[Music]
John Rickford: There are many
different branches of linguistics.
Some people look at the history
of language and languages.
And the reasons may have
changed over time.
Some people like me look at the
way language is embedded in society
so that men and women
speak differently,
often contrary to stereotypes.
Most people think women talk
a lot or that they interrupt.
It is actually
the exact opposite.
Men talk more in
male/female interaction
and they interrupt all the time.
It's partly linked to power.
In general people who think they're
more powerful interrupt more.
So that would be something that
a sociolinguist would discover,
different social groups
speak somewhat differently
and there are people who look
at you know computational linguistics
and the way you can use language
in artificial intelligence,
teach machines to better
be able to translate.
Many other areas.
And there's some people
who concentrate more on the sounds.
Phonologists or phoneticians ,
some people concentrate more on grammar
and then some people
look at the words.
Those are the kinds of people
who to begin with make dictionaries
but they may also spend
a lifetime trying to understand
you know what's the difference
between a cup and a vase.
What's the boundaries between words.
And it's kind of cool. Some people
look at first language acquisition
because when you have kids,
they're trying to figure
that all out too
and they make all kinds
of interesting mistakes
that are not unsystematic but you can
see them widening their grammar
and their understanding
of how language works.
So you know language is
the thing that separates us
most distinctly from other members
of the animal kingdom.
Language is all around us
and it's very important
and that's why I think
I like being a linguist
because the material is always
available for you to study
and as fast as you solve
one problem or interesting issue,
there's another interesting
problem or issue
to deal with.
