linguistic structures - Professor Binkert's Webpage - Oakland ...

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the students in such mixed classes will ask. The best preparation for ESL teachers is a solid
understanding of English linguistics, that is, a linguistic description of English grammar such as the
description given in this book. This does not mean that ESL teachers should memorize the various
analyses given here. Quite the opposite is the case: a formal linguistic description is not going to
be very helpful to students learning English. What is important is that ESL teachers develop skill
in linguistic analysis, that they learn how to look at languages properly, not as chaotic and whimsical
collections of rules, but as systems rooted in human biology. In this way, ESL teachers can
understand the facts and issues behind their students’ questions and know that there is a real
explanation for those facts. As a result, they will be able to teach English and to answer students’
questions in a way that is truly meaningful.
Many linguistics courses satisfy the general education requirement in formal reasoning because they
emphasize objective methods of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. They are specifically designed
to introduce students to systematic ways of organizing, processing, and analyzing data. The focus
on all LIN courses is on formulating hypotheses explicitly and testing them rigorously. In these
courses, students are asked to solve individual problems in English and a variety of languages as a
means to developing strategies and expertise for solving any kind of problem. Overall, students
learn how to develop explanatory models that can predict the phenomena they observe, that is,
students learn how to propose solutions to problems that are rigorous enough to incorporate the ever
expanding corpus of data. As this entire discussion has indicated, the skills that students acquire in
linguistics are exactly the skills needed in today’s workplace.
Since courses in linguistics typically involve investigation of data in a variety of different languages,
they also help to give students a global, multi-cultural perspective. In today’s world, information
can be almost instantly shared around the globe, as phenomena like the Arab spring testified so
stunningly. Companies and businesses have global interests and must adapt their products and
messages to widely divergent populations. They cannot afford to be egocentric or sociocentric.
Now, more than ever before, it is important for students to understand different cultures and different
ways of looking at the world. Linguistics by its very nature provides students with that global
perspective.
We began this discussion by noting that there are many myths and traditions surrounding options
like the choice of a major in college, for example, that students often think it will be impossible to
get a job in a specific discipline unless they study that discipline in depth in college. Another myth
is that a college education ought to be quantifiable, that students ought to be able to hold up a bunch
of books upon graduation and say, “I am educated because I know everything in these books.” But
expertise in any area is not tangible; it is not something a person can weigh. Becoming a good
golfer or a prima ballerina, for example, involves practice, false starts, and bad days. A good golfer
may be under par one day and over it the next. A ballerina may perform flawlessly on one evening,
and falter on another. Of course, what makes a golfer and a ballerina very good is that they are
generally just that: very good. Over time, we can measure the success of a golfer and a ballerina
with such quantifiable records as scores and box office receipts. But those measures are the effects
of the expertise, not the expertise itself. There are thousands of excellent golfers who have never
won a tournament and thousands of proficient ballerinas who have never made it to the big stage.