Split infinitives, whole dilemmas. BETH WOOD explores the pros and cons of grammar teaching in UK schools

Have you ever found yourself lost in the labyrinth of grammatical terms? If so, you’re not alone. The current buzz about the Key Stage 2 SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar) test might feel like deciphering a foreign language for many.
Imagine this: you’re cruising through your writing journey, confident in your skills, and then bam! The SPaG test hits, and suddenly, you’re facing a terrain filled with terms like “subjunctive mood” “adverbial phrase” and “relative clauses.” Sounds relatively insane, right? Well, this is a reality for England’s Key Stage Two students (ages 7 – 11) who have been obliged to endure this “rigorous new [SPAG] test” to prove they can write “properly, creatively and effectively” (Department for Education, 2013.)

Literacy challenges
Let’s rewind to 2012, where the English government’s performance tables were looking rather miserable – “the worst in the developed world for literacy” (Clarke, 2016) to be precise. Lord Bew’s ‘Key Stage 2 Testing Assessment and Accountability Report’ didn’t sugarcoat the failure of the education system, pointing out “significant issues with the existing writing national curriculum test” (DFE, 2011.) Enter 2013, and the newly appointed SPaG test is trialled, containing grammatical elements that even some undergraduate students would shiver at. Former Education Minister Elizabeth Truss (and more recently, former UK Prime Minister, 2022) claimed that despite the uproar, the new assessment was essential. “Why”, you ask? Well, Truss believed it was high time for primary schools to roll up their sleeves and “ensure that children leave primary school confident” with complex grammar. (DFE, 2013.)

However, not everyone agreed with Truss’s educational evolution. Linguist David Crystal, while a staunch advocate for grammar teaching, aligns himself with the opposition when it comes to this testing method. In his blog (2013), Crystal asserted that the conventional approach of having children identify sentence components out of context does little to enhance their writing abilities. He contended that a shift in focus was imperative, emphasizing the importance of helping children comprehend the reasons behind the use of specific grammatical elements, rather than just giving them the means to label it.

Whose Standard?
In his article on the role of Standard English Milroy (1999) highlighted that many linguists frequently endorse the instruction of clear-cut grammatical rules as a vital resource, particularly for children who lack exposure to ‘Standard English’ at home. Here is the twist – the tests designed to uplift children’s confidence and writing skills might be conveying conflicting messages. Is there a risk that these assessments unintentionally stigmatise unique dialects as ‘incorrect’? The questions evaluating familiarity with Standard English often overlook the fact that children inherently communicate in diverse dialects. However, Carter (1999) argued that a child who is not exposed to such teachings would face significant disadvantages, leading to disempowerment.
This prompts us to reflect on whether the commendable efforts by the government to improve children’s education could unintentionally yield negative consequences, causing students to scrutinise their own speech patterns. According to Thomason and Ward (2009), the effective teaching of grammar could be significantly enhanced if it were presented as a versatile “tool” for children to wield, thereby augmenting their language proficiency. Striking a delicate balance between imparting essential grammar knowledge and appreciating the richness of linguistic diversity is key.

More than one right answer?

Children’s writer Michael Rosen (2015), a famous adversary of the SPaG test, dauntlessly challenged the conventional notion of a singular correct answer when it comes to grammatical description. Rosen underscored scenarios, drawn from the 2016 test as an illustrative example, where children were assigned the challenge of matching prefixes to words. Rosen’s examination exposed the possibility of two acceptable answers and emphasising the intrinsic ambiguity in the assessment. In another blog, Rosen (2016) harshly critiqued the construction of the SPAG tests, identifying multiple inconsistencies that raise pertinent questions about the fairness of assessing children when those formulating the tests cannot agree upon an answer.
Adding fuel to the fire, discussions emerged between the then Minister of Education, Nick Gibb, and an interviewer regarding the interpretation of the term “after” within the sentence “I went to the cinema after I’d eaten my dinner.” This sparked a debate on whether “after” functions as a subordinating conjunction or a preposition (Aarts, 2016.) Surely if our adults are puzzled, we cannot expect our children to have the answers?
Wyse et al (2013), similar to Rosen, asserted that the questions in the SPAG test, particularly those eliciting controversy, are “dry as dust, decontextualised and old-fashioned”. They concluded that a mere labelling approach, as exemplified in such questions, does not facilitate meaningful learning about the English Language for children.

Terminologyitis?

Rosen’s critique of the SPAG test goes beyond the mere examination of its terminology; it encompasses concerns about the temperament and construction of the questions posed (2015.) In his view, he contends that the test falls short as a tool for enhancing children’s writing through metalanguage or analytical approaches, as it rigidly adheres to a binary perspective on grammar, neglecting to consider the dynamic influence of context in language and emphasising clear “right and wrong” answers (Rosen, 2015.)
Teachers’ union leader Mary Bousted (2016), argued that an emphasis on grammar terminology through “rigorous testing” (DFE, 2013) may not necessarily translate to enhanced writing abilities in children. According to Rosen (2015), the SPaG test is afflicted with “terminology-itis”, where an overemphasis on complex grammatical terms may not significantly contribute to improving the writing skills of our youngsters. Supporting this, Bousted suggested that encouraging extensive reading and fostering creativity through storytelling might be more effective in nurturing writing abilities than dedicating time to grammatical descriptions and testing.
In Bloom’s (2017) work, he aligns with Rosen’s argument asserting the existence of a “significant and persistent mismatch” between academic evidence supporting government policies and the actual implementation of these policies in the realm of teaching grammar to children in schools. Mansell’s report in The Guardian (2017) resonated with public sentiments, reflecting apprehensions that “strict [grammar] rules” might impede the creativity of young individuals, and portray writing as a restrictive and confining endeavour. This multifaceted discussion underscores the ongoing debate over the efficacy and fairness of grammar testing in shaping the language skill on creative expression of our budding wordsmiths.

Improving standards?

Regardless the ongoing protests, let’s not ignore the results. In 2017, a noteworthy 77% of students reached the expected standard in the SPaG tests, according to Ward (2017.) This begs the question: Are the tests achieving their intended outcomes, or is there more to the story? As the debate rages on, one thing is clear – the SPaG tests have stirred the educational pot, sparking discussions about the best way to nurture our young wordsmiths. Whether you’re on Team SPaG or cheering for alternative assessment methods, the journey towards effective literacy education continues.

References

Aarts, B. (2015, November 6.) The study of grammar is interesting in its own right. Grammarianism. https://grammarianism.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/the-study-of-grammar-is-interesting-in-its-own-right/
Bloom, A. (2017, November 28). Teaching grammar does not improve children’s writing ability, research finds. Tes.com. https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/teaching-grammar-does-not-improve-childrens-writing-ability-research-finds
Bousted, M. (2016, April 19). ‘Our children are being set up for failure, stress, disappointment and disaffection.’ Tes.com https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/our-children-are-being-set-failure-stress-disappointment-and-disaffection
Carter, R. (1995). Standard Grammars, Spoken Grammars: Some Educational implication. In T. Bex & R.J. Watts (Eds.) (1999), Standard English: The widening debate (pp. 149 – 169). London: Routledge.
Clarke, E. (2016, March 12). Children love to learn grammar and thanks to Michael Gove they will get the chance. Spectator.
Crystal, D. (2013, May 5). On a testing time. David Crystal blog. https://david-crystal.blogspot.com/2013/05/on-testing-time.html
Department for Education, (2011). Review of key stage 2 testing, assessment, and accountability. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-of-key-stage-2-testing-assessment-and-accountability-final-report

Department for Education, (2013). New grammar, punctuation and spelling test will raise children’s literacy standards. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-grammar-punctuation-and-spelling-test-will-raise-childrens-literacy-standards
Department for Education, (2022). Key Stage 2 tests: 2022 English grammar, punctuation, and spelling materials. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/key-stage-2-tests-2022-english-grammar-punctuation-and-spelling-test-materials
Mansell, W. (2017, May 9). Battle on the adverbials front: Grammar advisers raise worries about says test and teaching, The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/may/09/fronted-adverbials-sats-grammar-test-primary
Milroy, J (1999). The consequences of standardisation in descriptive linguistics. In Bex. T & R.J. Watts (Eds.) (1999), Standard English: The widening debate (pp. 16 – 39). London United Kingdom: Routledge.
Rosen, M. (2015, November 3). Dear Ms Morgan: in grammar there isn’t always one right answer. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/nov/03/morgan-grammar-test-right-answer-spag-english-spelling-punctuation-grammar
Rosen, M. (2016, April 16). Why SPaG is nasty and dangerous. Michael Rosen. https://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.com/2016/04/why-spag-is-nasty-and-dangerous.html
Thomason, T. Ward, G. (2009). Tools, not rules, Durham, CT: Eloquent Books.
Ward, H. (2017, July 4). Sats: 61 percent of pupils reach expected standard in three Rs. Tes.com. https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/sats-61-cent-pupils-reach-expected-standard-three-rs
Wyse, D. Jones, R. Bradford, H. Wolpert, M. (2013). Teaching English, language, and literacy (3rd Ed). Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge.

“Ough ah” and “ough no”! Let’s take a step back and tone down the ‘Reading Wars’ rhetoric, says KAREN BOSWELL

Could you ever imagine that a well-meaning adult, trying to teach a child to read, could be open to accusations of “child abuse” (Improve-Education.Org, 2007)? Little did I know that in attempting to help my (then toddler) son to decipher the letters and sounds of the alphabet, I had unknowingly stumbled into a long-running linguistic war.

The ‘Reading Wars’ is a metaphor used in Britain, Australia, and The United States of America to describe polarised views about how early years reading and writing should be taught. The conflicting ideologies situated on the opposing sides of no-man’s land, are ‘systematic phonics’ on one side and ‘whole language’ on the other. Over the last few decades, these views have become more contentious. The video – Phonics vs Whole word – produced by Improve-Education.Org (2007) claims that the supporters on one side of this debate are, “evil”, “wicked”, and “perverse”. As if that language isn’t extreme enough, it also declares that teaching a child to read using the ‘Whole word’ approach is, “child abuse”. Thank goodness I used phonics! You can hold off on that phone call to Social Services…..

 Controversy about which approach to utilize in early years education continues to be hotly debated, with no overarching consensus between education, language experts and government policy.

What is systematic synthetic phonics?

The version of phonics mandated in the UK is called “systematic synthetic phonics, and it teaches children the sounds of letters in isolation and then coaches students to blend the sounds together” (Bowers, 2019). This allows individual letters and letter combinations (graphemes), to be related to units of sound (phonemes), which can then be assembled into words. The ‘whole language’ approach to literacy is analytical and focuses on “the development of children’s phonological awareness coupled with work on children’s capacity to draw analogies”, according to Dombey (1999, p.16), in her article in the literary magazine, Education 3 to 13. This approach teaches children to recognize individual words whilst experiencing whole texts, thereby providing more context. When Willingham states, in the Times Educational Supplement (2015, p.24), that “[t]he rival armies are entrenched and the battles vicious”, it begs the question: why is it so difficult for both sides to wave a white flag, call a ceasefire, and reach an amicable agreement in how to proceed?

The Rose Report (2006), recommended that synthetic phonics must be included in early reading instruction in English primary schools, following research in Clackmannanshire in Scotland in 2004 (Wyse and Styles, 2007, p. 35). This study claimed that “the synthetic phonics approach, as part of the reading curriculum, is more effective than the analytic phonics approach”, according to the researchers, Johnston and Watson, (2005, p.9; cited by Wyse and Styles, 2007, p. 38). Nick Gibb, School Standards Minister for the Department of Education in the UK at the time, accused those opposing the synthetic phonics approach as relying, “more heavily on emotion than evidence” and being “responsible for stifling human potential and negatively affecting life chances of countless children”, (Gibb, 2017).

Phonics testing

The UK government is so committed to the phonics approach that in 2012 it introduced the Phonics Screening Checks for children in Key Stage One, who are typically five-to-six years old. This view has been challenged by various voices, including the UK Literacy Association, who responded to Gibb’s comments by saying, “phonics is an essential part of learning to read but as a strategy for teaching reading, phonics is far from sufficient on its own”, (UKLA 2019). In his blog, Professor Jeffrey Bowers from the University of Bristol reached the conclusion that there is “little or no empirical evidence to support the conclusion that systematic phonics is best practice”, resulting from his studies of meta-analysis that have compared systematic phonics to methods that didn’t include any phonics at all, (Bowers, 2019).

‘Tough’ pronunciations [cough….]

The pronunciation of some English words can be notoriously difficult because of the many irregularities and alternative pronunciations that can be found in the English Language. Take, for example, the following words: ‘tough’, ‘though’, ‘plough’, ‘cough’, ‘through’, ‘thorough’. They all contain the same <ough> combination of letters, but try saying them out loud and you’ll notice that each one has a very different vowel sound, sometimes followed by a consonant sound (e.g. ‘cough’). Anyone learning to read phonetically would have to commit these words to memory in the same way that some other methods rely on, rather than relying on sounding out the different phonemes. Decoding unfamiliar words that don’t follow previously learnt, logical rules is problematic.

Is the phonics ‘one size fits all’ approach to acquiring the necessary skills to read and write the best way to proceed? The World Literacy Foundation (2015: cited by Castles et al, 2018, p.5), gives compelling reasons for the necessity to achieve good levels of literacy in the population, stating: “low literacy is a major contributor to inequality and increases the likelihood of poor physical and mental health, workplace accidents, misuse of medication, participation in crime, and welfare dependency”. This being the case, it seems that failing to teach children to read effectively is a legacy that affects the whole population. As government policy and leading academics cannot agree on one of the approaches discussed, then maybe it’s time to dig themselves out of the trenches and consider a more liberal way forward.    

 David Reedy from the UK Literacy Association, (2012), argued in a BBC feature article that a blended approach to the teaching of reading is required, and states that “reading should encompass a balance of teaching strategies including a systematic approach to phonics and other reading strategies, and a significant emphasis on children experiencing a wide range of texts”.

The argument for using a range of reading comprehension strategies is shared in the same article by Professor Maureen McLoughlin of the International Reading Association, (2012). McLoughlin claims that “[t]he goal of successful reading is comprehension […]” and that “students’ construction of meaning is enhanced”  by using a repertoire of strategies.

Surely if we want to show our children that reading can be a pleasurable activity and encourage them to fully engage with, and comprehend a variety of texts, we need to call a truce in this war and make reading fun as well as strategic?

References

Bowers, J. (2019, April). The Reading Wars. Jeff Bowers.

Castles, A., Rastle, K., & Nation, K. (2018). Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19, pp. 5–51.  

Dombey, H. (1999). Picking a path through the phonics minefield, Education 3 to 13 27(1), pp. 12-21.

Gibb, N. (2017). Nick Gibb: reading is the key to unlocking human potential. Gov.UK

Gov.uk (2022). Phonics Screening Check.

Improve-Education.Org (2007). Phonics vs Whole Word.

McLoughlin, M. (2012, October 15).Viewpoints: Teaching children to read. BBC.  

Reedy, D. (2012).Viewpoints: Teaching children to read. BBC.

Rose, J. (2006). Independent review of the teaching of early reading: Final Report. Department for Education and Skills.  

UK Literacy Association. (2019). One size does not fit all; UKLA’s response to Nick Gibbs latest comments on the phonics debate. UKLA.

Willingham, D. (2015, February). And the victor in the reading wars is… Times Educational Supplement, pp. 24-28.

Wyse, D. & Styles, M. (2007) Synthetic phonics and the teaching of reading: the debate surrounding England’s ‘Rose Report’. Literacy 41(1), pp. 35-42.

Are you relatively clued up on your clauses? OLIVIA DENTON debates the value of knowing fronted adverbials, prepositions and modal verbs in the Key Stage 2 classroom

Do you know what an adverbial is? What about a relative pronoun? Can you spot your modal verbs from your main verbs?

If most of this grammatical terminology sounds alien to you, then you will most likely struggle to pass the current Key Stage 2 SPaG (Spelling Punctuation and Grammar) test. I am sure without the knowledge of this grammatical terminology, many of you would regard yourselves adept writers and communicators. So, why is it that children aged seven to eleven across England must prove that they can spot these complex grammatical elements, in order to learn to write “properly, creatively and effectively?” (Department for Education, 2013).

The SPaG test was first introduced in England by the UK government in 2013, following Lord Bew’s ‘Key Stage 2 Testing Assessment and Accountability Report’. The report “highlighted significant issues with the existing writing national curriculum test” (DfE, 2011). During 2012 the government’s performance tables also took a hit, as the statistics for writing across primary schools in England were reported to be below average (ouch!) (DfE, 2013). According to Truss, the Education Minister during this time, the SPaG test needed to be introduced so “that primary schools will once again place a strong focus on the teaching of key writing techniques” (DfE, 2013).                               

            (Example taken from the 2019 SPaG test.)

For many opposers of this type of testing, such as Wyse et al (2013, p. 241) exercises like the one above are ineffective and counterproductive when teaching grammar and the skill of writing. They claim that this is because they are “dry as dust, decontextualised [and] old-fashioned” (2013, p. 241). They also determine that children cannot learn about the English Language in meaningful ways through these labelling exercises (2013, p. 241). In his blog, the renowned linguist David Crystal (2013), a supporter of grammar teaching, yet a critic of this type of testing, claims that getting children to identify parts of a sentence out of context will not improve their writing. He argues that more emphasis should be placed on getting children to understand why certain grammatical elements are used. So, do children really need to master the skill of underlining and circling in order to become the next Charles Dickens?            

In his blog, the linguist and supporter of the SPaG test, Bas Aarts (2015) emphasises that it is important that children understand the “mechanisms” of grammar and states that “there is a certain joy in knowing the names of the nuts and bolts of things”. The United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA, 2013) also value the importance of grasping this terminology, as they claim that “children do need a solid grounding in linguistic terminology in order to have the metalanguage they need to talk about and improve their work”.

However, I can drive a car, like I am sure many of you can, yet I cannot label the “nuts and bolts” of it, nor can I describe its inner workings. So, are the “nuts and bolts” of grammar really that important? Or can children write effectively without describing their inner workings? 

The children’s writer Michael Rosen (2015), a fierce critic of the SPaG test, claims in his Guardian report that the test suffers from a “severe case of terminology-itis”; a symptom of which is the myth that teaching and testing this complex terminology will advance children’s writing. In her Times Educational Supplement article, Bousted (2016), the general secretary of National Education Union, claims that children will only advance their writing abilities by having the opportunity to “read widely and […] write stories”, instead of spending time describing grammar and being rigorously tested. So, does this mean that we should permanently ban our subordinate clauses from entering the Key Stage 2 classrooms?                                                                                                                                            

However, according to Rosen (2015) there are several flaws with both the terminology used in the test and the nature of the questions. He suggests that it would therefore fail to work as a metalanguage or an analytical tool to improve children’s writing. For him, the test was “brought in on the evidence-free assumption that […] grammar questions have “right and wrong answers””. Rosen’s observation highlights that children are being taught to see grammar as black and white, without allowing them to regard the changes in the English language depending on context. Another anonymous public comment on Mansell’s Guardian report (2017) also claims that “[g]rammar is fluid, [and] all we’re doing by teaching strict rules is stifling young people’s imagination and creativity”. I am sure young Dicken’s would have found writing both confusing and dull if he were taught to see it in this way.

Milroy (1999, p. 21) claims that many linguists believe that the teaching of these prescriptivist black and white grammatical rules, will benefit disadvantaged children, who have not been exposed to Standard English at home. However, the questions in the test that check children’s knowledge of Standard English like the one below, dismiss the fact that children may use different dialect forms. Does this mean that whilst the government are attempting to improve children’s writing, they are simultaneously making children question the way that they speak and forcing them to regard their own dialects as “wrong?”

            (Example taken from the 2019 SPaG test.)

So, do you now feel a sudden urge to check what an adverbial is? Or are you still deliberating over your verbs? Will you rush to learn the grammatical terms used in the most recent SPaG test in the hope that you will improve the flaws in your day to day writing and become a best-selling novelist?

OLIVIA DENTON, English Language undergraduate, University of Chester, UK

References

Aarts, B. (2015, November 6). The study of grammar is interesting in its own right. Grammarianism.

Bousted, M. (2016, January 19). Take this absurdly difficult English test and see why this generation of students will be alienated by education. Times Educational Supplement.

Crystal, D. (2013, May 5). On a testing time. David Crystal Blog.

Department for Education. (2011). Review of key stage 2 testing, assessment, and accountability.

Department for Education. (2013). New grammar, punctuation and spelling test will raise children’s literacy standards.

Department for Education. (2019). Key stage 2 tests: 2019 English grammar, punctuation and spelling materials.

Mansell, W. (2017, May 9). Battle on the adverbials front: Grammar advisers raise worries about sats test and teaching, The Guardian.

Milroy, J. (1999). The consequences of standardisation in descriptive linguistics. In Bex. T & Watts. R. J (Eds.) (1999), Standard English: The widening debate (pp. 16- 39). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Myhill, D. (2013). Living language, live debates: Grammar and standard English. In J. Davison, C Daly & J. Moss (Eds.) (2013), Debates in English teaching (pp. 118-130). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Rosen, M. (2015, November 3). Dear Ms Morgan: in grammar there isn’t always one right answer. The Guardian.

The United Kingdom Literacy Association. (2013). UKLA statement on teaching grammar. UKLA.

Wyse, D., Jones, R., Bradford, H., & Wolpert, M (2013). Teaching English, language and literacy (3^rd ed). Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Is it literally the end of the world to use ‘literally’ figuratively? LEWIS TURNER explores the dilemma of shifting word senses and whether the original meaning is the ‘true’ meaning.

I’m sure we’ve all heard someone exclaim something along of the lines of “I literally could not keep my eyes open during that lecture”. However, we all know that they physically could and, in reality, they were just a bit bored. This utterance would make some people figuratively want to explode. This is an issue of semantics as the problem lies in a misunderstanding of word meaning. Any dictionary would tell you that the adverb ‘literally’ refers to ‘a truthful representation of an event’. However, as previously exemplified, it is now commonly used for emphasis or exaggeration. The perceived misuse of ‘literally’ has become one of semantics’ largest controversies; just see Jamie Redknapp’s ‘Foot In Mouth Award’ win for his very ‘nonliteral’ use of the word (Plain English, 2010) – e.g. “These balls now – they literally explode off your feet.” At the heart of this issue is the debate between prescriptivism and descriptivism.

Prescriptivists try to uphold rules that preserve and impose a ‘correct’ form of a language whereas descriptivists attempt to describe how people actually use language and are welcoming of change and adaptation (Curzan, 2014, p. 14). Hitchings (2011) summarises this as “one says what ought to happen, and the other says what does happen” (p. 23). People’s fears over their own language usage has helped prescriptivism become a potentially large market for authors. So much so that books that purport to teach ‘proper English’, such as Gywnne’s Grammar (2013) and Heffer’s Strictly English (2010), can often be found amongst the bestseller lists. Semantics is usually a key issue in prescriptivism because, as Heffer argues, inaccurate usage of a word “can leave […interlocutors] understanding something quite different” from what we intended (2010 p. 136). He describes these types of mistakes as “vulgarities” (p. 183). This links to a belief held by many prescriptivists: that there was a ‘golden age’ for the English language where everyone used English ‘correctly’. An example that Heffer says shows the drop in modern standards is the misuse of the word ‘dilemma’. He argues that as it originates from the Greek term for ‘two propositions”, it therefore cannot be used to refer to a choice between three-or-more possibilities (p. 143).

On the other hand, a descriptivist would argue that such an assertion is completely pedantic as very few people actually know the etymology (the linguistic origin) of words. I think it’s pretty likely that none of us would bat an eyelid if someone told us that they were facing a ‘dilemma’ over what to buy their friend for Christmas, or where they wanted to go on holiday, or anything else with more than two possible solutions. As Trudgill (1998) argues, comprehension is hardly ever affected by semantic change as people are either able to use contextual clues to work out what is meant or never knew the original meaning in the first place (p. 5). Instead of tracing back to original roots, most people’s understanding of lexical items comes from how they hear other speakers use them in real life. This is supported by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) who notes that due to popular usage, dilemmas can now refer to choices with “several” options (OED online, 2019) and who in 2011, added the ‘improper’ emphatic meaning of ‘literally’ to their dictionary (Gill, 2013). Regarding the so-called ‘golden age’, descriptivists would point out that more people than ever are able to read and write and the evidence used to support the golden age belief is usually anecdotal with no qualitative evidence (Milroy, 1998. p. 61).

Personally, I’m not sure if I could call myself purely a descriptivist or prescriptivist. I think words do need rules that dictate some agreed meaning or effective communication would be impossible. However, I certainly think that meanings are not set in stone and should be allowed to adapt with the times, otherwise I would have to argue that ‘nice’ could still only refer to its original meaning of ‘foolish’ (Trudgill, 1998, p. 2).

So, when Jamie Redknapp describes a footballer as being “literally a greyhound” this Super Sunday should we just ignore it because we all understand he is using it for emphasis? Or does this make him look too ‘nice’ (in the original sense)? All I know is that it’s an issue about which I’m literally going to sit on the fence!

LEWIS TURNER, English Language undergraduate, University of Chester, UK

References

Curzan, A. (2014). Fixing English: Prescriptivism and language history. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Gill, M. (2013, August 13). Have we literally broken the English language? The Guardian. 

Gwynne, N. M. (2013). Gwynne’s grammar. London, UK: Ebury Press.

Heffer, S. (2010). Strictly English: The correct way to write… And why it matters. London, UK: Random House Books.

Hitchings, H. (2011). The language wars: A history of proper English. London, UK: John Murray.

Milroy. J. (1998). Myth 8: Children can’t speak or write properly any more. In L. Bauer & P. Trudgill (Eds.), Language myths (pp. 58-65). London, United Kingdom: Penguin.

OED Online. (2019). Oxford University Press. Retrieved April 25, 2019, from http://www.oed.com

Plain English Campaign. (2010) Foot in mouth award.

Trudgill, P. (1998). Myth 1: The meanings of words should not be allowed to vary or change. In L. Bauer & P. Trudgill (Eds.), Language myths (pp. 1-8). London, United Kingdom: Penguin.

Is ‘political correctness’ censorship or common courtesy? CHLOE SHEPHERD on gender, race and the importance of context

“It’s political correctness gone mad!” you hear one of your ‘free-speaking’ close friends or relatives exclaim as they’re being called out for their derogatory language. But what do they mean by ‘political correctness’?  What actually is it?

The Oxford English Dictionary’s definition – “originally U.S. advocacy of or conformity to politically correct views; politically correct language or behaviour” (OED online, 2021) – is arguably unhelpful, especially since the linguist Geoffrey Hughes claims that political correctness involves itself with neither “politics nor correctness” (Hughes, 2010, p.3). To many, political correctness is a way of being respectful and inclusive through language and avoiding terms which could be viewed as derogatory (2010, p. 8). To some, however, it means restricting freedom of speech. Cardiff Metropolitan University was accused of doing as much when they suggested their staff draw from a list of gender-neutral terms to use instead of gendered ones (BBC News, 2017). The suggestions include using ‘headteacher’ in place of ‘headmaster/mistress’, ‘police officer’ in place of ‘policeman/woman’, and using the substitute ‘person’ in noun phrases such as ‘best person for the job’, where otherwise the noun ‘man’ may have been used (Cardiff Metropolitan University, n.d.). In layman’s terms – nay, lay person’s terms – Cardiff Met encourage the use of inclusive language so as not to create a hostile environment for those who may feel their identity is unrepresented through gendered language (Cardiff Metropolitan University, n.d.)

Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com

Gender label censorship?

Not everyone agrees with the university though. Dr. Joanna Williams of the University of Kent told The Telegraph newspaper that “these words have evolved over a long period of time and they don’t have sexist associations” (Turner, 2017). She criticised the university for dictating the way staff and students can use their language, adding how it is “insulting to students” to assume the need for this ‘censorship’ (Turner, 2017). Even the Prime Minister of the time, Theresa May, feared for the negative social impact that regulating individuals’ freedom of speech would have on the country. Despite these critiques, the University stood their ground with the claim “the Code […] sets out a broad approach to promoting fairness and equality” (Turner, 2017), indicating they have no intention of removing these guidelines.

Singer (2017) proposes that political correctness is nothing but kindness, and that we should be respectful of the individual identities each person has. He claims that some small-minded people believe facets of people’s identity such as gender, race, or sexuality can only be related in a certain way. This is to say that for some, a man is a person born with XY chromosomes only, and someone born with XX chromosomes are exclusively women. Of course, this is not true as someone who biologically has XX chromosomes may identify as male and vice versa. In these instances, the kind thing to do would be to address the person or people with their preferred pronouns, rather than discrediting their identity by wrongly using “he” or “she”.

Someone who has come under fire recently because of this kind of misgendering is Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. She retweeted an article addressing “people who menstruate” with the caption “I’m sure there used to be a term for those people. […] Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”, making the assumption that only women menstruate (Petter, 2020). Rowling took umbrage (or Umbridge?) with the fact that twitter users were calling her “transphobic” (Petter, 2020) and backed up her claim that only women menstruate by tweeting “[…] it isn’t hate to speak the truth” (Petter, 2020). Hardly PC, wouldn’t you say?

Photo by Oriel Frankie Ashcroft on Pexels.com

The importance of context

Hughes posits that political correctness is no longer a blanket term and the context behind each situation is essential in determining whether political correctness was present or not (2010, p. 286). He provides the examples of Joseph Sykes, a barrister disbarred for using a derogatory slur towards a black colleague, and John Hlophe, a judge who received minimal to no consequences for calling an advocate “a piece of white shit” (Hughes, 2010, p. 286). The former was an excruciatingly clear example of racism, the latter is more difficult to determine due to the common conception that “you are a person of colour” therefore “you cannot be racist” (D’Souza, 1995, p. xii). This does not mean that the judge wasn’t being racist though, as Hughes says people have started to “reject such double standards” (2010, p. 287). As a white person, I did not immediately think Hlophe’s comment towards Mr. Greeff was of racist intent, but I was definitely shocked by the racial slur used by the barrister – is this un-politically correct of me to think?

Another issue Hughes brings to light is the question of whether changing the words you use actually changes your attitudes (2010, p. 289). That is to say, would a misogynistic man still view his female colleague as a “girl” despite being urged to use the term “woman”? Unfortunately, it is likely the case, as Hughes points out that it would be “unrealistic to expect politically correct language to replace […] natural language” (2010, p. 293) meaning no matter what language is used in a workplace, or an official setting, it is impossible to censor the words and phrases people will be using at home.

Free speech v kindness?

Ultimately, we live in a society that allows each of us to make our own choices, including the choice to “challenge what is termed ‘unacceptable’ or ‘inappropriate” (Hughes, 2010, p. 297). While it would be kinder to use politically correct language, no one can control the words you choose to use. However, they do reserve the right to judge you, and in certain cases sanction you, based on those words. So if a close friend or relative struggles with politically correct language, maybe gently ask them to stop and think about who they are talking or referring to for a second before opening their mouth!

CHLOE SHEPHERD, English Language undergraduate, University of Chester, UK

References

BBC News. (2017). Cardiff Metropolitan Uni bans ‘gender stereotype’ words.

Cardiff Metropolitan University. (n.d.) Code of practice and guide to inclusive language.

D’Souza, D. (1995). Illiberal education: The politics of race and sex on campus. New York: Macmillan.

Hughes, G. (2010). Political correctness:  A history of semantics and culture. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

OED Online. (2021). Oxford University Press.

Petter, O. (2020, June 15). JK Rowling criticised over ‘transphobic’ tweet about menstruation. The Independent.

Singer, S. (2017, April 4). Political correctness isn’t about censorship – it’s about decency. Huff Post.

Turner, C. (2017, March 2). University bans phrases such as ‘right-hand man’ and ‘gentleman’s agreement’ in favour of gender-neutral terms. The Telegraph.

Is non-PC language acceptable if it stays out of public domains? JANOSCH WAGNER considers to what extent freedom of speech is an absolute

WHAT IF the thoughtless usage of one single word could lead to you losing your job?

Two former German international football players had to experience this in May 2021. One was Jens Lehmann, former goalkeeper for the German national team, who sent a private WhatsApp message to former teammate Dennis Aogo, who was serving as a pundit on the TV channel Sky Sports (see e.g. Bristow 2021). In the message, which was probably not intended for Aogo, Lehmann called him a ‘Quotenschwarzer’ which can be roughly translated as ‘token black guy’. Aogo then posted the message on his social media site, everything became public, and within a matter of hours, Lehmann lost his job as advisor of Bundesliga team Hertha BSC and the majority of his sponsorship contracts. Ironically, Aogo himself would be dismissed from his job as a pundit just a day later for his usage of the term “gassed” during a live broadcast, which (in Germany) invokes a connection to the Holocaust. Naturally, both cases sparked a debate on social media, with public opinion being divided. One side argued that both deserved their dismissal because their statements were unacceptable, while others claimed that everyone was becoming way too sensitive and that the firing was an overreaction to a non-issue, since everything was just ‘banter’.

Dennis Aogo and Jens Lehmann

This case serves as a great example of how so-called ‘political correctness’ shapes public discourse and how there is a spectrum of views when it comes to its validity. Toynbee (2009) for instance argues that the phrase ‘political correctness’ “was born as a coded cover for all who still want to say Paki, spastic or queer, all those who still want to pick on anyone not like them, playground bullies who never grew up.” She describes the politically correct society as “the civilised society, however much some may squirm at the more inelegant official circumlocutions designed to avoid offence. Inelegance is better than bile.”

PC language serves as a tool to reduce discrimination and to avoid offending minorities by replacing terms that could be considered offensive with other, more neutral terms – or by outright avoiding the usage of certain terms completely. Since many terms used for years have a discriminating effect on minorities and certain social or ethnic groups, PC language aims to remove these undertones from everyday language in order to avoid these instances of discrimination.

Decency or faddishness?

One would assume that it would be natural to treat this as a noble cause, since PC language advocates for decency and politeness. But there are many who are suspicious of PC language and strongly oppose its usage. O’Neill (2001) for instance, takes issue with Toynbee, arguing that PC “is narrow, faddish, and highly reflexive in character, consisting in large part of euphemisms. It sometimes promotes or amounts to outright dishonesty” (p.284). He claims that the use of euphemisms can sometimes be disadvantageous for the very people PC is designed to protect. ‘Mentally retarded’ is a much more transparent (and therefore honest?) label, than e.g. ‘having learning difficulties’ (2001: 286-87).

Critics like O’Neill also claim that PC language prohibits freedom of speech. Some, such as Chait (2015) even go as far as to accuse it of being an instrument of the radical left in order to shape (political) discussion to their benefit and to be able to denounce any opposing point of view.

Now what do we make of this? It can be argued that PC language is nowadays deeply rooted in everyday conversations, at least in the public sphere. This can partially be attributed to social media, where the policing of language can be observed especially often. Chait (2015) argues that since PC flourishes on social media “where it enjoys a frisson of cool and vast cultural reach”, it now dominates the majority of any political debate, because of its reach over and above mainstream journalism.  

Another point is that there is a lot of money to be made with PC language or the non-adherence of it. Chait (2015) claims that “[e]very media company knows that stories about race and gender bias draw huge audiences, making identity politics a reliable profit center in a media industry beset by insecurity”. PC language has been dominating the discourse online and between academics for many years,  but recently opponents of PC language have seen a public resurgence – best exemplified by Donald Trump, who when US President, successfully vilified PC language as a tool of oppression (see Weigel 2016). And he did so very successfully.  Apparently, there are many people who disagree with PC language, feeling that it diminishes their ability to say what they want. Sadly, this very large group of people can’t be ignored.

Keep it private?

But what does that mean for the usage of PC language? One argument would be that everyone should be able to say what they want…… in private. Since freedom of speech is one of the core principles of western society, no one should be banned from saying what they want – but there should be one very significant qualification. It stops when there are other people directly involved, or you are using public modes of communication. Think of it as the equivalent of shouting your opinion on a public square. If you make potentially offensive statements on the internet, you need to be prepared for the repercussions of your ‘right to freedom of speech’. So, if you are a public speaker, like a TV pundit, and you use racist, sexist or other non-PC language, you have to consider the consequences if someone is offended by your statements – and this also applies to Jens Lehmann and Dennis Aogo.

JANOSCH WAGNER, English Language undergraduate (Erasmus), University of Chester, UK

References

Bristow, T. (2021, May 5). Jens Lehmann sacked after leaked WhatsApp exposes racist comment to Sky pundit. Daily Mirror online.

Chait, J. (2015, January 27). Not a very P.C. thing to say. NYmag.

O’Neill, B. (2011). A critique of politically correct language. The Independent Review, 16(2), pp. 279-91.

Toynbee, P. (2009, April 28). This bold equality push Is just what we needed. The Guardian.

Weigel, M. (2016, November 30). Political correctness: how the right invented a phantom enemy. The Guardian.

‘Juliet’, ‘roses’, ‘yakamoz’ and other deceptions. THEO AINLEY considers the influence of language on thought

”WHAT’S IN a name? That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet” said Juliet about Romeo (Shakespeare, 2004, originally 1597).

Underpinning this cry from the heart is the seductive idea that despite all the atrocious rumours and warnings Juliet may have heard about the Montague family, she still sees Romeo in his true form and is able to cast aside the negative and fallacious image her community has built around the young rival. Somehow, just like a pearl diver when harvesting pearls, Juliet dove through depths of meaning to reach a place of clarity and truth. What matters is not so much the name of a thing – the language that surrounds it  – but rather the thing itself, considered objectively. As if language was muddying waters we otherwise could plainly see with our innocent eyes and mind. Is it really possible to dive so deep as to get rid of this blurring socially determined language to finally think clearly, universally about the world?

In other words, is there such a thing as thinking without language, as thought without words? Or is Juliet wrong and ignores how language is the very medium shaping our capacity to think?

A certain tradition – stretching at least from Aristotle, through Descartes to us – would have it that we humans all share some sort of universal common-sense, that differences in judgement, taste and language are but cultural and accidental variations. This tradition argues that humanity can have ”immediate experiences” (Descartes 1999, originally 1637) which are considered truer, more reliable since nothing is here to filter them. Just like Saint Thomas (John 20:25, King James) we should only really believe what our senses can gather. However, Popper (2009) debunked this conception: the eye of a newborn is already full of biases brought about by evolution. Red is a peculiar colour for our eyes, because of how critical it was to distinguish it for our survival. In Popper’s terms, ”theory” – that is to say a form of language, even biological like DNA– pervades everything, and with it its biases. So ‘common sense’ and ‘immediate experiences’ do not appear as plausible leads to ‘think’ or ‘consider’ the world that surrounds us with absolute innocence. However, if our innocent eyes are not so innocent, is there still room for some sort of thinking preceding language however fraught with biological biases?

Do pre-linguistic babies share universal concepts?

A 2004 psychological study led by Susan Hespos and Elizabeth Spelke at Vanderbilt University showed that babies, although born in English speaking households, were paying more attention than adults to some categories their future mother tongues tended to ignore. English spatialises things by saying that something is on or in something whereas Korean expresses whether one item touches another in a tight or loose way (consider a spoon in a teacup as opposed to the corkscrew of a bottle). This study demonstrated that English babies pay attention to the relation favoured by Korean semantics which is completely overlooked by English adult speakers. As the title claims to have found “conceptual precursors to language”, they promote the idea of a form of ‘thought’ as in spatial and relational awareness towards objects which does not entail the necessary use of language. However, such cognitions seem too weak to uphold the standards most researchers apply to ”thought” as in conscious thinking manipulating concepts and their meaning, culturally shaped. As such this study is not enough evidence to say whether or not thoughts are independent from language.

The so-called Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis has famously attempted to answer this question by positing that the language of a speaker will influence the individual’s perceptions and cognitions. Many experiments and studies have stemmed from it, not only to assess or challenge its validity but also to understand if language determines thoughts or if thoughts are more subtly tilted by the structures of an individual’s language (strong versus weak hypothesis). Whorf himself did not produce very solid evidence. According to Steiner (1975), “[t]he metalinguistics of Whorf have for some time been under severe attack by both linguists and ethnographers. It looks as if a good deal of his work cannot be verified” (p.89).

Linguistic influences on colour perception

It has been most famously challenged by Rosch Heider (1972) who found that Dani people (who only have arguably two to five words for colour classification) can still isolate colours just as well as English speakers who do have words conceptualising eight main ones. Rosch claimed that colours were universal, and that language did not impact human perception and how we think about colour. However, this study has been challenged in turn by several others, such as Roberson et al (2000), who pointed at shortfalls in Rosch’s work and demonstrated that speakers of a language with a given colour boundary – e.g. ‘green’/’blue’ for English vs ‘wor’ (some green) / ‘nol’ (green, blue and blue/purple ) in Berinmo – are better at remembering items that correspond to their linguistic boundary. Speakers of a language without the same ‘prism’ are less likely to remember items corresponding to this foreign filter. It suggests that language does indeed influence the way humans think and perceive their world.

Yakamoz?

However, myths loom around the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in the form of ‘untranslatable words’ that can supposedly only be really understood by ”correctly wired” native speakers. One should refrain from buying into such deceptions because “what cannot be translated can be reworded” (Robelein, 2015). Although Turkish can be said to not have a verb “to be” per se, it still manages to produce predicative sentences just as well as any other language. And although they have the word ‘yakamoz’ to refer precisely to the reflection of the moonlight on water, well, you have understood the meaning underpinning yakamoz and may well start borrowing it if you feel like it.

Of course Juliet’s claim is a beautiful cry of acceptance and open-mindedness fueled by love. But if ‘rose’ immediately musters ‘smell […] sweet’, it is because Juliet’s culture conveyed by her language tilts her towards the collocation. Humans cannot apprehend the world in a perfectly immediate fashion. Language, however fraught with cultural biases, appears as an effective way to grapple with our surroundings. The price to pay is to accept that our language structures our experience of the world and that we unconsciously have different focuses depending on the language we are using.

Inquiring into our own linguistically induced blind spots and shortcuts, crossing linguistic obstacles and building bridges might well be “what’s [truly] in a name”.

THEO AINLEY, English Language undergraduate (Erasmus), University of Chester (UK)

References

Descartes, R. (1999). Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy (4th Ed.). Hackett Publishing Company.

Popper, K. R. (2009). La connaissance objective: Une approche évolutionniste (French Edition). Flammarion.

Robelin, J. (2015, 15 June). L’intraduisible.  Noesis.

Roberson, D., Davies, I., & Davidoff, J. (2000). Color categories are not universal: Replications and new evidence from a stone-age culture. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 129(3), 369–398.

Heider, E.R. (1972). Universals in color naming and memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 93(1), pp.10–20.

Shakespeare, W., (2004). Romeo and Juliet. In Mowat, B.A. & Werstine, P. (Eds.). Folger Shakespeare Library. Simon & Schuster.

Steiner, G. (1975). After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (First Edition). Oxford University Press.

Hespos, S.J. and Spelke, E.S. (2004). Conceptual precursors to language. Nature, 430, pp. 453-456.

A ticket to modernity or cultural vandalism? MADELEINE RAJTOVÁ considers whether language death matters

EVEN THOUGH there are only 195 countries in the world, the number of spoken languages in 2021 is significantly higher – 7,139 according to Ethnologue.

But this is by no means a constant number, as 40% of those languages are considered ‘endangered’, often having less than 1,000 speakers left. In fact, 97% of the population speak only 4% of those languages [see below], whilst only 3% of the population speak the other 96% of languages (UNESCO). This is an alarming ratio, but what is even more startling is that every two weeks, a language dies, according to Strochlic (2018) in  National Geographic. They even predict that 50-90% of the languages will have disappeared by the next century.

One example is the Eyak language that used to be spoken in southern Alaska, before its last native speaker died (see Pemberton and Townsend, 2008). Marie Smith Jones was known to be the world’s last speaker of her native language and as she did not pass on her knowledge to younger generations the language died out. To preserve the language, she worked together with linguists to compile a dictionary and grammar. Now it depends on the people and their will to learn and to resurrect the Eyak language.

Marie Smith Jones, the last person to speak Eyak, who died in 2008

But how do languages disappear? The linguist David Crystal names some of the causes that can lead to the extinction of a language. These include natural disasters that wipe out whole populations, genocide or cultural assimilation as a consequence of colonialism.

Is English killing other languages?

Colls (2009) cites the French linguist Hagege who claims that English may ‘kill’ most of the languages if we disregard how it is progressing. According to Ethnologue, English is the language that counts the most speakers, next to Mandarin Chinese, Hindi and Spanish. But….. with English being spoken in 146 countries, only one quarter of those are native speakers, the rest being people who acquired English as a second language. Kenan Malik, an Indian-born British writer, calls the acquisition of a world language like English or Spanish a “ticket to modernity” (Malik, 2000). He is convinced that most languages do not simply die out, but instead people choose to learn a world language and abandon their native one in order to have a better life.

But abandoning your native language to have a better future goes hand in hand with losing a piece of your own identity. The effects of this pressure cannot be left disregarded. Ethnologue editor Paul Lewis states that “if people begin to think of their language as useless, they see their identity as such as well” (Colls, 2009). He also explains that if parents stop teaching their children their native language, family ties are broken and traditions are lost. In many cases this leads to “social disruption, depression, suicide and drug use” and this is exactly what is happening on the Navajo Reservation in the United States. Hernandez (2021) reveals that American Indians and Alaskan Natives are most affected by depression and suicide compared to other ethnic groups in the US. She states that the reasons for this are “cultural identity and self perception”, “chronic stressors” and “integrational trauma”. So, the “ticket to modernity” might be considered as something positive by many people, but what is the price they are paying? And can we really talk about a free choice if the other option does not offer a liveable future?

What do we win or lose when languages ‘die’?

This may seem like a paradox, but Malik (2000) does indeed claim that the fewer languages we have, the easier life will be. This is because for him language has only one purpose – communication. He even says, that languages that are spoken by only a few people are not languages but more like a “child’s secret code”. Therefore, if a language does not fulfil its only purpose, it does not matter if it becomes extinct. He does not consider, however, that even if it is spoken by only a small number of people, it does fulfil this purpose within the community of those people. And since according to Colls (2009), languages are “living, breathing organisms holding the connections and associations that define a culture” that culture will be lost as soon as the language is lost.

Malik, on the other hand, says that “the more universally we can communicate, the more dynamic our cultures will be”, which means that according to him the countless cultures our world includes are not accessible to most of the population because of communication barriers. Hence if everyone was speaking the same language, it would be easier to familiarise oneself with all the existing cultures. Most linguists are convinced that language is much more than just a means of communication. Nettle and Romaine (2000: 6) state that “languages are intimately connected with humans, our cultures and our environment” and therefore language cannot be simply regarded as a means to an end. Crystal (1999) compares languages to animals or plants that are dying out and says that when a language is lost our planet loses “intellectual and cultural diversity”.

But what if people are not interested in keeping their native language alive?

Of course, the increasing importance of global languages elicits a lot of pressure and demands people to learn these languages. But an interesting question is – why do so many people decide to give up their bilingualism, as speaking one language does not automatically exclude the possibility of speaking another language? If parents decide that their native language is not useful for their children, they decide over their heads without offering them an option. Crystal explains that using the native language is often accompanied by shame. What if it only needs a change of perspective? Would it make a difference if all the bilingual people who still speak their native language found pride in it?

MADELEINE RAJTOVÁ, English Language undergraduate, University of Chester, UK

References

Colls, T. (2009, October 19). The death of language? BBC.

Crystal, D. (1999, October 25). Death sentence. The Guardian.

Ethnologue: Languages of the World. How many languages are there in the world?

Ethnologue: Languages of the World. What is the most spoken language?

Hernandez, C. (2021). Addressing Major Depressive Disorder in Navajo Adolescents.

Malik, K. (2000, November 20). Let them die. Prospect Magazine.

Nettle, S. & Romaine, S. (2000). Vanishing voices: The extinction of the world’s languages. Oxford    & New York: Oxford University Press.

Pemberton, M. & Townsend, L. (2008, February 3). Last fluent speaker of Eyak passes away. Indian Country.

Strochlic, N. (2018, April 16). The Race to Save the World’s Disappearing Languages. National Geographic.            

UNESCO. (2018). UNESCO launches the first website for the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL2019).

Why is ‘idiotic’ an insult but ‘asthmatic’ is not? KERRY O’HARE investigates the minefields and treadmills of ‘political correctness’

If you were called a ‘idiot’ or ‘moron’, or even ‘mentally retarded’ – would you be offended? If you answered “Yes” – then why are you offended? According to O’Neill (2011) these words are medical terms and began their existence as medical descriptors without implicit value judgement, or rudeness built into them.  So, why are they now deemed offensive? Why is it not politically correct (PC) to use these medical terms like we would use ‘asthma’ or ‘cancer’? Is it because of the way the words are said, the context in which they are said, their connotations, or because the ‘playground’ bully once called you them?’ According to O’Neill (2011) it can be because of all of these reasons. What he calls the never ending ‘Euphemism Treadmill’ has tried to conquer this by creating and replacing certain words which seem to have taken on negative connotations and implicit suggestions; so, for instance, ‘retarded’ becomes ‘differently abled’. Therefore, when (or if!) ‘differently abled’ becomes negative, another word will need to enter the euphemism treadmill to replace it. Where does this stop and is this an example of PC going too far and becoming what Heywood describes as the straitjacket of language?  (2015, p. 12).

The Oxford Reference defines PC as “the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.” Applying this definition to our medical examples, it is understandable why those terms are no longer PC. They are being applied to somebody who is ‘marginalized’ and ‘disadvantaged’. However, is it the word placing the person in these ‘boxes’ or is it ‘society’? We can’t change words every time society decides that a word is now going to be used in a negative way. Pinker (1994) calls this the ‘word-replacement strategy’. Pinker describes how an orthophemism (a neutral term) gradually takes on a negative connotation and subsequently becomes a dysphemism (a malicious term) and is then replaced with a PC term (a euphemism). This process constantly repeats itself and Pinker concludes it is a ‘cyclical strategy’.

PC has different definitions and different levels of ‘correctness’. For example, would you be offended if somebody said “fireman” instead of “fireperson” or “fire officer”? Being PC is not just using the correct words, it’s also avoiding certain phrases or behaving in a certain way. The TV show Strictly Come Dancing came under scrutiny in 2013 for allowing suggestive sexual comments to be made from female dancers and contestants towards straight and homosexual dancers and contestants, but then acted offended when a heterosexual male made a similar, suggestive comment towards a heterosexual woman. Why did the audience (studio and viewers) suddenly decide the heterosexual comments were not PC? Why were the rules different? This led one viewer to describe political correctness as “hypocrisy” (Nanjiani, 2013). It is not uncommon for the term PC to be linked to sexuality. It also often gets linked to money, ethnicity and gender, and creates an intended sense of guilt amongst society (Johnson, Culpepper & Suhr, 2003).

Does PC go too far though? For example, is it really offensive if the teacher says ‘whiteboard’ or ‘blackboard’? How about ‘brainstorm’? According to Lee (2014) PC is working its way into nurseries where allegedly they can’t sing “Ba ba black sheep anymore” because it’s might be deemed racist (Lee, 2014).

O’Neil concludes by claiming that “[a]t the heart of politically correct language lies dishonestly, not civility” (2011). So, will the PC debate end soon? According to Eliza Doolittle it’s “not bloody likely” (as cited in Hughes, 1998, p. 184).

KERRY O’HARE, English Language undergraduate, University of Chester, UK

References

Harrison, G. (2019, October 24). THE KIDS AREN’T ALL RIGHT What does ‘snowflake’ mean and who are ‘generation snowflake’?. The Sun.

Heywood, A. 2015. Key Concepts in Politics and International Relations (2^nd ed). London, United Kingdom: Palgrave.

Hughes, G. (1998). Swearing: a social history of foul language, oaths and profanity in English. London, United Kingdom: Penguin.

Johnson, S., Culpeper, J., & Suhr, S. (2003). From ‘Politically Correct Councillors’ to ‘Blairite Nonsense’: Discourses of ‘Political Correctness’ in three British Newspapers. Discourse and Society, 14(1), 29-47. 

Lee, S., (2014, 16 Oct). Is this the moment the world officially went mad? Lyrics of Baa Baa Black Sheep have been BANNED by kindergarten teachers because the nursery rhyme is ‘racist’. Mail Online. 

Nanjiani, S. (2013, 14 April). P-word isn’t ‘banter’…it’s a harmful jibe. The Sun.

O’Neill, B. (2011). A critique of politically correct language. The Independent Review, 16(2), 279-91.

Oxford Reference. (2020). Political correctness defined.

Pinker, S. (1994, 03^rd April). The Game of the Name. New York Times.

How much does English need a good scrubbing by verbal hygienists? RACHEL BRUNT inquires into ‘enquiries’ and our constant need to ‘fix’ language

The debate about language as being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ permeates many areas of modern life. While highbrow linguists battle furiously over the Oxford comma, a teenage school pupil is rebuked by her teacher for stating that she ‘literally died’ because she saw a member of McFly in her local shop over the weekend.

It is traditional to describe two sides to the debate as ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ language usage. One side is the tradition of ‘prescriptivism’. Hitchings (2011) labelled a prescriptivist (those who practice prescriptivism) as an individual who “dictates how people should speak and write” (p. 23). A linguistic ‘descriptivist’, on the other hand, may claim to be non-judgemental about language use, and be more focused on describing how a language works – rather than criticising its users. While these warring factions may appear to be concrete, every person who speaks any language will have formed opinions (whether positive or negative) on the use of particular words or placing of punctuation. This means that it is impossible to be entirely on only one side of the argument.

Deborah Cameron (1995) coined the term ‘verbal hygiene’, in reference to prescriptive practices which were not just intended to complain about language use, but were “born of an urge to improve or ‘clean up’ language” (p. 1). The belief that language needs improvement is not a new phenomenon. For hundreds of years there have been attempts to ‘fix’ English by famous prescriptivists such as the 18^thC writer Jonathan Swift, striving to “promote an elite standard variety, to retard linguistic change or to purge a language of ‘foreign’ elements” (Cameron, 1995, p. 9).

Prescriptivist attacks on language use occur on many linguistic levels, with much of the criticism focused on semantic word choice, positioning of punctuation and uses of slang or foreign terms. One common attack on language use in this country is centred around the influx of Americanisms (terms originating in the US) being adopted into our everyday speech. Anderson (2017) depicted his horror at the British English language being “colonised” by American English, and believed American neologisms to be “ungainly”. This discourse of prescriptive criticism can be tied (intentionally or unintentionally) to xenophobic views, something which has contributed to prescriptivists gaining the nickname ‘grammar Nazis’.

Lukač (2018, p. 5) examined the idea of “grassroots prescriptive efforts”, which she described as criticisms of language by members of the public carried out using tools such as social media sites to complain about ‘incorrect’ language usage. This strand of prescriptivism, which Lukač (2018, p. 5) regards as wildly different to that which is enabled (and encouraged) by institutions such as the education system, has brought ideas of linguistic prestige into the mainstream media. This wide exposure has facilitated a new generation of people yearning for a return of the so-called ‘golden age’ of language in this country. This fictional ‘golden age’ of language use, where it was supposed that every citizen correctly adhered to the grammatical stylings of Standard English, a dialect associated with the ‘Queen’s English’, is a myth that has encouraged the popularity of guides such as Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss. Such guides set out strict “ways to improve one’s English” (Lamb, 2010, p. 28). It could be argued by descriptivists that these guides threaten the existence of regional variations of English.

However, it is too easy to brand complaints about our language being tainted by ‘misuse’ as entirely negative and hyperbolic. Some would argue that prescriptive attitudes are important in order to preserve our safety in the modern world, as errors in communication can cause damage ranging from minor irritation to a deadly conflict between continents. Heffer (2014) highlighted the inconvenience caused by confusing malapropisms such as “enquiry” and “inquiry”, while Shariatmadari (2019) discussed how a poor choice of words led to a mistaken translation between the US president Nixon and Japanese PM Satō in the 1960s, causing already strained tensions over trade agreements to escalate.

While I believe that it is important to adhere to some language standard in a formal setting, in order to ensure effective (and safe) communication, I also think that it is essential to consider the negative effects of policing language use in our everyday lives – from the persecution of users of regional terms, to the xenophobic ideology which spreads through criticism of foreign terms. It is important to find a balance between quashing irritating behaviours, and erasing true expression. I cannot see that the debate around policing language will ever truly resolve – unless every user of language suddenly becomes accepting of other cultures and opinions.

RACHEL BRUNT, English Language undergraduate, University of Chester, UK

References

Anderson, H. (2017, September 6). How Americanisms are killing the English language. BBC Culture.

Cameron, D. (1995). Verbal hygiene. London and New York: Routledge.

Heffer, S. (2014, May 5). Stalin’s crimes were BARBARIC, wearing brown shoes is simply BARBAROUS. Ever find yourself fuming at the sloppy use of English on TV or in public? Daily Mail.

Hitchings, H. (2011). The language wars: A history of proper English. London: John Murray.

Lamb, B. C. (2010). The Queen’s English: And How to Use It. London: Michael O’Mara Books Limited.

Lukač, M. (2018). Grassroots prescriptivism: An analysis of individual speakers’ efforts at maintaining the standard language ideology. English Today, 34(4), 5-12.

Shariatmadari, D. (2019, June 17). Language wars: the 19 greatest linguistic spats of all time. The Guardian.

If you decimate a scone, is there 90% left? And how do you pronounce ‘scone’? MICHAEL WILLIAMS challenges some preconceptions about linguistic correctness

Our society is obsessed with opposites. For example, our daily lives were normal, and now they are not (an understatement perhaps, but I digress). People are either happy or they are sad. Even if the word is different (i.e. ‘ecstatic’ or ‘angry’), we manage to fit those feelings into one of those two categories. Nowhere is this most apparent than in the justice system, where the accused are deemed to be innocent or guilty. There is no “a bit guilty” or “mostly innocent”; you are found to be one or the other.

This inevitably leads to problems. To compartmentalise such complex issues as emotions, crime, and normality so severely as to describe them in one of two ways is impractical and verges on dangerous, especially once prejudices and opinions come into play, as is so often observed within the justice system.

At about this point in the blog post, you’re probably thinking, “Michael, as much as I enjoy reading about your view on the world, what has any of this got to do with language?”

I’m glad you asked. Also, no, I’m not going to explain my psychic abilities.

Language, and especially spoken language, is often condensed in the same way as other facets of culture; it is (apparently) either used correctly or incorrectly. The anonymous author of the BadLinguistics blog (2010) states that “we are judged on our language”, but suggests that “a favourable judgment does not depend on how closely you follow […] prescriptions on grammar”. However, there are a significant amount of people, usually labelled by linguists as ‘prescriptivists’, who will go on the offensive if language is supposedly used ‘incorrectly’. Cameron (1995, p. 9) describes those who share this view as “verbal hygienists”, reinforcing the perspective that the issues revolve around the spoken word, and suggesting that language is unclean if incorrectly used. Heffer (2011) labels the sections of his book Strictly English as “The Rules”, “Bad English” and “Good English”, presenting his view that there is a set of rules that must be followed, and that use of language is either acceptable or not. He continues, arguing that while dictionaries may state the use of a particular word or phrase is common, “[t]hat does not mean it is correct” (p. 47), in spite of the role dictionaries typically play in ‘correct’ language use.

I suppose the question that comes from all of this is, “Does any of it matter?”, and the answer for the vast majority of English speakers is, “No. In fact, I didn’t even know this was a thing.” Should we take notice though? Should we enforce the supposed rules of English? Will there one day be an answer to the question, “Is it pronounced ‘scone’ (like ‘one’) or ‘scone’ (like ‘bone’)?” What about the numerous regional names for a bread roll; will we have to sacrifice those for the sake of linguistic unity, and if so, which do we choose?

There lies the crux of this whole debate: if we were to create a set rules, what would the rules be, and who would decide? Would it be agreed that the word ‘decimate’, for example, could be used only in instances where 10% of something had been destroyed? Would extra commas be enforced in lists? Who would be the arbiter of these rules – Heffer and/or Cameron? The Queen’s English Society and their Excellent English Prize, awarded most recently to Boris Johnson? Even if we were to create a definitive set of rules, would it make everyone happy? Would people follow it? Would it stop the creation and introduction of new words? Would nonsense texts like The Jabberwocky and The Hunting of the Snark be banned?

Prescriptivism is nothing more than an ideal. It is impossible to accommodate for everyone’s idiolects (a person’s unique use of language), and it would undoubtedly cause more problems than it would solve; you only have to look at half of this blog post to see only some of the questions it raises. So be free, speak in whatever manner you wish, and as long as we understand each other, we’ll be fine.

MICHAEL WILLIAMS, English Language undergraduate, University of Chester, UK

References

Cameron, D. (1995). Verbal Hygiene. Abingdon: Routledge.

Heffer, S. (2011). Strictly English: The Correct Way To Write… And Why It Matters. London: Penguin Random House.

Simon Heffer and a cartload of rubbish. (2010, September 15). Bad Linguistics.