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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Mutual intelligibility (again)
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References: <01bbeec7$1dddd340$af8faec7@festus.inhouse.compuserve.com> <5bdu2c$2nh@netsrv2.spss.com> <E3yy6M.KCu@midway.uchicago.edu> <5bej6r$56b@netsrv2.spss.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 01:01:07 GMT
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In article <5bej6r$56b@netsrv2.spss.com>,
Mark Rosenfelder <markrose@spss.com> wrote:
>In article <E3yy6M.KCu@midway.uchicago.edu>,
>Daniel von Brighoff <deb5@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>>I wrote:
>>>>I repeat my challenge:  Can anyone out there provide me with a
>>>>reasonable, unambiguous, objective standard of "mutual intelligibility"?
>>>>As far as I can tell, the standard generally used is "Two [speech
>>>>varieities] are mutually intelligible if speakers of one or the other say
>>>>they are."  Real scientific, that.
>>
>>To which Mark Rosenfelder responded [in part]:
>>>Of course, any discussion of "mutual intelligibility" will soon derail
>>			         ^^^^^^
>>>if one assumes that it has to be binary, or mutual, or transitive, or
>>	  				       ^^^^^^
>>>universal within the speech community, or independent of factors such as 
>>>subject matter and degree of interaction with other speech communities.  
>>
>>I can only conclude that, despite appearances to the contrary, the two of
>>us are not speaking mutually intelligible dialects.  I would have thought
>>that "mutual intelligibility" was mutual by definition, since there are
>>other types of intelligibility that are not mutual.  
>
>Well, you yourself provided an "unscientific" definition of "mutual
>intelligibility" that doesn't require mutuality... it spoke of one *or*
>the other set of speakers claiming to understand the other.

Exactly.  As far as I can tell, the most general definition of "mutual
intelligibility" is false _prima facie_.  Thus my confusion and my
challenge.

>I'm sorry my statement eluded you; what I meant was that any attempt to 
>use "mutual intelligibility" to distinguish languages and dialects must 
>deal with the facts that intelligibility is a continuum rather than a 
>binary property; that one group may understand the other but not vice versa; 
>that group A may understand group B which understands group C which however 
>doesn't understand group A, and so on.

Right.  I'm still waiting for someone to do this.  See, my basic problem
is that people constantly speak of two speech varieties being "mutually
intelligible" as if this actually *means* something (in the same way that,
e.g. "English is a West Germanic dialect" means something).  I think you
put your finger on it when you said (in your previous post) that any
attempt to define the term without taking into account a host of variables
(transitivity, context, nature of the subject matter, etc.) is doomed.

In other words, it's not enough to say "Varieties X and Y are mutually
intelligible".  Only statements like "Varieties X and Y are fully mutually
intelligible for everyday conversational purposes, but differ greatly in
written form and religious vocabulary" are useful.  This still leaves a
lot unsaid or underspecified (What's an "everyday purpose"?  Does this
include all conversational registers or only the most common ones?  etc.)
but gives me considerably more practical information ("I can use X to talk
to Y-speakers on the street, but I shouldn't necessarily expect that I'll
be able to read anything or talk about religious matters without some
trouble") than any judgement call with roots in a basic either-or fallacy.

-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
