left-hand side of the screen, and check out the Russian keyboard because it's just that cool).  The disadvantages are that it is an online-only tool, which means you can only use it if your internet is cooperating, not all the IPA symbols are represented, and you can't use diacritics with the symbols (only needed for more advanced transcriptions).

For beginning linguistics students, I'd say the advantages definitely outweigh the disadvantages.  Here is the link again in case you're so excited to check it out that you don't want to scroll back up through the post to find the original link: IPA TypeIt.

Have fun with the keyboard, and let me know what you think about it.  In the next spotlight, I'll be focusing on a more technical tool for using IPA in typewritten documents.

Attitudes about Language: Banning the Dictionary

In Structures of English, we've been talking about attitudes people have toward language, especially toward particular words or accents in English.  Quite often, those attitudes are, unfortunately, on the negative side.  We tend to have feelings about words or constructions that should or should not be used in the English language and judge other people according to those feelings.  Yet, who has the right to dictate what words should or should not be used (or even belong) in the English language?

The English dictionary is a book set apart from other books in its long tradition of supplying definitions based on usage for words found in our language.  It is possibly the most useful reference book students, writers, readers, and language lovers can consult.  And yet... It was recently banned from a school for its inclusion of "colorful" language (read about it here).  Banning dictionaries takes the idea of banning books to a whole new level and makes me question just how attached American English speakers are to the idea of being able to monitor--and control--language use.

I would like to hear what other people think about this.  Should dictionaries be banned?  Further, should they be better censored for content if being published for use in elementary schools?  Or should dictionaries be allowed to grace bookshelves everywhere in their full glory?

Debate: Language or Communication?

I first heard about the whistled language of Gomera from a student in my Introduction to Linguistics course; as soon as class ended, I YouTubed "whistle language" and found this video.



It's a fascinating display.  My question for you is whether the "whistle language" is truly a language or is actually a communication system.  For anyone unfamiliar with the differences between the terms language and communication system, one primary distinction between the two is that humans are said to have language while animals have communication systems.  Animals can communicate specific needs (such as danger, food sources, or mating rituals) but do not have full-fledged languages that allow them to produce new and creative utterances, abstract notions (they can only address the 'here and now'), and pragmatic features like sarcasm or humor.  Language, on the other hand, allows humans to talk about any chosen time period, focus on any person--real or fictional, discuss theory, produce unique utterances that have never been used before but still have meaning, and use intonation and pitch to show emotion in speech.

What do you think?  Is the "whistled language" a communication system?  Or a language?

Songs and Poetry

Linguistically speaking, the differences between spoken and written language are well documented; however, my focus for this post is differences between performing lyrics as a song and performing them as poetry.  Obviously, there are differences in how the words are produced (singing versus speaking), but how do those differences affect the overall effect of the song and the potential message being delivered?

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine introduced me to a YouTube video that I can't believe I had never seen before: William Shatner performing "Rocket Man."



Shatner's take on the classic song is memorable, with his presentation coming across as both dramatic and humorous.  I love that he uses prosodic features to change the flow of the lyrics each time the chorus reoccurs and takes advantage of editing features by having two Shatners on the screen at once.  I'm not a poetry expert, but I think the reading is enhanced by that fact that Elton John's lyrics are poetic and lend themselves more freely to spoken performances.

Thirty years after that performance, another actor took on a popular song to perform as, um, a type of spoken art.  Through Twitter, I was introduced tonight to the video performance of Christopher Walken reading Lady Gaga's "Poker Face."



Walken's performance is also memorable, but I would not exactly apply the term "classic" to it.  Comparing the two made me start thinking about song lyrics and how they're written in general to achieve different goals.  One aspect of linguistic study is to ask why a speaker (or singer) put particular words/sounds together and what purpose or function the speaker (or singer) is achieving through those words/sounds.  Songs are a form of linguistic performance.  As such, I think some songs are meant only for singing (i.e., "Poker Face") while others are more readily available for other modes of performance (i.e., "Rocket Man").

What songs do you think are only meant for singing?  What songs do you think could be more readily performed as poetry?

Poll for Fall 2010 Courses

The poll featured in the sidebar is geared toward identifying student interest in more advanced topics (not toward guaranteeing the offering of said topics); the majority of the options would be run under ENG 442: Topics in Linguistics.  Since none of these courses have been run before, I'm including course descriptions of the listed options in this post.  Please note that not all options for Fall 2010 courses are included in the poll (e.g., Structures of English, History of the English Language, Introduction to Linguistics); again, the poll is dedicated to the more advanced courses to identify areas of interest.

While none of the courses would have linguistic prerequisites, prior linguistic knowledge would be beneficial (if not necessary) for the following three topics: Corpus Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, and Comparative Linguistics.

Forensic Linguistics
Linguistic study of texts and recordings to determine authorship, evasion strategies, possible coercion in writings/recordings, stylistic changes, deception, and so on.  Linguistic tools include phonetic analysis, structural analysis, and word choice.  Texts analyzed include hate mail, suicide letters, ransom notes, and confessions; recordings include interviews, interrogations, and confessions.

Advanced Grammar
Advanced investigation of the concepts of grammatical form and function, including the application of labels such as noun, adjective, verb, subject, object, phrase, clause.  Study will also include discussion of the use of grammar in written and spoken language, the teaching of grammar in classrooms, the debates about grammatical change in current language, and the notion of standard language.

Psycholinguistics
Examination of the facilities in the brain necessary for language comprehension and production, the process of first language acquisition, the mental processing of language, and the specific language disorders that result when language facilities (or the connections to them) are damaged.

Corpus Linguistics
Study of the tools available for collecting and analyzing data, and examination of current corpora available for research.  Students will learn to collect and create their own corpora, utilize existing corpora, and analyze data through corpus research.

Historical Linguistics (Diachronics)
Study of the types of regular language changes, the practice of internal and external language reconstructions, and socio-historical influences on language change.  Students will learn to identify types of language change through data from languages around the world and conduct research on socio-historical background of language change on a language other than English.

Language and Literature
Examination of linguistic tools and techniques and application of those linguistic devices to the study of literature, focusing on structural and semantic aspects.  Some examples include the representation of dialects in literature, stylistics, use of metaphor, verb selection, and genre differentiation.

Comparative Linguistics
Linguistic analysis of a set of languages or a language family, focusing on the differences and similarities in sounds and structures among the languages.  Examination of possible comparative methods and their application to data sets; analyses of phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics within language change, including sociohistorical variables.  No prior knowledge of the languages in question is required.