Kathryn Woolard, SLA President The question of linguistic relativity is the topic of an August 29, 2010 New York Times magazine article, “You Are What You Speak” Many linguistic anthropologists were surprised by the article’s representation of Benjamin Lee Whorf’s ideas and by the scant reference to the longstanding tradition of research in linguistic [...]
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Michel DeGraff on Haitian Kreyòl
Comments by Michel DeGraff on responses to his petition on Haitian Kreyòl As it turns out, these responses echo age-old arguments about the (mis)use of language in Haitian schools and in Haitian society at large. Yves Dejean and many others have addressed such arguments in previous publications. See, for example, Yves Dejean’s 2006 book _Yon [...]
They are them; we are me and others.
Stanley Fish notes that critics of the so-called ‘Ground Zero mosque’ see the terrorist attacks of September 11 as an act committed by Islam, for which all Muslims are responsible. In contrast, the stabbing of a cab driver by an attacker who reportedly asked the driver if he is Muslim is seen as “the act of a disturbed individual,” not a representative of an anti-Islamic position.
Whorf gets a makeover
A lengthy excerpt from Guy Deutscher’s new book examines current evidence for linguistic relativity: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html?src=me&ref=homepage
Peer Previewing
From: Leila Monaghan, University of Wyoming, 8/25/10 Interesting article in the New York Times on changing peer review process on articles. Makes me think about whether this blog might be a good place for previewing articles in front of our peers, asking for comments on particular pieces of work before we send them to journals [...]
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