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...because most of our linguistic formalism is derived from written language, which is generally an artificial approximation of real language. Remember grade s
by CWuestefeld 16y ago
...because most of our linguistic formalism is derived from written language, which is generally an artificial approximation of real language.
Remember grade school, with parts of speech, Conjunction Junction, and diagramming sentences? Well, think back to the last (non-trivial) sentence you actually said out loud. I challenge you to try to diagram that sentence.
Although there's quite a lot of research that's been done, surprisingly little of it deals with the way most of us really communicate.
- compay 16y agoModern linguistic formalism is not derived from written language at all. I studied at MIT and UConn in the mid '90's and the separation between prescriptive grammar and linguistics is pretty clear. That's not to say that current approaches to linguistics are correct; I don't know enough to make that judgement. But I think the problem lies more in the complexity of the domain - not because modern linguists are so foolish as to base theory on written language.
- CWuestefeld 16y agoIt's quite possible I'm behind the times. not because modern linguists are so foolish as to base theory on written language That was actually what I was trying to get at. While there are clearly some rules we follow when speaking, they are much more open than those governing our writing. It's odd, though, or at least counterintuitive, that our comprehensive of these less-structured spoken communications is higher than that of more-structured written ones.