Hi Everyone,
This will be the first blog "assignment" for the semester. To complete the assignment, you need to respond to this message (preferably in a new post) by Sunday at midnight. Then, by the time class starts on Tuesday, you need to respond to two other students' posts. Here goes...
This week, we've been talking about the innovations of different dialects/varieties of language and how such language change intersects with considerations of correctness in language. We've looked at gatekeeping institutions/individuals and how language use can be a marker of a speech community's (or individual's) morality or worth in society. We've also examined the distinction between prescriptivism and descriptivism in regards to language and power.
In our readings, I included a chapter from Jabari Asim's The N Word, to provide an example of how language is used to express prejudice (albeit in a more complicated manner than we may have considered before). I did this because I think it is more familiar to conceive of prejudice and language in this realm: using langauge to mark, identify, or harm a devalued group of people.
But, do prescriptivism and gatekeeping institutions/individuals reveal prejudice in their efforts to assert that a variety/dialect is the 'correct' language? Leslie Milroy, in "Myth 12--Bad Grammar is Slovenly" says, "In such a way is social class prejudice disguised as neutral intellectual commentary, and for this reason one linguist has described linguistic prescriptivism as the last open door to discrimination."
The majority of the class, on Tuesday, identified themselves as 'Somewhat Prescriptivist.' Does this mean that we are somewhat prejudiced as well? If so, is that something that should be addressed, or is it an acceptable form of prejudice?
The issue of Language Regulating Bodies came up on Tuesday, with Academies of French and Spanish and the Hebrew Language Academy. You can find on this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators a list of the language regulating bodies for dozens of languages. Some are to promote languages that lack power in their geographic locations, others are to maintain languages that have power. Both types of bodies are prescriptivist in nature; are they prejudicial bodies as well?
We will return to this issue much later in the semester, when we discuss Official English incentives. For now, consider the concepts that we have raised here, or this week in class, for your post.
Thanks,
Tiffany
P.S. Please remember, when you write your post, to insert the Label for it (the bottom of the post screen). If you select "Show All" you'll find "Post 2-Correctness and Prejudice).
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3 comments:
I still don't get how to do this whole blog thing. There's not button that say "new post", I'm frustrated. GRR. I guess I'll just write you my response to assingment #2:
I am somewhere in the middle between the Prescriptive and Descriptive perspective. While I think that it is natural for language to change within any given society, I find myself frustrated with all the slang that's constantly being created within my own society. Sometimes I don't understand what a person means when they use certain slang words. Other times, when I hear a person using slang I do understand, I think it's sort of annoying. When people use certain types of slang (like "tight" for example) I feel like their trying to comform to a group that's "in style".
I value language that conveys education and knowledge, but I myself use slang and don't even realize it.
To sum up: I am in the middle of the two perspectives in that I value traditional forms of language, but also think that it should be flexable enough to invite some comtemporary forms as well.
This is a comment on Flower's post:
I fall in the middle like you do, and agree with your ideas about slang. While I use slang myself, there are certain words that I just don't understand. But at the same time I'm sure there are words that I say that annoy other people, so I try not to judge others too much (or atleast not let my judgements affect the way I think of them).
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