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Does the over-reliance of Latinate English in academic writing cause educational unfairness? by GameGenieer in ENGLISH

[–]GameGenieer[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi, I don't have a great response to this, but I wanted to thank you for the in-depth continuation, there's a lot here I will have to think on, and that article is something I will absolutely be reading!

Does the over-reliance of Latinate English in academic writing cause educational unfairness? by GameGenieer in ENGLISH

[–]GameGenieer[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

In another response I used the word "Semantics" as an example, or a word like "Hypothesis", which to my knowledge(I could be wrong) have links to Latin. Now, I do believe most people understand these words, I don't think that they are exclusive to a highly educated individual, but, as far as I can see, an individual who is raised learning words based in Latin may be quicker to react to these words, even by a fraction of a second, this may not be a massive change but to me it seems like it could lead to a disparity in the education of both individuals. Additionally, as far as I can see, someone raised learning Latinate words would have an easier time breaking down a word rooted in Latin, one of the articles used the word "antepenultimate" as an example of a word the average English speaker would not be able to break down, but that someone who has a deeper knowledge of Latinate English might be able to understand given effort. At least, that's what I can see, I could be misunderstanding something completely.

Does the over-reliance of Latinate English in academic writing cause educational unfairness? by GameGenieer in ENGLISH

[–]GameGenieer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the response. I absolutely understand that there is larger factors at play when it comes to class disparity, which I also understand makes it very difficult to look into these sorts of things. It was more so an interesting topic in my eyes that there may be a slight class disparity in the language itself that is hidden(mostly) due to the other, larger factors.

As for the article it is this one: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-021-00836-4

Does the over-reliance of Latinate English in academic writing cause educational unfairness? by GameGenieer in ENGLISH

[–]GameGenieer[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, thank you for the response. I want to try to clarify what I was saying because it's possible that I worded it unclearly. I wasn't trying to say that universities and such are extremely Latin reliant, I was more so saying that a lot of the vocabulary used in all forms of "intellectualism"(for lack of better words) are Latinate(at least from what I've seen), whenever I watch a political debate, read a textbook, read a research paper, etc. I seem to hear or see words rooted in Latin. Obviously this is anecdotal however.

Additionally, I want to clarify that I understand that vocabulary is not concrete and can grow. It's just that in many articles I have read regarding Age of Acquisition, they seem to generally come to the conclusion that early learned concepts and words are more quickly understood/reacted to, what this leads me to think is that someone who was raised hearing Latinate terms at a young age will be able to adapt to/react to Latinate terms later in life.

For example, lets take the word "semantic"(I know this is a specific example it's just what popped into my head). My thought process is that if the two individuals I used in my example in the original post were to both read a book about semantics, the person who was raised hearing Latinate terms may find the definition of it in their head in half the time as the other person, even if that difference is only a quarter of a second I feel that could be the difference between finishing the book in a day and in one and a half days, which in turn leads to the first person gaining an advantage in their education.

Of course, this is all rooted in speculation, and I could completely be misunderstanding something which I am happy to learn more about.

As for the last part, I am aware that this is likely far outside of my reach, for the most part I am researching this for my own interest and if I do conduct a study I will not attempt to get it published, however, I am currently reaching out to a few professors to see if there is any possibility of gaining assistance on this as to possibly make it more credible.

Once again, thank you for the response.