LINGUIST List 3.534

Fri 26 Jun 1992

Disc: Update on Yale Linguistics

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Directory

1. Larry Horn, Yet another Yale update

After the very good news from SOAS and the relatively very good news from
Minnesota, I thought it might be apropos to mention the just-published revised
recommendations of the restructuring committee, even though the effect of
these conclusions is now--shall we say--academic, given the agreement to put
off any actual decisions on the fate of linguistics here until after the ad
hoc committee has met. Anyway, where the earlier, much-publicized document
claimed that our department 'has had difficulty offering a balanced program
and attracting students', the second conjunct has now been expunged. (Of
course, we argued vociferously against both claims, but at least those of you
with Yale degrees should feel somewhat vindicated.) And where the original
report 'recommends that the Department of Linguistics be discontinued', the
revised version 'recommends that the committee appointed to evaluate the
Department of Linguistics consider further the most appropriate structure for
linguistics at Yale' and goes on to assert that 'If the Department of
Linguistics is to be discontinued, resources should be identified to support
this activity and an effective way found to continue the study of linguistics
at Yale'. Well, our proposed execution has been moved from a directive to the
antecedent of a conditional, which is progress indeed. And I want once more
to express my gratitude to all of you who have helped, and to all who may be
asked to help in the future.
 And on the subject of consciousness-raising with respect to linguistics
and the real world--browsing in the Yale Co-op Bookstore, I discovered a copy
of Halle and Vergnaud's "An Essay on Stress", MIT Press, shelved in
Psychology, immediately next to "Stress and Adaptation in the Context of
Culture" and "Managing Anxiety".