Is language like science...?

Quite often, when I talk about the rules of language, I find I get hit with the response "Language isn't like science!" When I talk about teaching language systematically, people say "Language isn't like science." When I talk about language in schools, I'm told it's destined to fail because "Language isn't like science."

Well, I'm in the middle of trying to sort through a lot of old stuff that had been stored in the loft, and I came across a piece of paper on which I had hastily scrawled the following:

Language isn't like science.

Why?

It's about choosing the rules, not knowing the rules.

Now this is not a statement of my belief; rather it's my attempt to understand the logic behind the statement, so for anyone other than myself to get my full meaning requires a bit more explanation.

The reason people say "language isn't like science" is because of their misconception of the nature of science. To them, science has been presented as a series of rules to be memorised. They have been conditioned to think that the end goal of science is to be able to regurgitate the rules on demand, because that's all that was required of them in school.

That is not science.

Science is the art of investigating natural phenomena and finding explanations and models for them. These explanations and models are mostly a combination and application of existing scientific rules, and sometimes of identifying and creating new rules.

Or to put it another way: science is not about the knowledge of rules, it's about the application of rules.

But would the same statement not hold for language too? Language is not about the knowledge of rules (we can all agree on that) but the application of rules, surely?

Science is very often taught badly, in that there is such a focus on the rules themselves that students never get the chance to integrate those rules into a working body of scientific knowledge. This leaves the student able to recall the rule or law by name, but not recall the rule when addressed with a problem that requires that rule in order to reach a solution. You cannot solve a useful scientific problem this way -- the only type of problem that can tell you explicitly which rules are required to solve it is a problem that has already been solved, and science is about creating new knowledge, not repeating the known ad nauseum.

A good course in science will instead train the student in identifying the characteristics of a problem domain and noticing patterns that relate to particular laws or rules: they will teach them how to select the appropriate rule for the given situation.

That, I contest, is the very same process we go through when we try to formulate an utterance. We have a bank of words and grammatical rules at our disposal, and we have to select the appropriate items from it to express the message that we want.

So language is a lot like science, and the objections typically raised against grammar teaching are systemic problems that also affect science teaching. It's a problem that the late, great Richard Feynman recounted in his memoir Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman?, when he talks of his experience on sabbatical placement in Brazil. It's a problem that affects all education systems to a greater or lesser extent.

But the problem comes when reformers attempt to throw the baby out with the bathwater: "rules teaching has failed," they tell us, "so we need to do away with rules."

That, to me, is a ridiculous philosophy. How can you choose which rule to apply if you don't know what rules exist? How can you search for it if you don't know what it is?

Let's be clear, I do not have to be able to recite the present tense endings of regular -ARE verbs in Latin in order to usefully "know" the rule, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be taught them. I initially learned Spanish, for example, by the explicit teaching of the endings, and the explicit teaching of rules like 2s = 3s+"s" and 3p=3s+"n" (NB: this is my notation, not the way I was taught the rule!), and not by memorising the list of conjugations or a table. But that was still explicit teaching. I did not learn by osmosis, I did not learn by exposure, I did not learn by magic. I was told what my range of choices was, then given sufficient opportunities to make those decisions that I eventually could make the decision subconsciously.

An unfunny joke

An Englishman, a German, an American and a guy from Barra walk into a bar.  "Tha Gàidhlig cho cudromach," says the Englishman [Gaelic is so important].  "Tha Gàidhlig cho sònraichte," says the German [special]. "Tha Gàidhlig cho breagha," says the American.  "I'm going for a slash," says the Barrach.

Not funny at all, I'm sure you'll agree, but you might not fully appreciate just how unfunny it truly is.  In order to understand it, though, you need to know that the Barrach is a native-speaking Gael.  So why did he speak in English?

It's something linguists like to call "divergence".  We use language to indicate social distance from, and proximity to, others.  When we speak like someone, we show variously agreement, respect or even affection.  I find my accent when speaking any foreign language varies depending on who I'm talking to, as I try to match them (particularly if it's someone I fancy).

The Barrach in the "joke" isn't rejecting Gaelic, then, but is indicating that he doesn't associate himself with the three foreigners.

What we have here is the core paradox of the current Gaelic revival.  While everyone says that the goal is for Gaelic to be considered normal in all contexts, the act of attempting to achieve this is actually making Gaelic into a far more self-conscious choice.  Gaelic is at risk of developing a sort of "personality" based on the feelings of the loudest advocates of the language, and therefore people who do not identify with this personality will therefore find themselves subconsciously pushing away from the language.

Well, I say "at risk", but I actually think that this is already the case in many parts of Scotland.  While not a statistically significant portion of the population, there is a reasonable number of native Gaels in Edinburgh.  Yet when there is a Gaelic-related event put on, it's often mostly the learners that turn up.  The natives will happily sit and talk to each other in their own language, but Gaelic in a public setting seems to be overly politicised for most to identify with.  (The association of Gaelic with nationalism has no real basis in fact - Gaelic is a language and is spoken by people of every political allegiance.)

The problem is that the domain of the well-meaning learner is stretching further and encroaching into the few remaining Gaelic heartlands.  Adult learners are gaining ever-increasing air-time on television and radio, as well as positions at all levels of Gaelic education.  Even several prominant members of the Scottish Government's Gaelic language agency are adult learners.  People are even being encouraged to learn Gaelic in order to teach in Gaelic medium schools, despite it being self-evident that the education available is insufficient to bring anyone close to a near-native model.

It is now often said that Gaelic's future is in the hands of the learners.  This is true, but it does not mean what it is supposed to mean.  We as learners cannot save Gaelic, but we do have the power to kill it within a generation.

If we want Gaelic to continue, then we must be humble.  We must accept that:

1. we are not "Gaelic speakers", and we never will be;
2. the books we study do not, in fact, contain "correct" Gaelic, but someone else's guess about what Gaelic is - the natives are the only real model worth following;
3. Gaelic is not "ours" or "our heritage" - it belongs to the Gaels;
4. and the most difficult of all: we shouldn't put ourselves forward as representatives of the language, either in a professional or amateur capacity.

In fact, I think it would be far more healthy if no-one even defined themselves as a "Gaelic learner", but instead as a "language learner".  Gaelic is a language, just like any other.  Learning another language or two will not only help you see this, but it will also actually improve your Gaelic.