Resumo de Why We Are As Good Or Bad As Our Language

Why we are as good or bad as our language
SAPIR and Whorf: until recently these names were dirty words among linguists. They were remembered mostly as the architects of an infamous theory, the ?linguistic relativity hypothesis?, arguing that there was a connection between language and ?worldview?, as they called it, and claiming that language was to some extent organised and structured by these worldviews. Language thus was not autonomous ? heresy, of course, for the new linguists of the 1960s and 1970s. The Chomskyan steamroller crushed Sapir and Whorf and made sure they were struck off the linguistics canon.Well, they are back, and they are back in force. Since the 1990s, and driven by the Chicago scholar Michael Silverstein, a revised version of the Sapir-Whorf programme has become a dominant paradigm in linguistic anthropology. The basics are soundly Whorfian: language ideologies are socioculturally embedded complexes of ideas about language and language use, and they direct the way in which we use language. Silverstein identified a ?referential ideology of language? in which we see language as a bounded, structured, transparent object transmitting referential meaning ? explicit, dictionary-style meaning. In fact the rule-oriented use of (?correct?, ?pure?) language is just one very specific way of using language. Usually it is a prestigious form of usage, one that produces signals about where you come from, who you are, about class, level of education, even profession. It often signals that what we say is serious and formal, polite and impersonal. And it is the norm for the written use of language, in which tolerance for deviation is significantly lower than in speaking.

These signals are indexical, a term that goes back to Charles Pierce?s semiotics. Indexicals connect linguistic form to context: the broader social and cultural context as well as the specific context of communication. And such indexical connections are ideological because they are anchored in social and cultural normative perceptions of language and its appropriate use.

All of us have ways of identifying someone as ?arrogant?, ?serious?, ?nice?, gifted with a ?sense of humour? or ?dull?, ?boring?. And the only evidence we have for such far-reaching forms of identity attributions is someone?s communicative behaviour in which we detected implicit, indexical signals that in our world mark ?arrogance?, ?humour? and so on.

The point is, we have ideological codes for distinguishing between ?good? and ?bad? language use. We evaluate it all the time and we organize all sorts of hierarchies on the basis of such evaluations. Importantly, we perform them not on ?language? in the general sense but on specific ways of using language: on particular genres and styles, varieties, accents. It is not about ?language?, but about what counts as language.

And the bigger the range of variation, the more there is to distinguish, rank and qualify. The more diversity in language, the more inequality we get.

English, the language that defines globalization, is of course a case in point. Almost everywhere English is part of a multilingual environment, and it often assumes a dominant place in the ideological hierarchies of languages. Learners tend to have strong associations between English and upward social mobility: English will get them somewhere, will open doors for them, will connect them internationally and across local class and ethno-regional divides.

But everywhere in the world it is not ?English? that is learned but actual varieties of English. Everywhere it is learned with an accent, with a number of peculiarities that quickly identify it as ?Kenyan English?, ?Pakistani English? or ?Chinese English?. And often that specific variety of English does not offer the opportunities its speakers dream of; a variety of English that would carry prestige in Nairobi can carry stigma in London or New York. Positive indexicals in one place can be negative ones elsewhere.

Again, the real functions and effects of English in the world are about what counts as English in particular places ? what makes you Kenyan in London. That may be the reason why all over the world people spend money to acquire prestige accents such as British received pronunciation, while few people would be attracted to a course teaching ?Nigerian English?. Linguistically the different varieties may be equivalent; indexically they are not.

So here we are: in the age of globalization, the question ?what is English?? may be an impertinent one to some, but of burning relevance to others. Britain is the centre of the world of English . Seen from here, the question may be impertinent. It is easy to see English here as a neutral decor, a practical vehicle for understanding one another, a thing everyone should just use because it is so practical.

This in itself would be an ideological perspective on English, one that creates various difficulties for people in Britain for whom it is not a self-evident, neutral, purely practical tool, but for whom it is an ingredient of complex multilingualism, an ingredient they struggle with. Understanding the way in which English operates ideologically within such forms of multilingualism may be of crucial importance if we want to understand the processes of linguistic and social ?integration? ? seen these days as problematic by governments, experts and tabloids alike.

If we understand that there are huge differences between what counts as English in our and their eyes, and that navigating these differences is the real process of language learning, we may have solved a mystery or two

Resumos Relacionados