LINGUISTICS
Why I Blog About Linguistics
And Why Everyone Should Take an Intro to Linguistics Class
I blog about linguistics because I am a linguist. Most people do not know what linguistics is. Linguistics is a branch of cognitive science (the scientific study of the human mind and its properties). Linguistics is the scientific study of language.
Most everyone’s exposure to and familiarity with language is not from a scientific perspective, or scientifically informed. In early education, we are usually taught prescriptive rules; rules that we are supposed to follow — for instance “don’t split the infinitive!” or “don’t end a sentence in a preposition!”
Prescriptive rules are often useful to society, as they help keep everyone on the same page, facilitating clear communication across speakers of different dialects of the language by providing a common code. This is a worthy goal, and prescriptive education is valid, but it is not scientific, as its goal is not to better understand the human mind.
Another way in which people are typically exposed to learning about language is by learning a second language in secondary education or earlier. Native English speakers in the United States, for instance, are commonly given a choice to learn French as a second language, or Spanish, in…
