Introduction to Language

The reading for today focused on the definition of language. Here are the "take-away" points that I lectured on today:

• from a linguistic point of view, “rules” are a matter of convention, not an external ideal of correctness.
• because of this, grammar in this course is descriptive, not prescriptive. language historians want to discuss the language as it is, not impose rules on how it should be.
• so what are these rules? mostly they try to make speakers conform to the prestige dialect, the language as spoken by the most empowered group in a society (white, educated, upper-class). As a way of confirming and extending their status, the claim evolves that their way of speaking is “correct” and competing dialects are therefore deviant.
• as prestige groups shift, language “rules” can change. they also change through time.
• some theorists note that writing, which is not learned in the same way that speech is (by infants and small children, as a seemingly “natural” part of growing), is in fact more bounded by rules of “correctness.” What is correct in speech perhaps can be called “wrong” in writing (for instance, singular-plural shifts).
• Rules also change because languages simplify over time. Ancient Greek (500 B.C.E.) is more grammatically complex than Latin or Koine (the Greek of the New Testament). Old English is more grammatically complicated than Modern English. This is sometimes viewed as a “decline” but it has happened in every period of English’s history. Not only does grammar simplify itself, but sometimes sounds change in certain, predictable ways.
• Dialects sometimes introduce new, simplified forms of language but sometimes retain older, more complex forms (as in “ye” for a 2nd person plural separate from “you” in Irish English) or just older acceptable forms (double negatives).
• What does this mean for an educator? Knowing that so-called “correctness” dictates are really those of the prestige dialect, do we still enforce them? Why would we?

Here are some links to meta-sites that will give you several electronic sources for English language and linguistics:

The English Language

Linguistics web pages

A Note for Tuesday's reading: this is long and fairly technical. Give yourself some time, and mark any areas where you have questions.