Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Linguistics, Critical Thinking, and Uncertainty
Our social issues class, Linguistics 115, encourages students to think, and create new ideas based off of the presented material. By creating new ideas, instead of just regurgitating facts, the class incorporates the idea of critical thinking. For example students ponder what varieties really should be considered different languages, or what languages are categorized for only political reasons. Another opportunity for students to think critically involves the issue of language extinction. The course has taught that languages are becoming extinct all the time. Students can make their own ideas why certain languages should be preserved, and theories about how to save certain languages. Both of these examples, show opportunities where students are encouraged to think on their own rather than memorize facts, since both situation contain a level of uncertainty.
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I like how you concluded your post by saying that we're encouraged to think for ourselves in the class instead of memorizing facts. This definitely involves a lot of critical thinking when it comes to making your own ideas about why languages are dying and if people should bother trying to save them. I don't agree, however, that we never have to memorize facts. We do need to memorize some of the examples Dr. Simpson gave us so we can write about them on our exams.
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ReplyDeleteI don't think he was arguing that we never have to memorize facts. Instead, I think he was simply pointing out that unlike many other classes, we are forced to use critical thinking, because so many aspects revolving around languages are unclear. Thus, we must decide for ourselves what seems to be more accurate. Furthermore, I must compliment the author on the originality of this and how unlike it is from the other commentaries.
ReplyDeleteI agree that students have to use critical thinking abilities to come up with reasons for why a language should be preserved. Since there is no "correct" answer for what languages should be preserved, students can provide different insights and perspectives on this issue after analyzing and evaluating certain factors.
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