Myths

Is the belief that "people are either left-brained or right brained" a myth or simply a mistake? What about other beliefs such as "matching teaching to learning styles is beneficial"? What about "women talk too much"? Roy Harris (2010) writes

"...the first point that needs to be made is that the belief that women talk too much is no more a myth about language than the belief that women spend too much on clothes is a myth about economics. Similarly, to take another example from Bauer and Trudgill, the belief that it is incorrect to say ‘It’s me’ isn’t a language myth, but simple ignorance of English usage."

Talking about language myths in general, Harris (2010) says they

"are not just common cases of ignorance or stupidity by language-users".

He goes on that myths have an internal logic which claim to offer some eternal/necessary truth:

"This is why language myths come to be incorporated into systems of epistemology, and feature in such diverse philosophical doctrines as those of Locke, Frege and Confucius."

What kinds of internal logic can we detect in the widespread claims reported as myths?

Harris (2010) claims that the language myth (or semantic invariance myth, see later) arose because of literacy - writing requires one versed in it to accept beliefs about spoken language one would not have thought about otherwise.

There are findings that the more brain pictures such as fMRI images included in popular writing about neuroscience the more sciencey and so the more valid it is percieved to be by a (lay)reader.

Can we draw a parallel between language myths and writing with brain myths and brain images? Does looking at brain pictures promote beliefs about the brain we would not have thought about otherwise?

Philip Kerr (2021) characterises myths as confirmation biases (i.e. mistaken beliefs).

So what is an example of a real myth? Arguably, a real myth is that of semantic invariance which is promoted by course book driven English language teaching (ELT). This version of ELT accepts that a language can be separated into parts to be sequenced appropriately and learned accordingly.

The semantic invariance myth has two aspects writes Harris (2010):

"One is that the primary function of language is the conveyance of thoughts from one human mind to another. The other is that this process is made possible – and is possible only – through the social establishment of public codes of verbal signs shared in common by all members of a given community."

Harris (2010) claims

"there is no non-circular evidence in support of either"

of the above two myths, also called the telementation fallacy and the fixed-code fallacy.

Harris notes that for people who

"prefer to regard them as unquestionable truths about human communication, there will be little anyone else can do to convince you otherwise, or to induce you to think, as I do,"

Similarly I agree with Kerr (2021) that justifying the relevance of neuroscience to ELT as myth-busting may well be missing the point.

References

Harris, R. (2010). Language Myths, East and West. Integrationist Notes and Papers. No.26. Retrieved 25 October 2021.

Kerr, P. (2021, October 24). What has neuroscience ever done for us (in ELT)?