[lingtalks] John Hawkins to speak at USC

[Karma Dolma]

To be presented on Thursday, April 6, at 4pm in THH 101; all welcome to
attend

 

 

                               Building Bridges in the Language Sciences

 

                                                 John A. Hawkins,

                                       Cambridge University & USC

 

 

Language is our most unique human attribute and it is central to just about
every aspect of our daily lives.  As a result there are now specialists in
many departments who study language from the vantage point of their
respective disciplines:  e.g. in linguistics, philosophy, psychology,
anthropology, sociology, education, neuroscience, medicine, computer science
and engineering.  There are several "language sciences" here and
understanding how these fields partition the area of inquiry today, and how
they evolved during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, makes for an
interesting case study in the process of change in science.  The first part
of the lecture will outline this progression and bring us to the start of
the 21st century.

 

In the second part I discuss some challenges that we now face, in large part
as a result of past successes in the contributing disciplines.  I argue that
progress is being held back by the increasing separateness and autonomy of
some of these disciplines.  There is not enough communication and sharing of
even basic facts and insights, and I give some simple examples to illustrate
this, involving issues that I have worked on personally, in which the left
hand of the language sciences does not know what the right hand is doing!
Established findings in one field can be counterevidence to proposals in
another, or would suggest important new research ideas, if people just
collaborated more.  I contrast these examples with some clear success
stories in interdisciplinary science, based again on my personal experience
at USC and at Cambridge.  I also illustrate how better linguistic science,
especially interdisciplinary science, makes for better applications and an
improved contribution to society, involving linguistic aspects of medicine,
language in engineering, and in the teaching and testing of English as a
global language.

 

The third and final part of the lecture is devoted to questions of
university organisation and administration.  What structures best serve the
needs of interdisciplinary science, and how can we build bridges between the
contributing disciplines?  There is often a tension, in all sciences,
between disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, and administrators need to
recognize this and build academic structures and make financial arrangements
accordingly.  I discuss various models I am familiar with and assess their
potential to overcome current challenges, foster collaboration, gain outside
funding and meet society's needs.

 

 

 

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