The Alchemist, Myles Pinkney
Reading Language Shock by Michael Agar has allowed me to reflect on the transformation I have undergone during my time here at Allegheny. A little over two years ago, I arrived at Allegheny with a fresh PhD in experimental psychology. Consequently, my ideas about how to test language were informed largely from an empirical, quantitative approach. Psycholinguistic research revels in such an approach--we identify the level of language of interest (orthography, phonology, semantics, syntax) and then examine that aspect of language, usually in isolation, in a controlled setting in the lab. Our participants name pictures, read words, and, occasionally, make decisions about those pictures and words. Adventurous psycholinguists present whole sentences to participants and record their reactions to sentences that end as expected versus in an unanticipated way. Obviously, these methods represent the classic "language within the circle" approach that Agar describes in his book.
I had not thought about the limitations of this approach clearly until I began working with students. Why the change? Somewhat to my surprise, students are not quite as interested in classic, "language within the circle" experiments. Instead, students who have worked with me wanted to study language in context. They wanted to know how language operated in deception, how differences in gender could lead to differences in language rituals, how images and words could be used together to teach language. All of these topics were interesting to me, but over time, they were slowly pulling me out of my comfortable circle and into the realm of sociolinguistics. It has been quite a fascinating journey.
In any event, Language Shock has allowed me to compare and contrast the relative merits of each approach--their limitations and advantages. Here are a few questions I still have regarding Agar's work...
1. Why are words and sentences Bad Data? I understood his use of this phrase in regards to the ethnocentric descriptions of culture that Boas was unhappy with...that was data which was gathered using a particular bias. I wonder if it wouldn't be more accurate to say that words and sentences are Incomplete Data.
2. Why do the differences between cultures have to "get personal"? This is a sentiment Agar repeats several times throughout his book. I suppose this has to do with the requirement that, in order for us to understand a culture, we have to experience a difference between our own culture and that particular culture to generate an awareness of these differences.
3. How can we guard against the "slippery boundary between -isms and culture?" (p. 126) I certainly recognize the danger of culture becoming a label...it's the number-one approach. How do we make sure that the differences we identify initiate an understanding of different frames with different default values? In other words, how do we initiate "a trip from rich points to understanding"? (p. 137)