re: What good is linguistics?

[cph@wiley.csusb.edu (Carol Haviland)]

Sara:  Your question points to two related threads:  the contributions
linguistics makes to composition and the interactions between
compositionists and linguists in an English department.  The first is
smoother than the second.  

For a number of reasons, many of us value our own study of linguistics in
our comp programs, and we think that our students are the richer for similar
exposures.  However, our relationships with our linguists-colleagues are
often problemmatic.  On our graduate committee, the biggest rubs when we
review thesis proposals seem to be two:  we look at research differently,
particularly when we think about quantification, and we think about focus
differently; compositionists think linguists focus on tiny objects of study
and then make assumptions or appear to draw conclusions that compositions
believe are unwarranted or at least ought to be disclosed:  the linguists
don't questions these assumptions among themselves.

Absent personality conflicts, which a Canadian linguist sitting across from
me on an airpline assured me are part of the territory "we're just put
together differently, he claimed," we can get through these thickets and
both be the richer and our students survive.  But, it takes some serious
listening to each other because we do come at issues differently. 

I'm very pleased that ours is a combined department, and 
I'd be interested in your observations about the ling/comp faculty
relationships in your department.

Carol Haviland

>Susanna I want to thank you and everyone else who's responded to my
>question for your thoughtful and *encouraging* replies.  I've been
>trying to figure out whether I want to write a paper about linguistics and
>composition, and your replies give me reason to believe it's anything but
>a futile connection--not the message I get from many of my colleagues in
>the English department.  Your replies also give me reason to believe that
>the things I do in my grad and undergrad courses do succeed with some
>people anyway, since the courses you've described as teaching or taking
>sound a lot like what I do in my own courses.
>
>Hmm, maybe I should invite y'all to the next meeting of the English
>department at which the place of linguistics in our grad or undergrad
>program comes up--but that's not an experience I'd inflict on anyone I
>*like* ;-)
>Sara
>
>On Mon, 3 Nov 1997, Susanna Horn wrote:
>
>> Allow me to add a vote for sociolinguistics.  I went kicking and screaming 
>> into this course, but now I see it as one of the most practical courses that 
>> I have taken.  It REALLY helped me understand my students' writing.  
>> 
>> Therefore, I would strongly recommend that future teachers take a 
>> sociolinguistics course.  Understanding the social contexts and reasons for 
>> linguistic forms and changes can help us talk more intelligently and be lots 
>> more tolerant.                  
>> 
>> Sue Horn
>> Developmental Programs
>> The University of Akron
>> Akron, Ohio
>> 
>> shorn@uakron.edu
>> 
>
>
>