Date:  Wed, 6 Dec 1995 15:25:23 -0800

From:  Mary Bucholtz <bucholtz[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU>

Subject: Re: Vocabulary size of historians



Rudy,



I agree that abstract thought and vocabulary are independent of each

other. I want to disjoin the two even further, however, and I

remain doubtful that vocabulary size can be predicted, even in

some partial way, on the basis of one's discipline. There is an intuitive

appeal to the idea, but because this topic brushes up against all kinds

of touchy issues like the measurement of intelligence--which was in fact

the origin of the thread--I'd want to see data before accepting

the suggestion that historians on the whole have a larger vocabulary than

syntacticians as a whole. For one thing, surely reading *deeply,* in a

very technical field, can enrich one's vocabulary just as much as reading

widely. (But that idea too would have to be tested.)



Mary Bucholtz

Department of Linguistics

University of California, Berkeley