Last Updated ：2025/12/04

armchair linguistics

Noun

informal uncountable

(linguistics, informal) Any linguistic enterprise employing introspection rather than empirical methods, such as elicitation.

Japanese Meaning

実証的な調査方法ではなく、内省や思索に基づいて言語現象を分析する言語学の非公式な研究方法。

What is this buttons?

The graduate seminar criticized armchair linguistics for ignoring field data.

Google Translation / DeepL Translation

大学院のゼミは、実地データを無視しているとして、実証的手法ではなく内省に基づく言語学を批判した。

Details

Sense（1）

(linguistics, informal) Any linguistic enterprise employing introspection rather than empirical methods, such as elicitation.

Armchair linguistics does not have a good name in some linguistics circles. A caricature of the armchair linguist is something like this. He sits in a deep soft comfortable armchair, with his eyes closed and his hands clasped behind his head. Once in a while he opens his eyes, sits up abruptly shouting, "Wow, what a neat fact!", grabs his pencil, and writes something down. Then he paces around for a few hours in the excitement of having come still closer to knowing what language is really like.

Google Translation / DeepL Translation