On Sat, Apr 01, 2000 at 11:37:46PM -0500, Jay Lemke wrote:
> There is a real sense in which so-called standard national
> languages are Ideals, if not Illusions. [On the other hand,
> when we become non-native speakers in another country, w]e are
> just mystified at why so many native speakers can't seem to
> speak their own language properly.
> A matter which would not mystify us at all if we asked it about
> our own speech communities. But about which there are many
> mystifications regarding the reasons: those speakers are
> uneducated, we say, or they speak a (rare) dialect.
Thus we are hyper-sensitive to sociolinguistic variation in our
first languages, but unaware of how this hypersensitivity plays
into a trap, the creation of the ideal of a standard national
language.
> We are hiding something behind the illusion of a "homogeneous
> speech community", which doesn't exist. We are hiding important
> truths about language and about society behind grammar books
> that seem to have innocent practical uses.
The people being deceived about the construction of a
non-existent standard national langauge includes those in power,
so this is not a Machiavellian deception with the intent of
withholding power from the powerless, I don't think. How does the
fact it is an illusion work against the interests of language
learners and speakers of minority dialects? By not indicating
clearly to people the source of their lack of power?
> Have you seen polylectal grammars that describe the actual
> variety of speech forms in a community? They would almost be a
> contradiction -- grammars are about homogeneity, for homogenization. The
> era of the 'prescriptive' or normative grammar is not over at all. Class
> power exercised through linguistic discrimination is not at all on the
> wane. In fact, it seems to be on the rise as other forms of discrimination
> become illegal.
I think it will be very difficult to separate this social drive
to create a standard national language from the processes that
are responsible for individual development of language
ability. We have to work out how people have prescriptive and
normative ideas about language.
-- Greg Matheson genius + soul = jazz Chinmin College, Taiwan Mr_Bean on SchMOOze lang@ms.chinmin.edu.tw & telnet://moo.enabling.org#8888
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