In this week’s readings, the articles focused on language attitude and ideology. All three articles demonstrated how different variations of language are perceived by “society” and how variety threatens language ideology.
Preston[2013] discusses how the perception of people’s language has an effect on what the listener thinks of the speaker and makes assumptions which leads to beliefs about the speaker’s community. I thought it was interesting that in Lambert’s experiment on language attitude of standard vs regional/variation language, speakers of the “standard”language were rated as more competent than those regional speakers however, “nonstandard” speakers had higher ratings for integrity and attractiveness. These perceptions have major effects in many aspects of life. Purnell et al demonstrate how language attitudes of inquiries for apartment rentals over the phone can affect whether the speaker of “nonstandard” english are able to secure a viewing of the apartment. Only 30 percent of African American English and Chicano English speakers were given an appointment for the apartment viewing. This shows how language attitude solely based on language can affect “nonstandard” speakers in housing opportunities. This is only one example of how language ideology and language attitudes are active factors for people in certain communities. This also supports the reason for translanguaging from “nonstandard” to standard english in order to have social mobility.
The geographical mapping of language was also quite interesting. The language attitudes of the stereotypes of speakers of different regions in the United States is interesting but not surprising. What was surprising though was that the Michigan “standard” english speakers felt that they were superior to those of the south for every attribute of the “standard” factor group. This demonstrates sociological issues that may be deeper than language and language attitude.
Woolard and Schieffelen[1994] explain what linguistic ideology is and how it came to be such an integral part of society.
“Examples from the headlines of United States newspapers include bilingual policy and the official English movement; questions of free speech and harassment; the meaning of multiculturalism in school and texts; the exclusion of jurors who might rely on their own native-speaker understanding of non-English testimony; and the question of journalists’ responsibilities and the truthful representation of direct speech.” (pg. 72)
These examples, again demonstrate some of the aspects where language ideology can affect “real life” situations. How language ideology is present in politics, power and through society. Woolard and Schieffelen explain the historical significance of language ideology and colonial linguistics.
“Perceived linguistic structure can always have political meaning in the colonial encounter. Functional or formal inadequacy of indigenous languages and, therefore, of indiginoues mind or civilization was often alleged to justify European tutelage (89). On the other hand, a sixteenth
century grammar asserted that Quechua was so similar to Latin and Castilian that it was “like a prediction that the Spaniards will possess it””(pg. 68)
What?! This is absurd, the “similarity” of Quechua to Latin (which I don’t believe exists but okay), is “like a prediction that the Spaniards will possess it”. I am surprised of how linguistically creative this justification of colonialism is (not really). However, this shows how those with language ideology impose themselves onto others, although it may be observed differently today, it is obvious how it was done during colonial encounters.
D’Arcy explains how language change is perceived as language degeneration although language is always changing and the ones that usually bring this change are adolescents.
D’Arcy debunks the myth of “like” and all the syntactic forms it can take. Some of the common misconceptions of the term like, are that women use it more often than men do, the term stems from the California Valley Girl talk and that younger people use it more often than older generations. D’Arcy debunks these misconceptions by doing an experiment in Toronto, where she interviewed people of different ages, which she was the first to do so. With the results of her experiment, she found that women do use the term more often but when the term is used in the quotative sense, as an adverb and marker. As men use it more often than women when it is in the particle DP, particle vP and the particle AP syntactic positions. She also found that the marker and the particle use of the term developed in the 1950’s in New York City and that the term was also used in the U.K. some 10-20 years earlier. This also helps the conclusion that older generations use the term in her sample. What’s more interesting is that the older generation and males do not realize how often they actually use the term. I wonder how or why we believe that this term came from the California Valley Girl speech.
