Geoff Nunberg to ADS-L on May 15, about my list of blogs and resources:
Subject: Re: Query on Language Columns in Media
Just to comment on Arnold’s point and on the impressive list he’s assembled, I think the shape of discourse about language has really changed in the last few years, as the space that has opened up between what were formerly distinct public and private spheres has filled with a range of new voices. LanguageLog is probably the most pointed example. Its audience isn’t nearly on the scale of the NYTimes or NPR, but in certain ways it — and in particular Mark Liberman — can exert more influence on public discourse than either of them, for example in countering the million-word march, the Obama pronoun hokum and the gals-just-talk-more flim-flam, as searches readily show. I’ll grant you those canards haven’t exactly been driven into the sea. But it’s so much easier for linguists to diffuse their views both within informed opinon and to the media than it was even fifteen years ago, when linguists would have had no recourse but sit by the phone hoping the press would call for comments or publish books that with a few exceptions wouldn’t have gotten much of a readership, and that in any case wouldn’t have appeared until years after the fact.
That said, Arnold, I assume you’re going to put this list somewhere where it won’t scroll out of sight as you post new things!
Well, I’ve added a link from my website and from the top page of this blog. With notes that the list is constantly being updated (most recently, this morning). Beyond that, I don’t know what I can do.
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