Comments on: What Does Google Search Tell Us About Moral Philosophy/Moral Psychology? http://camelswithhammers.com/2009/11/12/what-does-this-tell-us-about-moral-philosophymoral-psychology/ Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:43:58 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: sendaianonymous http://camelswithhammers.com/2009/11/12/what-does-this-tell-us-about-moral-philosophymoral-psychology/#comment-2358 sendaianonymous Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:17:32 +0000 http://camelswithhammers.com/?p=8201#comment-2358 Hahaha. Actually, the above comment is a good illustration of what I was talking about *facepalm* Hahaha. Actually, the above comment is a good illustration of what I was talking about *facepalm*

]]> By: sendaianonymous http://camelswithhammers.com/2009/11/12/what-does-this-tell-us-about-moral-philosophymoral-psychology/#comment-2357 sendaianonymous Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:16:19 +0000 http://camelswithhammers.com/?p=8201#comment-2357 I think the answer is: sociolinguistics! We are expected to talk about certain things in certain ways, and everybody - some people to a greater, some to a lesser extent - does switch between sociolects from conversation to conversation. We use some sets of words when talking about linguistics at the university, and others when complaining about an annoying co-worker to another co-worker during a lunch break. English speakers are quite used to thinking (that is, unless they are linguists) that there is little, if any, variety in different "Englishes", and that it's a very low-context language -- that is, that is requires very little switching between sociolects, if any at all. But the thing is, the differences do exist and while the degree of switching varies from individual to individual, they are still statistically significant. Even completely banal words, such as, for instance, "big" and "large" have a very different distribution across registers, with "large" being mostly used in written, formal and/or academic language. (This actually has much more to do with what can be big - objects, brothers, and so on -- and what can be large - numbers percentages, and so forth -- but the differences are still there, and sometimes they are indeed connected to meaning, but more often they are not) *takes of linguist!hat* I think the answer is: sociolinguistics!
We are expected to talk about certain things in certain ways, and everybody – some people to a greater, some to a lesser extent – does switch between sociolects from conversation to conversation. We use some sets of words when talking about linguistics at the university, and others when complaining about an annoying co-worker to another co-worker during a lunch break. English speakers are quite used to thinking (that is, unless they are linguists) that there is little, if any, variety in different “Englishes”, and that it’s a very low-context language — that is, that is requires very little switching between sociolects, if any at all.
But the thing is, the differences do exist and while the degree of switching varies from individual to individual, they are still statistically significant. Even completely banal words, such as, for instance, “big” and “large” have a very different distribution across registers, with “large” being mostly used in written, formal and/or academic language.
(This actually has much more to do with what can be big – objects, brothers, and so on — and what can be large – numbers percentages, and so forth — but the differences are still there, and sometimes they are indeed connected to meaning, but more often they are not)

*takes of linguist!hat*

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