“Science is in everything, whether we realize it or not”: using the IPA to encourage interest in the scientific study of language

Abstract

Abstract One way to bring greater awareness to the fact that language can be, and often is, studied scientifically is to show people the scientific tools that linguists use to study it, such as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). This project investigated how doing a common IPA activity might influence people’s perceptions of language science and linguists. Adult visitors to a science museum (N = 117) participated in an activity in which they saw their name transcribed into the IPA and were guided to notice how it differed from the standard spelling, informed about some basic articulatory phonetics connected to the sounds in their names, and encouraged to think about the differences between sounds and letters more generally. Participants were then surveyed about what they had learned and their attitudes about language science. The results showed that most participants learned at least some of the core content material. More notably, the participants were more likely to believe that aspects of language such as poetry and dialects could be studied experimentally by scientists than a control group of adults who had not participated. These results demonstrate that even a brief intervention, if thoughtfully conducted, can shift attitudes towards the belief that language can be studied scientifically.