Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Distributed Language

Distributed Language

"A novel approach to the nature and function of language". Does that mean original research? -- RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 00:42, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Hmm-m, don't quite know what to say here. Upon superficial and admittedly uninformed examination (I am a mathematician and know nothing about linguistics), the concept does appear to be notable in linguistics, see GoogleScholar[1] and GoogleBooks[2]. However, at present the article is written as an OR essay, and a polemic one at that, with a substantial dose of POV, and fairly incomprehesible (to the extent that a clear definition of the main concept seems unrecoverable from the current text). "Language is viewed as a heterogeneous meshwork of events, processes and material artifacts, when language dynamics influence what individuals do, think and, thus, how the meshwork evolves". Come again? If someone can completely rewrite the article from scratch, give an understandable definition of the concept and list a few references, the article could be kept as a stub. As things stand now, however, it is hard to see anything salvageable in the article. So unless some-one comes forward and takes on a major clean-up and rewrite task, it is better to delete the article. Nsk92 (talk) 01:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Would definitely like to see it stubbed if it appears to be a real concept; this looks to me like another school assignment. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 02:22, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure that this one is a school project. The article appears to be something of a plug for the work and the views of something called the "Distributed Language Group" [3]. Nsk92 (talk) 02:42, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - per Nsk92. asenine ^{say what?} 04:16, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment RHaworth - I don't think that calling distributed language "a novel approach" makes the article OR. It seems likely that many of the references are OR, but if that's not acceptable then I need to be pointed to some Wiki policies that I've failed to grok. That said, I'm not much of a linguist, either, and I find Nsk92's arguments about POV and incomprehensibility compelling. I agree with the "delete if no major fix is forthcoming" position. Stationary (talk) 15:27, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as per Nsk92. Notability is not an issue, but POV and the fact that it looks like something written for the conference this year and as it is isn't suitable (or salvageable, it would need almost a whole new article) means in my opinion it should be deleted. Doug Weller (talk) 17:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Although the article may need to be re-written in simpler English, i think the concept is an important one, as per JeremyMcCracken i think it should be stubbed at the very least. The concept is based on how language should be viewed in context, not just by the use of symbols (this is especially important to robotics). I think that it's important that this is highlighted as an alternative to the mainstream view of language. The references also seem credible. Ozkills (talk) 12:34, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]