Time for a sea-change in linguistics: Response to comments on ‘The Myth of Language Universals’ (original) (raw)

This special issue replays many of the quarrels that have bedeviled the discipline over the last fifty years. Most of these disputes are undignified and ill-informed, and do not serve the discipline well (see e.g. . Nevertheless, there is much at stake -in particular the hearts and minds of young scholars whom we hope will advance linguistics. The new generation have excellent instincts for changes in the academic landscape, and they will look for fresh approaches with a clear sense of mission. Discussions of the sort in this special issue are not the place then to make cheap debating points. We all have a sense of a tipping point in the language sciences, and the question is: What is the way forward?