Comments on: links for 2007-04-05

By: sputzele

sputzele — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 21:05:42 +0000

http://lesla.univ-lyon2.fr/article.php3?id_article=172 agregation de grammaire (ça existe encore apparemment).

By: sputzele

sputzele — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 09:35:22 +0000

Thank you for the enlighting definition… indeed… at that time my friend was a researcher- he was Lettres Classiques and grammairien… Nevertheless with the arrival of “socio-inguistics” and “ethno-linguistics” and and and.. I end up in being confused with whom to speak about.. structures…of languages.. However you are right on one point- i found the whole story about snow and inuit language in an article on “linguistics”… I’ll check and come back. Somehow I feel domains in maths are better “delimited” or at least I have a better understanding of what they hide!

By: Curt

Curt — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 05:29:40 +0000

My understanding is that grammarians tend to study language as sort of a donné, a given, almost a structure in the abstract, whereas linguists are more interested in tracing its origins, context and shifting usage, in other words more as a historical and social institution. Hence, you don't really hear about many grammarians in the university ranks; they tend to be editors or dictionary writers or (at least at one time) school teachers, rather than professors or researchers.

By: sputzele

sputzele — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 09:20:18 +0000

I wonder..... I am not sure of the difference between Linguists/grammarians(at least if it exists elsewhere than at ENS) and other research branches related to the study of language.

Manin (Yuri) the mathematician compares language and algebra...

By: Curt

Curt — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 02:22:16 +0000

Grammarians are maybe the mathematicians(logicians) of language?

And linguists like to consider themselves the scientists.

By: shonk

shonk — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 01:56:53 +0000

Yeah, the analogy to learning a second language is more apt, especially since there are plenty of people who say they “just don’t do languages” much as there are many who say they “just don’t do math”, and probably for many of the same reasons.

By: sputzele

sputzele — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 21:04:25 +0000

I agree with

&quot I mostly agree philosophically, but I think a more apt analogy would be with the teaching of secondary languages, since like them, and unlike one’s native language, most people aren’t naturally fluent in math, and have to be taught the rules from the ground up.&quot

I had a friend at Ulm who was a grammarian and an autist- he learned Persian (that I speak) in a logician's way integrating all the rules.. and using the grammar rules to construct sentences.. it was fascinating--- the result was correct but almost never colloquial... I regret that i lost sight of him...

Grammarians are maybe the mathematicians(logicians) of language?

By: Curt

Curt — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 04:59:40 +0000

I mostly agree philosophically, but I think a more apt analogy would be with the teaching of secondary languages, since like them, and unlike one’s native language, most people aren’t naturally fluent in math, and have to be taught the rules from the ground up. And indeed with the teaching of foreign languages there’s generally more focus on minutiae (I have had to parse numerous advertisements for the number of verbs and adjectives in several language classes). However, since the connection of language with daily life is usually more clear, teachers often make more of an effort to engage students with interesting activities, like listening to music in the language or writing skits, even if they are not advanced enough to read literature or have complex discussions. But there are few good ways to make the minutiae interesting when it’s not intuitively clear.