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In pursuit of linguistics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| Zhuangzi Nonaglot Language Program Publisher Senior Member Canada lingq.com Joined 6807 days ago 646 posts - 688 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Japanese, Swedish, Mandarin, Cantonese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian | Message 9 of 13 14 December 2007 at 7:01pm | IP Logged |
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Professor Arguelles,
I wonder if you noticed my question about how many languages accept, or might accept, the meaning of linguist as someone who speaks many languages? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7035 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 10 of 13 16 December 2007 at 8:12pm | IP Logged |
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Mr. Kaufmann,
I am very sorry that I overlooked your question last week. I also regret that I cannot offer you any kind of authoritatively quantitative answer. In most of the languages that I can think of, the equivalent suffix of “scholar” is an inherent part of a two-word term for describing a “Language-scholar, i.e., a degreed academic professional expert in a sub-branch of the specialized abstract scientific field of ‘Language.’” This term is not applied to someone who is gifted in learning languages and who consequently knows numbers of them well, i.e., to the term “linguist” as you and I would like to use it. Indeed, I imagine that the usurpation of the term by people who do not work with foreign languages at all could only have succeeded in some of the Romance languages with whom we share a common one-word Latin term, equivalent to “linguist.” I fear that the English language may be particularly diseased, however, to the degree that – within the academy today – you can unfortunately only use the word in its proper older sense if you are prepared to explain, ad infinitum, the fact that you are doing so; if you do not, you create confusion. I envy you your freedom. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Zhuangzi Nonaglot Language Program Publisher Senior Member Canada lingq.com Joined 6807 days ago 646 posts - 688 votes Speaks: English*, French, Japanese, Swedish, Mandarin, Cantonese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian | Message 11 of 13 16 December 2007 at 8:22pm | IP Logged |
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Professor Argeulles,
Thank you very much for your detailed and undoubtedly accurate answer. In translating my book, trying to keep the title The Linguist, in the sense that I intended, was a major challenge. In Japanese we went with The Linguist in katakana, in Chinese we went with a new term 语言家whereas the scholar would be a 语言学家, in the Romance languages some form of Polyglot seemed to preferred by our translators but we stuck with The Linguist. Oh well, I am not going to change usage, but as you say, I can do what I want. Thanks for all of your clear advice and down to earth comments. Steve 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6482 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 13 10 January 2008 at 1:48pm | IP Logged |
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To Mr.Zhuangzi: I think you did well in sticking with the name "The Linguist". It is a tradename and it doesn't have to conform to the usage in other countries. However I just have to say that even in a Germanic country like Denmark a linguist is someone who studies languages, while a polyglot is someone who speaks a lot of them. On the other hand, most Danes who have worked with languages would consider a linguist who didn't work with more than one single language to be untrustworthy (at least until they realized that this included the very influental Chomsky - then some of them might have second thoughts about saying this in public).
As implied by Prof. Arguelles I may have been away from the academic world for so long that I have missed the degradation of linguistics not only in America, but also in Europe. But if that's the case I just have to be glad that I didn't choose to stay within that system. As an amateur I can choose the methods that I find most efficient and I can define my own criteria for what I want to accomplish. And I don't have to waste my time on theories that so far have had no practical uses, but I can instead hark back to so oldfashioned and politically incorrect activities as learning words from handwritten wordlists based on bilingual dictionaries. And I can have heated discussions with Mr. Zhuangzi about the use of written grammars without any of us having the power to dictate how the other part should study. That's true freedom. Edited by Iversen on 10 January 2008 at 2:02pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| BGreco Senior Member Joined 6172 days ago 211 posts - 222 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Spanish | Message 13 of 13 12 January 2008 at 1:38pm | IP Logged |
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I know a lot of schools offer specialization in Second Language Acquisition, and with my interest in language learning methods (along with a good chunk of this forum), I thought that would be a good degree in addition to a language (French).
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