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I'm forwarding another thoughtful post from Johanna.
I think polemical positions are less dangerous when expressed (I'm
thinking of Eduard's post), but that's in part because they provoke
fine articulations like those I'm relaying. ATEG brings people
together from different places. Johanna raises important issues about
mutual respect and collegiality.
Craig
Subject: Re: Language Change
From: "Johanna Rubba" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, March 17, 2006 2:35 pm
To: "Craig Hancock" <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: [log in to unmask]
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Hi, Craig,
Although my take on these "polemics" is different from yours, I hope
you'll post this. I don't find these polemics at all delightful. To
treat baseless claims about language as legitimate opinions is harmful
and misleading to those listers who haven't had the opportunity to
study language deeply.
I'd like to ask Eduard Hanganu to please study the situation a little
more carefully before he starts throwing around offensive claims about
Americans and linguists, etc. It's just plain rude to call the
findings (note I do not say "beliefs") of lifelong scholars of language
NONSENSE. Putting the words in caps is not exactly diplomatic.
Eduard's ethnocentrism is obvious, and his claims about language and
linguistics are spurious. It's about time he realized that he is in
dialogue with scholars, like Herb Stahlke, whose knowledge of many
aspects of English and language in general is extraordinary and far
outstrips my own. Eduard is speaking anecdotally from his own
experience, as well as drawing in studies that are irrelevant to how
much speakers _subconsciously_ know about their language. A lot of this
knowledge is laid out in, for example, the Quirk et al. grammar of
English and the newer Huddleston and Pullum. I'd like to ask Eduard how
many school or college textbooks cover even 1% of that material, and
yet it is drawn from descriptions of the use of English by English
speakers (some with a lot of education, some not). I'd also like to ask
him how far he has read into either book. The fact that he appeals to
institutions like the Academie Française (yes, a few of us know about
it) proves his misunderstanding of sociolinguistics and the history of
how such institutions arise in stratified societies. Those who believe
in such institutions have a serious misunderstanding of how language
works. It's very practical to cultivate a lingua franca (or dialect
franca?) to sustain communication across the boundaries of speech
communities. (I don't like calling it a standard dialect anymore,
because "standard" is ambiguous between a neutral interpretation, such
as standard measurements, and an evaluative stance, such as "standard
of excellence".) But there is no need to attach false claims to such a
language variety. It is not superior to other dialects. It may be so in
the sense that it has a large vocabulary, but that is a historical
accident. Any language's vocabulary can be expanded. One might indeed
say that English came about most of those words dishonestly -- too
weak to invent them themselves, English speakers took them from other
"superior" languages like Latin and Greek. Many languages and dialects
have more subtlety in their grammar than "preferred" English does. They
express distinctions such as remote vs. recent past and temporary vs.
long-lasting states in the verb system (both characteristics of African
American English), not in separate phrases. English morphology is
"impoverished" compared to, say Turkish or Inuktitut. Such comparisons
are fruitless. Are the complex verb systems better than the separate
phrases? Can Inuktitut express a wider range of meanings than English?
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
Every culture, literate or not, has a language that has the full
potential to express whatever concepts the culture comes up with. This
has been true for many thousands of years, well before Romania spoke
Romanian and those TWO THOUSAND years of history got started. America
has a history going back at least TEN THOUSAND years of indigenous
languages that are as complex and beautiful as a particle accelerator.
Funny how most of them were never written. I wonder how much Eduard
knows about Navajo verbs or Mikasuki tone systems. The history of
literacy and scholarship of a culture has nothing to do with the
quality or expressive potential of its language.
I am in full agreement with Eduard on one thing -- the level of general
and specific world knowledge, not language, is abysmal in far too many
parts of the United States. This can't all be blamed solely on the
schools, and it has nothing at all to do with language. We have a
fundamentally anti-intellectual culture (which is ironic, given that
the country was founded by intellectuals of a high order). People are
happy with their MacDonald's bread and their NFL circuses (get the
reference to ancient Rome?) Those who have the resources to improve the
schools (taxpayers, the government, and the hyper-rich corporations and
stockholders) choose to invest that money elsewhere or keep it to
themselves. They also choose, often for purely political reasons, to
ignore the wisdom of those who study language for a living. Too many of
them have Eduard's understanding of language. As a result, millions of
children are essentially thrown into the garbage bin -- prison,
permanent low-wage jobs, low standards of living, poor health care, the
list goes on and on. Back in the late 1970's, an experiment was carried
out in which African American children were taught reading in a program
that transitioned them from books in their native dialect on themes
familiar to them to the "preferred" English texts used in general
language arts instruction. Those children made six months' gain in
reading ability in four months of using the program, and tested just
fine on a national standardized reading test for their grade level. The
publisher (I believe it was Houghton-Mifflin) decided not to market the
program because of the stigma of African American English. What do we
say to the many thousands of children who never got to benefit from
such a program? They become dropouts, gang members, prisoners, teen
parents, and many of them die at an early age thanks to the violence in
their communities. The public school system teaches middle-class
children to read and write in their native dialect. Why are they the
only ones deserving of this treatment? (In telling this story, I am not
acceding to the superiority of "preferred English". The
socially-determined facts on the ground are that children need to be
fluent in this dialect to have equal opportunity. The point is that it
is not necessary -- indeed it is harmful -- to endow that dialect with
some kind of intellectual superiority.)
This list is intended for civilized discussion. It is of no benefit to
make baseless claims and insult whole populations. It is not in the
spirit of the list to be rude. I realize that I may have crossed that
line myself in this message, but perhaps the same tone is needed to
bring the point home. Or perhaps Eduard is like far too many people
engaging in "debate" today under the guise of "fair and balanced"
public discussion, who simply will never admit that they are wrong
about something no matter how many facts you throw at them.
Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Linguistics Minor Advisor
English Department
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: 805.756.2184
Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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