Variation in the Data: Can Linguistics Ever Become a Science

268 Pages·1993·107.75 MB·English

by  Charles-James N. Bailey

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\IAR'IATION IN TFIE DATA:
CAN LINGIJISTICS EVER"
BECOME A SCIENCE?
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The present writing formed the basis of a keynote talk
at the twentieth anniversarJr of the IIWAVE series at Georgetown
University, an invitation for which I am grateful to Ralph Fasold.
I sas of cour:e happy to be back at Georgetown University
again, where I had spent pleasant and productive days in the
early seventies and also at odd moments during the intervening
years. Because of time and other limitations, the actual talk,
given in October, 1991, was excerpted frorn this longer version
(here further expanded)-ch. 4 and other parts were omitted.
The title is meant to indicate that my com.tnents are reckoned
to be relevant to general linguistics as well as to the limited
and variable circle that attends the annual I\IWAVE meetings.
For general linguists to ignore variation is to ignore redity. It
won't go away by waving one's hands at it.
The title of my keynote talk at ITWAYE-2O referred to
the relevance of vrirriediamin. Created on verirtionirt, this word
may have subconsciously expressed a rather tainted attitude
toward variation studies, at least that fring'e or cliquist character
of such practitioners as hold themselves aloof from advances in
the hard-core branche of linguistics. My own attitude come
out in the revised title for the present publication, which
higf,ligtrts the relationship of variationiet work to general
linguistics. Since not all variationists, and ertainly not all
approaches to variationist studies, are infected with the taint
just rnentioned, I use vrrietimirt,/n more neutrally here.
The original title that I proposed (previously, i.e., to
the one that appenred on the program) referred to linguists'
d.ill. I had in mind, of course, what linguists generelly
mean by the term: not an arrogant asser{ion of irrefrageble
truth but a well-evidenced and uell-argued conclusion that by
rights should be permitted to stand till e better alternative
comee along-or till someone convincingly shows it to be in need
of modification or discardi"S. A claim takes for granted that
today's truths may be replaced by nearer approaches to the
trrrth tomorrov. I chang€d my original title after I learned
(from more than one source) of something I'd been unaware of:
The word drin had been more or less tabooed in this series of
conferences. So I say "presuppositions and consequences of
one's analysis" or the like to avoid unnecessary offence, which
yould derail the discuesion from substance to terminology.
lll
Sinc.e it will be clear that I think that ecribological terminology
ie of the utmost importanc.e in academic discussions (cf. also
Walt Wolfram, 'The linguistic variable: fact or fantasy[?]"
fAmerican Spwh {Spring, l99ll, 22-561), the r.eader should
infer that evoiding chin was just that-a strategy. Every analysis
except themost trivid embodies inherent and deducible theoretical
presuppositione and conaequenoes-claime. That such cleims
may not be explicitly acknowledged doesn't render thern lees
significant or compelling'.
The I\IWAVE, series originated wirh my scholarly dismay at
a perceived imbalence in the Georgetown lJniversity Round
Table on Sociolinguistice (the reader is referred to my plenarXr
comments in the 25th volume of the GURT [Georgetown
University Round Tablel series) in 1912: Ilespite the presence
only of linguists on the opening night, anthropolog'ists and
sociologists seemed to dominete (and castigate) erverything from
then on, leaving linguists rather on the fringe. This obviously
rwersed the proper r6les of the two groups at an avowedly
linguistic meeting-one that cost a bundle. I told the orga.niz,er
of that meting thet we should in turn organize a conference
on variation studies in vhich linguists would let any interested
teachers of the socisl sciences listen to what linguists had to
say. He agreed, end the series yag born. Done on a financial
shoestring, it was judged immensely successful by some of eren
the more hard-nosed gueets. But the series seerns to have
quickly departed from its original god of making explicit the
preeuppositions end consequenoes of V-analysis with respect to
of human lenguage and the neture of language-
::;"1","*
From theerrlieet deys, Americen lingtistics, deepite boosts
from anthropologicel departments, has suffered because of ita
links with the social eciences. The antitheoretical and taxonornic
bias of much social anthropologr imprinted itself on structuralism.
Althougt early variation studie erose arnong ethnolog'ists who'd
been treined in structurel linguists, it is nonetheless surprising
how much variation analysis hes been lost in a sort of time warp:
The enigmatic imponderable is that, firet, comparative analysis
has been carried out (emong Q-iste) in synchronic-idiolectel (i. e.
antivarietional end anticornparative) etnrcturalist concepts (pho-
neines, morphernes, isoglosses, uniparentel family trees, etc.);
and secondly, limited cor?uses have been analysed atomistically
with scant r€spect for entire systerns-and with the ineryitable
omission of cruciel, and discoverable, perte of a system thet
are not to be found in any sum of corpuses at hand. Ace-
demically yorse is the fact that many of the structuralist models
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einployed by Q-ists are ill-defined or discredited (e.g. phonernes
of eitler structuralist or generativist vintage and morphemes)'
Worst of all to my mind is that no defence known to the
writer, let elone any convincing defence, has been offered for
such departures from academic soundness.
Much of what J. Rickford (in an excellent, well-presented
telk at the beginning of the NWAVE-2O conference) cdled "the
American tradition" of variation studies (the one based on US
stnrcturaliem of the forties as well ae Labovian statistical analysie)
has simply been a E tiry of (linguistic and/or external) facts
gle,aned from limited corPusea with little heed paid to what the
linguistic qnfu underlying the fragments discovered end
analysed migtrt be. Can we be setisfied with the analysis of
fragments-a few vowels or consonants analysed with no regard
to whether the analysis accords with that of the system aa I
whole-any more than we can be with the M-ist way of analysing
one monitored idiolect eutonomously (i.e. with no rrgard to the
analyses of its related isolects)? But as for olrpol,:ita (limiting
data to corpuees), Chomsky changed all of this, one would
have thougf,t. The intellectual proces is in a grave state today
so far as lingrristics is concerned, as I stress in this writing'
This is chiefly because of the synchronic, or Saussurian, super-
stition, and the unexarnined basic aseumptions and llaws of the
so-called 'American tradition' of V-ism-which general linguists'
not unnaturally but erroneously, take to be the paradigm and
exernplar of V-ism and of its relevence or non-relertance to gen-
eral linguistics.
If I find structuralism unsound, this writing makes it
clear that I also find unsound the types of alternatives to it dis-
cuesed in these pages: (f) The retionalist approach, rcrolution-
ar;r in many ways but still part and parcel of the M-peradigm-
and no less so than the dead-head structuralis-t eppnoach that it
toppled-and just ae beholden to ill-grounded or ungrounded
staiic-reist ideology, but vith a mentalist rather than B-ist view
of reality. (2) The positivistic, entimentaliet, and seerningly
(though unavowed) B-ist empiricisn espoused by Labov, however
etevietic thie position may seem. In general harmony with philos-
ophera of science, I think thet both aPproaches are untensble
in today's climate of thought: Chomsky's innatist Cartesieniem
and what R. Botho (ernplifying Chornsky's own exannple end Pop-
per's terminolo5i,; see the Aftersord) cdle his Ct lflrD epproech
(the term is derived from Crlilo, not from Glfile I la Julian)
and Labov's Eddingtonianism (and perhape Skinnerism). This
is not to deny that there exiet notable philosophere who call
themselv€d empiriciste. Like Labov, they contend against Chom-
kian rationalism-but without resorting to an out-dated
Eddingtonian vetsion of empiricism. Labov spurns philosophy
and declines to invoke philosophers in defence of his variety of
ernpiricism. Paraphrasing Ruth Anshen (in the Foreword to
Chomsky's Knowledge of language, who points out that 'all
facts ar€ not born free and equal" and that "accuracy is not
the same as truth"), I hope to show that not all data are
relevant facts, and that using an exact methodology is not the
the same as arriving at a proper understanding of langrrage,
In a non-linguistic acad€rnic vorld that is neither Corte-
sian nor Eddingtonian, one in which temporality and prooessu-
ality are accepted, respectable, and eminently intdligible, I
sugBest that linguists should forget the sterile rationalist-vs.-
ernpiricist opposition and get on with discussing hos to do lin-
guistics in ways which are morc in harmony with the acedemic
tradition and comrnonsense. This sentiment will no doubt find
little favor among linguists. But I say what I do because I
reckon it neede to be said-not in the expectation of ite
imminent acceptance or of any preferment on my pert-but
simply in the interests of truth. Away, I say, with all static-
reist concepts and models and with all M-superstitions; and
above all, away with these in all comparative work, primarily in
Vlenalysis. And let's be done with unexa.rnined and undefended
foundations.
There will always be the unconver-tibles, irnmune to each
and every structured argument, who will declare that the rreoson-
ing behind the assertions here is hard to follow. One must firat
of all reckon with the difficulty involved in understanding devel-
opmental or processual categories when the perlasive atmosphere
is saturated with stetic-reist axioms, however poorly grounded
they may be. Mogt minds are too inflexible to shift from, say,
a static-reist ideology, to conc€pts based on processual or
doelopmental {time-based) pr€mises. On the other side, it isn't
ell that ee,sy for those who subscribe to processual analysie to
think and write in dynarnic terms after an M-upbringing. A
further coneideration is that what anyone writes will be
difficult to follow for those who haven't looked at the predecres-
sors of a given writing; no one can really expect any writer
to repeat in each writing what has been said earlier just for the
sake of those who haven't reed the prior malerials-so that
they can grasp uhat's meant by terminology long since established
by an author. {Some who aren't in the position of having to worry
about others' not having'read their presious wor*. nevertheleee
needlessly repeat their established positions in virtually every
new writing.| Of course, it's a natural subterfuge to shift the
vi
blame for what really are ultimately a reader's own shortcomings
to an author that one is unwilling to accommodate. But why
not refrain from criticizing until one has done the neoeasany
reading to justify criticism?
A personal consideration is that I, for one, have never
had an army of talented and creative graduate students (like
some of my well-known Americen colleagues) to gto over my
stuff and smooth it out. Chomsky's ar:r'ang€ment bas been
ideal: a well-managed Vatican with the talents and preatige of
great talent and vith a trusted and competent second always
there to watch over a steble of crertive geniuses. Arranging to
bring together people of merit and intercst to one'a home base,
as the MIT and Stanford departments have done, has proved
superior to using up available funds to run off to visit
individuals here and there: It cneatea intellectual exciternent
through a cross-fertilization of ideas, an excitement that
cannot be matched because of the quality of students and
faculty found at such world-class universitie . But the tenure
systenn everywhere fills up departments and institutee with people
who, even if once talented and creative, now only lock out young€r
people with new ideas. Outside of North America, the practice
of hiring the sole professor in eoch field by the other-non-
lingrrist and ther.efore unknowledgeable-professors plus the
egalitarian ideas that taboo the recruiting of talented and turned-
on students make world-class universities generally impossible
there.
Lastly, one should not be unmindful of the negative
reviews that some of what we now viev as classic accornplishments
in science and in music, art, end literature (cI. Rotten reviews,
.d. by Bill Henderson for Penguin hess) have intially rrcceived.
Ideas that question or depart from old ideas and Eugg€st new
ones aFe normally condernned by the generality, as Chomsky's
ideas sere in the early (thougf, not the earliest) phaeee of
developing his new views on linguistic andysis.
A linguist who disagrees with another's poeition and is
not grilty of "bashing" the other still has to fact the facts: Let
a writer misrepresent or helf-represent someone: the outcry
will be nil, except from the aggri€ryed person. Let a writer
attack someone personally: the hue and cry will be minimd.
But let a writer give objective reaaons why someone's position
is built on quicksand foundations that can't uithstand real
scrutiny, and it's documented: The writer will be roundly
condernned for doing thatl lf you forbear naming the author.s
of what you what you criticize, those unfamiliar with the
vii
literatur.e will charge you with attacking stmw issues; if you
cite what you criticize, the ad hominern cherge will be leveled
at you. Of course, if you criticize what you haven't read, es
is fashionable in at least two of the various circles dealing the
history of English grammar, you redly should hide your head.
The idea that living and letting live can codxist with
criticism isn't all that common. If you argre against eomething
(e.g. the uee of statistical anelysis), the ignorant will criticize
your analyses for not providing statistics. Twice after presenting
phonetological analyses, l've had mernbers of the audience who
weren't pr€sent when I worhed out the analysea stand up to
say that I had redly started out with phonernic analysis!
(That's of course not as bad as editors' undoing your
ideas. Write an article against certain uses of who, and a
non-native-spe,aking editor will change your thos to rhos in it.
One US editor changed my rCdo to tddo$r and didn't
corrrct this after I'd read the proof and asked for a change!)
Those who wish to criticize something new will find
something, wen if it's imelwant to the truth of what one says
(e.g. Cbomsky's style) , when they can't find refutable obictive
substance in what one says. If you make .a claim about paseive
fncility, aomeone will object with oidence on active language
facility (generally in ignorance of Labov's oBSERvER's PARA-
Dox). The list of pseudorefutations runs on. No one is
infallible, but the acsdemic scene should displey greater skill
in addressing erguments. In the end, we all have to face the
fact that neasons will always be found for sticking vith the
old; it may not be true but it's been tried.
lf non-V-ists balk at vhet I say, that doesn't mean that
(the most publicized group of) V-ists will be happy with it! The
g.rlf is too g:.eat. And thet's what mede rny return after twenty
years to the NIWAVE series to address the audience gethered
there so problemetic. What I say will therefore appeal to an
excredingly small circle. Possibly some interest may be found
among a few non-V-ists who are mildly curious about what's
going on in V-isrn, still merginal no lees than comparative
analysis and dialectologr becarne under the intellectual distortions
of M-ism. Given my 'druthers, I'd hope that the young would
look at these pages. Established scholars won't be convinced
for r.easons that have nothing to do with what ie seid, or eryen
how it is said. So, although the ideas expressed and the
practices advocated here sill not meet with anything like
widespread approvel in today's linguistic climate, who knows
what the future will bring when currcnt ideas will seem as stele
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