PT114.S2.Q19 > Analytics

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Professor Beckstein: Support American Sign Language is the native language of many North Americans. ██████████ ██ ██ ███ █ ███████ █████████ ███ ███ ████ ██████ ██████ ██ ███████ ██████ ██ █████████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████████ ███████ ████████ ███████████ ██ ████████ ███

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Summarize Argument: Counter-Position

Professor Beckstein claims that American Sign Language is not a foreign language, since it is the native language of many North Americans. Thus, he concludes, students should not be allowed to meet the university's foreign language requirement by studying American Sign Language.

Professor Sedley responds with an analogy, pointing out that since French and Spanish are also the native languages of many North Americans, by Professor Beckstein's logic, students should also not be allowed to fulfill the foreign language requirement by studying those languages, as they currently can. Professor Sedley claims this would be ridiculous.

19.

Their statements commit Professors Beckstein ███ ██████ ██ ███████████ █████ █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████████

Question Type

Point at issue: disagree

Notice that Professor Sedley's argument critiques Professor Beckstein's reasoning, not necessarily his conclusion. It's possible Professor Sedley has other reasons to think that American Sign Language should not fulfill the foreign language requirement, even though French and Spanish do. But Professor Sedley clearly thinks the reason Professor Beckstein provides for his conclusion — simply that American Sign Language is the native language of many North Americans — is insufficient, as Sedley's argument by analogy shows. So the key point of disagreement between the professors is whether the fact that a language is the native language of many North Americans should disqualify it from fulfilling the university's foreign language requirement.

whether American Sign ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ████████ ██ █ ███████████ ██████ ██ █████ █████████

Incorrect. Professor Sedley doesn't disagree with Professor Beckstein's premise that American Sign Language is the native language of many North Americans. Sedley disagrees with the conclusion Beckstein derives from this premise.

whether any North ████████ █████ ██████ ████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████ ██ ███████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████████ ███████ ████████ ███████████ ██ ████████ ███ ██ ███ ███ ██████ ████████

Incorrect. (B) is much more specific than what either Beckstein or Sedley talks about. Beckstein's argument is not about all non-English native languages spoken by any North American, just native languages spoken by a significant number of ("many") North Americans. And while we know Sedley thinks that the fact that many North Americans speak one of these languages as their native language isn't sufficient to disqualify those languages from fulfilling the language requirement for everyone (i.e., even students who are not native speakers of those languages), we don't know what Sedley thinks about native speakers, specifically, studying their own native languages to fulfill the language requirement.

whether the university █████ ██ ██████ █ ███████ ████████ ███████████

Incorrect. Neither professor calls into doubt whether the university "ought to" retain the foreign language requirement.

whether any other ████████████ ██ █████ ███████ ██████ █████ ████████ ██ ███████ █ ███████ ████████ ███████████ ██ ████████ ████████ ████ ████████

Incorrect. Neither professor comments on what other universities in North America do.

whether the fact ████ █ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ████████ ██ ████ █████ █████████ █████████ ███████████ ███ ███ ██ ███████ ███ ████████████ ███████ ████████ ███████████

Correct. Beckstein thinks that the fact that American Sign Language is the native language of many North Americans alone justifies prohibiting American Sign Language from fulfilling the foreign language requirement. Sedley rejects this reasoning.

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