circular study & becker's criterion

Circular study | Robert Salter | September 13th, 2000

Pinkie wrote:

And isn't there something rather incestuous and circular about linguists studying the language of linguistics research?

I could not help thinking about Becker when I read this. As long as other discourse communities are also examined, I think it is a good thing that applied linguistics takes a critical view of it's own discourse. Applied linguistics is not above analysis and applied linguistics has nothing to hide is my feeling on that type of research. I have often mused to myself that this approach in applied linguistics might be in response to the practices of theoretical linguistics. It's just a hunch.

Rob

Re: Circular study (reply to Rob) | Pinkie | September 14th, 2000

Yip, I agree that it's a Good Thing for applied linguistics (or any other discipline) to take a critical view of its own discourse. What I meant to say with "incestuous and circular" is that I think it may be dangerous to GENERALIZE on the basis of studies of the language of linguistics.

For example, when I read applied linguistics papers I sometimes get the feeling that the author is consciously and deliberately following a Problem-Solution pattern learnt on a course like this one, which is fine; but if I then do a study of applied linguistics papers to assess whether authors use said pattern, then things start to get a bit circular, no?

By the way: who is/was Becker?

Pinkie

Re: Circular Study | Robert Salter | September 14th, 2000

I see what you mean. I will keep an eye out for the Problem/Solution pattern. On the FND I sort forced a Problem/Solution pattern on a text that was not Problem/Solution. Thinking about it now I can laugh, but at the time I was wondering if I would ever understand.

Becker is in the readings for LEX. I don't have it here in Ottawa so I hope you have it on hand there. I think it was "Becker's Razor" that came to mind.

Rob

Re: Circular Study & Becker | Mary Lynn Hughes | September 15th, 2000

Pinkie,

Since Rob is still spread out over continents, I thought I'd look up the Becker paper. The ref is: Joseph D. Becker, 'The Phrasal Lexicon', 1975, Dept. of Defense (USA), Report No. 3081. It's an early account of lexical 'phrases' as the main component of language production, and a frontal (and witty) attack on then-prevailing theories which focus on units at word level or smaller and Chomsky's notions of 'competence' v 'performance'.

'Becker's Razor' is his final riposte to theoretical linguists: 'Elegance and truth are inversely related', after which he finishes with, 'Put that in your phrasal lexicon and invoke it!' (p.34) He's having fun here, but the paper is serious and still worth reading (at least I think so).

However, Rob must have been thinking of 'Becker's Criterion':

'Any theory (or partial theory) of the English Language that is expounded in the English Language must account for (or at least apply to) the text of its own exposition.' (p.3)

This is a criticism of linguists who don't apply their theories to real language (including their own texts), but instead 'spend [their] time starring or unstarring terse unlikely sentences like "John, Bill, and Tom killed each other"...'. Hmmm, seen a few of those recently! I think this is slightly different to what you and Rob have been discussing, but maybe still relevant. It's interesting that Rob brought up this aspect of the paper, which I didn't focus on at all in my original reading. This is one of the things I really appreciate about these recent, more in-depth discussions.

Mary Lynn