Misused Terms in Linguistics
Evelina Leivada
October 2020 

In 2015, a group of 6 psychologists published in Frontiers in Psychology one of the most widely read articles in the history of the journal: "50 psychological/psychiatric terms to avoid: A list of inaccurate, misleading, misused, ambiguous, and logically confused words and phrases". The purpose of this essay is to discuss 10 terms that are ambiguous, polysemous, or misused in linguistics. The focus is on key notions of the discipline. The overarching aim is to register variation in the way certain terms are used, aiming to increase disciplinary coherence and interdisciplinary visibility. Comments are very welcome. NB. In the second version, responses are offered by Anna Maria Di Sciullo, Juan Uriagereka, Martin Haspelmath, Fahad Rashed Al-Mutairi, Kleanthes Grohmann and José-Luis Mendívil-Giró, together with some replies by me.

Format:	[ pdf ]
Reference:	lingbuzz/005185 (please use that when you cite this article)
Published in:	Inference: International Review of Science
keywords:	features, parameters, universal grammar, semantics, syntax
previous versions:	v1 [May 2020]
Downloaded:	1152 times

 

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