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According to a widespread conception, quantitative linguistics will eventually be able to explain empirical quantitative findings (such as Zipf’s Law) by deriving them from highly general stochastic linguistic ‘laws’ that are assumed to be part of a general theory of human language (cf. Best (1999) for a summary of possible theoretical positions). Due to their formal proximity to methods used in the so-called exact sciences, theoretical explanations of this kind are assumed to be superior to the supposedly descriptive-only approaches of linguistic structuralism and its successors. In this paper I shall try to argue that on close inspection such claims turn out to be highly problematic, both on linguistic and on science-theoretical grounds.
Sprachkritik, dahinsickernd
(2007)
Three popular collections of essays concerning correct language use in German are reviewed from a linguist’s point of view. It is claimed that the overall picture of language that Sick conveys to the layperson is inadequate; in addition, the author fails to reflect explicitly on the purpose and consequences of his prescriptive approach to language use.