GUILTY

Prior to taking Introduction to Language Arts, I was guilty of not understanding the field of linguistics. I had no idea what professional options there really were and I had many of the misconceptions presented in this video:


MISCONCEPTION ONE:

Linguists love formal grammar.

I always knew I wanted to teach English. Even though I ended up in a different career for 30 years, I've still loved all there is about English...except grammar. In fact, I tossed away the lessons I learned on diagraming sentences as soon as I walked the platform at my high school graduation. Interestingly enough, I didn't need to know any of that formal stuff when I hit college the first time. Nor have I had to diagram a sentence...yet...at UTRGV. Still, I felt guilty for not liking grammar. Somehow I figured everyone that likes English must like grammar. Right?

Wrong.

Whew!

Now that I know formal grammar is "prescriptivism," I'm much more comfortable understanding that I prefer "descriptivism". I'd rather learn about and understand the language people actually use.

MISCONCEPTION TWO:

A linguist knows everything about languages.

As I've mentioned in other posts, there are many career paths that a linguist can take. I'm so intrigued by some of it that my brain dabbles with the idea of figuring out how I can add more linguistic classes to my load and figure out what I'd do with that knowledge as a high school teacher. There are specific fields for many different areas of language study.

MISCONCEPTION THREE:

Linguists are translators or interpreters. 

While they can be, this simply isn't the case for all linguistics.

MISCONCEPTION FOUR:

Linguists are academics or work at universities.

Again, this is true for some. But the employment field for linguistics is actually quite broad and varied.

MISCONCEPTION FIVE:

Linguists speak many foreign languages.

I was most guilty of this misconception. As someone who is monolingual, it's another area where I felt guilty. I tried to learn French in high school. I took four years of study. I remember no French.

Since moving to the Rio Grande Valley over thirteen years ago, I've tried to pick up some Spanish. I do adore language and I would love to speak a second language. But that whole business we learned about it being harder to learn language after puberty is no joke. I can't seem to get a second anything to stick in my brain at all. I can read a menu decent enough and point to what I want at a restaurant. 

What linguists do though is awesome.

According to the linguist in the video, linguists study language. They study how language works. They study how it evolves over time. They study how it is perceived. And they study how it affects social behavior.

And now, knowing more about linguistics, I feel less guilty for my lack of knowledge and more prepared to learn new things!


Works cited:

Snap Language. YouTube, YouTube, 30 June 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TktPNS1xxTc. Accessed 21 Oct. 2022. 

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