A Parody and Some Hilarity

As I think many people probably noticed when looking at these two videos back-to-back, there's a lot of overlap between fictionalized and authorized narratives about the way women speak (especially young white women). 

It's also worth noting how many times inaccurate representations of vocal fry go unquestioned in this piece.

The Question of "Error"

We've been talking all term about language variation and change and how both are natural to any living language. We've also talked about how systematic variation between nonstandard and standard dialects of English can often get labeled as "error" in the nonstandard dialect, as can incoming/new forms in a language change.

Steven Pinker, in the discussion of a construction like "give Al Gore and I a chance," asserts: "When enough careful writers and speakers fail to do something that a pencil-and-paper analysis of syntax says they should, it may mean that it's the pencil-and-paper analysis that is wrong, not the speakers and writers" (99). But the discussion is in a chapter focused on "grammatical errors," and he goes on to say, "But for now, let's assume that the paper-and-pencil analysis is correct" (99).

Many if not all of us have spent years in educational systems that have relied on a discourse of error when it comes to writing, if not also speech. So let me raise the question: Is there such a thing as a "grammatical error"? Are there other things speakers/writers do with the language that could be categorized as "error"? Let's focus on English, both spoken and written.

I look forward to hearing/reading your thoughts.

Lippi-Green: Excerpt 2

In English with an Accent (2^nd ed.), Rosina Lippi-Green puts forward strong critiques of appropriacy arguments, asking readers to think through what it means for speakers to judge nonstandard dialects as inappropriate in particular contexts. I would love to continue our conversation from Wednesday's class about two of the arguments she makes in the chapter about language and education. I've put one in each post so that we can keep the strings of comments separate.

Excerpt 2:

Those who argue that it is right and good to help those children [who speak nonstandard varieties of English] substitute *SAE for their home languages never seem to carry the argument to its ultimate conclusion. First, it has been established that teachers discriminate against speakers of stigmatized varieties of English; second, it is agreed that in such an atmosphere of rejection, no child can thrive. From these two facts come the conclusion that *SAE must be acquired and the vernacular put aside. This may seem to be common sense and logical, but it is in fact logical only in so far as one accepts the underlying premise of linguistic superiority and the primacy of economic motivations.

fact:   Language A and Language B are equal in linguistic and cultural terms.  -->
fact:   Language B is rejected by teachers and employers.  -->
fact:   Rejection has a negative effect on the speakers of Language B.

↓

*conclusion: Language B must be discarded in favor of Language A.

      … The teacher discriminates because the employer does; the child pays the price of that discrimination by accommodating and assimilating. The only way to achieve pluralistic goals, we are told, is to make everyone alike. (84-85)

Lippi-Green: Excerpt 1

In English with an Accent (2^nd ed.), Rosina Lippi-Green puts forward strong critiques of appropriacy arguments, asking readers to think through what it means for speakers to judge nonstandard dialects as inappropriate in particular contexts. I would love to continue our conversation from Wednesday's class about two of the arguments she makes in the chapter about language and education. I've put one in each post so that we can keep the strings of comments separate.

Excerpt 1:

Appropriacy judgments that cloak subjective, culturally bound judgments of ‘correctness’ might be made clearer by the contrast between two statements:

1. It is inappropriate for a law student to ask a question in Hawai’ian Creole English.
2. It is inappropriate for a wife to contradict her husband.

While the second statement was once unremarkable, it would now evoke resounding criticism in most quarters. The first statement might still pass without comment, although the underlying issue, silencing of voices considered unworthy or unequal, is the same. To challenge the first statement in the U.S. educational system is to question the primacy of one language variety over all others. (81)

Thoughts on Wednesday's readings

On Wednesday, we'll return to the broad topic of standard language ideology. The two chapters from Rosina Lippi-Green's English with an Accent address the definition of Standard English, language subordination, and the communicative burden. Peter Trudgill's article tackles the definition of Standard English by first talking through what Standard English is not. 

If you have time tonight, it would be great if you could post some of your responses to the readings here. The easiest possibility: just take one or two assertions/passages/ideas from the readings and respond to them here. And/or please respond to each other's posts. Feel free to do so just as comments on this post.

And if the readings raise any specific questions you would like to make sure we address tomorrow in class, please note those.

Thanks!

The Atlantic on "How Spelling Keeps Kids From Learning"

Our class discussion about English spelling, efforts at spelling reforms, and social judgments based on spelling prompted me to find this Atlantic story from last month about how the quirks and puzzles of English spelling might be putting students in English speaking countries at a disadvantage compared with students in, say, Finland or Korea, where the primary spoken language has a more straightforward spelling system.

The article's lay overview of the issue is an entertaining and efficient summary of some of what we have been considering:

"Adults who have already mastered written English tend to forget about its many quirks. But consider this: English has 205 ways to spell 44 sounds. And not only can the same sounds be represented in different ways, but the same letter or letter combinations can also correspond to different sounds. For example, "cat," "kangaroo," "chrome," and "queue" all start with the same sound, and "eight" and "ate" sound identical. Meanwhile, "it" doesn’t sound like the first syllable of "item," for instance, and "cough" doesn’t rhyme with either "enough," "through," "furlough" or "bough." Even some identically spelled words, such as "tear," can be pronounced differently and mean different things."

Perhaps more interesting, the piece goes on to discuss current efforts at spelling reform intended to help students master literacy more easily. For instance, the vice chair of the English Spelling Society, is quoted as saying that she, "doesn’t believe a total overhaul of the language is needed; rather, she says a good "tidying" will suffice while ensuring that nearly 600 years’ worth of modern English literature remains accessible. She advocates tweaking the 2,828 most-common irregularly spelled words to align them to conform with the main English spelling patterns."

The article also highlights a more thorough going reform effort: 

"Meanwhile, engineer and applied linguist Dmitry Orlov has come up with another solution: Eliminate the need to learn English spelling, temporarily if not permanently. The human brain is primed to memorize groups of speech sounds, not sequences of letters, he says. With this in mind, he developed his own writing system, Unspell, which is more or less a phonetic rendition of spoken English. It treats words as sequences of sounds rather than sequences of letters, so what you see is what you get: How a word is written is how it’s pronounced, and vice versa."

The likelihood that Unspell or the Spelling Society's "tidying up" (ahhh, that verbal hygiene!) efforts take hold is not explored. But the Atlantic writers do acknowledge the failure of prior reform efforts, invoking a really great/odd metaphor of standard language ideology as being like a kind of prideful home ownership:

"But various proposals for spelling reform—with names such as Neu Speling or NuEnglish—have, for a variety of reasons, failed to take off. People who have already mastered written English are reluctant to invest time in learning a new spelling system—and many of those who haven't mastered it are loath to admit it, having internalized the message that it’s a personal failing. Defenders of the status quo also maintain that today’s written English is worth preserving—it’s like the drafty old house that requires a lot of work but has history and character." 

[Emphasis added.]

Mansplaining

In a bizarre interaction reposted on comic book writer Matt Fraction's blog, we can see gender ideology discussed as it occurs.  There is also a "Because patriarch" use, not to mention tons of not-so-subtle parody of others' speech, enough to make Bakhtin reach for a notebook and pen.  So it's got language all up in it, huh?

http://mattfraction.com/post/111967691104/lilymischief-mansplaining-is-trying-to-make-a

Language Ideology, Linguistics Markets, and Cultural Capital: Reflections on the readings

Language is about much more than the efficient communication of information, Pierre Bourdieu reminds us. He writes, "[U]tterances are not only ... signs to be understood and deciphered; they are also signs of wealth, intended to be evaluated and appreciate, and signs of authority, intended to be believed and obeyed" ("Language and Symbolic Power" 502). In terms of the linguistic market, one important question is which agents in an exchange have power to impose criteria that value their linguistic products.

Forms of language/linguistic features take on meaning through the circulation of language ideologies. Kathryn Woolard and Bambi Schieffelin provide four different definitions of linguistic/language ideologies on p. 57, from more neutral ones, such as "shared bodies of commonsense notions about the nature of language in the world," to ones that include speakers' political and moral interests, such as "the cultural system of ideas about social and linguistic relationships, together with their loading of moral and political interests." Judith Irvine and Susan Gal focus on how speakers' understandings of linguistic differences get mapped onto people and activities.

In preparation for our discussion on Wednesday, I'm asking you to respond to a few key issues in the texts, to start to work out your thinking about these theoretical frameworks/concepts and to put questions on the table for our discussion. Please post these by 8 pm on Tuesday, and please feel free to incorporate a response to others' posts into yours if relevant.

Katie, Christine, and Josh: I'm asking you to take one quote from the Bourdieu readings that you found especially provocative or challenging (in any and all senses of those words) and respond to it here. Please supply the quote and then develop your meditation on it in a detailed paragraph.

Ryan, Allie, Elizabeth, and Aubrey: Please choose one of the following topics from the Bourdieu readings and provide a paragraph-long meditation on it, which either begins or ends with a question you think would generate productive discussion in class (I'm hoping among the four of you, we can cover at least three): the standard language market vs. alternative language markets; the anticipation of sanction and self-censorship (or the relationship of production and reception); the relationship of "symbolic capital" to the three forms of capital described in "The Forms of Capital" (economic, cultural, social).

Steve, Inez, Kelly, and Kathryn: I'm asking you (a) to pull out two features of linguistic/language ideologies mentioned in Woolard & Schieffelin or in Irvine & Gal that you found especially helpful for thinking about the definition of linguistic/language ideologies and their effects and explain why in a detailed paragraph.

Gail, jd, and Ben: I'm asking you to reflect on this question in a detailed paragraph: Where do language ideologies reside? (Some questions that could help with this one: Are they explicit or implicit? How are they acquired?) As you can imagine, this is a very important question to think through in order to study language ideologies.

17 British Accents

Here's a comedian doing 17 different British accents, with examples of celebrities and characters from TV and movies who speak them. You can really hear the differences! And there's a roving map!

http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20140619-one-woman-17-british-accents?ocid=global_travel_rss&ocid=global_bbccom_email_11022015_travel

Language change humor. Because Friday.

This great panel cartoon from xkcd.com on the winners/losers of language change got a shout-out earlier today on the Twitter feed of the Linguistic Society of America -- @LingSocAm, if you want to follow. I'm re-sharing here partly in the spirit of end-of-week levity, but mostly because I thought it so well captured the idea we have been discussing that certain words/phrases will just win out over time. And that is okay.

Man makes it a mission to eliminate 'comprised of' from Wikipedia

Well, this is dedication: One Man’s Quest to Rid Wikipedia of Exactly One Grammatical Mistake

And here is his article on Wikipedia discussing why 'comprised of' is abominable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Giraffedata/comprised_of

Bashing Vocal Fry (or Creaky Voice)

Last week "This American Life" featured a short segment on vocal fry or creaky voice, focused specifically on how some listeners vehemently criticize the women reporters on NPR for the creak in their voices. (Thanks for the heads-up, Eric!) It is Act Two, "Freedom Fries" (8.5 minutes). I'm struck by the vitriol in the listener comments. And as Ira Glass points out, this is just the latest complaint about younger women's voices on the radio. If you want to hear Bob Garfield get cranky about creaky voice, check out this 2013 Lexicon Valley podcast, "Do You Creak?" The podcast also provides more details about some of the more empirical studies of creaky voice.

Have you noticed creaky voice in your own speech or in others? Have you also had a strong reaction or has this not been on your radar?  (Had you ever noticed it in Ira Glass's voice before?) I'm curious to hear your thoughts about the ideologies at play here in condemning this linguistic feature (which is not as new as many people think it is) as "annoying" and/or in hearing it as "professional."

For more information, here is the piece from Science Magazine, and here's the abstract of the article from the Journal of Voice. And here's a 2014 article in The Atlantic about a study that suggested vocal fry might hurt women's job prospects.