- You listen to SBS radio just to see if you can figure out which language program is currently being aired, and listen for cognates with other languages you know.
- You are so excited about the Phonemes application on Facebook you call others over to your computer to show them, only to be disappointed that you can't actually listen to the phone(me)s.
- When speaking to someone who has a different dialect/first language to your own, you mimic their speech under your breath, trying to work out the place and manner of their articulation.
- You overgeneralise the application of newly-acquired discourse markers in a different lect, just because you're so excited to try them out.
- You find yourself explaining the difference between the lay and technical definitions of linguist, after being asked 'Oh, how many languages do you speak?'
- You have a copy of the IPA stuck to the back of the toilet door.
- You watch foreign-language films to see how much vocab you can pick up, and for languages you know better, to see how much discrepancy there is between the subtitles and the dialogue.
- You choose your lovers based on their native-speaker status of languages other than your own. Extra points if they speak a language isolate or an endangered language.
- You know how to calculate your language footprint.
- ... what else?
Sunday, September 14, 2008
You know you're a linguist when...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
13 comments:
You wake up in the middle of the night because you've just dreamt about a simpler analysis of the stress rules in your favourite language.
When you listen in to other's people conversations in public (e.g. on public transport), you automatically analyse their dialect and start practising CA in your head...
You watch Enlglish films in the dubbed German version but keep on watching the actors' lip movements analysing what they said in the Original.
Maggie
You commence a life-long study of your partner's idiolect, scribbling exotic items on a whiteboard in the kitchen.
Not that I have children, but I'm sure note-taking and analysis of their language acquisition is also a tell-tale sign. Any linguists of parental status care to comment further?
Well, I'm not a parent but an auntie, and I once was very proud to tell my sister-in-law that little nephew was using consonant harmony as is common in children's speech development. :-)
Maggie
One of my favourite stories was from Roly Sussex who reported visiting Michael Halliday, whose son "Nigel" was the subject of very detailed child language research from the moment of birth. Roly knocked on the door, which was answered by said son (aged 6 or so, I think) who opened the door a crack and asked "You're not a linguist, are you?".
Not a good thing to inflict too much close observation on one's children (or spouse?) perhaps.
I was at a family function on the weekend, one that had nametags. I was looking for the nametag that said 'Barb', while having a partial conversation with a New Yorker called 'Bob'. So when I exclaimed 'Where the hell is [ba:b]', he replied 'I'm right here'.
So, you know you're a linguist when you're discussion of this very minor point of sociophonetic intrigue involves terms like 'vocalic neutralisation' and 'vowel lengthening due to non-rhoticity'.
Bob then turned to me and said 'that's a very technical explanation, what do you do for a living?' And with a gesture that implied 'What else?', I replied 'I'm a linguist!'
In contextually ambiguous situations you commonly interpret the word 'phone' in the linguistic sense, rather than the thing that rings (which is usually what is being referred to).
Oh and when you can observe your idiolect changing because of the constant, aforementioned, white-board documentation of one's utterances by one's linguist partner.
You insist on using Macs, despite all the hassles being in a(n expensive) minority user group brings.
Good story, Peter! I've been reprimanded for taking notes on friends' speech before. When do you expect you'll crack, sally?
Well let's just say that publication would be crossing the line...
you dream in interlinearised sentences (Peter, your Diyari grammar first caused this for me...)
you dream in languages you don't know and keep interrupting to write down new words.
you try to make sense out of the strings of letters used in the anti-spam word verification.
Post a Comment