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John McWhorter - The Language Hoax | ||
Tags: Linguistics | Book | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5317 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes  Speaks: German*, English | Message 1 of 69 10 June 2014 at 4:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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To promote his latest book, linguist John McWhorter gave the hosts of the Talk the Talk podcast a long interview about his new book "The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language" (and Whorfianism in general).
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| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4029 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 2 of 69 10 June 2014 at 5:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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He's right half the time on languages, the other half of his ideas are untrue.
He is right about this, we all hear the usual "language x=xyz" but it doesn't affect a persons brain, really. Thanks for the link. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5259 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 3 of 69 10 June 2014 at 5:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Stolan, I'm curious. Do you have a degree in linguistics? Barring that, did you study linguistics at university? Or, is your linguistics knowledge derived from self-study? Your posts are written from a position of authority.
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| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4029 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 4 of 69 10 June 2014 at 5:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't have a degree, and I don't claim to be an expert on every single term or construction in languages, but I
believe I have far fewer misconceptions than 95% of people who attempt to understand language. And if I do have misconceptions, then they have to be the kind where I deduce something from a set of given facts with some error rather than "lol, it is common knowledge" or hearsay. I would be more tolerable if linguistics weren't in such a horrific state. The fact the Sapir Whorf hypothesis is allowed to exist is the equivalent to attempting to cure cancer with self flagellation. I don't confuse the virus with a parasite, I know that antibiotics are not the same as antivirals etc. Edited by Stolan on 10 June 2014 at 6:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5562 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 5 of 69 10 June 2014 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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I thought the Sapir Whorf hypothesis had gone years ago! - I remember it being popular
among anthropology students in the early 1990s as a proof for cultural relativism, but I also remember going to a lecture series on it where professors from the anthropology, linguistics and psychology departments utterly demolished it. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5317 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 6 of 69 10 June 2014 at 6:13pm | IP Logged | ||
Could you please back up this blanket statement with some specific examples of ideas that you don't agree with and why you don't agree with them? 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5127 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 7 of 69 10 June 2014 at 7:54pm | IP Logged | ||
Does this 95% only include other self-learners such as yourself, or does it also include scholars and academics? Either way, it's sure to insult a good portion of both camps. R. == 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6058 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 8 of 69 10 June 2014 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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@ Stolan:
In this thread, your over-reaching affirmations managed to alienate both tarvos and Chung. In this one, you already elicited some eyebrow-raising from a few other members. Please try to remember that some people are not knowledgeable and might actually believe you when you write things like "Vietnamese (and the rest) are pretty much tonal versions of Indonesian." 8 persons have voted this message useful |
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