-1

In a manuscript of my Bachelor thesis (about a PicoBlaze assembler and emulator), I made a few statements I was forced (by my mentor) to delete. These include:

  1. I was explaining what the parser (a part of an assembler or a compiler) does using the following sentence from Caesar's De Bello Gallico: "Ea, quae fertilissima totius Germaniae sunt, loca aliquibus Graecis nota fama esse loquuntur.". Which word is the word "nota" (known) syntactically connected to? If you know only a little bit of Latin, you will probably assume it is connected with "fama" (fame, rumour), that it is a pleonasm and that the word "nota" should be ignored. However, that's incorrect. The word "nota" is connected to "loca" (places). Parser, I explained, is there to resolve such situations when they occur in a program code. In an abstract syntax tree produced by the parser, "nota" and "loca" would be children of the same tree node.
  2. I compared the assembly language to the Piraha language because both of them lack linguistic recursion.
  3. I said that programming languages mostly use a mechanism to divide words (tokens) that somewhat resembles the one used in the Japanese writing system.

However, I was forced to delete those things because they were supposedly inappropriate. Why exactly are they inappropriate?

Improve this question
6
  • 7
    If you were writing a paper meant for a computer science audience, why would it be helpful to make analogies to natural languages which the readers aren't assumed to have any familiarity with? All three of these explanations could be written in a way which gets the point across better for the intended audience. So (2) and (3) are more like irrelevant side-notes than explanations, and (1) works as an explanation but would work a lot better if you chose a domain which the reader already has knowledge of instead of relying on them following your explanation of Latin grammar.
    – kaya3
    Commented Apr 20 at 13:36
  • 5
    Also it would help to clarify, by "forced to delete" do you mean that your mentor is also an author of this thesis, or do you mean that they strongly advised you to do this out of concern for how your thesis would be marked?
    – kaya3
    Commented Apr 20 at 13:39
  • 3
    @kaya3 Also, the clause "if you know only a little bit of Latin" seems to be unnecessarily belittling (likely the vast majority of) readers who know rather less Latin than that. It's not smart to belittle the people who will be grading your work.
    – user128581
    Commented Apr 20 at 17:07
  • 2
    I must say, if well-researched, these would be interesting things for me as a supervisor. If they had come in isolation, I might have suggested for statements like this to be moved to the later, speculative parts of a discussion, but would still have found them interesting. If your supervisor doesn't, remove them from the bachelor's thesis which is essentially an examination document. There will be other opportunities to develop your style.
    – Captain Emacs
    Commented Apr 20 at 17:51
  • 3
    This is probably going to get closed, since none of us can know what your professor's objection is. But as a computer scientist, I would raise an eyebrow because computer languages are designed mathematically to have certain properties relating to ease and speed of parsing (including ambiguities). Human languages emphatically do not, and any analogy at the level of a bachelor's thesis is suspect right there.
    – Anonymous
    Commented Apr 20 at 19:19

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
4

Please take the "inappropriate" as "off-topic" or "distracting".

  1. It is a convoluted expression, that aims at explaining something by showing how someone without knowledge of topic A would falsely interpret a sentence in language A: not very useful.
  2. It is at best still debated (as you can read from the wikipedia page), at worse it seems something taken out from wikipedia just to fill some gaps (which I doubt, because the wikipedia page has many more insights in the topic, but that's the way it would look like ;) ).
  3. Imprecise, even controverse (since many western languages divide the words in tokens, called syllabs, that somehow resembles the japanese language), if you were to be japanese mother-tongue or very fluent it may be helpful, otherwise it looks like (again) some random fact copied from wikipedia.

Do not overstress too much, it is a bachelor thesis, you want to have it remarkable and that strikes out and you want to show some independent thinking on the topic ... please remember that a boring bachelor thesis with no errors and concise to the point is already remarkable.

Improve this answer
4
  • a boring bachelor thesis with no errors and concise to the point is already remarkable Which tells a lot about our lack of ability, or, rather, willingness, to maintain minimal standards in science and education. +1 otherwise :-)
    – fedja
    Commented Apr 20 at 21:31
  • @fedja Or, it tells us that a bachelor's degree is just the start of a specialised education, and we expect students to continue learning their field or craft as they go on to begin practicing it.
    – kaya3
    Commented Apr 22 at 12:05
  • @kaya3 I would agree if it were just about "concise to the point", but I certainly draw a hard line at "no errors". :-)
    – fedja
    Commented Apr 22 at 13:24
  • @fedja A textbook with no errors is remarkable enough.
    – kaya3
    Commented Apr 22 at 13:46
3

I will, once again, use the universal answer of this forum: "Ask your adviser". When you say "forced to delete", I suspect what you mean is that they read your thesis and suggested that you remove certain parts by striking them through. Why they suggested that is something only your adviser will be able to fully explain -- so go ask them! Everyone else here can only speculate.

Improve this answer
0

Why is it inappropriate to compare computer languages with natural languages?

Personally, I don't think it is inappropriate, however, that may be the wrong question. The right question is, will these comparisons help your audience understand your work?

At least to me, they are not helpful, but they may come across as interesting side notes (or "easter eggs") which give some personality to your writing. They also indicate that you are a person who is interested in linguistics. So, while the remarks certainly could be fun/enjoyable (for some audiences), you should consider whether they could be off-putting for a reader in your field who is looking to understand your work.

However, I was forced to delete those things because they were supposedly inappropriate.

I understand your frustration! Pragmatically speaking, the big question here is, is your supervisor's name on your thesis?

  • If they are, then they do have some say over the contents, since it reflects on them as much as it reflects on you. Once you graduate and go elsewhere, you can certainly write things without paying attention to what your supervisor thinks.

  • If not, then in my opinion you are free to deviate from your supervisor's advice. However, I would think twice before ignoring it entirely. It is likely that your supervisor has more experience in writing than you. It is possible that by following their suggestions, you might become a stronger writer, and more effective in your communication in general.

Either way, it may be helpful to take a step back -- this is a relatively minor dispute (over a few sentences), and you will likely have bigger differences to worry about as far as the content of the thesis, and much bigger things to worry about later on down the road. Don't let such a small issue take over all of your time and energy!

Parser, I explained, is there to resolve such situations when they occur in a program code. In an abstract syntax tree produced by the parser, "nota" and "loca" would be children of the same tree node.

Have you considered writing a blog post or similar, where you can put these remarks? I think you have a nice way of thinking about it, in which you describe your view on some of the connections between your field and linguistics. That could be a better venue for your ideas as it is more informal, and could reach a more general audience than a bachelor's thesis (which is generally a bit more formal and technical).

And, if we're being realistic here, the blog post will probably get more views than the thesis anyway :)

Improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .