Masoud @linguistMasoud Twitter profile

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Masoud

2 years

In the past two years I have been slowly removing deadlines in my undergrad teaching and allowing students to have multiple attempts for an assignment. The results have been positive so far so I'm sharing the idea here. Two things have been bothering me in teaching: 1. we know

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

I’m quite used to the cruelty students can face when they apply for a US visa but this one broke me. We offered admission to a stellar, talented & hardworking student. After months of work and hundreds of dollars, an embassy officer saw him for 5 mins & said no. why? …

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

Short answer: no real reason. But before I explain, let me briefly talk about what this student went through for more than a year to hear a 5 minute “no”. Forget about all the work of preparing an outstanding application that received unanimous praise from the members of the

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

Moreover, if the US really wants students to go back to their countries after graduation, then why does the law also have paths to jobs and residency like OPT after graduation? Does the US want good talent to stay in the US or not?! Can the government make up its mind?

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

basically the 214b clause is a blank check for an officer to use if they want to reject anyone. There does not need to be any legitimate reason for it. Just that the officer was not getting the right vibes for whatever reason!

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

admissions committee. Forget about all the filling forms and interviewing and emailing etc. He had to pay for admissions fees, standardized tests, visa application fee, flight ticket to another country to attend the 5 minute visa interview (no US

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

embassy in Iran) plus accommodation for the trip etc. This is easily a few thousand dollars. Do you know what the monthly salary of a high paying job in Iran is? $200-300!! Students don’t have this type of money to throw away for a 5 minute “no”. And the reason for this “no”?

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

He was told that he did not “prove” he will go back to his country after his education is done (section 214b). Now you might say how does one even prove that? The state department says you need to show connections to your home country like having family members or a job or …

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

property. Students typically don’t have the last two so it comes down to family members. In the case of this student, all his family members are in his home country. There is no other way for him to “prove” he is going back. And of course none of this is really proof.

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

And of course it is no secret that this “go back to your country” rejection is not for all students and countries. Students from particular countries/ethnicities or poorer, less fancy countries hear it more. And ok that’s fine maybe the US wants to have less students from

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

particular countries or ethnicities or whatever but why be so cruel about it?! Why let a student spend a year and hundreds of dollars and let us offer them admission and plan on their joining to ultimately just say “no” to them at the embassy for bullshit reasons?

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

student here but I know that this is happening to hundreds of students applying to US embassies. And it is so cruel. I have never felt this frustrated and demoralized. And the sad part is that no one who cares can do anything and those that can do anything simply don’t care.

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

Their time and money is everything to them. They are trying to build their future with the little they have and they could have spent that time and money applying to other great institutions in many other countries that will be happy to have them. I mentioned the case of my

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

PS: description of an ex-diplomat on what’s happening on the other side

A-100 gecs

@PinstripeBungle

11 months

when I was a visa officer I was uncomfortable with the arbitrary & vindictive attitudes some of my colleagues would show, but now that I'm out and people share stories with me...man, what the hell is going on out there. refusing fully funded PhDs to Johns Hopkins?

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

@itsteki Nope not uncommon. And very sad. It’s a young person’s plan for life being ruined

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

@S_Singh24 It’s a lot of unchecked power. Recipe for abuse and disaster

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

Linguists: Knowing multiple languages is not even my job … and it is NOT translation which is a common misconception.

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

It's becoming clearer to me that a major barrier to diversity/inclusion at grad level is the application fee. makes no sense to charge ~$150 it. As long as universities insist on collecting these fees, them saying they care about diversity/inclusion rings a bit hollow to me

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

@tdietterich Sure many do. And many don’t. The issue is that it is all in the hands of an officer, who can decide with no logic to deny your case after all the time, effort, and money you have put into it, and you can’t do anything about it

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 months

- I'm a linguist. + oh do you know about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? - mmm .... never heard of it ... I can tell you how many languages I speak tho

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

If you were in charge of linguistics what would you do/change? Me: hire a good PR team! Linguistics has bad PR. It’s 2022 and the world still thinks we learn languages or correct grammar mistakes

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

@neilalexanderw1 @avzaagzonunaada Yeah I know a lot of friends from Western countries who have been subjected to the cruelty of this system too

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

that making mistakes is essential to learning but we typically don't allow that. Typically, students submit an assignment once and are punished if they make mistakes (i.e. grade points are deducted). Ideally we want to allow them to make a lot of mistakes but learn from them.

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

6 months

I was reading a syntax book in a cafe, left it on the table to go to the bathroom, came back & saw a woman has picked it up and is reading. Thought she’ll stop soon so I waited around but to my surprise she kept reading for maybe 10 or 15 mins. When she put the book down …

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

6 months

Sitting in a cafe I heard two students in the line behind me discuss their courses. One said she had taken intro linguistics. then I heard my name followed by: “for the final project he made us create a whole language … like for an intro class … who’d do that?” 💀😅

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

2. different people learn different content with different speed. But we typically don't allow them to take their time. We enforce a uniform schedule with fixed deadlines per content. So I have been thinking how I can address these issues and here is what I have so far:

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

6 months

I went to pick it up and asked her about it and she was like: oh that’s your book? It was very interesting I didn’t know people study language like that! So my new proposal for advertising linguistics is leaving books on cafe tables

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 months

Annual reminder that it is absolutely bananas that students go through 12 years of school education on language with 0 minutes of any instruction on the science of it: aka linguistics

Peter Sokolowski

@PeterSokolowski

2 months

It's surprising that this simple observation has attracted so much attention. The premise of the criticism is that "the dictionary has changed the rules of English," which is wrong, following on "you can't end a sentence with a preposition," which is also wrong. 🧵

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 months

I am a linguist and I want to emphasize that philosophy has been and will be absolutely essential for progress in linguistics. My own field of semantics and pragmatics is deeply indebted to contributions from philosophers. I'd say the same for cognitive science. Unfortunately...

Joyce Carol Oates

@JoyceCarolOates

2 months

why study philosophy at all? once the "queen of the sciences" it has been, not surpassed, but rendered irrelevant by more specialized fields of inquiry (linguistics, neuroscience, etc.). however, to not have read Plato, Aristotle, the pre-Socratics, Lucretius, is a disadvantage

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

4 years

Very excited to start the new academic year as assistant prof @ucdavis linguistics! 10 years ago I left my home in Iran and started a journey to become a linguist and cognitive scientist. I have been extremely lucky to have found mentors and friends who selflessly offered me ...

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

11 months

kinda absurd that students go through years of language/literature education in K-12 schools with almost 0 years of linguistics. It’s like teaching about living things but not have biology as a topic. If “language” is important for K-12, so is linguistics as its science

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

@Queen_Naykah So sorry to hear this. It is really devastating. Have been hearing the same from so many Nigerian students here

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

3 years

The "Syntax Must-Reads" list is here! Compiled from all your suggestions, ordered chronologically, with online links to the papers if available. Feel free to share or suggest edits. I'll keep it updated and public. Thanks for all your generous help

Syntax Must-Reads

Papers & Books Authors,Year,Title,Medium,Publication,Link Chomsky,1956,Three Models for the Description of Language,Journal,IRE Transactions on Information Theory ,https://chomsky.info/wp-content/u...

docs.google.com

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

People in the industry hiring linguists and computational linguists! What kinds of skills (other than coding) do you want linguistics graduates to have for the jobs you are offering? What can we teach or emphasize in our classes that could also benefit them in their future jobs?

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 months

When your study finds no evidence for your favorite hypothesis and it's time to let it go

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

30 days

I've always thought linguistics counts as humanities but it seems not? Is it generally accepted that linguistics is a social science? Do people agree with the Wikipedia classification here?

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

@OlumideAgbosasa I have heard similar stories from Nigerian students. It is really sad

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

as they want until they are happy with their grade. This way we also shift our focus from grading and how much should be deducted for some mistake to designing challenging questions that really probe student knowledge. And having challenging and hard questions is no longer that

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

@BoooWhoooHooo These students are fully funded. They are even paying the embassy and when in the US pay taxes, meaning American people. Btw taxation that is without representation because they can’t vote

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

With the help of my wonderful TAs we made question banks for my courses that have questions for each topic/week. Each weekly assignment is a random selection of questions from the ones created for that week/topic. Students can do the assignment several times and their

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

6 months

@Dcollier74 used to believe this so kept working on my time management but I noticed it didn’t help. The issue is not *just* time management, it is also the fact that academic work does not have a natural limit. it can fill your schedule no matter what you do so you need to actively limit it

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

students can easily manage their own time well and I think that is also a good skill to practice. In case you are curious about the details here is an example syllabus for one of these courses: Would love to also know your thoughts/comments!

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

@narawind Don’t get me started on that. But in fairness some universities do. I have managed to get some waivers with lots of emails and explaining the circumstances. But some universities don’t give waivers even then

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

6 months

PS: the syntax book was Syntactic Process by Mark Steedman

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

a better grade and those who don't care or don't like the content just stop at a grade they are happy with. I have also noticed that I don't have students complain about the grade anymore. If they want a better grade they know they can redo the assignment! One down side of

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

highest score will be recorded. Majority of questions are automatically graded (Canvas allows for easy implementation of that) but sometimes we go for manual grading of some questions. If the question bank is large enough, students can in principle do the assignment as many times

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

@fernfleur7 @tdietterich No appeal. He can reapply, meaning more time and money spent. It can be rejected again.

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

1 month

I'm not a prescriptivist but English really needs to get over the "pants/shorts/scissors/glasses... are pairs" vibe. They clearly are NOT. Either practically or conceptually and insisting they are is making everyone's life harder

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

We are so grateful for your kind messages of support and care. Many of you reached out and suggested we follow this up with senators @SenFeinstein & @AlexPadilla4CA and representative @Mike_CA05 or officials at @StateDept . I have talked to other professors who have had students

Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

I’m quite used to the cruelty students can face when they apply for a US visa but this one broke me. We offered admission to a stellar, talented & hardworking student. After months of work and hundreds of dollars, an embassy officer saw him for 5 mins & said no. why? …

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

worried that we might have grade inflation because students redo the assignments until they all get As. But not only that has not happened, as far as I can see we are having better grade distribution. Students who care about the content or the grade work harder until they get

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

10 months

Name tags at linguistics conferences should be in IPA. What are we doing

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

Potentially controversial opinion: all linguistics departments should offer formal language theory with focus on its application to natural language. It’s one of the deepest discoveries of ling research but for some unknown reason we decided to leave it to computer science

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

much of an issue. Because students can do the assignment again! Course evaluations at my institution have a question regarding fairness of grading and I have noticed that courses with this approach are receiving really high scores for this question. More interestingly, I was

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

8 months

Not far from the truth

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

I have been in linguistics for more than a decade now and I still don’t get the theoretical wars. Like I get them, but then I read the actual papers by the sides and they seem much more compatible and similar than the debate suggests

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 months

- I'm a linguist. + oh do you know about the bouba/kiki effect? - mmm .... never heard of it ... I can tell you about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis tho

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

8 months

Controversial opinion: 50% of disagreements in theoretical linguistics are not really disagreements. It’s people being interested in different aspects of language. Their views are actually compatible. 30% is misunderstandings and would be resolved if notation/theory is clarified

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

PS: the core ideas described here are mainly influenced by discussions of learning in developmental psych. I’ve also been influenced by Carol Dweck’s teachings and Stanislas Dehaene’s recent book “how we learn”. Highly recommended

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

3 months

my most controversial linguistics opinion: asking a linguist how many languages they speak is actually a fair question. we just don't like it because it reminds us that we have failed to be Ken Hales

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

11 months

For my intro linguistics final project students constructed their own languages (conlangs)! We had about 50 poster presentations. Let me show a few, starting with Topaz. This is a language spoken by sea dwellers of Bluetopia, with two major dialects of Azure & Lapiz Lazuli …

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

6 months

The history & philosophy of a field must be taught and required for grad and possibly undergrad students. So much of scientific progress depends on good knowledge of the events that led the field to where it is + the understanding of the philosophy that shows where to go next

Scientists Who Lift

@ScientistsLift

6 months

What unpopular academia opinion would get you in this situation?

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

flexibility has allowed them to catch up on materials they had missed or not understood for whatever reason. I also receive almost no requests for deadline extension and students don't have to tell me what the reason is for not being able to submit an assignment some week.

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

having question banks is that it may rely too much on the type of questions that can be automatically graded. So we complement that with two assignments that are manually graded and receive comments. Finally, this approach has allowed us to remove deadlines. Students can do

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

most assignments whenever they want as long as it is before the end of the quarter. Only the manually graded assignment and the final (which can also be done multiple times) have strict deadlines. Students really like this flexibility and many of them have told me that the

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

6 months

I find it crazy that we tout “preparing students for jobs” as a major goal of universities and the education system, yet there isn’t even a course where students learn about the range of jobs out there, their requirements, and what they need to do to prepare for them

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

3 years

Dear syntacticians! What are 3 syntax papers (theoretical or experimental) that you’d say have been extremely influential in the field and any graduate student in linguistics must read?

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

21 days

Update: my student applied through another embassy (more time, energy, & money) and this time the officer sent the application for "administrative processing". It's been now 6 months and we have had to postpone enrollment twice with my student being in complete limbo not knowing

Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

I’m quite used to the cruelty students can face when they apply for a US visa but this one broke me. We offered admission to a stellar, talented & hardworking student. After months of work and hundreds of dollars, an embassy officer saw him for 5 mins & said no. why? …

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

I am going to teach "foundations of linguistics" this coming fall and I'd love to know what topics or readings do you consider foundational? My goal is to introduce students to diverse approaches and methods in the field and let them appreciate to contribution of each. Also ...

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

3 years

Dear semanticists! What are 3 semantics papers (theoretical or experimental) that you’d say have been extremely influential in the field and any graduate student in linguistics must read?

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

3 years

Dear linguists! What topic or issue do you think should be discussed in “intro linguistics” courses that is often not? I’m going to be teaching one soon and could use your help. (Relatedly: what is one thing you really want any graduate of an intro ling course to understand?)

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

If they are unable to do the work some week for whatever reason (sickness, being busy with other work, just not feeling like it) they can catch up the week after. I was also worried about work piling up near the end of the quarter but that has not been an issue either. Seems like

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 months

Pretty cool some people should study stuff like this

Prof Janina Ramirez

@DrJaninaRamirez

2 months

I can’t stop thinking about this…

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

1 year

Ok I think it is time to share my "foundations of linguistics" syllabus with you here. It took me a long time to work out the details. I wanted the course to also be a light introduction to philosophy of science in linguistics. As a graduate student ...

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

@drqinzhu Thanks so much for caring about this. Unfortunately he cannot apply for a J-1 given that he is going to be enrolled as a student. He needs to apply for F-1 to be considered I think

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

We are so grateful for your kind messages of support and care. Many of you reached out and suggested we follow this up with senators @SenFeinstein & @AlexPadilla4CA and representative @Mike_CA05 or officials at @StateDept . I have talked to other professors who have had students

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

4 months

It was a lot more than that. I'm fascinated by the events of this period in linguistics and adjacent fields so I'm gonna say a few things hoping others with more knowledge will chime in: imho Chomsky has always been more of a philosopher than a linguist or scientist. His major

Greg Coppola

@gregcoppola5d

4 months

Noam Chomsky's 1957 SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES was called a "Copernican Revolution" in Linguistics, because it showed how Computer Science could be used to study Human Language

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

A 22 year old woman named #Mahsa_Amini has been beaten to death by the Iranian “morality police”. As I’m writing this many have been beaten and some have died in the protests that broke out after. You might ask what the hell is a morality police and why is this happening? …

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

10 months

Linguistics would benefit from more solid descriptive and typological work. Maybe devoting more resources, journals, conferences, etc to description and typology. I sometimes think we have had too much emphasis on theory

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

@dfallik @S_Singh24 doubt they allow this data to be public or accessible. I’d be surprised if there is no pattern tho. I really hope some journalists look into this

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

Not really into this model of 12 years of school education leaving students with all sort of misrepresentation and misinformation about language and then expect an intro linguistics course to address it. Have we tried NOT doing that?

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

7 months

Dear linguists, lawyers, & legal scholars! For my intro semantics/pragmatics course I want to ask students to look at court cases where a linguist could weigh in re the interpretation of the law and write up an argument (amicus brief style). Could you point me to some examples?

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

10 months

I’m getting more and more convinced that current grading system and expectations are deeply hurting student learning. We have reached a point that a B is an unacceptable grade. Students want to be told exactly what to do to get an A and they understandably do not like any level

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

29 days

So to summarize, linguistics is everything and nothing at the same time

Masoud

@linguistMasoud

30 days

I've always thought linguistics counts as humanities but it seems not? Is it generally accepted that linguistics is a social science? Do people agree with the Wikipedia classification here?

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

before anyone says "but there are waivers": waivers are just a bunch of more obscure hoops to jump through, designed for people who need less hoops!

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

5 years

This should help my semantics students know their type

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

@zelepukiny Sorry to hear that Ivan. I’ve heard some of the difficulties Russian students face as well. Including the 1 year single entry visas to be renewed every year. Cruel

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

3 months

It's hard to overstate the disservice that school education does by brainwashing people into thinking their everyday language is defective and falls short of an imaginary snobbish standard

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

10 months

It is imperative that we bring the “me thinks” construction back to English, me thinks.

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

9 months

@BustingFree Katherine that is so kind. We are doing our best to help with his costs. But we need such a campaign for brilliant international students who have financial disadvantage more generally

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

4 months

The Supreme Court will hear an immigration case that partly hinges on the interpretation of "not"+"or". Consider: "You may be forgiven, if you did not do A or B" Does this mean u can be forgiven: 1. only if u did neither A nor B? or 2. if u either didn't do A or didn't do B?🧵

New York University

@nyuniversity

4 months

On Jan. 8, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on an immigration case that could be decided based on interpretations of the words "not" and "or." Lawyers called on an NYU linguist to analyze the semantics of a statute on deportation hearings:

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

4 months

I think the terms "loanword" & "borrowing" has created a misunderstanding that languages owe each other something or the "borrowed" word does not really belong to the 2nd language when in reality languages "recreate" a roughly similar sounding word/construction within themselves

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

7 years

Learn how to speak fluent Farsi (Persian) in a few minutes using this flow chart.

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

4 months

I actually think there is a place for prescriptivism in linguistics. The issue is that almost all linguistic prescriptions are based on vibes or icks or more problematic stuff rather than any proper research showing the consequences of different types of language use

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 years

Many Iranian universities are refusing or delaying official transcripts for students. Probably to make students miss admissions deadlines for international universities and colleges. Accepting unofficial transcripts at first and later asking for the official ones would help a lot

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

3 months

what interdisciplinary research feels like

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

11 months

Ok but do we really need all those bibliography styles? Like do we reaaaally care if the year is in () or at the end vs. beginning. Isn’t life too short for this?

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

7 months

Beginning of the year instructors

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 months

AFAIK, this conversation has major inaccuracies regarding Chomsky's positions and the debate on the evolution of language. I'll start with what I found most inaccurate: the claim that "Chomsky is not a fan of evolution by natural selection" or is "anti-darwinist" ...

Richard Dawkins

@RichardDawkins

2 months

Daniel Dennett refutes Noam Chomsky's rhetorical question with one example. The full episode is here:

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

4 years

In the 2013 linguistics summer institute, my friend Chris Geissler asked Noam Chomsky: "given all the misery in our world; all of the social, economic, and other problems, how do we justify pursuing something so comparatively esoteric?" Recent events reminded me of Noam's answer.

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Masoud

@linguistMasoud

2 months

This is like saying gym is a scam when we have access to infinite exercise videos. Education is about examining information, practicing, and receiving feedback from experts. It's fundamentally social. It's not a reservoir of videos or text you personally access and you are done

Ashley St. Clair

@stclairashley

2 months

College is a scam for most people— especially when we essentially have access to infinite knowledge now. Should emphasize trade schools and certifications.

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