Few would argue that urban and coastal areas sustain low levels of language diversity.  However, one might argue the opposite: highly trafficked and densely populated areas, such as urban or coastal territories, are prime grounds for language variety.  Moreover, they are choice for language discovery. 

Language discovery, though, is a nondescript title and seems ambiguous in its content, as well.   So, to clarify, let us identify some features of language and suppose which of these might make a language more or less discoverable. 

Location: the geographic expanse of the language.  This feature is difficult to determine, however, we are able to ascribe general parameters by process of elimination.  For instance, if one were to identify the language variety of Philadelphia, she would have to consider an area in fact larger than the city itself.  This is because man-made city limits do not affect language boundaries.  So by eliminating concrete geographical boundaries, we have somewhat better defined a language variety’s location.

Points of Divergence: in order to find the language boundaries we must look for general differentiation and places where specific varieties stand out against the norm.  A knee-jerk response to this problem might be to survey the places where jargon is easily identifiable, e.g. hospitals, businesses, small communities, etc.  With jargons identified, one is more apt to see each territory as distinct from its neighbor.  Additionally, one would be able to classify these specific territories under a larger heading, thus clarifying boundaries.

Points of Convergence: where jargon helped label similar micro-communities, dialects or unified colloquial language may help label macro-communities, i.e. youth, educated, or adult communities.  For example, groups of teens are more likely to speak like one another than a group of mixed-aged individuals because they share a pertinent quality together.  So where many people share a specific way of speech, they are classified into a convergent group.  This aids in outlining where one might find alike language varieties and, furthermore, distinguishes, once again, what the varieties are not.

With these three language distinctions we have managed to arrange a rubric by which one may striate language varieties, thus providing the reverse engineering for language discovery and exploration.  In later sections we will apply the rubric to our main focus: universities as language caldrons.

Upcoming Questions:

In a setting where jargons collide and language varieties mix, what is the impact of such complex admixture?

Are universities central to diachronic language change?

Can we predict the outcome of this scholarly environment?  How will it impact society?

A LANGUAGE COWBOY

Dr. John Lipski is a language cowboy. He holds years of erudition in his right-hand holster but slings the power carefully. Yesterday, I spoke with the Pennsylvania State professor and discovered how he maintains his humility despite such a massive understanding of language.

Humbly, he admitted that “linguists are born”, they are not cultivated by way of rote practice. One must have the inner drive and talent to become a linguist.

So, if you already feel stimulated enough to pursue linguistics, this is the blog for you. If, however, you are unsure, take this advice: “be omniverous”. Investigate anything that interests you, get sidetracked and lost but always maintain an end focus. If at the end of your travels you find you’re a linguist, I say, welcome.

Tags: linguistics