I wonder, is the question “Is linguistics a science?” and its answer “Yes and no.” influenced by the tendency of the word “science” being interpreted as “natural science” in English? I mean, putting aside the characteristics of linguistic endeavors, the question (or its answer) might sound less ambiguous in languages, where the word for science is profiled differently (from English)...
You're absolutely right! There are many languages with a more encompassing term for 'the pursuit of knowledge'. Czech "věda" is like that, right? But even with such terms, I have found that speakers differentiate between disciplines and often are not sure where to place linguistics.
@@MartinHilpert I aggree. Czech "věda" (or its plural "vědy") is not strictly leaning to "natural science(s)". I feel like it is rather neutral and its modifiers (such as "přírodní"= "natura", or "společenské" = "social" etc.) make the collocations equal. The English distribution of the word has the opposition of "sciences" vs. "humanities", right? That would be "přírodní vědy" vs. "humanitní vědy" in Czech (or e.g. "shizen kagaku" 自然科学 vs. "jinbun kagaku" 人文科学 in Japanese). With such lexical distribution the question in those languages seems to arrise as "What kind of science linguistics is?", rather than "Is linguistics science at all?" Of course, the situation of linguistics within the "kinds" of sciences remains a problem. But then, it's the case of "many linguistics'", that you mentioned, and where a linguists situates his/her focus of research, right? My academic advisor (Prague functional linguist) likes to say, that the specific character of linguistics as a science (with regard to natural sciences) lies in the fact that the object (language) is not (objectively) there, ready to be studied, but rather that it (somehow "magically") appears with a linguist's intention to see it :-). Perhaps, the similar goes for other humanities or social sciences...
I replied this question with the help of your talk on this topic. Thank you. Is linguistics a science? Give two strong arguments in favor of your response.
Hello professor, Thank you for sharing such an important information which is very insightful to us. Also I would like to know I am a software engineer by profession and also pursuing my master's in English language do I have any scope in the field of linguistics(NLP)?
After all: What is the position of the structuralist notion of linguistics nowadays? Are Jakobson and Trubetzkoy still relevant (except for the Signifikat/Signifikant-differenciation of course)?
Jakobson laid the foundation for so many concepts that today form the backbone of the discipline: distinctive features, iconicity, markedness, functions of language, etc. Structuralism is very present in my teaching when I present basic linguistic ideas. That said, I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't spent a lot of time reading structuralist works in the original.
@@MartinHilpert As a Lacanian I deeply agree! But would you say that the general tendency in sphere of linguistics (so there is one) still follows a structuralist line? Thank you however for the discussion!
I'd say that the echoes are everywhere. Some current discussions 'rediscover' structuralist notions. For example, the constructionist idea that language is a network of constructions is very close to the structuralist concept of a system where all the parts hold each other in place. Other discussions take structuralist concepts and show empirically that they don't quite capture everything. For example, neutralization of phonemic contrasts, as in word-final devoicing, can be shown to be incomplete, i.e. not as clean and discrete as structuralism would predict.
@@MartinHilpert Exciting! Despite that I'm in my third year of indo-european sciences, I feel like having a very poor receipt or intake in linguistics in general. That said, I thank you again for your great content!
Thank you for a this short and to-the-point lecture, Martin. :) The only thing I disagree with is the candy issue and role of linguistics in the matter. Linguistics is descriptive; it does not hold any answers to societal problems. It can and should describe the use of the word in question as well as the attitudes of various groups of speakers to it, but the buck stops there. Linguists have no right to weigh in on these matters. Freeing the world from racism should a be a conscious choice on the part of the members of the given linguistic community - it shouldn't happen because linguists (i.e. experts) say so. Technically, this change might be happening on the basis of the data provided by linguists, but linguists themselves are not experts on racism or world improvement. They just describe language; moralising about language use is not their purview, in my opinion.
Dear prof. Hilpert. Thank you so much for all the fantastic videos you are sharing. I am gonna apply for a Ph.D. and I've learned a lot from your courses!
I think some areas of Linguistics can be scientific, but certain branches of linguistics like historical linguistics strike me as pseuoscientific, especially in the politically charged areas like Indo-European studies. How can you test your reconstructions of the original proto language? I am not convinced by the so-called sound laws, that sound shifts can only go certain way. As language is not a mathematical object, but on organic process and how sounds change depends on multiple unknowns, that it becomes untenable to make absolute claims how sounds changed in the history of a language and its family. I think historical linguistics is stuck in a structuralist paradigm. Even physic has come out of it and accepted the principle of uncertainty, but linguistics still pretends to be mathematics.
I reject the labeling of fields of endeavor as "sciences" and "not sciences". There are scientific tools and approaches and not everything people need to know about are very amenable to those tools, for example most of my favorites, history, economics, design... I forgot all the points you made that needed rebooting and am too lazy so I'll just go from memory and hope I didn't miss any. You can forget all the rigamarole about the scientific method™ The rigor of a discipline is whether it makes falsifiable claims and whether the institutions within that discipline encourage or resist attempts at such falsifications. I don't see a linguistics faring any better than the rest in the applicability crisis. Zipf's law is just a cribbed generalized Pareto distribution not really a discovery. Your description of Heaps's law is accurate and your emphasis of the size of data sets look like scientism. The most objectionable thing about this video is the fact that you didn't address the way you didn't even touch on the way people label terms and constructions as "racist" as a tactic to stifle debate, using some candy example as a red herring. I don't know of you are one of the people using the tactic or are being fooled by it but you need to either stop it or call it out.
"Mohrenkopf" is not racist at all. Only because you or other groups say it or most of the media spread it as well. It mainly illustrates your point that language is shaped by political ideology. I assume you are on the left side of the political spectrum who thinks, in doubt, something is racist. Furthermore, letting a certain minority determine what the meaning of a word is is not a "modest proposal" (13:45) either. Even though this approach has unfortunately fallen into fashion these days.
I appreciate the calm tone of your response. I do of course disagree with all aspects of it. A label for black people that was coined by colonizers will evoke and perpetuate colonialist ideology.
@@MartinHilpert You're welcome to disagree with me, but you're still just dead wrong. So to make things clear: The vast majority of Swiss people use "Mohrenkopf" to refer to a dessert. It is a neutral term without any racist connotation. However, what happened then? A few years ago, leftist ideology discovered the term "Mohrenkopf." They claim it is racist and try to support their claim with different arguments. For example, refer to the etymology or ask people with black skin color for their opinion. However, these arguments are all unconvincing. They have no relation to reality, how the term is actually used - these alone count. As a professor of linguistics, which sees itself as a descriptive (!) science, you would have to agree with me.
