I see a chunk of linguistics Twitter is debating what "language" means again. I'm afraid I don't find this a hugely worthwhile activity. (1/)

Obviously the term has an everyday meaning, and can have various technical meanings too. (2/)

In its everyday sense, what the meaning of "language" is is an empirical question, one that Twitter debates are unlikely to answer. At least if we stick to being descriptivists. (3/)

In its technical sense... it can mean what we want it to mean. If you want to define "language" as "I-language" or "UG" or whatever, go right ahead. Same if you want to define it as a set of sentences à la early Chomsky, or as a population of utterances à la Croft. (4/)

But what matters is whether that concept is scientifically useful - does it lead us to interesting new theories or discoveries? And that won't be established by debating what the word means. (5/)

Sure, it's great if the research community can agree on a shared terminology. But it's not necessary. If we don't agree, then at least it's great if we're not talking past each other. But even that's not necessary. (6/)

Something something methodological pluralism. Those other people are doing linguistics that seems weird. Who cares? They might be right. Or at least interesting. (7/7)

NB: this isn't intended as a dunk on the people who are engaging in this discussion. They're all people who are exceptionally willing to engage with other approaches and try not to talk past one another. It's just this particular discussion that I don't see the point of. (8/7)