Michelle Sheehan

Michelle Sheehan is a Professor of Linguistics at Newcastle University. She is interested in the structure of language (syntactic theory, hence the trees), how languages vary and how we can model this variation (typology, comparative syntax),  how structure and meaning interact (syntax/semantics interface) and how linguistics fits into the discipline of modern languages (pedagogical linguistics). She has a particular interest in languages descended from Latin (Romance languages), especially Spanish and Portuguese varieties but is also interested in language in general and have worked on many different languages, often in collaboration with other scholars.

Interview

OASIS: Thanks for sitting down with us. What advice would you give linguists presenting their work to philosophers?

MS: I'm answering this question from the perspective of a linguist who spent a year in a philosophy department (Durham) as the only linguist. This was very formative for me, as it's really good to present to people who have different assumptions, and defend our basic assumptions inherited through education and supervision. That's not something we have to do (usually) when we present to each other within the discipline.

One thing about philosophers is that they're so good at arguing and they're focused on the structure of an argument: Is this coherent? Why do people assume that? What if we assume something else? is it really true that all languages are like that? Linguists are often a little less focused on the implications of arguments and more interested in data. Being around philosophers helped me become more balanced in this respect, I think. 

I first felt a little affronted! But after a while, I felt this kind of constant questioning was really useful, made me stronger as a scholar, and actually made me think of a lot of new research questions.

If you're a linguist talking to philosophers, be prepared to be questioned a lot and be on your toes to defend your assumptions and your framework, as well as your data and your specific arguments - and of these, being able to defend the framework is probably the most important

Another thing is: think about how best to present your data. We can often become obsessed with small contrasts, but ultimately we have to connect to bigger questions which are more interesting (or tangible) to philosophers. 

I also think it’s important not to simplify the data, though. Languages are complex! Depending on their background, philosophers may have a reluctance to accept the extreme complexity of grammar and meaning cross-linguistically, but we do have to stick to our guns and push back on simplifications.

‍OASIS: Tell us about an interdisciplinary event that you enjoyed because of its structure.

MS: When I was at Durham, we organized a really big conference called "The past and future of universal grammar." We invited people from really diverse fields - not just generative grammar but also construction grammar, sociolinguistics, computational linguists, historical linguistics, even archaeologists, and obviously philosophers as well. This was the first time I saw people really having heated academic arguments—a bit disturbing as a polite English person—there were some tense moments where people were actually shouting at each other!

But the reason I enjoyed it is because it really clarified for me the reason why it's worth having such meetings. It's just not possible to read everything - if you're in construction grammar, and you want to critique generative grammar, you will read maybe Chomsky, but can’t possibly read that widely so you end up with a skewed vision of what generative grammar is about. And the same is true in the opposite direction of course: construction grammar isn't one monolithic thing’ it’s a huge group endeavour. The only way to really engage across frameworks is to get people in a room and make them listen to each other. 

This event made me think about teaching as well. In classes I might set students one paper on a large topic to read, e.g., here's a paper on signed languages—and they really find it hard. It made me realize how important it is to write those papers, like handbook articles, to reach out. I think they're really valuable. Even writing for the public, to distill things and make them digestible. Some people do that really well. Collaboration is also clearly an important part of this. 

‍OASIS: How did you get into linguistics?

MS: I did my degree in modern languages because I love learning languages. And I was a little dismayed when I got to university and found all the courses were literary analysis rather than language. So I tried to seek out whatever wasn't literature, so that was linguistics. I loved it because it answered the why questions I had, for instance, why people in the real world had different pronunciations from what we were taught. This kind of thing may seem a little trivial now, but as a kid you ask your teacher, and they don't know the answer. And in fact they don't even know that anyone knows the answer!

‍OASIS: Wow, that's really striking. 

MS: Yeah, there's really a lack of linguistics in other industries that work with languages, including language teaching. We started a program to address this, where we work with schoolteachers and develop materials to help them understand and teach linguistics, and be prepared to answer questions from their students. So that's quite a big part of what I'm doing right now.

Young people have so many questions; they need to know that there are answers to those questions. We've really failed to convey the major findings of our discipline to everyone else— other academic fields but also language teachers, exam boards, government agencies—for example, people simply not understanding non-standard dialects are not indicatove of a language deficit. We need to do better because people are really excited about linguistics when they hear about it. So I hope it's changing now and linguists are able to reach out a bit more beyond the ivory towers. 

OASIS: Thanks for doing this interview! We're looking forward to your talk at OASIS 4. 

MS: Thanks, I'm looking forward to it too. See you there!

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