LINGUIST List 6.1629

Sat Nov 18 1995

Misc: Prescriptivism, Linguistic Diversity on Internet

Editor for this issue: Ljuba Veselinova <lveselinemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. Jack Aubert, Prescriptivism
2. Benjamin Ao, Linguistic Diversity on the Internet

Although I don't have anything profound to contribute regarding the
basic issues beyond what has been well argued by others I would like
to add a comment on stagmatized forms, or "errors" from the
perspective of a student and speaker of foreign languages.

I have put a fair amount of effort into learning to get my errors
right. I always distinguish two basic sorts of errors: native speaker
and non-native speaker. I have no use for the latter: errors like "un
lettre du Reine" "Why did you left without me?" And mixing vocabulary:
I will always remember an English composition by a francophone African
student I once had who thought "overcoat" meant "above all." And the
poor woman who spent one morning in paris searching for "spider
butter" instead of "peanut butter" (the words were on the same page in
her French vocabulary list).

Nobody is really interested in these errors except for the amusing
stories they provide. What we are interested in are "learned errors"
or stigmatized forms. "Between you and I", "aks" for "ask",
infinitive splitting and the like, are not random slips; they are
obviously learned in some context. In aspiring to speak a foreign
language as much as possible like a native, I need to learn the social
meanings of these forms. There is no sense denying that all forms and
dialects are equal. They are not. They have extra-semantic meanings
which can be social, regional, ethnic, or something more subtle. As a
language student, I need to recognize and learn how to use stigmatize
forms.

To play a language well, one needs to extend my range to all the
registers open to one, and learn how to modulate between them. In
learning a foreign language, this means that one has to identify
"errors" made by native speakers and learn what non-semantic meaning
is conveyed by the errors. Some of these errors are almost obligatory
in practice -- if you don't use them your speech is stilted. Then
there is the area of taboo/obscene speech which it absolutely
essential for the language student to master. (Imagine walking around
in real life not understanding all these words and expressions that
are not supposed to occur in print or in the Linguist List) Between
the extremes of semi-obligatory and taboo is a gamut of native-speaker
errors that when used carefuly can give you the right hint of studied
casualness or regional flavor or vulgarity when you need it.
Unfortunately these things tend to be poorly covered in standard
textbooks -- thereby creating a market for little
"Speak-Whatever-the-Way-They Really-Speak-It" manuals of "slang."

The applied linguist has to make an effor to learn the locutions the
prescriptive grammarian tells him are errors. But the more subtle
point is that he needs the prescriptive grammarian to identify them as
stigmatized so that in addition to learning the errors themselves, but
can learn their error-meanings: all stigmata are not created equal.
While the native speaker works his way up from stigmatized forms to
mastery of prestige forms, the foreigner has to work his way down (or
is it also up?) from mastery of the textbook grammar to mastery of
stigmatized forms.

 Linguistic Diversity on the Internet

 The rapid expansion of the Internet has many social ramifications.
One of them is its impact on the linguistic diversity among different
ethnic groups. I recently conducted a survey of postings in the 116
culturally diverse discussion groups under the Usenet news.soc.culture
node, and found that no more than 20 languages are used as the primary
medium of message posting. The results are as follows:

 82 English
 11 Spanish
 3 Serbo-Croatian
 2 French
 2 German
 2 Portuguese
 1 Africaans
 1 Albanian
 1 Bulgarian
 1 Czech
 1 Dutch
 1 Esperanto
 1 Estonian
 1 Flemish
 1 Indonesian
 1 Italian
 1 Polish
 1 Russian
 1 Turkish
 1 Vietnamese
 ----------------------
 116 Total

 From these numbers, we cam make the following observations.

1. The linguistic diversity is greatly reduced on the Internet.

2. All but two (Russian and Bulgarian) posting languages have writing
 systems based on the Roman alphabet.

3. Speakers of languages that do not have Roman alphabet based writing
 systems don't bother with transliteration (with the exception of
 Russian and Bulgarian speakers). They simply adopt English.

4. English is by far the most popular language on the Internet, even
 if the subject matter is highly culturally and ethnically oriented.

 It will be interesting to see how the current linguistic diversity
on the Internet will develop in the future.

Benjamin Ao
First Byte
A speech technology company
in California