Linguistics

[Anonymous No.16161670]

I just bought this book and I'm about a third through. Boy oh boy. I have this unbreakable habit of finishing what I started, more of a curse. It's an especially torturous manifesto when the book is both unfruitful and more importantly LONG. My question to the lot of you is, what the fuck is the point of linguistics? This shit is so redundant and useless. I understand Pinker is a brilliant mind and this in some sense is an instresting examnination of language, but how this book could be of any use to someone other than linguists is beyond me. It's not even that its a nice subject but that I cant see the worth of this information for ANYONE. It seems like a massive waste of energy and concentration. Thoughts?

[Anonymous No.16161675]

>>16161670
*niche subject

[Anonymous No.16162475]

>>16161670
>Pinker is a brilliant mind
kek

[Anonymous No.16162489]

>>16161670

[Anonymous No.16162505]

>>16161670
>I understand Pinker is a brilliant mind
Spend 15 seconds on Nassim Taleb's Twitter to see what a truly brilliant mind thinks of Pinker's work.

[Anonymous No.16162557]

>>16162489
friends hanging out so?

[Anonymous No.16162564]

>>16162505
what does he say?

[Anonymous No.16162637]

>>16161670
There is a lot of philosophy, namely post-modern, that started first as a theory of linguistics.
Honestly after reading some of Pinker's thoughts at history and philosophy i can't help but try to shit on everything he says, as the dude clearly doesnt read much on the subjects he writes about. Is there anything he wants to do there that isnt already trying to justify some almost divine humanism along with a linear evolutionary look at history and reaching some stupid human condition/nature to justify the humanist dogma?

[Anonymous No.16162702]

>>16162637
what are the ideas that pinker is known for/preaches, can you give me a quick summation of what he believes?

[Anonymous No.16162843]

>>16162637
>There is a lot of philosophy, namely post-modern
Cringe.

[Anonymous No.16162860]

>>16162489
Krauss is such a weasel

[Anonymous No.16162900]

>>16162702
I may be wrong since i've only read loose fragments and short opinions that he gave, but this is the general idea that i have on what he preaches:
Use of enlightenment era tier thinking on human rights and morals (or the current predominant morals) that he tries to defend using modern science, this is also followed up by a notion that humanity has a whole has this sort of define objective for progress, that sees history always on a field that places the current era as the product that is always objectively better than any other, literally a tree-root/stairway way of looking at history and every regime, an always binary of conservatism vs progress, oppressive vs freedom that is extremely naive.
So to sum up, the dude creates a mystification of "sience" as a cult and tries to use it to justify his prespective on history and morals by trying to create "human condition" or "human nature" concepts.
Almost all of this falls flat as they can only even begin to hold water if you ask them by admiting a lot of presuppositions and even when you hold them there is still a lot of flaws and philosophy that kills it.
So the dude literally spergs out when it comes to facing those tasks and the only thing he ever does is call them out for being "fascists" or "anti-science" while obviously only showing that he never read their ideas.

>>16162843
Maybe if you read them you'd stop seeing them as some boogy man of leftism.

[Anonymous No.16162933]

>>16162505
>Nassim Taleb
>truly brilliant mind
/lit/ duped you anon, Thomas Sowell and Ayn Rand aren't geniuses either, sorry to burst your bubble

[Anonymous No.16162952]

>>16162489
so how did Pinker explain his pic?

[Anonymous No.16162976]

>>16162900
im sorry brother that sounded like mumbo jumbo sophistry, what coherent intelligible point does he have?

[Anonymous No.16162986]

Anons should i finish the book?

[Anonymous No.16163060]

>>16162900
>some boogy man of leftism
Cringe.

[Anonymous No.16163110]

>>16162564
bullshit peddler

[Anonymous No.16163147]

>>16162976
He's saying that Pinker is a modern-day defender of the Enlightenment as it was conceived of more than a century ago. This requires him to adopt a series of a priori positions and teleological frameworks, none of which can be justified logically or "scientifically." Because he cannot justify his positions using reason, he must tar and feather his opponents with nasty words like "anti-science" and "anti-progress."
Make of this what you will.

[Anonymous No.16163193]

>>16163147
Almost there, distill that a little further

[Anonymous No.16163239]

>>16163193
He is a defender of the contemporary international order as he has experienced it. He is literally an ideological brawler on the level of Karl Popper, and might even be considered his spiritual successor. There is no point in reading him unless you want to know what a defense of the ideals of the American elite as they existed until about a decade ago would look like.

[Anonymous No.16163264]

>>16163239
>Popper
>Pinker
>the American elite
Jews upon Jews, curse you!

[Anonymous No.16163344]

>>16161670
Well like any subject it comes down to your individual interests. As someone that studied linguistics I'll just give you my own rationale for interest.

Language is a complex communication system that is unique to the human experience (yes, other species use symbolic manipulation systems in some form but they're nowhere near capable of the creative possibilities of human language). This system is practically mastered by adolescence, so is presumed to be a simplistic tool. Yet, our efforts to properly map and catalog individual languages are still ongoing, belying its real complexity. This merger of complexity and ease of use suggests something particular about human development and offers an opportunity to better understand the nature of the human mind. The field of linguistics is an opportunity to understand the core communication system of the human condition and better understand our own cognitive structures. Personally I find that really cool.

Regarding Pinker: Honestly, Pinker is pretty meh. His literature is more pop science approach to psychology and all the linguistic theory he provides is just regurgitated Chomsky (minus the fun of cranky old wannabe Anarchist man). If you're going to read introductory stuff to linguistics and thought, try out Lakoff instead. His theories are at least more entertaining.

[Anonymous No.16164196]

>>16163239
wtf does this mean
>>16163344
in what way is linguistics pertinent today though?

[Anonymous No.16164211]

>>16164196
It means that what you will find in Pinker is political tract after political tract disguised as scholarship.

[Anonymous No.16164256]

>>16161670
>I understand Pinker is a brilliant mind.

Lol.

[Anonymous No.16164297]

>>16164211
Is he secular or religious

[Anonymous No.16164315]

>>16162933
He cam up with the Black Swan idea. That makes him a genius in my eyes.

[Anonymous No.16164352]

>>16163344
What should I read if I am interested in how linguistics and our communication system relates to our sensory perception and therefore how we construct what is more true or less true about the word we think we live on?

I dunno if what I wrote makes sense, I'm very high and have OCD? Just tell me some things that makes you think of for fun

[Anonymous No.16164358]

>>16161670
don't blame linguistics, Pinkie is just shit.

[Anonymous No.16164608]

>>16164358
how are any other linguists different though, its all masturbation over sentence and verb construction, semantics sytanx formulas yadda yadda

[Anonymous No.16164707]

>>16161670
t. Linguist
Pinker is the equivalent of pop psychology, and you are a brainlet if you did not discern that. He is not considered prominent contributor to Linguistics, and he himself would admit that. This is like reading Dan Dennet or one of those other IDW dorks then asking "what the fuck is the point of philosophy?"

[Anonymous No.16164726]

>>16161670
You shouldn't start with a pop-linguist like Pinker then. Try Course in General Linguistics by Saussure. It's both basic and foundational for linguistics.

[Anonymous No.16164801]

>>16164352
What you're looking for is semiotics
Daniel Chandler wrote a nice introduction for the field

[Anonymous No.16164809]

>>16164352
Kant

[Anonymous No.16165679]

>>16164315
He renamed the hindsight bias and claimed it as his own.

[Anonymous No.16165697]

Pinker is not linguistics. I'm a linguistics student who started off reading Pinker's The Language Instinct and I can now say it is the worst book on linguistics that I have read so far. Too political, biased and simplistic.

>>16164707
Strange to group Dan Dennett with IDW. Seems like you have a problem with Dennett's views more than his work.

[Anonymous No.16165704]

>>16161670
Pinker doesn't represent linguistics, no more than Hillary Clinton represents civic democracy.

Start with historical linguistics, that's the real stuff - scientific and actually useful.

[Anonymous No.16165721]

>>16164315
The "Black Swan idea" are simply the conditions for the Central Limit Theory. This is shit you learn in sophomore year when doing any math degree.

[Anonymous No.16165967]

>>16165721
it's theorem and what the fuck do you mean if you mean anything at all?

[Anonymous No.16165984]

>>16165697
>Pinker is not linguistics. I'm a linguistics student who started off reading Pinker's The Language Instinct and I can now say it is the worst book on linguistics that I have read so far. Too political, biased and simplistic.
I liked the book, thought it made a pretty compelling argument for its main thesis. You're saying that if I knew more about linguistics I wouldn't think so? What's wrong with it and what readings do you recommend?

[Anonymous No.16166022]

It's been years but I'll try to answer..

If by main thesis you mean innate language, or universal grammar (or any general argument against linguistic relativity), then there isn't much to talk about here because it's mostly correct. If by main thesis you mean the stuff on prescriptivism and descriptivism, then similarly, it's nothing uncontroversial. But you don't need to read Pinker to find this out, plenty of books had already been written on this topic before him.

The problem with Pinker is that he takes the easy position and runs with it. Every time I've gone back to reread a chapter of Pinker I see the same tactics. Strawmanning his opponents using the absolute worst people and ideas to represent them; wasting page after page defending the obvious claims (language is innate, we know, move on!) while neglecting the hard ones; and throwing in political and social commentary that is irrelevant to the discussion. What you end up with is a biased, oversimplified, politically motivated text.

If I could go back I would have chosen a more neutral author, one without an agenda. In general I now prefer intro textbooks over pop-science.

[Anonymous No.16166037]

>>16165967
Thanks for catching my typing mistake.

The CLT talks of independent and identically distributed random variables. If they're not i.i.d., then their sum won't necessarily converge to some well-defined expected value.

Taleb wrote several books about this obvious factoid, and now normies think he's hot shit.

[Anonymous No.16166265]

>>16166037
Sure, but I still fail to see the connection with the black swan.

[Anonymous No.16166348]

>>16166265
What Taleb calls a "Black Swan" is a sum of random variables that doesn't converge to a known expected value.

It's something so obvious that it doesn't really need a catchy name, much less a dedicated book.

[Anonymous No.16166696]

>>16166022
>language is innate
wild kids who have no interaction with humans dont talk at all, they jsut screams, like monkys

[Anonymous No.16166704]

>>16164297
Secular is the new religion

[Anonymous No.16166920]

>>16164608
>not interested in how language works
>reads pop book on linguistics
huh

[Anonymous No.16167274]

>>16166696
There's like three documented cases in history and at least two involve abuse and trauma. It's not the greatest sample size.

By language is innate, it means capacity for linguistic development is innate. It's a portion of cognitive development. It does look like if you don't stimulate this capacity during development, it will be lost however. (Much as, if you spend you infant years unable to walk, you may not develop.)

[Anonymous No.16167312]

based

[Anonymous No.16167322]

>>16166920
i disnt fucking know by the title alone, it seemed interesting but ive never read into any lingusitics, this shit is literally throughly useless

[Anonymous No.16167327]

>>16167322
*throughly

[Anonymous No.16167351]

>>16161670
>I understand Pinker is a brilliant mind

[Anonymous No.16167391]

>>16162900
>Rambles about someones work after admitting you're not familiar
>philosophy that kills it
>Puts quotation marks around terms he disagrees with
>boogy man of leftism

you are a boring and retarded faggot, I can't imagine your friends irl respect you unless they are equally retarded. Don't talk to anyone for a year, just take the time to reflect on your being.

[Anonymous No.16167460]

>>16162900
>when someone who rely on 18th century dogma calls you out for having old and outdated ideas

[Anonymous No.16167467]

>>16161670
if a book is too hard for you to read it means you arent ready to read it yet

[Anonymous No.16167478]

>>16167467
>too hard
i never said it was too hard you mong, i said the field of linguistics is meaningless meaning without value. Advancement in life would litterally still be the same without it. This shit would cripple the light in Billy Shakespeare himself.

[Anonymous No.16167487]

>>16166348
taleb just sold the idea to people who wouldn'tve thought about it in the first place; maybe not a genius but still worthy of respect

[Anonymous No.16167493]

>>16161670
Pinker is a brainlet mind, slave to establishment propaganda

[Anonymous No.16167498]

>>16167478
I use the word hard analogous to a mental block; if you find it tedious to read a book, then read ones that flow easier. I am not judging your IQ.

[Anonymous No.16167501]

I've never read a Pinker book because it seems like a "I fucking love science" positivist type of guy and I can't stand who just idolize science and evaluates everything under the science lens. Are his books like this? I wanted to read "Enlightment now" even if it's what's the most far from my POV just to test him.
>>16161670
>NYT bestseller
Read Saussure and drop this pop science book.
>>16162489
I just came here because I wanted to post this pic. One more reason to dislike him

[Anonymous No.16167550]

>>16167274
There have been a lot more cases than that and there is a reason why it is called "the forbidden experiment". An innate capacity for language =/= "innate" language

[Anonymous No.16167556]

>>16167501
>I just came here because I wanted to post this pic. One more reason to dislike him
I'll ask it again. How did Pinker respond when this pic surfaced?

[Anonymous No.16167557]

>>16167501
Worse, Pinker is a Fukuyama "End of History" type.

[Anonymous No.16167625]

>>16167498
Do you agree its a useless subject of knowledge

[Anonymous No.16167641]

>>16167625
like with anything it may come in useful somehow. The people who like to study it should continue but i dont think i would myself

[Anonymous No.16167662]

>>16162637
>>16162900
that's not what pinker does at all, and if you had even read 2 pages of his work you'd know this. But of course you write at length about him in that nagging, affected "critical, problematicizing" style. you're like a caricature of charlatan faggots in continental phil or literary studies academia. for you I recommend suicide.

[Anonymous No.16167673]

>>16167641
well ill concede that i am thoroughly a man of immediate realities and efficiencies. I would strip nasa reaserach and allocate it for real world problems, then worry about mars

[Anonymous No.16167676]

>>16163239
facts don't care about your feelings or whether your opinions are chic, rebellious or woke.

[Anonymous No.16167687]

>>16161670
I like pinker but linguistics has always seemed to me as a tremendously boring.

[Anonymous No.16167725]

>>16167501
he has actual facts and arguments. you sound like a complete pseud who only adopts positions based on "what they seem like" and what you "can stand" or not.

[Anonymous No.16167731]

>>16167673
>>16167673
i am thankful people like you exist

[Anonymous No.16167732]

>>16167673
The solution to all of those "real world problems" are in space you fucking idiot, they can't be solved by reorganizing the political/economic system run by a bunch of chimps

[Anonymous No.16167776]

>>16161670
I don't know who Steven Pinker is, just a tourist from /int/ using the /lit/ sticky resources
the importance of linguistics is the same as the importance of psychology int he way that its an attempt to understand the human brain and secret meaning of words instead of actions, it's basically an autists attempt to understand things they cant naturally understand, things a normal human being naturally understands. it only has purpose in places where the CIA or other intelligence agencies are trying to detect lies or deception
that being said, I am autistic and schizophrenic and along with studying around 8 languages in rotation (currently Japanese and ASL), I also study psychology, body language, and linguistics

[Anonymous No.16167792]

I cringed when he said that the XX century was the most tame in history when we had two world wars, worldwide massacres, civil wars, purges, et al. It's literally one of his arguments on how things 'are getting better'

[Anonymous No.16167836]

>>16167792
we had those things in other centuries too.
how you emotionally react to something is not an argument, no matter how strongly twitter users or humanities charlatans believe it is.

[Anonymous No.16167878]

>>16167836
?
His 'proof' of this century being the most peaceful in history is just a lie. There's more reasons to believe this was the bloodiest century in history than to believe otherwise. Of course, Pinker is an american anyways. That's all.

[Anonymous No.16167915]

>>16167878
>There's more reasons to believe this was the bloodiest century in history than to believe otherwise
wrong. facts don't care about your feelings.
>Of course, Pinker is an american anyways. That's all.
not an argument.

do they not teach history in school where you're from? not even basic, middle school level history?

[Anonymous No.16167930]

>>16167915
not an argument

[Anonymous No.16167933]

>>16167731
not sure if im detecting sarcasm or not
>>16167732
>solutions are in space
the stars may be your religion but not mine, my thinking is that the worlds world's brightest concentrate thier abilities to temporal problems here that reduce the congestion of issues in how we practically survive, im not hoping in refining governance and human behaviour, that's the spiritual ream and an eternal blindspot of fallen humanity, when we fux how we practically operate with an economical function, we reduce the need for governance at least governance in an intrusive manner

[Anonymous No.16167937]

>>16167556
He said: "Jeff's the guy, we were both cunnysseurs".
Jokes aside just Google it, I don't know and I don't care honestly.
>>16167557
Yeah, definetely not my cup of tea but you should read something out of your principles/mindset I guess.
>>16167725
As long as one person can have free of thought and speech I'd like to share it here, I don't care to sound "right" or "scientific", I just shared my 2 cents. I just said that I'm an antipositivist.

[Anonymous No.16167941]

>>16167933
>World's brightest minds are all obsessed with going to space
>NOOOOO!!!! YOU HAVE TO STAY HERE AND FIX EVERYTHING!!

[Anonymous No.16167943]

>>16167933
*worlds brightest minds

[Anonymous No.16167959]

>>16167941
Even the most "intelligent" are not immune to fear and escapism

[Anonymous No.16168057]

>>16167937
>He said: "Jeff's the guy, we were both cunnysseurs".
>Jokes aside just Google it, I don't know and I don't care honestly.
yo it gets better
>But it’s the favor that Pinker did for Epstein that’s caused him the most trouble of late: in 2007, Epstein’s attorneys -- including Harvard legal scholar Alan Dershowitz -- submitted a letter to federal prosecutors arguing that their client hadn’t violated a law against using the internet to lure minors across state lines for sexual abuse.
“To confirm our view of the ‘plain meaning’ of the words, we asked" Pinker, "a noted linguist, to analyze the statute to determine the natural and linguistically logical reading or readings of the section,” the letter said. “We asked whether the statute contemplates necessarily that the means of communication must be the vehicle through which the persuading or enticing directly occurs. According to Dr. Pinker, that is the sole rational reading.”