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Well, Lyz, hi how are you. Glad to hear from you (and possibly also the start of the secret upgrade of the Forum.) Congratulations on your new study. The idea of music therapy has much appeal. I look forward to checking META/CDM out. Thank you for the post.
Dear Alaric,
Thank you for the reply. Apparently this website never notified me as it should. I happen to teach sociolinguistics (SL) and am quite interested in its historical founding. Of course, if general or theoretical linguistics had had enough focus on function and as well used actual language data, there might never have been need for a new separate field. At the same time I recognize the enormous contributions linguistics has made and continues to make. I am simply fascinated with the evolution of SL and always have enjoyed analysis of actual language use.
I was quite taken with the thrust of your hypothesis with the power of oppositional forces. It struck a chord in me and pleased me about its linguistic basis. I am sorry if your submission was not presented here in its original form. Something must have happened somehow in the inner channels of GLC :D. I hope GLC will rectify such in the future. Your attention to sociolinguistic aspects of language and application to listening interests me. I noted your concern with hate speech and share your concern. I wonder though if you might reconsider your comment on dialects, as I agree that an in-group attitude can lead to a feeling of superiority over other groups, but would see dialects more positively. It would be interesting to know about a causal relation between dialectal use and social prejudice. If you can refer me to any studies on it, I would appreciate it.
Again I regret that I just became aware of your latest post, for which I hope the Webmaster notices, and that this and the mishandling of your original submission gets corrected. Best wishes, Alaric, to your continued success and I hope I will have the pleasure of meeting you at the next GLC conference if not before.
Best,
Ray
Anne, I agree music can have great therapeutic effect in our lives. Your article reminds me how chaotic hospitals can be and the potential healing music has. I particularly took note of your statement, ” our heartbeat is a constant musical beat we carry with us all through life.” Have you heard of such rhythm evidenced at the cell level? Paul Byers, an anthropologist and a father of the field of conversational rhythms, was convinced of this phenomenon. He posited that interpersonal communication is at once mutually rhythmical and likely rooted in biological rhythm. I wonder if you could comment on this.
I want to thank Yoel and particularly Alaric for their participation here. Yoel’s comment reminded me of what I have observed for a long time about racial relations in the U.S. and something I commented about elsewhere, so it’s fresh in my mind: A principal reason for the schism is that the very concept of racism is defined differently by white folks and black folks–but both views end up in excluding themselves from the possibility of being racist. As long as their conceptualizations help them avoid self-recognition of racism, there hardly will ever be a true meeting of minds.
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Alaric, we appreciate your sharing your original article here at the Forum. I was wondering too if, Alaric, you had considered starting the article with an abstract. Also I wanted to ask about your statement: “Newton’s Third Law has never been invoked in a Linguistic setting.” Do you mean linguistic as language use, i.e., communication or the academic field of linguistics?
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If the latter, then I am not surprised because the linguist’s data is typically self-constructed and structural, thus function (purpose of language) is hardly considered. I am having a hard time conceptualizing how the Third Law would apply in syntactic studies for example. Syntactic/grammatical structures are inert–it is the linguist’s imagination that gives them life. On the other hand, which may explain the birth of sociolinguistics, language use is at once born of purpose (often social), implying oppositions (coming from choices of language use) and thus inviting application of Newton’s law.
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But does it have to be in the name of Newton to apply/consider/use the law? In counseling psychology it is well used without any mention of Newton’s name. Counselors operate on the principle that a change in behavior/perception/habit necessarily requires an equally opposite force in the client’s life. In search of a such an opposing force, they might invent one for the client, suggesting to them to do the opposite (of the target behavior). In national politics I came across the same principle applied toward effecting change. Sociolinguistically, I can see this happening as with the Great Vowel Shift in American English, whereby speakers of dialects have been adjusting their vowels to maintain distinctiveness in face of standardizing or globalizing influences from outside forces (my own interpretation).
