Linguists who aren't fans of language learning and polyglots

[hoviariel]

I love linguistics. I love the rigor, its intersection with the formal sciences and social sciences, the difficulty and challenges that researchers have to face trying to describe language form and function. But one thing that I don't like (AT ALL) is language learning. And I don't mean applied lingustics; though not specialized in AL I am a fan of contrastive/cognitive linguistics when they intersects with AL; I'm just a fan of AL when it involves using humans as guinea pigs. I mean actually learning new languages. I don't know why but I've always felt either apathetic or frustrated learning other languages for the sake of communication. I'm currently trying to learn French for reading purposes and even though it's going (slowly) fine, I will never see myself getting all emotional and excited over going to a new country and learning its tongue or experiencing its culture; I just want to learn French to get access to its journal and that's it. And the same would go to any other language variety that I would be forced (out of practicality) to learn in the future..

Am I a freak for not being into language learning despite being an (aspiring) linguist? Am I alone in this?

Edited April 8, 2014 by hoviariel

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

I can definitely relate (but you probably already know that). I'm an English monolingual. I've studied multiple languages but not nearly in depth enough to be able to be dumped off in the middle of some country and make my way out. I became attracted to linguistics because I was always a fan of language. I used to work as a journalist and I've always enjoyed creative writing. Even when I was younger, I had a thing for song lyrics. Even when I watched movies as a kid, I loved the dialogue more than the special effects. So when I got to college and first discovered linguistics, I was hooked. 

 

However, I live in Miami (where English is not the majority language) and I go to a university in South Florida with a linguistics department that isn't very theory heavy. Aside from an intro class and a single class in each of the cores (syntax, phonology, semantics), all the other classes offered at my school are things like bilingualism, TESOL, SLA, sociolinguistics and stuff like that. Also, not many of the other students are interested in theoretical linguistics. They dread the things I love the most--transcribing in narrow phonetics and drawing syntax trees. At my school, you have to choose a language track for your linguistics degree, so most students double major in a foreign language. Most of them also get the TESOL certificate since 4 of the 5 required classes are also required for the linguistics degree. Not to mention, only one professor has a true linguistics PhD. The rest of them have PhD's in things like Spanish, Comparative Literature, Semiotics, Sociolinguistics, etc. 

 

I don't mind those things, but I wish my school had more to offer in theoretical linguistics. Aside from the 4 core classes in intro, syntax, phonology and semantics, I would have loved to have taken some additional classes in those fields. Lots of schools on the west coast have Syntax I, II and III. We didn't even get into X-bar theory. I had to teach it to myself. Also, when I finally find out there was a subfield called computational linguistics (what I'll be going to grad school for), I had to prepare myself by getting a minor in computer science. But there was no crossover so I found it hard to relate things I'd learned in linguistics classes to things I learned in computer science classes. 

 

Don't get me wrong. I have a lot of fun comparing languages. Like in my syntax class when we would be giving a few sentences of some obscure language and had to come up with syntactical rules for the language. I just don't think it's necessary to be a polyglot to be a good linguist. It's necessary to understand the ways in which languages vary and it's useful to be able to quickly catch on to the rules of a new language. But it's not necessary to be perfectly fluent in multiple languages. It also doesn't really interest me. To me, language is just something people use to communicate. Like you said, I don't get all excited and jittery thinking about going to another country and learning their language. I was talking to someone yesterday who I had a phonology class with a few years ago and he was saying, "I just added French as a second major. I love French so much! I wish I had enough time to add Spanish as a major too. I would love to learn Spanish!" Anyway, I just couldn't really relate to this guy. 

[hoviariel]

Yeah. I mean, it terms of excitement all I can think of is: if you wanna read Hugo so much, then just read a translation

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

And even though I've only studied linguistics in English, I'm surprised by how much I know about other languages. I can tell you so much about different languages that I've never actually learned. I can tell you the sentence structures of like 50 different languages, which phonemes exist in which languages, how suffixes are used in different languages, how pronouns are used, about the tenses, etc etc etc. 

[hoviariel]

I guess we're the only ones... Dang... We're minority specialists in this forum and now minority I-dont-give-a-damn-about-learning-new-cultures-and-languages dudes...

Another thing that's a stereotype that doesn't apply to me: giving a damn about how German color words are etymologically related the English ones. I remember once my friend was talking to a friend of his about going to Germany there for grad programs and eventually they brought up the subject of basic German color words. He was like "O you would probably be into that" and I was like "Why", "Cz ur a language major', "So why must I give a dang about how two Germanic languages unsurprisingly share high-frequency and day-to-day vocab words?"
I get the impression that people think my job is to memorize redundant similarities between languages, especially English etymology or pronunciation, or to have my heart pitter patter whenever I see a French word that has been borrowed into English. I don't even get how that stereotype can survive...

[armchairette]

I guess we're the only ones... Dang... We're minority specialists in this forum and now minority I-dont-give-a-damn-about-learning-new-cultures-and-languages dudes...

Another thing that's a stereotype that doesn't apply to me: giving a damn about how German color words are etymologically related the English ones. I remember once my friend was talking to a friend of his about going to Germany there for grad programs and eventually they brought up the subject of basic German color words. He was like "O you would probably be into that" and I was like "Why", "Cz ur a language major', "So why must I give a dang about how two Germanic languages unsurprisingly share high-frequency and day-to-day vocab words?"

I get the impression that people think my job is to memorize redundant similarities between languages, especially English etymology or pronunciation, or to have my heart pitter patter whenever I see a French word that has been borrowed into English. I don't even get how that stereotype can survive...

 

Ooh, count me in as well.  I actually am an Applied Linguist (well, only at an MA level), but I'm far from bilingual or even particularly functional in a second language.  I'm still fascinated by how language learning and acquisition work, I'm just not a "good" language learner--it's just not fun for me.  I think this is why I've been drawn to focusing my research on ELLs w/disabilities.  Whether it is the prevailing theory or not in SLA (it isn't), I'm a big proponent of immersion--which works quite nicely for this effectively monolingual English teacher.

[Voulez-Vous]

Ooh, count me in as well.  I actually am an Applied Linguist (well, only at an MA level), but I'm far from bilingual or even particularly functional in a second language.  I'm still fascinated by how language learning and acquisition work, I'm just not a "good" language learner--it's just not fun for me.  I think this is why I've been drawn to focusing my research on ELLs w/disabilities.  Whether it is the prevailing theory or not in SLA (it isn't), I'm a big proponent of immersion--which works quite nicely for this effectively monolingual English teacher.

 

Can you tell me more about immersion not being a prevailing theory?

[armchairette]

In terms of instruction, the field is moving towards a view/mode of instruction that allows for use of the L1 and moves away from the native speaker model.

Edited April 18, 2014 by armchairette