Re: Responding to a challenge

From: Peter T. Daniels (grammatim_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 07/22/04 

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 11:41:34 GMT

Raymond S. Wise wrote:
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message

> > How well do you know a signed language? Why do you suppose there's only
> > one way to indicate, say, a plural? What do you suppose it is?
>
> I *don't* know very much of any sign language. I know a lot *about* sign
> languages, since I have read extensively about them. ( That is,
> "extensively" compared to the average person, not, I would expect, compared
> to the average
> linguist.) I know that, compared to other languages, they are young
> languages. It takes time to develop
> complexity-that-does-not-serve-the-purpose-of-communication. The same is the
> case with creoles, except that they have, according to John McWhorter, kept
> some such baroqueries from the parent languages.

Signed languages (any of them) have an immense resource not available to
spoken languages: iconicity. Not the fact that it underlies lots of the
vocabulary (in ways that are now as opaque as PIE etymologies of English
words), but that it can provide a whole additional layer of
communicative devices. (Again, see poetry and theater.)

> (I'm rereading *The Power of Babel.* At one point, McWhorter uses the term
> "baroqueification" for the building up of
> complexity-which-does-not-serve-the-purpose-of-communication--on page 214,
> in the chapter in which he discusses creoles and sign languages. I believe
> he referred to such complexities as "baroque junk" elsewhere, but I have not
> yet come across that term in my current reading of the book.)

another reason to disregard the work ...

> > > > I wouldn't trust much of what McWhorter says about anything!
> > >
> > > Why not? Certainly nothing in *The Power of Babel* seems to be
> > > controversial. It seems to be a popularization of commonly accepted (even
> > > boring, perhaps) truths in linguistics, with an emphasis on how languages
> > > change over time.
> >
> > And an emphasis, surprising in a linguist and astonishing in an African
> > American, on rwnc values. He's the J. C. Watt of linguistics.
>
> The only meaning I can find for "RWNC" is the "Rugby World Nations Cup."
> What do you mean by it?

rightwing nutcase

> > > And do you not, at the very least, agree that McWhorter does not believe
> > > that creoles or sign languages are inferior?
> >
> > No idea. It hasn't come up in any of his radio interviews, and on the
> > basis of his radio interviews, I certainly wouldn't buy or read his
> > books.
>
> Well, his book was written for the non-linguist. If you have any interest in
> how linguistics is presented to the general public, however, you should
> certainly read *The Power of Babel.*
>
> Given what you have said, however, I expect you would find it to be very
> interesting. You don't have to buy it, of course (I haven't): Check it out
> of the library.

That would encourage libraries to buy his future books.

Rather than reread McWhorter (presumably you've also done Pinker), why
not Sapir or Jespersen? Their octogenarian volumes for the general
reader still have considerable value. (I only recently found that
Vendryes' *Language*, of the same age, was translated almost immediately
-- and is an odd mix of the archaic and the contemporary.) 

-- 
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@att.net

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