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Abstract This paper reports on an investigation of adults' level of endorsement of 18 language myths, including myths about non‐mainstream dialects of English, children's language development, bilingualism, linguistic diversity across the world, the use of English in the language arts, and the job of a linguist. Participants (N = 187) read short vignettes of situations related to each misconception and were asked to justify their assessment of the situation. Responses were coded according to whether they endorsed the myth within the situation. Results showed that endorsement of language myths was highly dependent on the specific myth. Some myths were strongly endorsed (e.g. myths related to linguistic prejudice and children's language development), others were strongly rejected (e.g. myths related to the harmful nature of bilingualism), and others received a mixed pattern of endorsement and rejection. We discuss how this snapshot of public understanding can help linguists target their efforts at public education.
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“Science is in everything, whether we realize it or not”: using the IPA to encourage interest in the scientific study of language
Abstract One way to bring greater awareness to the fact that language can be, and often is, studied scientifically is to show people the scientific tools that linguists use to study it, such as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). This project investigated how doing a common IPA activity might influence people’s perceptions of language science and linguists. Adult visitors to a science museum (N = 117) participated in an activity in which they saw their name transcribed into the IPA and were guided to notice how it differed from the standard spelling, informed about some basic articulatory phonetics connected to the sounds in their names, and encouraged to think about the differences between sounds and letters more generally. Participants were then surveyed about what they had learned and their attitudes about language science. The results showed that most participants learned at least some of the core content material. More notably, the participants were more likely to believe that aspects of language such as poetry and dialects could be studied experimentally by scientists than a control group of adults who had not participated. These results demonstrate that even a brief intervention, if thoughtfully conducted, can shift attitudes towards the belief that language can be studied scientifically.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1823381
- PAR ID:
- 10577279
- Publisher / Repository:
- Linguistics Vanguard
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Linguistics Vanguard
- Volume:
- 10
- Issue:
- s3
- ISSN:
- 2199-174X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 215 to 222
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2024-0071
