LINGUIST List 3.146

Sat 15 Feb 1992

Qs: Gangs, Phonics, Place Names, Replicability

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Directory

1. , REQUEST: language of gangs
2. , "Hooked on Phonics"
3. Richard Coates, The western Atlantic
4. , Replicability in Linguistics

A student of mine wants to work on the language of gangs,
but i don't really know where to start. Does anyone out
there have some quick references they could share with us?
Thanks a lot,
Jon Aske
Bates College

Does anyone know anything about "Hooked on Phonics"? I hear the ads for it
all the time in between segments of talk radio, especially late at night.
One of the ads has the cheery announcer asking, "Did you know there are only
forty four sounds in the English language, and once you know those forty four
sounds, called phonics, you can read practically anything" (or approximately
those words). Another that I've heard recently has what is presented as the
mother of a young child explaining how she (the child) has learned to read--
by pronouncing all the [va:lz]. So, does it work? (For information, you
can dial 1-800-ABC-DEFG. No kidding.)

On some early fifteenth century maps there are some dubious islands
way beyond the European continental shelf which some enthusiasts think
might represent some islands of the Gulf of Mexico area. A correspondent
of mine is very interested in them. They have various place-names,
especially bay-names, marked on them. Is there anyone out there who
knows about native American languages of the Gulf area and who would be
willing to trade ideas, if required, about place-names of the pre-Columbian
period formulated in any of them?

Yes, it's a long shot!

Richard Coates

Many sciences insist that important factual claims be both
replicable in principle and replicated (many times over) in
reality before they are accepted. Linguistics (together
with anthropology) is a notable exception in that it seems
that we rarely if ever challenge a linguist's report of
some fact or judgement (although, of course, we may dispute
the generalizations based on such reports and the analyses
based on the generalizations). Having just finished a paper
in which I show that a famous theoretical argument from the 1970's
was based on a series of mistaken factual claims about the
language at issue, and then go on to call for replicability
(and replication) before such arguments are accepted, I am
curious if anybody knows of other relevant cases (published
or unpublished) in our field.
(Practically the only such case I can think of
involves Chambers' (?) work on the Ontario pronunciations
of words like 'writer', wherein it is shown that Joos' claim
that some speakers say this the same as 'rider' appears to be
a mistake.)