I stealed a whole entry to Mark Newbrook’s excellent blog for this entry–in order to publicize the writings of a highly intelligent, entertaining linguist I agree with 93.7% of the time, but more to argue a bit with him (politically-incorrectly).
New post on Skeptical Humanities
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39: MARK HALPERN
Hi again, everybody! ‘Hall Of Shame’ resumes (again not sure at what intervals).
Some critics of mainstream linguistics explicitly reject the non-prescriptive approach to language adopted by linguists (see the Introduction). One such writer is the Australian journalist Mark Halpern.
Halpern’s views are partly grounded in a belief which he knows is shared by very few indeed, at least among those who think seriously about language, but which he nevertheless regards as clearly correct: namely, the belief that most linguistic change is deliberate and a matter of choice, because linguistic features (he believes) depend on the conscious minds of speakers or writers, especially when they are actually changing. He contrasts this view with a diametrically opposed ‘straw man’ view which he mistakenly attributes to mainstream linguists, the idea that grammatical and other structures ‘have a life of their own’ and do not depend at all upon the minds of language users. Halpern apparently fails to discern the actual viewpoint (intermediate between these two extremes) adopted by (most) mainstream linguists, according to which linguistic features are indeed epiphenomena of human minds rather than independent entities but are mostly not accessed by the conscious minds of native speakers of the language in question in the absence of explicit study – and which are liable to systematic change without conscious decisions being made and indeed without there necessarily being any awareness of a given change while it is in progress. This mainstream viewpoint, of course, is well supported from evidence and argumentation.
Halpern exemplifies mainly with vocabulary changes, the study of which requires much less understanding of linguistic theory or descriptive techniques than that of changes at more heavily structured linguistic levels such as grammar. It is true that some vocabulary changes are deliberate or semi-deliberate, or at least readily accessible to the conscious minds of language users without study. In these respects, linguists will disagree with Halpern less than he suggests they would. But he is mistaken in extending this observation (albeit implicitly and without exemplification) to grammatical and other structural changes.
Furthermore, Halpern regards many of the vocabulary changes which he cites as very unwelcome and as constituting degradation of the language in question (in this case English). He berates linguists for refusing to accept this prescriptivist folk-linguistic stance (which of course is very widely shared).
More next time (when pos)!
Mark
For my book Strange Linguistics, see:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/books/get-book.cfm?BookID=64212
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As those of you who have come here more than a few times before know, I wholly believe in the responsibility of linguists to do their best to counter imbecilic misuse of the language, usually for propagan- distically political, and/or purely sentimental, but always for anti-verosophical reasons, by the leaders of the masses and their air-headed serfs. Yes, most language changes are unconscious. Most are innocuous, some make sense. But more than a few do not, and should be consciously, loudly resisted by the linguistically responsible. However unlikely of success. No one that I know of has ever agreed with my general definition of “marriage” as the union of two opposites and therefore inapplicable to a union of two men or two women. I specifically define it in the traditional manner, so what if fundamentalist Christians agree with me.
Note: one of my opponents who did argue with me on the subject claims that two males are not opposites–because both are human beings. Right. And up and down are not opposites because both are directions.
I have given up doing more than lashing out at the use of “marriage” once in a while nowadays. Smilingly imagining the beauty of a marriage of H2O and water. And coining “mirrorge” for kind of marriage homosexuals are being joined in. When they mirry (meery) each other. I haven’t yet come up with a coinage for “marriage of a man and a woman.” One will definitely be needed.
To repeat, I’m no more homophobic than I’m Anglophobic (as–mostly–a descendent of English settlers whom I–mostly–very much admire). Their lifelong unions should be equal in law to marriages. Only the unmarried should be discriminated against. That’s a joke.
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