SoullessAutomaton comments on Zwicky's Trifecta of Illusions - Less Wrong

18 Post author: thomblake 17 July 2009 04:59PM

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Comment author: djcb 18 July 2009 11:59:49AM 0 points [-]

But to what extent is the value judgment of linguists about language change more important than that of other language users?

Comment author: SoullessAutomaton 18 July 2009 12:10:42PM 2 points [-]

It's not. Academic linguistics attempts to avoid value judgments entirely and rely on observations of how typical users of a language actually communicate.

Value judgements on language use are typically the province of high-status individuals who use language professionally (e.g., writers) or who teach language to others.

Comment author: komponisto 18 July 2009 01:09:35PM 1 point [-]

Academic linguistics attempts to avoid value judgments entirely and rely on observations of how typical users of a language actually communicate.

Which may of course include studying the value judgments made by language users (sociolinguistics) .