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Why are the experts not participating? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| futurianus Senior Member Korea, South starlightonclou Joined 4823 days ago 125 posts - 234 votes  Speaks: Korean* | Message 1 of 36 06 June 2012 at 12:42am | IP Logged | ||
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My primary question is why the professional experts and authorities are not actively contributing here in the forum?
This is a significant and serious question for me personally, but, I think, also for the whole forum itself and all the members, even as it is a decisive factor related to the quality and level of the discussions of this forum. Are there professional researchers and professors in the field of languages and linguistics, education and neuroscience actively participating in this forum? I have noticed that there are quite a lot of young students and some master's and doctoral students in linguistics, and some professional translators and interpreters participating, but that there is not even a single real professional in the above fields actively and even infrequently participating in the discussions. If they are not participating, why are they not doing so, despite the fact that their specialties are so relevant and this forum seems to be the largest and most popular forum on languages? I find this so eerily strange. Is this site too amateurish, too lighthearted and not serious enough or lack quality for them to mingle with or do they frequent this place, but do not feel they have anything to contribute due to their expertise not being able to confidently address the subject of actual language learning process, that is, their respective fields, especially languages and linguistics belonging to humanities, do not have as strong grounding in scientific methodologies and maturity as in other social and physical sciences? Or are there elements which are hindering or even repelling them from coming here? If so, are there things that can be done to attract them to this forum? Or perhaps this forum has no need of their expertise as its social function and guiding role for the beginner and intermediate learners are sufficient for its existence and popularity? Or their 'expertise' are neither beneficial nor relevant? My secondary question is(I am just curious) why some of the 'famous' laity or commercialized polyglots who used to actively participate here are not doing so anymore, except perhaps keeping social ties from time to time? Why this brain drain, exodus of talents, leaving of the nest? Edited by futurianus on 06 June 2012 at 12:45am 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6473 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 2 of 36 06 June 2012 at 1:05am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, sadly, academics of higher educations ofter look down upon autodidaction.
6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4944 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 3 of 36 06 June 2012 at 1:29am | IP Logged | ||
Has there ever been a large number of these professions here? I've not seen evidence of that in my 570-some days here. I don't think there's been a brain-drain or exodus to witness - for as long as I've been here, it's always been about the language-learner, not the mentor. R. == Edited by hrhenry on 06 June 2012 at 1:30am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5543 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 4 of 36 06 June 2012 at 1:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Prof. Arguelles used to participate on the forum, and was a moderator. I don't think he's participated in the forum in over two years.
He lamented in Babel No More that online forums aren't scholarly enough, so that might be a reason why he's not on here anymore. As far as why more professional linguists or interpreters don't participate: would you want to work 8 hours a day at a job and come home to answer questions from newbies? Everyone, regardless of field or enthusiasm, wants a break from the daily grind. And why should they answer questions for free when they can make some money on it? 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kyle Corrie Senior Member United States Joined 4643 days ago 175 posts - 464 votes | Message 5 of 36 06 June 2012 at 3:51am | IP Logged | ||
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Your question doesn't make sense to me.
Did you often wonder why Michael Jordan never frequented playgrounds in his free time? Why would he? What's he going to learn from Joe Schmoe High School Basketball Star? If you've gone pro then by that time you're already well established in what works for you and there's really no reason to come here seeking advice or looking for new methods of learning. That's not to say we don't have any extremely capable people here, but I would wager that almost everyone here treats languages as a hobby rather than a profession and although they may dedicate a lot of time to the craft, they're more than likely not translating or interpreting all day only to, as Michael K. already said, come here and answer the same questions every day. I don't think they're very closed off either because most of these guys have their own YouTube channels answering those questions. But you may have noticed this forum can suck up quite a bit of your time that could be diverted to better use as well and you're not going to go pro without managing your time efficiently. Keep your eyes open though. You'll occasionally see Richard Simcott or Robert Bigler add their two cents to conversations from time to time. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4479 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 6 of 36 06 June 2012 at 4:08am | IP Logged | ||
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I have never seen many professional physicists posting on physics forums, or philosophy professors posting on philosophy forums, either. They are too busy actually doing their work, and many of them are already teaching a bunch of people for several hours each day as part of their job duties.
It doesn't seem realistic to hope that they would then take any significant amount of time out of their week to essentially teach for free, much less get into prolonged debates with people who are largely far less informed than they are about the more academic side of language study and acquisition. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| fiziwig Senior Member United States Joined 4679 days ago 297 posts - 618 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 36 06 June 2012 at 5:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Speaking as a newcomer to language learning, with just over a year of Spanish study, and just under 1 year on this forum, I'm still finding useful things here every day, but there are other forums that I've drifted away from after two or three years of following them. From my personal experience with forums of all kinds on many different topics and fields, I follow a forum until what I find on the forum starts becoming mostly repetitive.
My first day on a forum in a new subject area is very exciting. Everything is new, and everything is worth reading. And I learn a huge amount. After a few weeks, I finding a lot of the same information over and over, and I become more selective about what I spend time reading, looking for the truly new information. Depending on the forum, after a year or two, or maybe even three, everything I find on the forum is a rehash of something I've already read. At that point I put that forum into semi-hibernation, checking back once or twice a month to see if anything truly new has shown up. My theory is that, in addition to a core of faithful members, most forum users follow this general pattern, so that there is a continuous infusion of newcomers, and a continuous trickle of old-timers who drift away. Most of the posting activity comes from the newcomers, and from the handful of dedicated core users. I would guess that professionals might go through this cycle more quickly since they come into the forum with a larger backlog of information, and it takes them less time to exhaust everything the forum has to offer them, and to reach the point of finding nothing useful there. 14 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| freakyaye Senior Member Australia Joined 4652 days ago 107 posts - 152 votes | Message 8 of 36 06 June 2012 at 3:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Maybe try the discussion forum on http://www.proz.com/
1 person has voted this message useful |
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