Linguistics - What Is It?
One in every ten of the people I meet have opened their first conversation with me saying, "Linguistics? I took a linguistics class in my first year of college," and proceed to wax lyrical about Noam Chomsky (more than just a political science pretty face, he also dabbles in linguistics. And when I say dabbles, is one of the founding fathers of modern linguistic theory) and phonetics and phonology. Whilst these are classic elements of the science of language, much like any other discipline, there's more to my work than the basic elements.
It's amazing how we intuitively know the way linguistics affects our daily lives, yet we cannot communicate it. You know when someone is being rude, sarcastic or exaggerating the-most-amazing-meal-they've-ever-eaten-in-their-lives, but by just looking at the language and not knowing the theory, it would be difficult for you to uncode and explain without quoting Brown and Levinson (1978). It was the tone of her voice, is one of the best examples. What was it? Was it loud? What word did she emphasise? But she said "you look nice" - how is that that being rude?
This is surprisingly true for how gender works within linguistics. Women know how to uncode 'women speak' and men know how to uncode 'men speak' but never the two shall meet. Have you ever complained to a man about the way a woman talked to you and got the not-so-helpful, "Sarah? But she's so nice!".
Although I'd really like to try and nagivate my way around the surface of this debate, lest I get in far too deep and get in trouble, men and women are from two linguistically different planets, so the relationship experts aren't lying. It goes far deeper than behaviour, and travels to the heart of our communication: our words. A shout-out to the wonderful Harvard Sailing Team for these two fantastic videos - cringe-worthily real about how men and women communicate. I needn't say more.
The code needs to be unpacked for different native-speakers too. I remember being told that moving to America would be a culture shock. A culture shock. Pffftt. Culture shock, what culture shock? But it was - and it still is. We speak the same language, but very differently. This goes far beyond the spelling of neighbour and colour (which, I'm afraid to say, will be spelt in British English throughout the articles of this blog) and deliciously English words that people like talking to me about like "wanker" and "arse".
I was signing up for an event yesterday and was asked to identify as a human, rather than a computer. Sounded simple enough. So, when it asked me to click on any picture that had a cookie in it, I froze. Out of the eight pictures in front of me, some were cookies and some where biscuits. I had to double check the website to see if it was a British or American website and was stumped. For Americans, cookies are any type of sweet, round, crumbly things you have with milk. Even the act used when eating one is very different to the British; we don't dunk our afternoon snack in milk - sacriledge! We dip them in tea. And now I've juxtaposed these actions with dunking and dipping - you tell me who is the more delicate language user? As for biscuits in America, they're considered savoury. When it came down to choosing which ones were cookies, only some of them were. Cookies for us are the ones with chocolate chips (and on the rare occassion when you're trying to limit yourself, raisin and oatmeal) and biscuits are everything else. The savoury ones, at best, are probably dumplings (Yorkshire puddings are an entirely different cup of tea). Thus, an Oreo is a biscuit to me. Not a cookie.
I managed to register for the event. After proving with another example that I was not a computer as I had befuddled my way through the 'are you American or British test'. I'm British.
One of the many reasons why I could never give professor reviews at the end of the semester when I was at Columbia was that I could never seem to hide my British accent even when I write. I tend to slip in words like rather and lovely without meaning to, and even round about sentences about how possibly one could, if one was able, to perhaps if only.... However, for the sake of my blog posts it is important to explain that my Britishisms will be laid out for you in full view as it continues. Sorry and/or you're welcome.
What I intend to do with this blog, is to illuminate tiny acts of linguistics within the realm of everyday life and show you how it can be applied to communication, on any level. Edumacation at its finest.
