TY - JOUR
T1 - Towards establishing what linguists think the general public should know about language: Salient versus important issues in linguistics
AU - Lehecka, Tomás
AU - Östman, Jan-Ola
PY - 2023/3/1
Y1 - 2023/3/1
N2 - In order to develop effective strategies of science communication and public outreach in linguistics, one needs to choose what topics to prioritise in such efforts. We carried out a global online survey study among experts in linguistics (n = 538) asking what they perceive as the most important facts about language that the general public should be aware of. We used two distinct methods to collect the respondents' opinions: open-ended text responses and rating questions. In this paper, we compare the findings from the two tasks and we discuss the differences between them. Thus, the paper constitutes a methodologically-laden commentary on the nature of linguists' opinions on what everyone should know about language. We argue that both open-ended responses and rating questions provide valuable information about linguists' views, but from different perspectives. In particular, we see a need to distinguish between what issues are the most salient to linguists, and what issues are perceived as the most important. The aim of our study is to provide a starting point for a rich and methodologically diverse line of research—and, consequently, for an empirically-based debate—on the public relevance of language-related knowledge and the role of linguists as science communicators in disseminating that knowledge.
AB - In order to develop effective strategies of science communication and public outreach in linguistics, one needs to choose what topics to prioritise in such efforts. We carried out a global online survey study among experts in linguistics (n = 538) asking what they perceive as the most important facts about language that the general public should be aware of. We used two distinct methods to collect the respondents' opinions: open-ended text responses and rating questions. In this paper, we compare the findings from the two tasks and we discuss the differences between them. Thus, the paper constitutes a methodologically-laden commentary on the nature of linguists' opinions on what everyone should know about language. We argue that both open-ended responses and rating questions provide valuable information about linguists' views, but from different perspectives. In particular, we see a need to distinguish between what issues are the most salient to linguists, and what issues are perceived as the most important. The aim of our study is to provide a starting point for a rich and methodologically diverse line of research—and, consequently, for an empirically-based debate—on the public relevance of language-related knowledge and the role of linguists as science communicators in disseminating that knowledge.
UR - https://doi.org/10.1111/lnc3.12482
U2 - 10.1111/lnc3.12482
DO - 10.1111/lnc3.12482
M3 - Article
SN - 1749-818X
VL - 17
JO - Language and Linguistics Compass
JF - Language and Linguistics Compass
IS - 2
M1 - e12482
ER -