rinkuhero wrote:

i think that if someone had that attitude towards learning japanese (that you can just make up your own grammar rules in the language) they wouldn't get very far

I think there is a distinction between making your own rule up and developing his own style. If a person has lived in the language, is fully aware of what his perhaps nonstandard style sounds like to other speakers in a given situation, and still decides to go with the style, I wouldn't call it making up with a negative connotation. So, for example, if a person uses "incorrect" grammar in his manuscript knowing that he will have much harder time getting his manuscript accepted by editors and why it is so, it is not making his own rule up. I think it's his choice as a proficient speaker.

rinkuhero wrote:

also the idea that every english user is equally a part of its evolution makes no sense to me. the evolution of a language is influenced most by people in authority or people who are widely read -- shakespeare had more influence on english's evolution than some random peasant from the same era, because so many people read him his influence was much greater

What I mean is that language belongs to everyone, and that just like (in an ideal world) every adult has the equal right to vote in politics, every proficient speaker has the right to vote in language evolution, i.e., you can use language the way you want as long as you know the consequence. We don't know if your preferred style catches on, and if you're outnumbered or against famous figures' styles, it's highly unlikely. But I don't think the fact that some influential figures have larger impacts makes it unfair or unequal; you don't get some kind of extra bonus right to vote to offset the difference in influence just because you're not famous. In this sense, I think every speaker is equally a part of language evolution.

Last edited by magamo (2011 September 26, 8:41 am)

You can always find strange features of your own area dialect -- even though I grew up in the Midwest, which is supposedly "standard" English, there are a lot of features there that aren't universal:
"Anymore you have to go online to get good deals." (or at the end, "I watch hulu instead of TV anymore.")
"We're going to the movies.  Wanna come with?"

I grew up in an area near Chicago where many people used even more nonstandard features; I had friends who used "clumb" as the past tense of "climb", and double negatives and "ain't" were pretty common as well.  (I still say "had drank" instead of "had drunk"; this is the same kind of past-pp merger that creates the "I seen" thing from a few pages ago.  At least I can say that Jane Austen used "had drank" as well. :-))

I also still use "less" with countable objects (i.e. "I have less books than you") which drives my mother up the wall to this day, although I steadfastly refuse to see anything wrong with it.

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2011 September 26, 8:50 am)

It needs more academic journal references.

Jarvik7 wrote:

It needs more academic journal references.

There is a wealth of discourse in the literature of postcolonial studies that convenes on the notion of how, in the context of contemporary Western society, prestige language functions to establish and maintain the social and political utility granted to certain societal entities, namely, those belonging to the upper echelons in the social stratification schema, which chiefly comprises white, upperclass males and the social entities created to legitimize and exercise the power of said individuals, i.e. corporations, centers of commerce, and judicial, legislative, and executive branches of government.

The aforementioned ideas, along with several other related ones that canvass the breadth and depth of the discourse (in the context of the English language and all of its variations), are explored and discussed at length in the following manuscript entitled The Politics of English as a World Language.

This article highlights the sociopolitically motivated difficulties encountered by speakers
of a non-prestige dialect in the professional sphere. In terms of function, the prestige dialect serves to construct barriers to social mobility through the enforcement of various stereotypes and prejudices projected onto those who speak another dialect. Consequently, language conflict zones arise in areas where speakers of a non-prestige dialect attempt to gain access to social and political resources and opportunities that have traditionally been exclusive to speakers of the prestige dialect: Language Conflict.

The language conflict between Afrikaans and English in South Africa is the classic historical example of a prestige dialect serving to establish, legitimize, and exercise the social and political power of a ruling class. In similar fashion to how zachandhobbes dismisses supposedly incorrect English usage and positions themselves as an upholder of linguistic normativity, "correct" language usage was imposed on people of African descent during the era of apartheid in South Africa. This historical account is well-documented here.

Other relevant articles and manuscripts can be found here, here, and here.

To be comprehensive, I've included a link here that discusses these issues in a non-Western context.

The central theme pervading the literature is that language prestige functions to maintain the status quo, protect the interests of the privileged individuals who speak prestige dialects, and to act as an obstacle to social mobility by impeding access to certain opportunities within one's society.

Translation: language prestige (i.e. upholding an ideal of "correctness") is a tool used, whether consciously or not, by privileged individuals to maintain and legitimize their power while denying power to underprivileged groups.

If anyone else actually understood nest0r's posts, most of them were interesting points like the one above. They were just buried in a wall of dense, unnecessary academese.

See, you can nest0r too.

Last edited by vileru (2011 September 26, 10:43 pm)

Jarvik7 wrote:

"Anymore you have to go online to get good deals." (or at the end, "I watch hulu instead of TV anymore.")

Really? That's not even comprehensible to me.

"Come with" is pretty common throughout at least North America as far as I've experienced.. Shows up in movies/tv a lot too.

Agreed, just reading that makes my head hurt. "How not" might make my ears bleed if I hear it out loud.

Although my point has been that neither popularity nor prestige makes a usage right or wrong, here is what Merriam-Webster says about the use of "anymore" in positive sentences:

Merriam-Webster wrote:

In many regions of the United States the use of anymore in sense 2 is quite common in positive constructions, especially in speech <everybody's cool anymore — Bill White> <every time we leave the house anymore, I play a game called “Stump the Housebreaker” — Erma Bombeck>. The positive use appears to have been of Midland origin, but it is now reported to be widespread in all speech areas of the United States except New England.

As dictionary editors say (e.g., in this video), the purpose of every dictionary is to record the language as it is, i.e., the stance major dictionaries take about language is the direct opposite to that of people who claim a particular use is right or wrong. So those people may entirely dismiss what dictionaries say because they never encourage linguistic prestige or define what is right. But it may be interesting to see what experts say when we can't agree on a particular point. (Edit: To be clear, I'm not saying what this particular dictionary says is correct or anything like that. It's just an opinion from a different viewpoint.)

Last edited by magamo (2011 September 27, 2:17 am)