Reflecting on the quantitative turn in linguistics
Reflecting on the quantitative turn in linguistics
复制标题
对语言学数量转向的反思
DOI：
10.1515/ling-2019-0046
复制
发表时间：
2021
期刊：
影响因子：
1.1
通讯作者：
B. Kortmann
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
B. Kortmann
摘要语言学，特别是英语语言学，自20世纪90年代和21世纪初以来，经历了一个显着的量化转向。这是一个在规模和质量上的转变，一个关于定量实证研究、统计技术和统计模型被使用并决定语言学研究的程度（包括复杂程度）的转变。语料库语言学和概率语言学（包括基于使用的方法）在这一发展中发挥了什么作用？这种转向是否损害了定性方法，甚至损害了一般的语言学理论？语言学是否已经到了“数量危机”的地步，或者它仍然是一门以数量和质量方法的健康平衡（如果不是相互加强的话）为特征的学科？对（英语）语言学出版体系的强烈量化转向的主要影响是什么？这些都是本意见书中提出的思考所依据的主要总体问题。
Abstract Linguistics, English linguistics in particular, has witnessed a remarkable quantitative turn since the 1990s and the early 2000s. It was a turn both in scale and in quality, a turn concerning the degree (including the degree of sophistication) to which quantitative empirical studies, statistical techniques, and statistical modelling have come to be used and determine linguistic research. Which role have corpus linguistics and probabilistic linguistics, including usage-based approaches, played in this development? Has this turn been to the detriment of qualitative methods, or even of linguistic theorizing in general? Has linguistics reached the point of a “quantitative crisis”, or is it still a discipline characterized by a healthy equilibrium, if not mutual reinforcement, of quantitative and qualitative approaches? What are, or should be, major repercussions of the strong quantitative turn for the publication system of (English) linguistics? These are the major overarching questions underlying the reflections offered in this opinion paper.