jugbandjames

5 ms·

1.
by jugbandjames 10y ago
I'd say his research methods are wrong. Limiting your research to so-called competent speakers is cherry picking data, in my view.
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by jugbandjames 10y ago
My training is in language variation, and I specialized in sociophonetics, so I'm not an expert on syntax, but my understanding is that whenever chomsky's theories are empirically tested on real language data, they don't seem
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by jugbandjames 10y ago
> I wonder if there's much history of groups starting out with common languages, then groups separating and the languages evolving separately, either intentionally to demonstrate group membership, or just due to lack of communicatio
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by jugbandjames 10y ago
>Language doesn't dictate patterns of thought, but it certainly shapes them. What you're talking about is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and it is not certain at all. It's highly contested. Language may have an effect on some
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by jugbandjames 10y ago
It's not always that "natural" of a selection. Many native Americans were basically kidnapped and forced to learn English. Governments in the past have intentionally tried to eradicate languages with the mistaken belief that
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by jugbandjames 10y ago
Babies are born with the ability to distinguish between any two frequencies that are important for a phonetic distinction. Within the first year, they begin to lose that ability and only retain frequency distinctions necessary for whatever
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by jugbandjames 10y ago
It isn't necessary to have only one language for people to communicate. Humans are perfectly capable of learning multiple languages, and and it may even be good for a child's cognitive development to do so. It's also unlikely
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by jugbandjames 10y ago
Actually, the impact that standardized language education has had on dialect variation isn't quite clear. It appears to have had some impact, but not as much as laypeople usually think. In fact, standard written American-English has un