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cs.umn.edu>Richard Ogden's and Bruce Nevin's comments on the tenor of contemporary linguistic discourse (in some areas, at least) reminds me of something I realized myself in thinking about this question some years ago. It had struck me that in a lot of what I was reading at the time the strategy seemed be not merely to show that your opponent was wrong but that (s)he was an idiot. On one level, of course, the effect is quite devastating. But then you ask 'Okay, so this person has just shown that (s)he is smarter than an idiot. Am I supposed to be impressed by that?' Michael KacMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU>Sharp debate, including, unfortunately, ad hominem attacks on the 'opposition' is certainly not a unique characeristic of linguistics as other scientists will tell you, nor did it start with the Chomsky era. As an old timer (I remember when I was young and foolish) I can assure you that the acrimony between the anti- and pro-mentalists was as great as between the functionalists and 'formalists' today, and frankly some of the arguments re. for example, whether or not a plus juncture could be considered 'real enough' to be used in phonemic analysis were oftenmore heated than arguments between GBers and GPSGers or Relational Grammar or LFGers etc. In the days when discovery procedures were mistakenly considered theories, the shouting in conferences over what was admissible as data and how to proceed from one level to the next discussion was far from polite and there were times I was sure the shouting would be replaced by fist fights. Furthermore, the idea that it is Chomsky and his followers who today are the most agressive and dogmatic of linguists is not supported by the empirical facts. During my five years as Secretary-Treasurer of the LSA I was amazed by those who wrote us attacking the LSA and LANGUAGE for being the handservants of the 'generativists' which as Newmeyer has shown is very far from the truth. I spent lots of time trying to convince some of our historical leaders not to resign as members, and attempt to show that straw men were being erected and then shot down. But wotthehell -- if one is passionate about one's work and beliefs it is understandable that such arguments and fights arise, despite the myth of scientific objectivity. In the years before World War II, when heated discussions over any number of questions arose, a common admonition was "Save your strength to fight fascism" so I would suggest we save ours to do whatever we can to understand the nature of human language, the common goal of all linguists, and while we're at it, the way things look in the world, we may also want to save our strength to fight fascism once again. Vicki FromkinMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
central.cis.upenn.edu>in response to richard ogden's and bruce nevin's nostalgia for the good old days, my understanding is that they were pretty vicious themselves. perhaps the only change is the abandonment of a certain 'gentlemanly' rhetoric, a rhetoric that camouflaged some of the most pernicious motives and behaviors. remember morris halle's extraordinary lsa presentation a few years ago on the jacobson-bloomfield correspondence, not to mention the well known stories of hockett's reaction to jacobson--by comparison, the field today is extremely humane and civilized.Mail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue