LINGUIST List 6.1541

Thu Nov 2 1995

Disc: Women and Linguistics, Literacy

Editor for this issue: Ljuba Veselinova <lveselinemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. Condon Sherri L, Re: 6.1529, Qs: Universal of Ling.,Quantifiers,*suite* pronunciation
2. , Re: 6.1529, Qs: Universal of Ling.,Quantifiers,*suite* pronunciation
3. Elisabeth Burr, Re: 6.1529, Qs: Universal of Ling.,Quantifiers,*suite* pronunciation
4. Peter Daniels, Re: 6.1527, Disc: Literacy

Message 1: Re: 6.1529, Qs: Universal of Ling.,Quantifiers,*suite* pronunciation

Hudson's query about women in linguistics reminded me of my surprise when
I attended the American Association for Artificial Intelligence Spring
Symposium on Empirical Methods in Discourse Generation and Interpretation
last year. Though the vast majority of the computer scientists attending
other symposia were male, all of the leaders and most of the participants
in the discourse symposium were female. These are the computational
linguists and computers scientists at the cutting edge of speech and
language technology, information retrieval, and related areas. When I
mentioned this to two male colleagues in computer science, their reply
was "Of course! Women are better than men at language."

Sherri Condon
Universite' des Acadiens
(University of Southwestern Louisiana)

Message 2: Re: 6.1529, Qs: Universal of Ling.,Quantifiers,*suite* pronunciation

On Dick Hudson's universal:
There seems to be some parametric variation here,
since in Hong Kong the female:male ratio is around 5:1.
Probably this is just a polarization of the gender
preferences found in the UK and elsewhere, having to do
with the laggard status of sexual equality here
(we have not one but two popular annual beauty pageants,
and have to sit through sexist commercials of a kind that
have not been tolerated for decades in the West...)
Steve Matthews
U of Hong Kong

Message 3: Re: 6.1529, Qs: Universal of Ling.,Quantifiers,*suite* pronunciation

In Vol-6-1529. Tue Oct 31 1995, Prof. Hudson wrote:
>In our department, female students always outnumber males by about 2
>or 3 to 1. I think this is probably typical of UK linguistics
>departments, and I gather (from Anthea Fraser Gupta) that the same is
>true in Singapore. Is it the same everywhere? And does anyone have any
>ideas as to why it's true where it is true?

In German Universities linguistics is taught inside the humanities
departments, and, more specifically inside the departments of Modern
Languages and Literature, comprising German Studies as well. Most students
are female, above all in foreign languages so that most students of
linguistics are female, too.

Elisabeth Burr
Dr. Elisabeth Burr
FB3/Romanistik
Gerhard-Mercator Universitaet-GH
Lotharstrasse 65
47048 Duisburg
Tel.: +49 203 3792605
Fax.: +49 203 3792612
e-mail: he229buuni-duisburg.de

Message 4: Re: 6.1527, Disc: Literacy

I think someone should ask Ken Pike what he meant by "reducing languages to
writing." It's been my experience that he is extremely willing to explain
his work; since he probably isn't on the List, could we prevail upon an SIL
colleague to put the question, and transmit his response?