|
 |
Why are the experts not participating? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4888 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 17 of 36 06 June 2012 at 10:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
and "polyglots" are two different things, albeit with a fair amount of overlap. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5297 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 18 of 36 06 June 2012 at 10:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
I can help you, try it like this: Some theoretical linguists of the Chomsky school, mainly in the USA, can survive with a proper knowledge of their native language only. (If they can give a description of their native idiom that seems adequate, according to the momentarily valid theoretical framework (which is called minimal now, and will become some smaller in the not so distant future) , they get some reputation and can write some articles or even books until the framework changes or evaporates.) 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Pisces Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4621 days ago 143 posts - 284 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish*, French, SwedishC1, Esperanto Studies: German, Spanish, Russian | Message 19 of 36 06 June 2012 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
There's a website called the Linguist list, where (among other things) people can post questions for professional linguists. linguistlist.org/ask-ling/
(One of the things that most annoys them is when people confuse linguists with polyglots. Some of them are fairly touchy.) I think only a subset of linguists are interested in second language acquisition. And because many linguists want to be thought of as "scientists" the kind of information found on this forum, however useful it may be to the members, may not be of so much interest to them. Edited by Pisces on 06 June 2012 at 11:10pm 10 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6271 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 20 of 36 07 June 2012 at 1:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
I tend to agree with the explanations given. I don't think this is a very attractive forum for academics who are after all paid to teach, and there are too many jejune or repetitive questions. These days, if I come on the forum at all, I often prefer to scout around in its early days, 2005-7, rather than spend much time on the more up-to-date posts.
2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5463 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 21 of 36 07 June 2012 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
The reason, I think, is that this is a hobby site. It's a place for people who enjoy studying foreign
languages in order to be able to travel, read, watch movies and anime and listen to music from other countries, and communicate with people from those countries. It is also a welcoming forum for new language learners, no matter how young, inexperienced, or "jejune" they may be. I am a professional translator and it has never even crossed my mind that I should be charging for advice I have given here. Are there really people who are so crudely motivated by money? I also think the vast majority of visitors to this site are more interested in figuring out German word order, aspect in Russian, whether Assimil or Linguaphone is better for Spanish, where to find cool DVDs in Georgian (well, that may just be me), and who is hot in the world of J-Pop, rather than Chomsky's theories and sociolinguistics. If the site seems too trivial for some people, there's an easy solution: don't waste your time reading and posting here. Edited by TixhiiDon on 07 June 2012 at 3:51pm 11 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5540 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 22 of 36 07 June 2012 at 8:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think people may be doing just that. I don't know that anyone is saying this site is too trivial for their individual self, rather that others may see it that way and thus are not participating. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 23 of 36 07 June 2012 at 11:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
The other side of the question is: Why nearly no members of the forum become professional
linguists, even though many could if they wanted? 1.We care for different aspects of a language. 2.The other side seems to us less worthy of our attention/boring/superficial/whatever else can each side think of. 3.We do not mix our hobbies and job. It is nice to have somewhere to escape from our job related worries and stress. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| skeeterses Senior Member United States angelfire.com/games5Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6617 days ago 302 posts - 356 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Korean, Spanish | Message 24 of 36 09 June 2012 at 4:43am | IP Logged | |||||
|
I can't speak for the experts, but some of them may be annoyed at having to compete with language showoffs for
the microphone. If a professional came to this bulletin board and explained to a language showoff why he/she is not a polyglot/linguist/(whatever expert title), just imagine how quickly such a thread would degenerate into a flame war and be closed by a moderator. If you were an expert who had credentials in linguistics but were fluent in 2 or 3 languages, what would you say to a person who claims to have 10 languages under his/her belt but has almost never travelled or done any academic coursework in foreign languages or linguistics? One such "expert" on youtube went out of his way to bash Moses McCormick, Benny the Irish Polyglot, and Steve Kaufman for pretending to be experts on linguistics and second language acquisition. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
