From Comparative Languistics to Comparative (Bio)linguistics: Reflections on Variation

Abstract

In some sense I feel that much (but obviously not all) of current linguistic work displays a relapse to the spirit prevailing in pre-Chomskyan times. Linguistics is about describing language data. Period. Beyond this there is no deeper epistemological goal. Of course, those who became linguists because they like to play around with language data could not care less, because they can pursue their interests under any development of the field, nowadays possibly with less pressure and stress. Personally I felt that much of what I was offered to read in recent years was intolerably boring and that the field of linguistics was becoming increasingly uninteresting and trivialized”. (Felix 2010: 71, emphasis added)