Peer review

Zanuttini

Introduction

Throughout human history, language has kept evolving like a living organism. It came into being at ancient times, grew over adolescent phases, ripened in its glorious days, and mutated at certain points. Sometimes its sovereignty declines and dies away, and sometimes it expands its territory and flourishes still more. Among all human lingoes, English is certainly one of the liveliest and most dynamic, as its vocabulary and syntax have undergone innumerable modifications or even radical changes. Raffaella Zanuttini, a renowned Italian linguist whose major academic concern is the language variety, has been actively engaged in a research project focused on the grammatical diversity of North American English. In her article “our language prejudices don't make no sense”, she appeals to quite a broad audience that might just cover the entire Anglophone world, including both ordinary English speakers and the more academic, linguistic scholars, with a purpose to defend the legitimacy of sub-cultural English varieties and criticize the purist tendencies and sheer inequality in the language domain.

She believes that it is impolite to judge people’s choice of a non-standard English variety in public occasions, because those English varieties are a “natural phenomenon” (Zanuttini), and arbitrarily, she lists twofold reasons why people are not tolerant of these sub-cultural language behavior and repudiates them respectively, and finally she employs a rather ambiguous analogy between language and bread to defend the validity of non-standard versions of English, and advocate the language diversity.

Opening her essay with an imperative-sounding parallel structure, the author immediately juxtaposes racist comments, disrespect for the poor, lack of political sensibilities, with the taunting remarks about one’s non-standard language behavior. By doing so, the author arouses the empathy of her target audience, especially those who have previously suffered from prejudice and disdain based on race, social class, wealth or political creeds, and thus allures people to agree that equality should also exist in the realm of language.

Two specific examples are then cited to demonstrate the point, namely the metathesis and negative concord. The author chooses metathesis because it is a natural phenomenon. Although author doesn’t go to lengths to prove why natural phenomena are necessarily correct or acceptable, it immediately gives the audience a superficial impression that some natural language behaviors have been oppressed and unfairly neglected. On the other hand, the author takes the example of negative concord, because as she mentions in her essay, this practice of double negative has already existed in other languages such as Italian and Russian, hence its validity in English as well. The author clearly postulates that anything natural or practiced in other languages should apply as well in English. The logic here is certainly vague in a very cunning way, because the target audience somehow feels there’s some practical truth in it, as it is something natural and something legitimate in other languages. In this first part of her argument, we also notice that many short, rigid sentences are used to create a persuasive, almost assertive tone. If longer, calm and compelling sentences are not possible as the logic here is weak, then short, assertive sentences might be a good option to cover for it.

 Then the author proceeds to her second part of argument, still regarding the case of negative concord, as she out of nowhere claims that people do not accept this language phenomenon because they don’t accept the low-class, undignified people who predominantly use this kind of non-standard English. Again, there’s no evidence or logic to back this statement, but author uses a very straightforward, authoritative syntax to compensate for it. Then she elaborates this by emphasizing how unjust and prejudiced people are to deny this non-standard use of English, because they can’t accept the lowly people associated with it. The author obviously wants to appeal to people’s general sympathy and political correctness for equality to support her argument. But upon closer scrutiny, we would discover that it is all author’s sheer assumption, and there’s no concrete evidence to prove it. It is a hypothesis at best.

 Of course, the author also notices the pitfall in her logic, so she decides to tackle the possible counterargument that people disapprove of these non-standard language uses, simply because they do not comply with the standard English grammar. She argues that there is not only one single English grammar, but many. Still she uses short and curt sentences to strengthen the rhetoric effect. But here the author confuses two notions, which are multiple versions of English grammar and the legitimacy of English grammar. Simply because there exists a certain leeway for the co-existence of different English grammars, such as the British English and American English, classical English and modern English, standard English and slang English, it doesn’t mean that all kinds of English grammars are correct, acceptable or justified. So the author here again makes her argument based upon sheer hypothesis and deceptive rhetoric.

Then the author makes similes and metaphors to strengthen her persuasive power. She likens the language to recipe. As people cook different meals according to different recipes, people concoct different languages as well. People, or different groups of people seem to be empowered with the authority to create language and establish new English grammars. But the author does make a point when she states that different ages, ethnicities, regions and social identities give rise to different English varieties, and we should not deny them because they don’t follow the standard use of English. It’s just that she fails to define the extent and scope of the legitimacy in different varieties of English. In other words, she neither affirms what kind of new phenomena in English are progressive and thus welcome, and what are trifling and thus not appropriate. Her careless generalization at this point doesn’t contribute to the strength of her argument.

Then she borrows the analogy between language and bread from another scholar, and makes a sweeping statement that no variety is a distortion of another. In her list of varieties of bread, such as baguette, pita and challah, she again forgets that fancy metaphors don’t really add to the truth of an argument. The fact that baguette is a real bread term in French, doesn’t mean another version of English is also justified.

She seems to suggest that people simply have the freedom to do whatever with the language and does not care about the consequences at all.

But there will be grave consequences if all kinds of English varieties, even non-standard ones, are accepted blindly. For example, if the metathesis, such as “the alteration of [sk] and [ks]” (Zanuttini), is legalized in English, then we would have problems in real life communications. We would confuse “ask” with “axe”, and “task” with “tax”. Imagine how much trouble and inefficiency it will bring. And if the negative concord is embraced, then how much ambiguity it will cause in different verbal occasions. Positive and negative messages are vital in human communications, and it is simply asking for trouble to complicate it by adding an extra expression of double negative. And different languages follow different rules, because they are separated in nature. For instance, in Chinese, a negative concord automatically makes it positive while in some other language, it is still negative, only more emphatic.

In brief, the author makes her argument on a very weak logic, and uses a lot of rhetoric devices to cover for it. Her wild generalizations and obsession with equality and political correctness might appeal to some casual audience, but not to a more informed and observant one.

 

Solution and Recommendations

Still, it is necessary to recognize and respect the existence of different varieties of English, because it is indeed an essential process of its language evolution. The problem is how we should handle this multiplicity and diversity. I suggest that, unlike the radical acceptance the author advocates, we should adopt two strategies. On the one hand, let the language take its own course. Natural assimilations and modifications will occur with the passage of time, so there’s no need to either advocate or object to it. On the other hand, the linguists, the governments and the academies could keep an eye out for the language evolution and show a more balanced attitude towards the different versions of English. Some changes are favorable and will add to the richness of English, while some will be destructive and unsavory. For instance, “long time no see” is not grammatically correct at first, but has now become standard English, because it is brief, efficient, eloquent and suitable for colloquial occasions.

Some may not agree with me because it sounds like there’s no definite criteria for the filtering process, but language is always subjective and personal, so there will never be one single solution to the problem. As far as I’m concerned, I will always advocate the beauty of genuine English, and have faith in the process of language evolution.