Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[garbon]

The problem in the article cited by Garbon is similar to what happens when people take any concept from linguistics or anthropology too far and too literally. Abandoning any attempt to "prescriptively" teach the rules of "proper English" or "formal English" would do students a significant disservice, and would be a bad idea if it could be universally imposed - because the use of various "informal" speech patterns alone, without access to a universally understood (if variable over time and place) "proper English", would make mutual intelligibility between in-groups more difficult. It therefore makes perfect sense to privilege one set of rules for the purposes of education, call them "proper English" or "formal English" if you like.

But that isn't what the article said.

As noted, he specifically wrote that you need to know what you should use in different situations.

edit: I also think it is perfectly legitimate to question whether or not what is expected in different situations, should be that way.

[garbon]

[Valmy]

El Arroyo wishing we could be an anarchist commune.

Shitty Tex-Mex though. Avoid.

[Malthus]

The problem in the article cited by Garbon is similar to what happens when people take any concept from linguistics or anthropology too far and too literally. Abandoning any attempt to "prescriptively" teach the rules of "proper English" or "formal English" would do students a significant disservice, and would be a bad idea if it could be universally imposed - because the use of various "informal" speech patterns alone, without access to a universally understood (if variable over time and place) "proper English", would make mutual intelligibility between in-groups more difficult. It therefore makes perfect sense to privilege one set of rules for the purposes of education, call them "proper English" or "formal English" if you like.

But that isn't what the article said.

As noted, he specifically wrote that you need to know what you should use in different situations.

edit: I also think it is perfectly legitimate to question whether or not what is expected in different situations, should be that way.

Your article is a poster child for taking a good idea and going too far with it. I agree with much of what it says: but it goes too far, and concludes that there is no use for "proper English". This statement is a bit of a tautology:

But it is not possible for everyone, or the majority of educated users of the language, to be wrong on the same point at the same time.

What, exactly, makes someone an "educated user of the language" other than knowledge of the conventions of "proper English"? Indeed, the author is doing exactly what he accuses his target of doing: privileging one group of language users ("educated users of the language") over all others. Nor is he wrong to do so - he's quite right to do so. Only, that's exactly what differentiates "proper English" from the other forms! 

[garbon]

The problem in the article cited by Garbon is similar to what happens when people take any concept from linguistics or anthropology too far and too literally. Abandoning any attempt to "prescriptively" teach the rules of "proper English" or "formal English" would do students a significant disservice, and would be a bad idea if it could be universally imposed - because the use of various "informal" speech patterns alone, without access to a universally understood (if variable over time and place) "proper English", would make mutual intelligibility between in-groups more difficult. It therefore makes perfect sense to privilege one set of rules for the purposes of education, call them "proper English" or "formal English" if you like.

But that isn't what the article said.

As noted, he specifically wrote that you need to know what you should use in different situations.

edit: I also think it is perfectly legitimate to question whether or not what is expected in different situations, should be that way.

Your article is a poster child for taking a good idea and going too far with it. I agree with much of what it says: but it goes too far, and concludes that there is no use for "proper English". This statement is a bit of a tautology:

But it is not possible for everyone, or the majority of educated users of the language, to be wrong on the same point at the same time.

What, exactly, makes someone an "educated user of the language" other than knowledge of the conventions of "proper English"? Indeed, the author is doing exactly what he accuses his target of doing: privileging one group of language users ("educated users of the language") over all others. Nor is he wrong to do so - he's quite right to do so. Only, that's exactly what differentiates "proper English" from the other forms! 

I'm just calling out that you shouldn't take his rhetorical excess and extend that to mean his thesis is something counter to what he's actually written. He's rather in line with things that you, Grumbler, PDH and myself have said but then with a fair dosing of Psellus dairy pants excitement.  Still I thought it was a decent enough article to post even if fundamentally tarnished by said exuberance.

[PDH]

The point being that there is a standard defined English, and there are vernaculars, regional and social.  There are also dialects, and there are even admixtures of two languages.  All of them that have internally consistent rules, usage, and understanding are parts of the English Language.

What makes the standard the standard?  It is not always correct.  Speak that Upper Midwest Broadcaster English deep in the Barrio, and you might well find that this is rather improper for the moment, just as the Barrio-Speak at the Waldorf is not proper.

For the linguist, not the socio-linguist, the fact that both have their own rules, grammars, and syntax that are followed makes both vernaculars - but neither can be classified as less of a language (or technically part of a language) than the other.  The socio-linguist would take this farther and say that in practice it is all about the situation - proper and improper are therefore very much situationally based.

[CountDeMoney]

I think today will be "Talk Like an Old-Time Newspaper Sports Reporter" Day.

"...the greatest individual display of thread writing this reporter's ever seen!" *tap, tap, tap*

[garbon]

The point being that there is a standard defined English

Is that the case though? As I noted previously what could be standard English differs by nation which would seem to undermine the notion of 'a' Standard English even though there might be various standards by nation. 

Wiki has this to say: "Standard English (SE) refers to whatever form of the English language is accepted as a national norm in any English-speaking country. It encompasses grammar, vocabulary and spelling. In the British Isles, particularly in England and Wales, it is often associated with: the "Received Pronunciation" accent (there are several variants of the accent) and UKSE (United Kingdom Standard English), which refers to grammar and vocabulary. In Scotland the standard is Scottish Standard English. In the United States it is generally associated with (though controversially) the General American accent and in Australia with General Australian."

[Valmy]

I don't know if any language is standardized across national borders. The Canadians, and other non-Frenchy Francophones, tend to ignore the pronouncements of the Académie française.

[viper37]

I don't know if any language is standardized across national borders. The Canadians, and other non-Frenchy Francophones, tend to ignore the pronouncements of the Académie française.

Not quite.

Everyone ignores the pronouncements of the Académie Française in everyday speech.
Education and official communications are another matter entirely.  Though the Frogs tend to use more english words than we do, in their official communications.

[Malthus]

The point being that there is a standard defined English, and there are vernaculars, regional and social.  There are also dialects, and there are even admixtures of two languages.  All of them that have internally consistent rules, usage, and understanding are parts of the English Language.

What makes the standard the standard?  It is not always correct.  Speak that Upper Midwest Broadcaster English deep in the Barrio, and you might well find that this is rather improper for the moment, just as the Barrio-Speak at the Waldorf is not proper.

For the linguist, not the socio-linguist, the fact that both have their own rules, grammars, and syntax that are followed makes both vernaculars - but neither can be classified as less of a language (or technically part of a language) than the other.  The socio-linguist would take this farther and say that in practice it is all about the situation - proper and improper are therefore very much situationally based.

This is why we should not put socio-linguists in charge of education. 

The point is that talking about "standard", "formal" or "proper" English is all about privileging one set or rules over another - one "standard" that everyone is expected to know, if they wish to communicate clearly and effectively outside their immediate community.

Now all this talk about "privilege" and "proper" is just hateful to your modern progressive - to them, it just sounds like racism, colonialism, and every other sort of -ism that they dislike. To my mind, it doesn't have to be. It can, in fact, be empowering - if all you know is "Barrio-Speak", you are at a big disadvantage in communicating with anyone outside the Barrio compared with someone who can talk "Barrio-speak" in the Barrio and "proper English" outside the Barrio, right? Therefore, in actually teaching language, it is better to have as the goal the teaching of "proper English" (which not everyone learns from 'their street') rather than Barrio-speak (which, presumably, people do learn from 'the street' - but each community has a different version).

Sure, each is a language, but one is a language useful for communicating with people in the world at large, and one is not.

Everyone more or less understand this, but it is a point that can get lost among all this discussion of how "there is no such thing as proper English". 

[Admiral Yi]

I agree with everything that Peedy said, except he left out the fact that the various types of English do have a relationship with economic opportunity.

I've always thought the best way to teach ghetto kids English is to tell them it's a second language they have to master if they want any real chance of economic advancement.

[Malthus]

As an example of this process, I point to the history of Ebonics in education. The whole point of Ebonics, originally, was to cease disregarding Black dialect as 'unworthy' and use it in education -- with the ultimate goal of helping kids who grew up using the dialect to learn "standard English".

It was derided (unfairly, at least initially) as an attempt to teach Black kids dialect, rather than standard English. However, as time went on, some embraced the mistake and started to insist that forcing Black kids to learn "standard", even using AAVE as a tool for this purpose, was a sort of linguistic racism:

According to Smitherman, the controversy and debates concerning AAVE in public schools imply deeper deterministic attitudes towards the African-American community as a whole. Smitherman describes this as a reflection of the "power elite's perceived insignificance and hence rejection of Afro-American language and culture".[139] She also asserts that African Americans are forced to conform to European American society in order to succeed, and that conformity ultimately means the "eradication of black language . . . and the adoption of the linguistic norms of the white middle class." The necessity for "bi-dialectialism" (AAVE and General American) means "some blacks contend that being bi-dialectal not only causes a schism in the black personality, but it also implies such dialects are 'good enough' for blacks but not for whites."[140]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_English#In_education

The point though is that ultimately there must be some mutually intelligible agreed-on standard. That standard is likely going to be established, by definition, by those in the majority and in positions of influence. Those who are not in the majority and who do not have influence are going to have to learn it, if they wish to be understood - hence persuade - the powerful and influential, or perhaps become powerful and influential themselves ... either that, or get the majority, the powerful and the influential to learn their dialect. 

[Valmy]

Yeah well white people who speak dialects have the same issue. And not all Afro-Americans speak the same dialect. Far from it.

Besides it is not like the Afro-American dialects have not had a large effect on how Americans speak English in general. This sounds like a vast simplification for the point of telling a certain story.

[Malthus]

Yeah well white people who speak dialects have the same issue. And not all Afro-Americans speak the same dialect. Far from it.

Exactly. That's why a "standard" of "proper" English is a good thing. If (say) a white dialect speaker wishes to talk to a Black dialect speaker, it would be best if both could switch out of dialect and speak in "standard" to each other, or they may not be mutually intelligible.