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a little hubris never hurt anyone
Oct. 26th, 2005 01:17 pmwell, okay, that's not precisely true, is it? :-)
but i had a thought an hour or so ago, when i was looking at last year's general exam paper to see what the essay questions i'm less prepared for are going to be like ... and for the first time, i thought, maybe it seems hard to me because it's too easy. you know?
i mean, the questions are things that are -- not quite second nature to me, but so familiar that getting analytical about them is really a challenge. which is kind of what makes linguistics an interesting field in the first place, really, the fact that it demands careful analysis of something we all use every day. but, like, one of these questions is about whether elicited grammaticality judgments are a reliable source of linguistic evidence. to which the answer is, well, yes and no -- which in itself is fine, i wouldn't be required to Make A Decision, but in an hour of explaining the pros and cons of the situation, i don't know if i could cite anything supporting either position, because it just seems so obvious to me. yes, educated native speakers can be pretty reliable in identifying what is definitely grammatical and definitely not, in their native language; but in marginal cases, they're often very very confident that they would Never Say Such A Thing, and then two minutes later they turn around and say it themselves. they are, in other words, reliable observers of their language, but not so much of their own speech.
but do i have citations for this? i do not. will the examiners just take my word for it?
not likely, is it.
but i had a thought an hour or so ago, when i was looking at last year's general exam paper to see what the essay questions i'm less prepared for are going to be like ... and for the first time, i thought, maybe it seems hard to me because it's too easy. you know?
i mean, the questions are things that are -- not quite second nature to me, but so familiar that getting analytical about them is really a challenge. which is kind of what makes linguistics an interesting field in the first place, really, the fact that it demands careful analysis of something we all use every day. but, like, one of these questions is about whether elicited grammaticality judgments are a reliable source of linguistic evidence. to which the answer is, well, yes and no -- which in itself is fine, i wouldn't be required to Make A Decision, but in an hour of explaining the pros and cons of the situation, i don't know if i could cite anything supporting either position, because it just seems so obvious to me. yes, educated native speakers can be pretty reliable in identifying what is definitely grammatical and definitely not, in their native language; but in marginal cases, they're often very very confident that they would Never Say Such A Thing, and then two minutes later they turn around and say it themselves. they are, in other words, reliable observers of their language, but not so much of their own speech.
but do i have citations for this? i do not. will the examiners just take my word for it?
not likely, is it.
