hello there
welcome to whispered linguistics
or, as I like to call it, whispling
I'm dr. bleegiimuus-- no that's not my real name
maybe I'll share it later
but I do have a PhD in linguistics
and I'm here to share some of our secrets with you
that's why I'm whispering
it's not, I just like ASMR
so, for episode 1, we're answering the question, "What is linguistics?"
so, a basic overview of the field: what it is, and what it's not
what kinds of things we study
so, the very simple definition is that linguistics is the study of language
notice I did not say the study of languagES, plural
it's the study of language as a big phenomenon
the most complex form of communication that we know about
that pretty much all humans use to share their ideas and thoughts, right?
the goal of linguists is not to just learn languages
it's not just to be able to speak a million languages
that's like the-- the one like common iritating question that we get
"Oh, you're a linguist? How many languages do you speak?"
and, you know, some linguists are monolingual
some do speak lots of languages because they've studied lots of languages
or they have an interest in learning different languages and traveling
but that's not necessary to be a linguist, that's not what it means
number 2: it is a descriptive field, not prescriptive
so, in linguistics, one of the kind of first things you learn
is the difference between descriptive rules and prescriptive rules in languages
so, descriptive things would be things like, in English, generally, you need to put the subject and then the verb and then the object
such as "He kissed her," right?
he: subject, kiss: verb, her: object
that's just... how it works, right?
that's how the language has developed
and people understand that the thing that comes first is usually the subject of the verb
the thing that comes after the verb is the object
so a prescriptive rule is something that maybe your English teacher or your parents
or some persnickety kind of grammar expert-- "expert"-- has told you
like no double negatives, don't use contractions when you're writing-- that's also a prescriptive rule
don't use passive voice, don't split infinitives
don't say things like "ain't" or "gonna"
ok, so all those things that you got points off for in English class, essentially, are prescriptive rules, right?
descriptive rules are things that people follow naturally, just by virtue of having learned their language
right? kids grow up, they learn how to speak or sign
just from the people around them, from their parents, their siblings, their friends
and that's not something that has to be explicitly taught
so essentially, a descriptive rule is something that just describes
describes how people are using a word or phrase, how they put sentences together
what the, kind of, common-- or uncommon-- use of the language is
a prescriptive rule is something that is "prescribed", right, like a medicine
something that an authority is saying is correct, or the standard, or the best use
because of, usually, kind of, social factors
of power structures and class and ethnicity and things like that
you can tell by the words themselves, right, that
descriptive rules describe how a language is really used by people
without judgements of "good" or "bad" language
or "correct" or "incorrect" language
and prescriptove rules are concerned with that kind of power structure, that standard use
trying to find kind of the "best" or most "pure" form of a language
and linguists are most interested in descriptive rules
that's not to say that I wanna imply that, you know linguists completely ignore all those prescriptive rules
or there's no use for it
because it does serve a function in society as well
it is good to have a standard
a standard definition of a word for a specific time period
a standard use of punctuation that can help translate a written form into a spoken form
can give you cues about intonation and pauses and things like that
even things like capitalization rules can just make it easier for someone to understand a written text without all that context
that can be an interesting area of study too
what people consider the standard, how the standard becomes the most acceptable form of that language
how that standard can change over time
because it absolutely does change over time
if we want to understand how a language works, we... use people
when we're studying English, say
because people still do a lot of studies on English even though it's very-- very well studied, relatively
if I wanted to write a book on how English works, I would not go to, like
an MLA or APA... stylebook
to look at all the rules of, you know, how to use punctuation, and how to spell things
how to, you know, divide where a sentence begins and ends-- things like that
I would go talk to people, get examples of the language being used
and it would probably focus on a specific group of people
or I would be doing a comparison of either different ages, ethnicities, regions...
or just a study of how the language has changed through time
we can do that pretty easily with English since we have documentation of the language going back pretty far
so we can, you know, track it through Old English, Middle English, all the way through today
and it has changed quite a lot
if you've ever tried to read Chaucer, you'll know that
so, yeah, we look for people using the language
the best-- one of the best ways to get data
information on how the language is really used day to day
is to go talk to people
and I'll do a video about different kinds of elicitation methods and tests that
different branches of linguistics use to collect data
because, believe it or not
essays and things like that are not necessarily the most natural use of language
like I said, you grow up, you learn how to speak just by observing it around you
but you actually have to learn how to write
so you're- you're always doing kind of an artificial proces when you're writing
so, in summary, what is linguistics?
well, first thing: it's the study of language
in general, as a communicative phenomenon
it's not the study of lots and lots of languages
learning how to speak lots of languages or to translate or interpret to and from different languages
although that's obviously related and something that some linguists can do
ok, second thing: it is a descriptive, scientific field
we are interested in-- usually we're interested in "natural" language or spoken language 
and we're not interested in enforcing all of these sticky grammatical rules
that everyone has a hard time remembering
I don't care if you say "whom"
I don't care if you don't know how to write "there, they're, and their" or "your and you're"
it doesn't matter-- if I understand what you're saying, then that's good enough
you've accomplished the goal of conveying your thought
you've communicated effectively
so, linguistics investigates the different ways that that communication can happen
we investigate how different languages work, how they change
what affects how they change, how we learn languages
how we can get computers to "understand" languages better
how kids learn languages versus how adults learn languages
what's happening in the brain when you're speaking a language
whether or not your language affects your thoughts
yeah, so all kinds of things
and I'll probably be doing a video on some of those subfields
particularly the ones that I am most familiar with
so yeah, I hope this was informative, or at least relaxing
or distracting, or whatever you needed it to be
thank you for watching, and I'll see you next time
bye
