Popular ideas language

POPULAR IDEAS ABOUT LANGUAGE

John FrySan Jose State University

Linguistics 101: Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2005, SJSU

Popular ideas about language: five themes

1. The prescriptive tradition: It is me or It is I?

2. Language purity and decay

3. Primitive languages and languages of excellence

4. The function or purpose of language

5. Language and thought

Linguistics 101: Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2005, SJSU 1

The prescriptive tradition

• Prescriptivists tell you how to use your language correctly

• Examples of prescriptive grammar rules in English:

1. You should say It is I, not It is me, because the verb beshould be followed by the nominative case

2. I ain’t got no money is wrong, because ain’t is not a word,and two negatives make a positive

• Some countries establish prestigious Academies to protecttheir language and maintain prescriptive standards

– Italy: Accademia della Crusca, 1582– France: Academie francaise, 1635


Language deterioration and decay

• It is widely held that language is decaying or deteriorating

• Once source of decay is failure to obey prescriptive rules

Language is today so quickly transformed that it has becomedecayed and rotten. Ineptitude and sluggishness, bombast,foppery and grammatical errors are increasing. – GustavWustmann, Allerhand Sprachdummheiten, 1891

• Another cause of decay is pollution from foreign words

– In August 2000 the Polish Language Council outlawedcommercial use of the words supermarket, club, and plaza


Complaints about new words in English

• In 1867 Edward S. Gould complained about ‘spurious words’like demean, jeopardize, leniency, and underhanded

• In 1710, Jonathan Swift lamented “the continual Corruptionof our English Toungue,” including contractions like he’s

• William Caxton on the new word ‘eggys’ (1490):

Sheffelde, a mercer, cam in to an hows and axed for mete,and specyally he axyd after ‘eggys’. And the good wyfanswerede that she coude speke no Frenshe. And themarchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no Frenshe,but wold have hadde egges, and she understode hym not.And thenne at last a nother sayd that he wolde have‘eyren’. Then the good wyf sayd that she understod hymwel. . . Certaynly, it is harde to playse every man by causeof dyversite & chaunge of langage.


Language decay or language change?

• When we examine language change objectively, we see that itis inevitable—all languages are slowly but constantly changing,whether we like it or not

• English has changed dramatically over the last millennium

Year The Lord’s Prayer1000 Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum;

Si þin nama gehalgod1384 Oure fadir þat art in heuenes

halwid be þi name1559 Our Father which art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name


Descriptive vs. prescriptive linguistics

• In order to study human language objectively, we will adopt adescriptive rather than a prescriptive approach

• Descriptive approach: describe and explain the (subconscious)rules that languages obey

– This is the domain of phonology, morphology, and syntax

• Prescriptive approach: tell people how to speak properly bygiving them rules to obey

– “Avoid double negatives like ain’t got no”– “Don’t end a sentence with a preposition”– “Don’t split infinitives (e.g. to boldly go)”


Should I say It is me or It is I?

• Prescriptivists prefer It is I, claiming the verb be should befollowed by nominative, not accusative case

• This rule (be+nominative) comes from Latin, a language ofgreat prestige in European education

• Descriptivists note the following facts

– The Latin rule is not universal∗ In Arabic, be is followed by the accusative∗ In French, only moi is possible (c’est moi)

– In English, It’s me is the norm; It is I sounds very formal

• There is no objective scientific reason to prefer It is I inEnglish (although there are social reasons)


What about I ain’t got no money?

• Prescriptivists say this sentence is incorrect because it violatesthe principles of logic, where two negatives make a positive

• Descriptivists note the following facts

– Many languages ‘violate logic’ with double negatives:∗ Russian: Ya nichevo ne znayu (‘I don’t know nothing’)∗ Old English: He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde

– Under this phenomenon, called negative concord, twonegatives make an emphatic negative, not a positive

– Several dialects of English exhibit negative concord

• There is no objective scientific reason to disprefer I ain’t gotno money (although there are social reasons)


How descriptive linguists view prescriptivism

• To a descriptive linguist, language is not a cultural artifact,but rather a biological (genetic) endowment of homo sapiens

– Birds fly, spiders spin webs, humans talk

Imagine that you are watching a nature documentary. Thevideo shows the usual gorgeous footage of animals in theirnatural habitats. But the voiceover reports some troublingfacts. Dolphins do not execute their swimming strokesproperly. White-crowned sparrows carelessly debase theircalls. Chickadees’ nests are incorrectly constructed, pandashold bamboo in the wrong paw, the song of the humpbackwhale contains several well-known errors, and monkeys’ crieshave been in a state of chaos and degeneration for hundredsof years. (Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct)


Descriptive vs. prescriptive linguistics: summary

• Modern linguistics adopts a descriptive approach: describeand explain the (subconscious) rules that languages obey

• Prescriptive rules about language use are not part of linguistics

• That doesn’t mean that prescriptive rules aren’t important forother reasons! For example:

– Prescriptive standards, especially in writing, help facilitatecommunication

– People who don’t learn prescriptive rules are discriminatedagainst socially (finding jobs, etc.)


Primitive vs. superior languages

• Before the 20th century it was commonly believed that certainprimitive cultures spoke primitive languages with no grammar,a few sounds, and a small vocabulary

• Sometimes primitive languages were seen as corruptions ofthese earlier, nobler languages

But what does their language on close inspection prove? Inevery case what they are themselves, the remnant and ruinof a better and nobler past. Fearful indeed is the impressof degradation which is stamped on the language of thesavage. – R. Trench, Archbishop of Dublin, 1851

• At the other end of the scale, particular languages (usuallyclassical Arabic, Greek, Latin, or Sanskrit) are popularly heldup as models of beauty, grace, clarity, or logic


The linguist’s perspective: no superior languages

• No primitive languages have been discovered

• All known languages have a complex grammar

– Simplicity in one area (e.g. word endings) is always balancedby complexity in another area (e.g. word order)

• Cultural or economic development does not seem to correlatewith, say, the number of vowel sounds a language has:

Vowels Example languages5 or fewer Hawaiian, Hebrew, Japanese, Navajo, Spanish12 or more Bambara, English, French, Wolof, !Xu

• There is no objective measure for evaluating a particularlanguage in aesthetic, philosophical, literary, religious, orcultural terms, so linguists don’t bother


The many functions of language

• What is the function or purpose of language?

• The popular view of the function of language:

– Communication of information

• However, language seems to have many other uses too:

– Personal expression (art, feelings, emotion)– Social interaction (hello, bless you)– Rhythmic sounds (chants, songs, games, poetry)– Changing reality (prayer, baptisms)– Recording facts (records, accounts)– Instrument of thought (verbal thinking, inner speech)– Expression of identity


Language and thought

• The relationship between language and thought is a difficultquestion faced by linguists, psychologists, and philosophers

• Many kinds of thinking are nonverbal (e.g., spatial, physical,emotional, musical), so clearly language and thought are notthe same thing

• Three possible relations between language and thought:

1. Language depends on thought (we translate from thoughtinto language)

2. Thought depends on language (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis)3. Language and thought are interdependent (both 1 and 2)


Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

• The American linguist Edward Sapir (1884-1939) and hispupil Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897–1941) are associated withthe hypothesis that thought depends on language

• The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis combines two principles:

1. Linguistic determinism: language determines how we think2. Linguistic relativity: distinctions encoded in one language

are not found in other languages

• Whorf wrote:

We dissect nature along lines laid down by our nativelanguages. . . We cut nature up, organize it into concepts,and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we areparties to an agreement to organize it in this way—anagreement that holds throughout our speech communityand is codified in the patterns of our language.


Popular ideas about linguistic determinism

• It is often claimed that because a language lacks a word, itsspeakers cannot grasp the concept

– I’ve been told that in the Russian language there isn’t evena word for freedom – Ronald Reagan

– There’s not a word in any African language which describeshomosexual – Professor Griff, Public Enemy

• Other examples

– “Hopi has no words for time”– “Eskimo has hundreds of words for snow”– Language L has no word for∗ compromise∗ privacy∗ sportsmanship


‘Language L has no word for W ’

• The idea that because a language lacks a word its speakerscannot grasp the concept is clearly false, although onelanguage may take many words to say what another languagesays in a single word

Pintupi Englishyarla a hole in an objectpirti a hole in the groundpirnki a hole formed by a rock shelfkartalpa a small hole in the groundyulpilpa a shallow hole in which ants livemutara a special hole in a spearnyarrkalpa a burrow for small animalspulpa a rabbit burrowmakarnpa a goanna burrowkatarta the hole left by a goanna when it has broken

the surface after hibernation


Evaluating linguistic relativity and determinism

• It is obviously true that languages encode distinctions that arenot found in other languages

• But the idea that language determines thought (linguisticdeterminism) is clearly false

– Translation between languages is possible, and thedistinctions of one language can be described in another

• The idea that language influences thought is plausible

– This is the subject of ongoing psychological experiments(with conflicting results)

• In sum, it appears that language and thought are mutuallyinterdependent, but the exact relationship is unclear


Popular views of language: summary

• We examined popular views of language in five areas

1. The prescriptive tradition2. Language purity and decay3. Primitive languages and languages of excellence4. The function or purpose of language5. Language and thought

• Linguistics tries to approach language objectively andscientifically, rather than simply accepting popular opinionsand beliefs about language

• Our approach to grammar is descriptive: we try to describeand explain the (subconscious) rules that languages obey

– This is the domain of phonology, morphology, and syntax


Popular ideas language

Documents

Transcript of Popular ideas language