A law in Oregon, USA that allows doctors to assist dying patients end their suffering has caused a stir linguistically as well as ethically. The state is changing the name of the law from 'physician-assisted suicide' to 'physician-assisted death'. The change is intended to reflect the more positive aspects of the statute. It is compared with the use of the term 'choice' instead of 'abortion'. Read the whole story in the link to the Salem Statesman Journal:
http://159.54.226.83/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061017/NEWS/610170334/1001/NEWS
Relevant for: Lang. Change: use of euphemism and dysphemism (compare 'friendly fire', 'collateral damage' and 'ethnic cleansing' in recent years)
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Veiled messages
With all the national debate over the wearing of the niqab centering on what the veil symbolises and its political & social significance, not much attention has been paid to the communicative problems it brings. In this article from the BBC website magazine, the non-verbal features of spoken language get some good coverage.
Useful for:
ENA3 - Interacting through Language
Useful for:
ENA3 - Interacting through Language
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Sheng
I'm on a roll. Nothing from me for ages, then three posts come along! This is a lovely story from the Kenya Times about a dialect called Sheng used in that country.
Here's a taster: In the past few months, controversy has been rife over the issue of publishing books in Sheng, a slang believed to have originated from the Eastlands region of Nairobi. The language is a mixture of English, Kiswahili and coinage of other languages such as Kikuyu, Dholuo and Luhya...Critics have argued that Sheng is a language better left to touts...but on the other hand, proponents view it as a language that is set to have matured in the coming fifty years and that will give identity to Kenya. “Language cannot be separated from identity” argued Sam Mbure, adding that, writing in Sheng will give children and the youth a medium of communication in a language that they relate to and understand...But many questions remained unanswered. Original Sheng appears to be secretive and the slang seems to determined by virtue of its place of origin. A sheng from Maringo for instance, differs from that spoken in Korogocho so is the one from Mathare. Which one then will be adopted? Secondly, the language is very dynamic. You leave the estate in the morning knowing a baby’s Sheng name to be Mtoi and when you return in the evening, those left behind will have already invented a new name. Consequently, to a larger extent, it is a confused language...Some time last year, a motorcar was known as Motii, yet it now passes for Dinga. It is also common to find two or more words referring to the same thing. How then are the publishers going to cope with the ever changing words? Will there be consistency in words? Can someone read a book written today in Sheng and after twenty years re read and relate to it?
The writer goes on to discuss the problem of when a dialect becomes a language in its own right - subject of a recent posting here. Here's the link to the whole article:
http://www.timesnews.co.ke/13oct06/magazine/magazine1.html
Once you've read it, answer this if you can: what are 'matatus'? No, really, I don't know, and would like to!
Here's a taster: In the past few months, controversy has been rife over the issue of publishing books in Sheng, a slang believed to have originated from the Eastlands region of Nairobi. The language is a mixture of English, Kiswahili and coinage of other languages such as Kikuyu, Dholuo and Luhya...Critics have argued that Sheng is a language better left to touts...but on the other hand, proponents view it as a language that is set to have matured in the coming fifty years and that will give identity to Kenya. “Language cannot be separated from identity” argued Sam Mbure, adding that, writing in Sheng will give children and the youth a medium of communication in a language that they relate to and understand...But many questions remained unanswered. Original Sheng appears to be secretive and the slang seems to determined by virtue of its place of origin. A sheng from Maringo for instance, differs from that spoken in Korogocho so is the one from Mathare. Which one then will be adopted? Secondly, the language is very dynamic. You leave the estate in the morning knowing a baby’s Sheng name to be Mtoi and when you return in the evening, those left behind will have already invented a new name. Consequently, to a larger extent, it is a confused language...Some time last year, a motorcar was known as Motii, yet it now passes for Dinga. It is also common to find two or more words referring to the same thing. How then are the publishers going to cope with the ever changing words? Will there be consistency in words? Can someone read a book written today in Sheng and after twenty years re read and relate to it?
The writer goes on to discuss the problem of when a dialect becomes a language in its own right - subject of a recent posting here. Here's the link to the whole article:
http://www.timesnews.co.ke/13oct06/magazine/magazine1.html
Once you've read it, answer this if you can: what are 'matatus'? No, really, I don't know, and would like to!
Dingle link
Sorry, got a bit carried away in that last posting. Forgot to give the link to the Dingle renaming story. Here it is:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1925422,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1925422,00.html
Jargon, Dingle and Darwin
It's been a while since I posted, and I thought I'd lost the details of how to do it; now I seem to have found them, so this is a bit of an experiment to see if works - sorry, Dan, if I've caused you hassle unnecessarily!
Recent Guardian article about business jargon and euphemisms:
Shortcut to: http://money.guardian.co.uk/workweekly/story/0,,1921678,00.html
This next piece is about the inhabitants of the town of Dingle on the delightful peninsula with the same name, who are about to vote on a proposal to revert to the town's original Irish name, An Daingean, dropping the anglicised 'Dingle'. The town is in the Gaeltacht, that part of the country which is still Irish-speaking. I can confirm this, having been there a couple of years ago, and heard young people in bookshops and bars chatting away happily in Irish. It's a compulsory subject in all Irish schools, too, as my Irish relatives in Dublin tell me. At my college in St Austell Brian Friel's play Translations is taught on the lang and lit course; it's a modern play set in the 1830's, dealing with the issue of the British Army surveying the country and rewriting the maps with anglicised or translated place-names - so this is a long-running linguistic issue. If you ever get the chance to read it or see it performed, do: it's powerful, funny and sad, with a Romeo and Juliet central plot.
Finally I can't resist giving this link to a story in today's Guardian:
Shortcut to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1925715,00.html
It has just been announced that the works of Charles Darwin, of Origin of Species fame, are to be made available on the net. The article has a link to the site, with sound files which I didn't check, but the link to the site wouldn't work when I tried it, so you might have to be resourceful. Might be of help with history of language topics, but is also worth a look just for the hell of it.
Sorry about the long absence from this site: been busy down in damp Cornwall!
Recent Guardian article about business jargon and euphemisms:
Shortcut to: http://money.guardian.co.uk/workweekly/story/0,,1921678,00.html
This next piece is about the inhabitants of the town of Dingle on the delightful peninsula with the same name, who are about to vote on a proposal to revert to the town's original Irish name, An Daingean, dropping the anglicised 'Dingle'. The town is in the Gaeltacht, that part of the country which is still Irish-speaking. I can confirm this, having been there a couple of years ago, and heard young people in bookshops and bars chatting away happily in Irish. It's a compulsory subject in all Irish schools, too, as my Irish relatives in Dublin tell me. At my college in St Austell Brian Friel's play Translations is taught on the lang and lit course; it's a modern play set in the 1830's, dealing with the issue of the British Army surveying the country and rewriting the maps with anglicised or translated place-names - so this is a long-running linguistic issue. If you ever get the chance to read it or see it performed, do: it's powerful, funny and sad, with a Romeo and Juliet central plot.
Finally I can't resist giving this link to a story in today's Guardian:
Shortcut to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1925715,00.html
It has just been announced that the works of Charles Darwin, of Origin of Species fame, are to be made available on the net. The article has a link to the site, with sound files which I didn't check, but the link to the site wouldn't work when I tried it, so you might have to be resourceful. Might be of help with history of language topics, but is also worth a look just for the hell of it.
Sorry about the long absence from this site: been busy down in damp Cornwall!
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Just a joke?
'Why is it the Irish and the blacks never get married? Because they are afraid their children will be too lazy to steal.' Is this joke racist? What does it depend on? If the person delivering the joke is Irish, does that make it any better? What if the joke teller is black? Mixed Irish/black heritage? Does it matter if the joke's told to white English people, Irish people, black people?
Many of these issues get an airing in an article by Simon Fanshawe in The Observer which looks at humour, political correctness and whether or not jokes about anybody - regardless of their ethnic background, ability/disability, sexuality, gender etc - are fair game. As it happens, the man who told that joke was Irish and the (gay) writer of the article goes on to look at The Sun's headline about Elton John marrying his gay lover David Furnish ("Elton takes David up the aisle"), the furore around the negative stereotyping of Kazakhstan in the new Borat film, and many other issues.
The article itself is thought-provoking and funny, but the readers' comments that follow it redress the balance a little and are worth a look too.
Useful for:
ENA1 - Language & Representation
Many of these issues get an airing in an article by Simon Fanshawe in The Observer which looks at humour, political correctness and whether or not jokes about anybody - regardless of their ethnic background, ability/disability, sexuality, gender etc - are fair game. As it happens, the man who told that joke was Irish and the (gay) writer of the article goes on to look at The Sun's headline about Elton John marrying his gay lover David Furnish ("Elton takes David up the aisle"), the furore around the negative stereotyping of Kazakhstan in the new Borat film, and many other issues.
The article itself is thought-provoking and funny, but the readers' comments that follow it redress the balance a little and are worth a look too.
Useful for:
ENA1 - Language & Representation
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Communities of practice - fo' sheezy
One of the big ideas floating around linguistics at the moment is "communities of practice", something that I tried to define in a lesson the other week (probably unsuccessfully) when we were talking about slang and how it emerges and develops. But then an article turned up in The Guardian about the rapper E-40 and the slang around the San Francisco Bay Area hip hop scene and I thought, what better way to explain communities of practice and at the same time improve my ghetto report card (ha ha ha) than to look at the two ideas together? So here goes...
A community of practice is, according to Penelope Eckert (get ready for a long quotation):
*Mutual engagement in some common endeavour - rapping or listening to it and being part of the culture around it.
* It is defined simultaneously by its membership and by the practice in which that membership engages - the rappers who created the scene, the fans and contributors to the scene, and the rapping and the language linked to it.
*This practice involves the construction of a shared orientation to the world around them - the slang defines an attitude to partying and life in general that is different to other genres of rap.
*A tacit definition of themselves in relation to each other - West Coast, East Coast, Bay Area, Dirty South: the style of music and the slang marks out the different sub-genres and outlooks on life.
*And key to this entire process of construction is stylistic practice - the language used in the songs and linked to the culture around it.
So, how does that sound?
Useful for:
ENA5 - Language Varieties and Language Change
A community of practice is, according to Penelope Eckert (get ready for a long quotation):
an aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in some common endeavor. Ways of doing things, ways of talking, beliefs, values, power relations - in short, practices - emerge in the course of their joint activity around that endeavor. A community of practice is different as a social construct from the traditional notion of community, primarily because it is defined simultaneously by its membership and by the practice in which that membership engages. And this practice involves the construction of a shared orientation to the world around them - a tacit definition of themselves in relation to each other, and in relation to other communities of practice. The individual constructs an identity - a sense of place in the social world - through participation in a variety of communities of practice, and in forms of participation in each of those communities. And key to this entire process of construction is stylistic practice.
*Mutual engagement in some common endeavour - rapping or listening to it and being part of the culture around it.
* It is defined simultaneously by its membership and by the practice in which that membership engages - the rappers who created the scene, the fans and contributors to the scene, and the rapping and the language linked to it.
*This practice involves the construction of a shared orientation to the world around them - the slang defines an attitude to partying and life in general that is different to other genres of rap.
*A tacit definition of themselves in relation to each other - West Coast, East Coast, Bay Area, Dirty South: the style of music and the slang marks out the different sub-genres and outlooks on life.
*And key to this entire process of construction is stylistic practice - the language used in the songs and linked to the culture around it.
So, how does that sound?
Useful for:
ENA5 - Language Varieties and Language Change
Texting linked to high literacy skills
In a piece of news that will surprise those who argue that young people's use of mobile phones is making them illiterate, researchers at Coventry University have found that there is a link between those who use the most "text slang" and those who are the most able at writing and spelling.
What the research doesn't suggest is that texting improves spelling and writing, but rather that those who use the most text slang, such as "dat" for "that" or "fing" for "thing" are also the best spellers and writers. So, what does this mean? It could mean that articulate and communicative teens are drawn to the flexibility of text slang - perhaps because it's creative and logical - or that worries about texting leading to bad spelling are unfounded. What it does seem to do, is throw a spanner in the works of the "texting is bad, because it just is" brigade.
Wot do u fink? Add yr comments in dat box below...
Useful for:
ENA5 - Language Change
What the research doesn't suggest is that texting improves spelling and writing, but rather that those who use the most text slang, such as "dat" for "that" or "fing" for "thing" are also the best spellers and writers. So, what does this mean? It could mean that articulate and communicative teens are drawn to the flexibility of text slang - perhaps because it's creative and logical - or that worries about texting leading to bad spelling are unfounded. What it does seem to do, is throw a spanner in the works of the "texting is bad, because it just is" brigade.
Wot do u fink? Add yr comments in dat box below...
Useful for:
ENA5 - Language Change
Friday, October 13, 2006
How do we define Dialect? (Dialect versus SE)
A 'Non-Standard English' seminar on wednesday made me think, so I thought I'd share.
We were asked which of the three following descriptions best describes dialect:
Rather humourously (in a forced ha-ha type way i guess for uni), one of the guys in the class raised the 'very important' point, that in the animal kingdom, there isn't a standard form of species from which we define the other varieties (i.e. a mallard duck isn't described as a deviant form of the standard duck), so what makes English language any different?
(oh- apart from the fact that it's less visual seeing as it's the way we speak you buffoon? Guffaw, guffaw, you're hilarious.)
The OED obviously presents dialect as 'subordinate' and 'peculiar' in relation to SE; is it possible to understand dialect without having the idea of how lanuguage 'should' be in the prescriptive sense? Are we agreeing more with the Ency'Brit' definition because it's more descriptive and we think we should be descriptive more than judgemental? Think about it.
Without thinking about or using the phrase Standard English, define dialect. Doable or no?
Have fun..
We were asked which of the three following descriptions best describes dialect:
- 'One of the subordinate forms of varieties of a language arising from local peculiarities of pronunciation and idiom.' [OED]
- 'Variety of a language spoken by a group of people and having features of vocabulary, grammar, and/or pronunciation that distinguish it from other varieties of the same language. Dialects usually develop as a result of geographic, social, political, or economic barriers between groups of people who speak the same language. When dialects diverge to the point that they are mutually incomprehensible, they become languages in their own right' [Encyclopedia Britannica]
- 'A dialect is a complete system of verbal communication (oral or signed but not necessarily written) with its own vocabulary and/or grammar.' [Wikipedia]
Rather humourously (in a forced ha-ha type way i guess for uni), one of the guys in the class raised the 'very important' point, that in the animal kingdom, there isn't a standard form of species from which we define the other varieties (i.e. a mallard duck isn't described as a deviant form of the standard duck), so what makes English language any different?
(oh- apart from the fact that it's less visual seeing as it's the way we speak you buffoon? Guffaw, guffaw, you're hilarious.)
The OED obviously presents dialect as 'subordinate' and 'peculiar' in relation to SE; is it possible to understand dialect without having the idea of how lanuguage 'should' be in the prescriptive sense? Are we agreeing more with the Ency'Brit' definition because it's more descriptive and we think we should be descriptive more than judgemental? Think about it.
Without thinking about or using the phrase Standard English, define dialect. Doable or no?
Have fun..
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Am I bovvered?
There's more new words joy as this year's excellent Language Report comes out. The Language Report, put together by Susie Dent, covers changes to the language over the year and offers comment and analysis on new words and meanings. The last two - Larpers & Shroomers and Fanboys & Overdogs - have been great reads.The latest word to be offered the accolade of Word of the Year in The language Report is Catherine Tate's teenage buzzword, "Bovvered?" which has according to the OED taken over from "whatever" as the signature phrase of teenagers. More in todays' Sun here (found on a train, not bought by me... honest).
Useful for:
ENA5 - Language Change
Saturday, October 07, 2006
The return of the Haribo...
As promised, the mighty power of Haribo returns this week, with one competition open to AS students and another to those of you doing A2.
The answers need to be posted to the blog as comments and the first answer for each will win the tasty confectionary bag. Mmmm, Haribo...
AS question: where is the word "yob" believed to have come from?
A2 question: what is a "blend"?
The answers need to be posted to the blog as comments and the first answer for each will win the tasty confectionary bag. Mmmm, Haribo...
AS question: where is the word "yob" believed to have come from?
A2 question: what is a "blend"?
Oh my god, I'm a celebutard
Celebrity + debutante + retard = celebutard, according to a new book entitled "I Smirt, You Stooze, They Krump". A 3 word blend, whatever next?
This article on the BBC website talks about a few other words featured in the book and is worth a quick look, along with this Guardian article but I'd save £7.99 and not buy the book if I were you. Instead have a look at this free resource from MacMillan Dictionaries, which gives a linguistic breakdown of a new word each week and offers a whole load of background to why new words appear and how they're formed.
Useful for:
ENA5 - Language Change
This article on the BBC website talks about a few other words featured in the book and is worth a quick look, along with this Guardian article but I'd save £7.99 and not buy the book if I were you. Instead have a look at this free resource from MacMillan Dictionaries, which gives a linguistic breakdown of a new word each week and offers a whole load of background to why new words appear and how they're formed.
Useful for:
ENA5 - Language Change
Friday, October 06, 2006
A yob is just a backwards boy
This week has seen lots of headlines along the lines of "These PC nutters are taking away our freedom of speech" and "PC PCs can't call yobs yobs" and other such things. So, what's the problem with Political Correctness this week?
Apparently, the Metropolitan Police Authority have rethought their use of the word "yob" in documents and reports relating to anti-social behaviour committed by young people. The word sets up a "them" and "us" mindset, according to Cindy Butts, the deputy chair of the MPA, and stereotypes groups of young people as troublemakers.
So, what is a yob? Etymologically, "yob" seems to come from cockney backslang: it's "boy" spelt backwards. Semantically, it seems to refer to any young person who behaves in a way that falls short of society's expectations of good behaviour, be that smashing up a bus shelter, shouting obscenities at old ladies who won't give a football back, or happyslapping on the escalators at Clapham South.
It's all a bit remiscent of the "hoodie" and "chav" debates of last year. If we use these labels do we run the risk of stereotyping all young people who wear hooded tops or sport knock-off Burberry clobber? Or if they're acting like yobs, should we just call them yobs? And does it matter? Well, I think it does, but I'd welcome your comments below...
Useful for:
ENA1 - Language & Representation
Apparently, the Metropolitan Police Authority have rethought their use of the word "yob" in documents and reports relating to anti-social behaviour committed by young people. The word sets up a "them" and "us" mindset, according to Cindy Butts, the deputy chair of the MPA, and stereotypes groups of young people as troublemakers.
So, what is a yob? Etymologically, "yob" seems to come from cockney backslang: it's "boy" spelt backwards. Semantically, it seems to refer to any young person who behaves in a way that falls short of society's expectations of good behaviour, be that smashing up a bus shelter, shouting obscenities at old ladies who won't give a football back, or happyslapping on the escalators at Clapham South.
It's all a bit remiscent of the "hoodie" and "chav" debates of last year. If we use these labels do we run the risk of stereotyping all young people who wear hooded tops or sport knock-off Burberry clobber? Or if they're acting like yobs, should we just call them yobs? And does it matter? Well, I think it does, but I'd welcome your comments below...
Useful for:
ENA1 - Language & Representation
Dehumanising language
There's a brief story in The Guardian this week about NHS staff being told off for using "dehumanising and trivialising" language about their pateients. Expressions like "frequent flyer" and "dement" have come in for criticism. The full article can be found here.
And if you want to see some more medical slang and jargon, try here. It's not for the easily shocked, especially not "bobbing for apples".
Useful for:
ENA1 - Language & Representation
And if you want to see some more medical slang and jargon, try here. It's not for the easily shocked, especially not "bobbing for apples".
Useful for:
ENA1 - Language & Representation
Friday, September 29, 2006
Island apes, white ghosts and poms...
...all words used to describe British people, apparently. The focus of a couple of recent articles in The Guardian and The Mirror has been on the use of the word "pom" by Australians to describe British people, and whether or not it's a racist term.
There are various theories about the word "pom" - some arguing that it's from Prisoner Of Her Majesty and others that it's short for the fruit pomegranate and describes the bright red colour pasty white Brits turn when they get sunburnt - but most agree that if it's an insult it's hardly as bad as "p*ki" or "wog".
So what makes a word offensive? An anti-racist saying from some twenty years ago was "power + prejudice = racism". If you have no power in society, you might be prejudiced in your attitudes, but it's only when you've got the power to apply that prejudice that it truly becomes racism. It's a partially persuasive argument and one that might explain why terms like "honky", "cracker" and "gora" don't really carry the same power as terms like "p*ki", the n-word and "jewboy".
But is it the whole story? Perhaps the most offensive words have a history that develops like a snowball effect, which means that they pick up more and more negative associations over time and just keep getting worse. Maybe some of these words are linked to such barbaric times in history that their meanings are forever unpleasant.
While you're pondering that, take a look at the range of imaginative and descriptive terms applied to white British people by their friends around the world.
Useful for:
ENA1 - Language & Representation
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Shoot the Puppy
In a great article from The Daily Telegraph over the summer, William Leith takes a detailed look at the language of IT workers and office staff, or what he calls New Office. To help him he uses Tony Thorne's new guide, Shoot the Puppy which gives definitions for the weird and bizarre language of the office (e.g. "having a salmon day" means to have worked hard, swimming upstream all day, only to be shafted at the end if it all).
As funny and interesting as some of the slang or jargon is in its own right, two things about the article are particularly helpful for English Language students . Firstly it looks at specific linguistic processes that create the words (blending , affixation, metaphor etc.) and secondly it links the new words to the context that created them and how the new words reflect the attitudes and culture of a given time. So, Leith and Thorne pick out a whole range of new expressions that seem to suggest many people involved in these types of jobs are deeply fed up with their bosses, dismissive of their clients' intelligence and working in an industry that they feel doesn't value them. In other words, the jargon and the metaphors behind the new words reflect an attitude.
In one class last week we tried to update a slang dictionary from Live magazine (linked to this article) which many people felt was now a little out of date. Words and phrases such as "bullet bullet bullet" (uttered when a boy dances in a way that might be perceived as "gay"), "written off" (used to refer to someone who's been knocked out or beaten up) and "boomy" (used as an adjective to express approval of a girl's appearance) came up as new versions of slightly older expressions such as "merked" (injured/beaten up) and "tick" or "choong" (attractive). Maybe "bullet bullet bullet" is an updated version of the old homophobic "boom bye bye" refrain from an old dancehall track.
Again, while it's interesting to see the speed at which language changes and how quickly slang terms are discarded and new ones adopted, it's the pattern of meanings that point to deeper links between language and society. Many slang terms relate to the physical appearance of women, attitudes towards different lifestyles and violence - sometimes a mixture of the three.
So, if business slang and jargon is all to do with feeling miserable in a world that doesn't value you, is life for urban youths all about chirpsing chicks, abusing gay people and beating up rivals from different endz (or something like that, anyway)? I suspect that's not the whole picture, so please discuss...
Useful for:
ENA1 - Language & Representation
ENA5 - Language Change
So shooting the puppy is all about ultra-macho decision-making, several steps beyond 'grasping the nettle’ or ‘biting the bullet’. In a corporate climate,where downsizing has become capsizing (‘capping’ staff numbers until there’s no one left to steer the ship) and rightsizing has given way to downclosing, the idea is often invoked negatively: ‘I’m not going to be the one to shoot the puppy; we’d better hire in a consultant to recommend the restructuring.’
As funny and interesting as some of the slang or jargon is in its own right, two things about the article are particularly helpful for English Language students . Firstly it looks at specific linguistic processes that create the words (blending , affixation, metaphor etc.) and secondly it links the new words to the context that created them and how the new words reflect the attitudes and culture of a given time. So, Leith and Thorne pick out a whole range of new expressions that seem to suggest many people involved in these types of jobs are deeply fed up with their bosses, dismissive of their clients' intelligence and working in an industry that they feel doesn't value them. In other words, the jargon and the metaphors behind the new words reflect an attitude.
In one class last week we tried to update a slang dictionary from Live magazine (linked to this article) which many people felt was now a little out of date. Words and phrases such as "bullet bullet bullet" (uttered when a boy dances in a way that might be perceived as "gay"), "written off" (used to refer to someone who's been knocked out or beaten up) and "boomy" (used as an adjective to express approval of a girl's appearance) came up as new versions of slightly older expressions such as "merked" (injured/beaten up) and "tick" or "choong" (attractive). Maybe "bullet bullet bullet" is an updated version of the old homophobic "boom bye bye" refrain from an old dancehall track.
Again, while it's interesting to see the speed at which language changes and how quickly slang terms are discarded and new ones adopted, it's the pattern of meanings that point to deeper links between language and society. Many slang terms relate to the physical appearance of women, attitudes towards different lifestyles and violence - sometimes a mixture of the three.
So, if business slang and jargon is all to do with feeling miserable in a world that doesn't value you, is life for urban youths all about chirpsing chicks, abusing gay people and beating up rivals from different endz (or something like that, anyway)? I suspect that's not the whole picture, so please discuss...
Useful for:
ENA1 - Language & Representation
ENA5 - Language Change
Sunday, September 03, 2006
War of Words
It's all kicking off between David Crystal (language guru) and Lynne Truss (lover of apostrophes) in today's Observer. Attacking Truss's "zero tolerance approach to punctuation" made famous in her book Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Crystal accuses Truss of "linguistic fundamentalism".
For those of you unfamiliar with Truss and her work, Eats, Shoots and Leaves laments the sorry understanding English users have of their own system of grammar and punctuation. Truss explains the "rules" as she sees them and tries to educate her readers about things like the "grocer's apostrophe" (often seen on signs in markets advertising banana's and apple's) and the possessive apostrophe (the man's hat). It has become a best-seller which either tells you lots about how eager we are to learn more about grammar, or how sad we are for not knowing what else to buy Aunty Mildred for Christmas...
Anyway, back to the battle between Crystal and Truss. In the article, Crystal is quoted as saying "Zero tolerance does not allow for flexibility. It is prescriptivism taken to extremes. It suggests that language is in a state where all the rules are established with 100 per cent certainty. The suggestion is false. We do not know what all the rules of punctuation are. And no rule of punctuation is followed by all of the people all of the time".
Interestingly, one of Crystal's other targets, John Humphrys of Radio 4, responds by saying "'I think David Crystal is making a fundamental mistake when he says rules don't matter that much. I say they matter enormously. Take the example we always use on both sides of the debate: the apostrophe. It is either right or wrong. We wouldn't accept something being wrong in any other walk of life, would we?".
What Humphrys seems to miss is the fact that many of these rules are little more than the prejudices of language "experts" in the Eighteenth Century whose ideas gained credibility once they were written down and widely circulated. They're not rules that are set in stone for any logical reason; although some would argue that a few of these rules are there to avoid confusion in communication.
For more on this debate, have a read of the article and search for Aitchison as a key word in the tool bar at the top of this page. You might also want to have a look at the Michael McCarthy articles linked here or here. Or have a look at the previous debates sparked by Lynne Truss's book here.
Useful for:
ENA5 - Language Change
ENA6 - Language Debates
For those of you unfamiliar with Truss and her work, Eats, Shoots and Leaves laments the sorry understanding English users have of their own system of grammar and punctuation. Truss explains the "rules" as she sees them and tries to educate her readers about things like the "grocer's apostrophe" (often seen on signs in markets advertising banana's and apple's) and the possessive apostrophe (the man's hat). It has become a best-seller which either tells you lots about how eager we are to learn more about grammar, or how sad we are for not knowing what else to buy Aunty Mildred for Christmas...
Anyway, back to the battle between Crystal and Truss. In the article, Crystal is quoted as saying "Zero tolerance does not allow for flexibility. It is prescriptivism taken to extremes. It suggests that language is in a state where all the rules are established with 100 per cent certainty. The suggestion is false. We do not know what all the rules of punctuation are. And no rule of punctuation is followed by all of the people all of the time".
Interestingly, one of Crystal's other targets, John Humphrys of Radio 4, responds by saying "'I think David Crystal is making a fundamental mistake when he says rules don't matter that much. I say they matter enormously. Take the example we always use on both sides of the debate: the apostrophe. It is either right or wrong. We wouldn't accept something being wrong in any other walk of life, would we?".
What Humphrys seems to miss is the fact that many of these rules are little more than the prejudices of language "experts" in the Eighteenth Century whose ideas gained credibility once they were written down and widely circulated. They're not rules that are set in stone for any logical reason; although some would argue that a few of these rules are there to avoid confusion in communication.
For more on this debate, have a read of the article and search for Aitchison as a key word in the tool bar at the top of this page. You might also want to have a look at the Michael McCarthy articles linked here or here. Or have a look at the previous debates sparked by Lynne Truss's book here.
Useful for:
ENA5 - Language Change
ENA6 - Language Debates
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Goodbye Everard Willy, Farewell Cock and Cheerio Hugh G. Rection
Firstly, may I apologise for the title of this post. It's very immature and it won't happen again...
According to The Daily Mirror, "joke" surnames are fast disappearing as people change their embarrassing soubriquets through either marriage or deed poll. So, surnames like Smellie (popular in Glasgow), Pigg (popular in Newcastle) and Daft (big in Nottingham) are on the way out.
The article itself has many more terrible puns about men's anatomies than I can manage, so it's worth a read. And it's not too long (as it were).
But more seriously, names make the basis for some very interesting language investigations. There are obvious links between surnames and ethnic/geographical origins, as well as many that link to human characteristics. The significance of naming traditions in different societies is well worth a look at, with the whole issue of women taking their husbands' surnames central to many groups of people.
Then you have first names and the influence of a growing influence from foreign cultures and celebrities: Mohammed is in the top 20 for boys' names now, while Whitney is often a popular choice among girls. Jordan, Chantelle, Preston and Romeo could all be on the up too. A quick search of this blog (use the search bar at the top of the page) should take you to previous posts on this topic and links to top 20 lists of boys' and girls' names that might help you with some research.
Useful for:
EA4C - Language Investigations
According to The Daily Mirror, "joke" surnames are fast disappearing as people change their embarrassing soubriquets through either marriage or deed poll. So, surnames like Smellie (popular in Glasgow), Pigg (popular in Newcastle) and Daft (big in Nottingham) are on the way out.
The article itself has many more terrible puns about men's anatomies than I can manage, so it's worth a read. And it's not too long (as it were).
But more seriously, names make the basis for some very interesting language investigations. There are obvious links between surnames and ethnic/geographical origins, as well as many that link to human characteristics. The significance of naming traditions in different societies is well worth a look at, with the whole issue of women taking their husbands' surnames central to many groups of people.
Then you have first names and the influence of a growing influence from foreign cultures and celebrities: Mohammed is in the top 20 for boys' names now, while Whitney is often a popular choice among girls. Jordan, Chantelle, Preston and Romeo could all be on the up too. A quick search of this blog (use the search bar at the top of the page) should take you to previous posts on this topic and links to top 20 lists of boys' and girls' names that might help you with some research.
Useful for:
EA4C - Language Investigations
Wrinkly coffin-dodgers need not apply
New legislation coming into force in October means that job adverts may need to be radically overhauled to avoid discrimination against older workers, according to the BBC News website. Terms such as "energetic" and "youthful" face the chop, and presumably "Must have own teeth" is set to go as well.
Age-related language is often overlooked when we focus on Language & Representation in ENA1, so this could prove a valuable area of research. Is there a tendency to label older people with demeaning terms such as "crumblies", "senile old gits" and "has beens"? And if so, are these labels out of proportion to those applied to younger people "hoodies", "yobs" etc. ?
Useful for:
ENA1 - Language & Representation
Age-related language is often overlooked when we focus on Language & Representation in ENA1, so this could prove a valuable area of research. Is there a tendency to label older people with demeaning terms such as "crumblies", "senile old gits" and "has beens"? And if so, are these labels out of proportion to those applied to younger people "hoodies", "yobs" etc. ?
Useful for:
ENA1 - Language & Representation
Muffin tops, salad dodgers and munters
With the new Chambers Dictionary released in a couple of weeks, there's an article in today's Guardian about some of the new (and not so new) words set to be included. What makes this article a bit more interesting than the usual spate of new words articles every time a dictionary comes out, is that it has a sociolinguistic spin at the end.
According to Dr Pia Pichler from Goldsmiths College, many of the new words betray a derogatory representation of women, far outnumbering the derogatory words for men. For those of you who have looked at Language and Representation in ENA1, the name Julia Stanley might ring bells. Her research in the 1970s suggested that the number of pejorative terms for women outweighed those for men by a factor of about 10 to 1. So for every "nobhead" there were ten "sluts", "hoes" and "mooses"...or something like that.
What this article seems to suggest is that this lexical over-representation is still evident: perhaps it's even increasing because of the huge amount of new words and phrases used to describe female bodies. So, the obsession with trying to look like an orange-skinned celebrity nonentity (like Jordan, Chantelle or those strange looking girls from Atomic Kitten) has led to all sorts of new words and phrases to describe processes of hair removal ("Brazilian"), breast enhancement ("tit tape") and skin colour ("permatan") but has also led to new terms for those women who don't make the grade or whose bodies don't fit the skinny, plastic template: "bingo wings" for wobbly bits on the underarm; "muffin tops" for those outpourings of flesh over the top of too-tight belts; "salad dodgers" for people who don't follow diets.
Useful for:
ENA1 - Language & Representation
EA4C - Language Investigation
ENA5 - Language Change
ENA6 - Language Debates
According to Dr Pia Pichler from Goldsmiths College, many of the new words betray a derogatory representation of women, far outnumbering the derogatory words for men. For those of you who have looked at Language and Representation in ENA1, the name Julia Stanley might ring bells. Her research in the 1970s suggested that the number of pejorative terms for women outweighed those for men by a factor of about 10 to 1. So for every "nobhead" there were ten "sluts", "hoes" and "mooses"...or something like that.
What this article seems to suggest is that this lexical over-representation is still evident: perhaps it's even increasing because of the huge amount of new words and phrases used to describe female bodies. So, the obsession with trying to look like an orange-skinned celebrity nonentity (like Jordan, Chantelle or those strange looking girls from Atomic Kitten) has led to all sorts of new words and phrases to describe processes of hair removal ("Brazilian"), breast enhancement ("tit tape") and skin colour ("permatan") but has also led to new terms for those women who don't make the grade or whose bodies don't fit the skinny, plastic template: "bingo wings" for wobbly bits on the underarm; "muffin tops" for those outpourings of flesh over the top of too-tight belts; "salad dodgers" for people who don't follow diets.
So years on from Julia Stanley's research, do we still have the same level of over-representation for terms used to describe women and their bodies? How do we find out? Well, don't rely on other people's research. Do what Julie Blake has always suggested on her Language Legend blog and DIY! With all sorts of new ways of researching language - using google to find out the popularity of certain new words, or using online corpora to analyse language use in written or spoken texts - you can find out if particular patterns exist. And then you can work out if it means women are still the target of the arsenal of nasty words, or if men are finding themselves the victims of new pejorative terms as well.
Useful for:
ENA1 - Language & Representation
EA4C - Language Investigation
ENA5 - Language Change
ENA6 - Language Debates
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