About this video
A linguist observes that people can judge whether a sentence in their dialect is grammatical, yet few can state the rules involved. The question asks which answer choice best illustrates that principle. The video explains that the right choice shows people recognising a category with skill while being unable to articulate its defining rules, the same pattern as recognising a waltz.
You'll be able to
- identify the principle behind a short argument
- match an example to the principle by checking the same underlying pattern
- explain why an answer that reverses the pattern or changes the task is wrong
Key words
- Principle
- The general pattern an argument relies on, which a correct example must share.
- Grammaticality
- Whether a sequence of words is acceptable in a language or dialect.
- Dialect
- A regional or social variety of a language with its own grammatical patterns.
- Defining characteristics
- The features that make something belong to a category, such as the features of a waltz.
- Tacit knowledge
- Knowledge you use reliably without being able to explain it in words.
Transcript
- [Narrator] The linguist says, "Most people can tell whether a sequence of words "in their own dialect is grammatical." "Yet few people who can do so are able to specify "the relevant grammatical rules." Which one of the following best illustrates the principle underlying the linguist's statements?
So, just before even looking at these choices, I would say that the principle here is, there are people who are capable of applying fairly sophisticated rules, without necessarily being able to specify the rules. And the linguist is using that principle in the context of grammar.
So let's look at the choices. Some people are able to write cogent and accurate narrative descriptions of events. But these people are not necessarily also capable of composing emotionally moving and satisfying poems. That doesn't feel like the same principle.
If they said, "some people are able to write "cogent and accurate narrative description of events, "but they have trouble stating the rules that they are using "to be able to do that." Well, that would be much closer to what the underlying principle of what this linguist is saying.
Here, it's more of the principle of people being able to go from very accurate narrative description of events to something that is a little more moving, emotionally moving and satisfying. So this one does not look great, I'll cross it out right there, but I'll leave it as an option but it doesn't look-- actually, I'll just cross this one out 'cause this one feels quite different.
Engineers who apply the principles of physics to design buildings and bridges must know a great deal more than do the physicists who discover these principles. Now here, they're trying to make a comparison between those who apply and those who discover the principles, but that's not what's going on over here so I'll rule that one out.
Some people are able to tell whether any given piece of music is a waltz. But the majority of these people cannot state the defining characteristics of a waltz. So this seems to be the same underlying principle, that people can recognize something. They can recognize something, so their brain can somehow pattern match, hey that's a waltz.
But they cannot articulate the defining characteristics. That's the same way that peoples' brains' can recognize whether something is grammatical, but they can't specify the actual rules. The actual rules are an alligas to the actual defining characteristics of a waltz.
So, I really like this choice right over here. It seems to be the exact same principle. People can recognize things, but they'll often times those same people who'll recognize, can't tell you exactly the specific rules that make that recognition possible. Choice D, those travelers who most enjoy their journeys are not always those most capable of vividly describing the details of those journeys to others.
No, this isn't, the reason this doesn't feel right is, one it's not recognizing kind of a classification scenario. In the original one, it's hey, can someone classify whether something is grammatical or not. And choice C, can someone recognize whether someone is a waltz or not.
And then those who are able to recognize, they still have trouble articulating exactly why. Here, it's not whether or not someone can recognize whether something falls in a category. We're talking about people who enjoy things, but then they're not able to describe the details of those journeys, which is a little bit different than being able to recognize something falls into a category.
Or, it's quite a bit different of whether you can recognize whether something falls into a category and then articulating exactly or failing to articulate exactly why it's in that category. So I'll rule that out. Quite a few people know the rules of chess, but only a small number of them can play chess very well.
This is almost the opposite. This is saying, a lot of people know the rules, but they have trouble applying it to playing chess very well. This would have been similar to C or the original statement if they say, "Quite a good number of people "who play chess can't articulate the rules."
Now that would be kind of a, any of us who play chess would say that's kind of a not true statement. But it would have a similar, it would be based on similar principle. But this one definitely isn't. This is saying the other way around. That a lot of people know the rules, they can articulate the rules, but they can't necessarily apply them to play a game of chess very well.
So, I'd rule that out and I definitely feel very comfortable about choice C.
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