On Language (from "Craft of Storytelling)

(New thread started due to "subject drift")
The English Master wrote: " To tell anyone that the language they speak is 'incorrect' or 'not proper' is hurtful and damagingly disempowering - they got it from their parents, for heaven's sake, and try telling a child their parents are fundamentally wrong in this way! They won't believe you and they'll reject whatever it is they think you're selling. Language is an emotive issue because it is so central to each individual's mental life, psyche and culture."

I strongly disagree. It is dis-empowering to fail to prepare young people to function in the society they will become part of. Like it or not, standard English is part of today's society; at least in the USA and the UK. Anyone who lacks the ability to communicate in standard English will find their prospects for employment and other major interactions with their society greatly diminished.

It is entirely possible to teach children a "standard" language without telling them that the dialect or language of their parents is "wrong". We just need to stress that the business of society is done in a standard language.

Here is the USA, we had a fight over exactly this issue. I won't go into detail, but just search the term "Ebonics". Cooler heads prevailed. Hopefully it was realized that teaching children in a ghetto language would forever limit them to the ghetto?

Guy

But there is no one standard English.

English is not a codified language - but French is. Which is why French still has its "thee's" and "thou's" - there is a central committee that determines what a new word should be. Compare that to English where anyone can come up with a new word or phrase. For example: Space Shuttle; there didn't have to be research conducted on what was the "proper English way" of naming it.

As for usage, there are dozens of ways of saying the same in English. I'm not merely referring to switching between voices, but things like:
You don't fool with Mother Nature.
One doesn't fool with Mother Nature.
Mother Nature is not to be fooled with.
- all express the same idea, and all are grammatically correct.

And don't get me started on will/shall. I'd say over 90% of the 'will' statements in American English should be "shall', but there is a drift going on that is replacing shall with will.

British English, American English, Australian English, South African English - all of these are 'standard' versions of English and all have evolved differently. Practically every former British colony has its own 'standard' version of English.

When you teach a child the "right" way of speaking you are (at the very least) implying that every other way is wrong. Including the way that mommy speaks.

Goodgulf

Obviously language evolves and old, stuffy rules are replaced. That's a good thing because it makes communication more efficient.

But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have any rules for grammar. When someone says "don't" instead of "doesn't" or "seen" instead of "saw", I think that's a problem. No one needs to be perfect, but having some standards are a good thing. Even if the child's parents speak that way, the child still needs to learn the proper rules and ways of speaking. He isn't going to be living at home forever, and he might end up needing to know the correct way of using language as an adult. Like Guy said, only teaching the language of the local culture is limiting. It's not that children shouldn't speak in the manner that they were brought up speaking, but they should also know the standard rules in case they need them in the future.

(FYI, I wasn't following the previous thread, so I apologize if this post is off topic.)

I entirely agree! There was a time in the 70's when there was a fad in the UK for letting students just express themselves in their own patois or dialect but that time is long past.

Please don't misunderstand me - I'm as fussy a pedant for 'correct' (i.e. standard) English in the classroom as anyone and I've spent 25 years empowering inner-city kids with the Standard English they need to succeed. But it is also true that no child should be asked to leave their own culture (and that includes the way they speak) at the school gates. It's counter-productive to give them the impression that their dialect is 'incorrect' or not 'proper' - rather, teach and explain Standard English as the 'prestige' dialect that it is and how important it is for success in life (and here in the library of course!).

We're on the same team, Guy!

I think what we are talking about here is the concept of 'register' - language appropriate to a given situation.

""How's it going, pal?" is a perfectly acceptable (and even grammatical) greeting to a workmate or friend, but it is not an appropriate way to greet the Managing Director who is about to interview you for a position in his company.

I believe that is what people need to learn - not that some types of language are right while others are wrong - but that the language used must suit the situation and the person being addressed.

Speaking of English evolution, have you heard about the "northern city shift"?

There's an interesting story on it at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5220090 and wiki has a page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_cities_vowel_shift .

English is a constantly involving language.

Goodgulf

In fact, language is often a surrogate for race or class. People who claim, and may actually believe, that they are reacting to non-standard language are often, in fact, reacting to negative perceptions of the group that language variety represents. (in the interests of not completely turning off innocent spankophiles who may feel they have wandered behind the looking glass or, worse, into a scholarly journal I will omit references but will he happy to supply them to anybody who asks at cfpub.ix.netcom.com). Let's remember that Liza Doolittle was white and dressed appropriately, thus wiping out evidence of her lower class background when introduced to society. How do you suppose that introduction would have gone were she, say, Jamaican or Tamil?
To those interested, I would recommend the illuminating discussion by Nancy Mitford in Noblese Oblige of the use of everchanging linguistic shibboleths by the British upper classes to identify and exclude ambitious members of the middle classes.
I will spare y'all a discussion of how the divergent fate of Yiddish in Eastern Europe and the United States, or of Irish English and African American English in the United States shows that language differences are the result, not the cause of social discrimination.

I don't doubt that a bit. But to not have skills in standard English can lock one into the lower classes.

I don't know about the UK, but iit is quite possible for a minority to "make it" in the USA, though I admit they start from a disadvantage. . For most of my life I was a public employee. Though I am of European origin, there were folks from other ethnicities both above and below me in the hierarchy. The difference was education, use of language, and (I suppose) connections.

" "...shows that language differences are the result, not the cause of social discrimination."

I respectfully submit that language differences are both a cause and a result of social discrimination.

If a person wants to rise to a different social class, the best thing they can do is to emulate that class in education, language, and dress. That person may still be at a disadvantage, but education and language are the great equalizers in our society.

Guy

If you wish to be mistaken for a member of the English upper class (their is no accounting for some peoples perversity) you must on no account say "Please to meet you!" or refer to the lavatory as a toilet apparently. Nancy Mitford would of course know all the correct things to say and two of her books, Love in a cold climate and The pursuit of love, must be two of the most amusing books in the English language. Full of English eccentrics and two of the first books I would recommend to anyone interested in the English class system. I have never got round to reading Noblesse Oblige!

I realize that we are using up scarce electrons which could better be used forming words like "bottom", "panties", "hairbrush" and the like, but I must point out that African-Americans with college degrees earn less, on the average, than white Americans with high school degrees.

Oh well, waste an electron, might as well waste a bunch. During the time of desegregation of the schools in East Texas, white parents objected to the integration of faculty on the grounds that the Black teachers and administrators were poor speech models for the students. Scott Baird recorded a few Black teachers and had white audiences rate them on intelligence, ability to teach, and the like. He then spent most of a year with the teachers training them to eliminate the features of Black English that the audiences has objected to. Their speech was still identifiably Black but without the stigmatized features. He then had the teachers rated again by white judges with their new, improved speech. The resulting ratings were essentially identical to the first ratings. Clearly the audiences were reacting to race, not speech features.