[Music]
John Rickford: There are many different branches of linguistics.
Some people look at the history of language and languages.
And the reasons may have changed over time.
Some people like me look at the way language is embedded in society
so that men and women speak differently,
often contrary to stereotypes.
Most people think women talk a lot or that they interrupt.
It is actually the exact opposite.
Men talk more in male/female interaction
and they interrupt all the time. It's partly linked to power.
In general people who think they're more powerful interrupt more.
So that would be something that a social linguist would discover,
different social groups speak somewhat differently
and there are people who look at you know computational linguistics
and the way you can use language in artificial intelligence,
teach machines to better be able to translate.
Many other areas.
And there's some people who concentrate more on the sounds.
Phonologists or phoneticians , some people concentrate more on grammar
and then some people look at the words.
Those are the kinds of people who to begin with make dictionaries
but they may also spend a lifetime trying to understand
you know what's the difference between a cup and a vase.
What's the boundaries between words.
And it's kind of cool. Some people look at first language acquisition
because when you have kids,
they're trying to figure that all out too
and they make all kinds of interesting mistakes
that are not unsystematic but you can see them widening their grammar
and their understanding of how language works.
So you know language is the thing that separates us
most distinctly from other members of the animal kingdom.
Language is all around us and it's very important
and that's why I think I like being a linguist
because the material is always available for you to study
and as fast as you solve one problem or interesting issue,
there's another interesting problem or issue
to deal with.
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