Linguistics Department Must Be Maintained

I write to comment on the series of articles concerning the disbandment of the Harvard Linguistics Department that appeared in The Crimson during the week of October 4. As former chair of the Visiting Committee of the department I feel I should speak out on this matter. After our 1986 meeting, the committee prepared the customary report, which is alluded to in Dean Wolff's letter as being among the reports that motivated the decision to disband the department. While our report includes criticism of some aspects of the department's operation, nothing in our criticisms justifies Dean Knowles' statement reported in your October 7 story that "the department is not serving the students' best interests." Moreover, our report is now seven years old, and much of it is therefore out of date.

What is not out of date is the part of the report dealing with the status of linguistics in other Harvard departments. Citing several instances where language departments had replaced linguists with specialists in other areas, the report expressed concern about the erosion of this essential part of Harvard's resources in linguistics. This erosion, which has not been reversed, puts into question Dean Wolff's assertion that "an instructional program in linguistics...could be conducted under the auspices of a more broadly-based faculty committee rather than of a small department." What is most likely to happen is that once the department is disbanded most of the junior faculty will leave Harvard. Since it is they who bare the main burden of undergraduate instruction on linguistics, including the very important core course Knowledge of Language, the result of the disbandment of the department will be that linguistics will virtually disappear from the undergraduate curriculum.

Your paper reported in its October 8 edition that among the department's short-comings in the administration's eyes was its inability "to get the appointment of a senior professor." This judgement is unfair. Since 1989 the department has made three outstanding junior appointments. This shows that given the opportunity the department is capable of handling appointments with dispatch and excellent results. The decision on the senior appointment in linguistics was not assigned to the department. Rather, it was vested in an inter-departmental committee appointed by the dean, which, from what I have been able to discover, operated inefficiently and in the end failed to agree on a candidate. Responsibility for this failure cannot be laid at the department's door.

The importance of what is at stake for Harvard in the proposed disbandment of the Linguistics Department should not be underestimated. Linguistics has historically occupied a central position in the humanities. The advances in linguistics during the last 30 years have not only been of great intrinsic interest, that have also exercised significant influence on developments in philosophy and psychology, most especially in the evolution of cognitive science. Many of us who are actively engaged in linguistic research believe that a genuine science of mind and mental process is now within reach. The disbandment of the department will make it difficult for Harvard students to participate in this promising area of scientific inquiry. It also goes counter to the Harvard tradition of maintainin a pre-eminent position in the humanities. In short, it is a bad idea, and should not be implemented. Morris Halle   Institute Professor of Linguistics Massachusetts Institute of Technology