Linguistic and Metalinguistic Practices
7.0 Concepts of language
The fundamental groundwork of language � the development of a clear-cut phonetic system, the
specific association of speech elements with concepts, and the delicate
provision for the formal expression of all manner of relations � all this meets us rigidly perfected and systematised
in every language known to us.[1] [1]
The work of linguists like Edward
Sapir played a great role in emphasising the sophistication of languages, those
previously thought (as had been their speakers) to be primitive or infantile in
comparison to those of Europe. By explaining through vast ranges of examples
how what at first glance might appear to be unintelligible can in fact be
translated/understood, if due attention is paid to differences both internal
and external to language, Sapir helped undermine the West�s assumptions about its inherent superiority. This valuable
insight has nonetheless contributed to two approaches in the study of language
which, I will argue, both fail to present an adequate picture of how language
works. The first I raised back in Chapter 3 under the name of the Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis: the notion that each different language forms a hermetically-sealed
bubble encoding the flux of reality in a unique way. The second, the nativist
account of language as a biological property of all humans, an innate capacity
of the brain, argues that behind all the diversity of the world�s languages lie the mechanics of an inbuilt Universal
Grammar.
These two standpoints each come in
many different forms, but there are however connections between them: they both
reify language, in the sense that they raise it up as a founding principle of
culture � whether this is seen as the single culture of all humanity
(the differences between localities merely accidental) or the mutually
equivalent (yet mutually incomprehensible) cultures of the world. The way they
do this is by presenting it (meaning Language-singular for the nativists, or
any individual language for the relativists) as a totality, a living organism
in its own right, that is somehow distinct from and independent of the set of
all actual utterances and inscriptions.[2] [2]
Instead of this I propose the
Wittgensteinian notion of �this complicated form of life�, characterised not by an innate grammar or universals of
communication, nor by a benign, Ruthrofian �significatory
matrix�, but by the structure
of normativity, Judith Butler�s
�highly rigid regulatory frame�
(to which we will return below).[3] [3] While this
will differ from culture to culture in its specificities, it will everywhere
demonstrates the interplay between majoritarian tendencies of control,
regularity and habit, and minoritarian tendencies of experimentation, rupture
and change. These two aspects are intertwined and mark a relative difference, a
difference in point of view rather than of nature:
Constant is
not opposed to variable; it is a treatment of the variable opposed to the other
kind of treatment, or continuous variation. So-called obligatory rules
correspond to the first kind of treatment, whereas optional rules concern the
construction of a continuum of variation (TP 103).
We seek an approach to language that
takes this interplay as basic, rather than the �quest
for constants� that grounds such traditional oppositions as
language/speech, synchrony/diachrony, competence/ performance.
7.1 A Science of Language
The most monumental contribution to
nativist linguistics is almost certainly that of Noam Chomsky, and his
immensely thoughtful approach needs to be considered in order to establish more
precisely the areas of the debate with which we are engaging, and those that
are outside the remit of the present investigation. For Deleuze-Guattari,
Chomsky is clearly damned from the outset for several reasons: his
transformative grammar is intrinsically arbourescent and hierarchical; his
Universal Grammar would seem to be the archetype of language considered as an
abstract machine in its own right (seemingly isolating linguistics from
sociopolitical concerns of any kind); his approach demands the abstraction of
constants from the continuous variation of language use; he seems to regard the
idealised �competence� of the individual speaker as the
focus of linguistics rather than any notion of collective assemblages (with the
corresponding point that the other, machinic aspect of the assemblage is also
utterly irrelevant to his approach); his goal is to scientifically investigate
the human �faculty of language�
imagined as an innate capacity or mechanism, the description of which is
already and for all time a matter of what is necessarily true of all humans � a theoretical stance which would appear to be utterly at
odds with a philosophy based on difference in itself.
Can these charges amount to
substantiated criticisms of Chomsky�s
position, or do they simply miss the point of his enterprise? In the process of answering this question, I
will examine some criticisms of nativist approaches to linguistics, as well as
asking whether there are any possible points of connection between the project
of generative grammar and our present concern with order-words. Along the way,
we will make clearer exactly the aspects of language study and understanding to
which the pragmatics of the order-word relates, and how, if at all, such an
approach can communicate with that of Chomsky, or whether (as seems likely at
the outset of this episode of our investigation) the differences in starting
point, preferred descriptions and intended aims, are just too far apart to be
of any use to one another.
7.1.1 Chomsky on Skinner
Noam Chomsky made his name with his �Review of B. F. Skinner�s
Verbal Behaviour�, in which he not only demonstrated the many flaws of
Skinner�s attempts to draw analogies between the responses to
conditioning of various animals in the laboratory to the language use of
humans, but also laid the groundwork for a brand new type of linguistics � generative grammar.[4] [4] In his
review, Chomsky shows Skinner�s attempts to explain language
acquisition and use in terms of conditioning alone (through the mechanism of
stimulus and response), rather than through a combination of conditioning and
internal structure, to be woefully inadequate to explain such phenomena as the
successful acquisition of language in deprived circumstances, and the capacity
to master the rules of sentence generation without being taught them
explicitly.
The first problem with transposing
Skinner�s conceptual apparatus of stimulus and response from labrats
to humans is the definition of the terms. Is everything that impinges on the
organism a stimulus, or only that which provokes a response? Is every behaviour of the organism a
response, or only that which is related to a particular stimulus in a lawlike
manner? This may not pose a particular
problem when you are concerned with whether a rat learns to press a lever for
food, but when you are trying to explain (for example) a person�s response to a painting, you either have to explain
whatever her response is (assuming she has complied with your request and her
response is in some way connected to the painting), by a particular property of
the painting considered as stimulus, or else you have to abandon the schema.
Could it be suggested that Chomsky�s critique of Skinner could be turned on Deleuze-Guattari�s notion of the order-word? From a Chomskian perspective,
they too would seem to propose an account of language based on externalised
stimulus-response mechanisms rather than paying any attention to the innate
structures of the mind upon which these mechanisms surely depend. In actual
fact, I would suggest that in isolating the �faculty
of order-words� Deleuze-Guattari are from a certain point of view closer to
Chomsky than Skinner, in that this faculty is seen to be a property of human
societies (at least since the age of the Despot, the emergence of signification
and subjectification, and the conjoining of voice and graphism, as we saw in
Chapter 5). The profound difference, however, is that this faculty is social,
collective, rather than individual; it is ontologically prior to the notion of
the isolated human subject. Its relation to postulated �modules� of the brain is an issue we must
leave open in this account � except to say that it is indeed
dependent on the structure of the bodymind, but it is equally dependent on the
structure of human society (�this complicated form of life�) and its �rigid regulatory frame� of normativity. Hence, Chomsky�s dismissal of Skinner is largely justified, but his notions
(which we will now explore in more detail) about what for him is the only
conceivable way of understanding language or examining it are much more
questionable.
7.1.2 Competence
In his Linguistic Theory in America, Frederick Newmeyer states that the
key contribution of the approach to linguistics that Chomsky inaugurated,
despite many differences in method and focus, is the notion of competence.[5]
[5] Mitsou Ronat, in conversation with Chomsky, defines this as
that knowledge internalized by a speaker of a
language, which, once learned and possessed, unconsciously permits him to
understand and produce an infinite number of new sentences. Generative Grammar is the explicit
theory proposed to account for that competence.[6] [6]
Chomsky argues that psychology (of
which linguistics is necessarily a subset[7] [7] ) must start
by �identifying a cognitive domain [vision, memory, language,
etc] [...] which can be considered as a system, or a mental organ, that is more
or less integrated� (LR 49). This is because it is only on the basis of such a
system that progress can be made in analysing the more traditional focus of
psychology � namely, behaviour or performance.
In subordinating performance to competence, Chomsky regards himself as laying
out a truly rational science of psychology. Without this preliminary
theoretical understanding of the system
no understanding of the process � beyond the level of mere observation � is possible. Indeed, psychology necessarily has some implicit notion of competence,
whether it is aware of it or not, even if it is simply the notion that �language is a system of words�
(LR 50). What Chomsky offers is the possibility of the �better psychology�
that would result from a �better model of competence�
(ibid).
7.1.3 I-Language and E-Language
(part 1)
In a more recent work, Chomsky has
reinscribed the competence/performance distinction as that between internal- or
I-language and external- or E-language.[8] [8] In
presenting this distinction, he first brackets off �the commonsense notion of language� as defined by its sociopolitical status (Chinese, English,
etc), and mentions the common refrain that �a
language is a dialect with an army and a navy (attributed to Max Weinrich)� (KL 15) � a notion Deleuze-Guattari phrase as
�There is no mother tongue, only a power takeover by a
dominant language within a political multiplicity�
(TP 7). For Chomsky, this attitude cannot hope to furnish linguistics with any
workable basis from which to examine language: �all
scientific approaches have simply abandoned these elements of what is called �language� in common usage� (KL 15). Also of no interest is the �normative-teleological�
side of the commonsense view, from which it makes sense to talk about a
foreigner or child�s ��partial knowledge of English��
(KL 16) � this too must be ruled out of the scientific approach, and
replaced by an all-or-nothing �idealized �speech community�
that is consistent in its linguistic practice�
(ibid.). In what he labels a �theory-internal� point (KL 17), Chomsky then remarks that it would be
impossible for this community to speak a mixture of languages, such as French
and Russian, even if they do so uniformly, because
The language of such a speech community would not be �pure� in the
relevant sense, because it would not represent a single set of choices among
the options permitted by UG [Universal Grammar] but rather would include �contradictory� choices for
certain of these options (KL 17)
Given that Chomsky just stressed the
irrelevance of the sociopolitical boundaries between languages, there is
something peculiar about this appeal to �purity�, scare-quoted or not. The sympathetic reader has no choice
but to assume that this kind of �pure� French (for example) is of a different order from, for
example, the kind of �pure� French jealously guarded by the Acad�mie Fran�aise. It surely also signposts a
problem for the notion of a single UG (to which we will return below)!
7.1.4 Science and Idealisations
Chomsky confronts the question of
the legitimacy of these idealisations, and gives the impression of arguing
strenuously for their necessity, particularly that of �property of mind P�
(KL 17). His �argument� for the existence of his
idealisations runs as follows:
Surely there is some property of mind P that would
enable a person to acquire a language under conditions of pure and uniform
experience[9] [9] , and surely
P (characterized by UG) is put to use under the real conditions of language
acquisition. To deny these assumptions would be bizarre indeed: It would be to
claim either that language can be learned only under conditions of diversity
and conflicting evidence, which is absurd, or that the property P exists � there exists a capacity to learn language in the pure
and uniform case � but the actual learning of language
does not involve this capacity. In the latter case, we would ask why P exists;
is it a �vestigial organ� of some
sort? The natural approach, and one that
I think is tacitly adopted even by those who deny the fact, is to attempt to
determine the real property of mind P, and then ask how P functions under the
more complex conditions of actual linguistic diversity. It seems clear that any
reasonable study of the nature, acquisition, and use of language in real life
circumstances must accept these assumptions and then proceed on the basis of
some tentative characterization of the property of mind P. In short, the
idealizations made explicit in more careful work are hardly controversial: they
isolate for examination a property of the language faculty the existence of
which is hardly in doubt, and which is surely a crucial element in actual
language acquisition (KL 17-18).
In other words, P must exist; P can
only be examined on the basis of purified idealisations of language, even if
normal conditions are those of �diversity and conflicting evidence�. This P is, in all likelihood, species-specific (i.e.
proper to all humans) (KL 18-19) and �it
is difficult to imagine how [studies which do not make these assumptions] might
fruitfully progress� (KL 19).
The trouble with the above �argument� is that it starts with a foregone
conclusion (�Surely there is some property of mind P...�), the only argument for which is the dismissal of its
rejection as �absurd�. One could conceivably accept the theoretical possibility
that language could be acquired under
conditions of purity, uniformity and nonconflicting evidence, without either
allowing that it ever actually is, or that there is therefore such a thing as
Universal Grammar. In fact, the first assumption is not that easy to accept.
Supposing a group of adults modified their speech in rigid accordance with some
theory or other of Universal Grammar, and brought up their children in the
resulting atmosphere of a truly homogeneous
speech community. This is not to suggest that Chomsky himself conceives of UG
as in any way prescriptive, or that there is a veiled prescriptive agenda
behind the notion, but rather to emphasise how odd such a community would be.
It is far from obvious that the children of such a community would make fewer
grammatical mistakes in their early years, or become more articulate or
imaginative speakers, or be less prone to idiosyncratic constructions. What is
striking, however, is the distasteful nature of such a notion � the amount of training these adults would have to undergo
to strip them of every ungrammatical usage; the sense of artificiality of the
resulting environment. Why, if the idea of a homogeneous speech community is
supposed to be indispensable to any serious study of language, does the thought
of it actually instantiated seem so contrary to the actual diversity of
everyday language use? This does not
amount to an argument that �language can be learned only under conditions of diversity and
conflicting evidence�; it does, however, cast doubt on Chomsky�s insistence that such diversity must be considered the exception rather than the rule.
The second point about property of
mind P �common to all humans�
(KL 19), is that it is one thing to insist (as Chomsky does) that (1)
idealisations are �the sole means of proceeding rationally [...] You study
ideal systems, then afterwards you can ask yourself in what manner these ideal
systems are represented and interact with real individuals� (LR 54). It is quite another to go on to insist that (2)
the relevant �ideal system� in the study of language is a �property of mind P�
rather than, say, a property of material systems or (more specifically) a
property of sociopolitical assemblages, and (3) that this P is therefore �common to all humans�.
In actual fact Chomsky takes all three assumptions as read, when in fact all
are debatable to say the least. As Bolinger writes,
There is no question that human infants come into the
world with vastly more preformed capacity for language than used to be thought
possible. [...] But whether or not the genetic design contains elements that
are explicitly linguistic hinges on the overall question of explicitness. There
is so much interdependence in the unfolding of our capacities that we cannot be
sure that the linguistic ones do not start as nonlinguistic, only to be made
linguistic by features of the environment (AL 284).
7.1.5 I-Language and E-Language
(part 2)
To return to the distinction between
E-language and I-language: the shift in focus from former to latter that
Generative Grammar enacts (provided we accept Chomsky�s claims about idealisation and property P) is a move in the
direction both of realism, and of greater congruence between the commonsense
notion of language and its linguistic counterpart. E-language encompasses most
or all traditional approaches to linguistics �
all those, whether structural, behavioural or what-have-you, which ignore the
role of the mind/brain, or at least, do not hinge on the existence of property
P. Whether conceived of as �the totality of utterances that can
be made in a speech community� (Bloomfield, quoted by Chomsky,
KL19),[10] [10] a system
of sounds associated with a system of concepts (Saussure�s langue), or
indeed Deleuze-Guattari�s �the set of all order-words, implicit presuppositions, or
speech acts current in a language at a given moment� (TP 79),[11] [11] languages
in the sense of E-language are mere �artefacts� (KL 26), �epiphenomenon[al] at best� (KL 25), and �artificial,
somewhat arbitrary, and perhaps not very interesting constructs� (KL 26) with �no
corresponding real-world objects�
(KL 27). In contrast, I-languages, conceived of as the ��notion of structure�
in the mind of the speaker� (KL 23), are precise, real systems
to which the test of truth or falsity can apply, and hence are in line with the
objects of study of any natural science.
It is the role of Universal Grammar
in the respective approaches that makes this distinction possible. For
E-language, it is the corresponding grammar which is the semi-arbitrary
construct, in that any number of grammars could be enumerated that could
account for the same utterances from the same speaker. If, however, you start
from the notion of UG, characterised as the initial state (S0), the
starting point of every human by virtue of its genetic endowment, you can then
move to particular grammars defined
as �theories of various I-languages� (KL 25), and more broadly, to the steady state Ss
of knowledge of a language. The differences between I-languages in spite of
their common basis in UG is due to the differences in experiences of speakers
of different languages (though Chomsky hesitates to call this �learning� (KL 26)), but it is the notion of
UG that promises rich rewards to the linguist who compares, say, English and
Japanese, with a view to constructing the UG necessarily common to both (and
all other human languages).
These, then, are the guiding
principles of the investigation: that the focus is I-language (the �notion of structure�
in the head of the individual speaker �
or in Chomsky�s earlier term, his or her �competence�), which consists of innate component (UG) and �learned� component; that all speakers of all
languages (excepting the pathological) share UG and hence that different I-languages
have this shared basis that puts them, potentially, in relations of mutual
illumination. A more dramatic result of this shift is that the things generally
referred to as languages (i.e. E-languages) are of no interest to linguistics.
In comparing the I-languages of an English speaker and a Japanese speaker the
convergences must be conceived of as relating to UG and these individuals� I-language, not to any real-world object called English or
Japanese, for there is no such thing. The notion, therefore, of a power
takeover by a dominant language (or �mother
tongue�), with or without an army or navy, is nigh-on meaningless
for this approach.
This shift serves to protect Chomsky
from many criticisms of earlier versions of his approach, since when people
complain that different notions of UG fail to capture what languages are
actually like (their dependence on context, intonation, gesture and other �paralinguistic�
factors) or the differences between them, he can argue that his opponents are
still thinking about E-languages, the relevance of which can only be an
eventual outcome of an investigation into I-languages, to which any account of
E-languages is entirely subordinate.
Chomsky dismisses the notion that
there is anything problematic about basing linguistic study on an idealised
notion of a homogenous linguistic community; indeed he argues that idealisation
is necessary for any science to proceed, and further, that only idealised systems (such as competence, or I-language) �have interesting properties�
(LR 56). To the charge that this idealisation in some way removes linguistics
from social reality, Chomsky states
Opposition to idealization is simply objection to
rationality; it amounts to nothing more than an insistence that we shall not
have meaningful intellectual work. Phenomena that are complicated enough to be
worth studying generally involve the interaction of several systems. Therefore
you must abstract some object of
study, you must eliminate those factors which are not pertinent. At least if
you want to conduct an investigation which is not trivial (LR 57).
Linguists such as Labov, who pursue
the continuous variation of language
and are not concerned with extracting idealisations, are therefore condemned by
Chomsky to be mere natural historians, like the collectors and cataloguers of
rocks or butterflies, as opposed to the natural scientists who seek the principles of generative grammar.
However, in a pithy but crucial footnote, Deleuze-Guattari cite Labov as pinpointing
the paradox of much linguistics:
William Labov has clearly shown the contradiction, or
at least paradox, created by the distinction between language and speech:
language is defined as the �social part� of language, and speech is consigned to individual
variations; but since the social part is self-enclosed, it necessarily follows
that a single individual would be enough to illustrate the principles of
language, without reference to any outside data, whereas speech could only be
studied in a social context. The same paradox recurs from Saussure to
Chomsky: �The social
aspect of language is studied by observing any one individual, but the
individual aspect only by observing language in its social context� (TP 524, note 7)[12] [12]
As we saw above, Chomsky�s later I-language/E-language distinction does not mesh with
that of language/speech, and since he is uninterested in the social aspect of
language, he would seem to be released from the apparent paradox Labov notes.
Nevertheless, from our perspective, the project of generative grammar is
dramatically limited in its pursuit of the deep truths about language,
precisely because it neglects language�s
intrinsically social nature, and because it takes as given this common property
of all individual humans, rather than an unevenly distributed property of human
society, intimately connected with normativity �
society�s relations of command and control.
What I will be examining in this
section is the issue of prescriptivism in language, the notion of correct
usage, and the way linguistics seems to distance itself from this arena,
leaving it to popular discussions of language. An excellent example of this
stance can be found in Steven Pinker�s
best-selling The Language Instinct,[14] [14] where he
devotes a chapter to �The Language Mavens�,
those self-appointed arbiters of word-use in popular media.[15]
[15] Pinker�s project is to show that language is �as instinctive as spinning a web [is for a spider]�, that �every three-year-old is a
grammatical genius�, and that �the design of syntax is coded in our
DNA and wired into our brains� (371). Hence, the kind of thing the
mavens call correctness is an irrelevant arena of pedantic hobbyism, of no
interest to the scientific study of language. Pinker takes pains to show how
non-standard uses conform to his scientific notion of grammar just as much as
standard uses, and it is only prejudice to regard the former as inferior to the
latter when it comes to utility in self-expression. He further shows that the
bases on which the mavens criticise things like split infinitives, double
negatives and other no-nos, themselves betray a lack of understanding of how
language works. In the case of the former example, based on standard English
grammar modelled on Latin, the rule that infinitives should not be split misses
the point that because of the nature of Latin itself (where �the infinitive is a single word like facere or dicere�), �Julius Caesar couldn�t
have split an infinitive if he had wanted to�.
On the other hand, in English, �an �isolating� language, building sentences around many simple words
instead of a few complicated ones�,
it makes perfect sense (LI 374). In the case of the latter, he points out that
no one ever thought Mick Jagger actually meant that he could in fact get satisfaction, since only under the strictures of
Standard English is there anything problematic about emphasising a negative with another negative just as it is
commonplace in French�s Je ne sais pas,
or in English sentences like I didn�t buy any lottery tickets,
where the any cannot be used in the
opposite sentence, *I bought any lottery
tickets because it works only to agree with the negated verb (LI 376).[16] [16]
However, by the end of the chapter,
Pinker seems to have changed his mind, arguing that the written word always
benefits from being carefully revised in accordance with principles of style.
Is there a contradiction here?
Sociolinguist John Honey certainly thinks so, and strenuously takes
issue with Pinker�s
willingness to reassert what Honey calls the �linguistic equality� thesis, despite the seemingly indisputable fact that
everyone has notions of good and bad language use, clear and unclear
expression.[17] [17] For Honey,
the �linguistic
equality�
thesis is the assumption taken for granted by the majority of linguists, that
every language, or dialect of a language, is as good as every other � that there can be no grounds for
suggesting that one is morally superior, more advanced or more �highly evolved� than another. There are several
contributing factors to the success of this doctrine, which Honey sees as
having dominated linguistics throughout the 20th Century. The first
factor is linguistics�
pretensions to scientific objectivity, and its attempts to distance itself from
pejorative and discriminatory attitudes both to non-European languages and to
supposedly deficient dialects of European ones. Both Honey and another
sociolinguist Deborah Cameron argue that linguistics has gone too far in the
quest for disinterested objectivity, and as a result has neglected the
irreducible role of normativity in language, in the academic study of language,
and in everyday discussions about language in all walks of life.[18] [18]
For Honey, this has resulted in an
unwillingness to talk about the relative merits of different languages, or more
importantly for his purposes, of different dialects of the same language. Honey�s book is an apologetic for Standard
English (SE), and the notion of standardised language generally, as something
that needs to be taught in the schools even if this is at the expense of people�s pride or fluency in their regional
dialect.
His arguments in favour of actively enforcing SE, in brief, are:
1. People naturally associate
well-spokenness and literacy with education, higher social status and power. In
this sense people who speak in regional dialects will be discriminated against,
as assumptions will be made about their intelligence. By the same token,
enforcing of Standard English is necessary to combat discrimination against it from within communities of
nonstandard English speakers.
2. Fluency in SE, being the language
of government, law, scientific research and the great works of literature, is a
prerequisite for involvement in these
spheres. For schools not to give everyone the opportunity to speak SE is to
emasculate them socially, politically and artistically.
3. The maintenance of SE (best done,
for Honey, in accordance with the judgements of a cross-section of educated
speakers) is invaluable for communication,
wherever English is spoken. Non-standard forms, with their less-clearly defined
grammar, higher incidence of slang and esoteric phrases, are limited by
geography, but SE (in both British and American versions) is spoken the world
over. Without its active promotion, English risks dissolving into a vast range
of mutually unintelligible dialects, whereas with global promotion and support, a consensually formulated (and
regularly updated) SE could truly be a world language.
Honey argues that belief in
the dogma of linguistic equality has resulted in an erosion of English teaching
in the UK, with teachers less willing to correct non-standard phrases and
spellings. This is combined with changing attitudes to how grammar should be
taught, or whether it should be taught at all, and the net result is
(supposedly) appallingly high levels of illiteracy � especially in deprived areas � and the resultant perpetuation of
cycles of poverty, rising crime figures and the other familiar riffs of the �hell in a handbasket� deterioration school of social
commentary. There are two aspects of Honey�s stance I would like to focus on: his critique of
supporters of non-standard English on the basis of their role in perpetuating
social decline, and his tendency to take as inevitable the prevailing attitudes
mentioned in point 1 above. The latter I will examine in the discussion of
verbal hygiene below. The former question is particularly relevant to
Deleuze-Guattari�s
advocacy of �becoming-minor� in language, �making language stutter�, and �becoming a foreigner in your own tongue�.
7.3 What is Wrong with Communication?
The most cursory glance at
Deleuze-Guattari�s
�Postulates
of Linguistics�
indicates that their stance will be fundamentally opposed to Honey�s assumptions regarding the
superiority of Major or Standardised language, which they clearly associate
with social control through the transmission of order-words. I have dealt above
with their equation of grammar with the imposition of the �semiotic coordinates� by which we are expected to
navigate our courses through life, a strict schooling in the language of the
State being intertwined with the normalising of behaviour through social
obligation. However, are they perhaps a little quick off the mark in their
condescension towards official grammar and standardised language? This is one aspect of a greater worry
Deleuze-Guattari often engender, that their valorisation of change and creation
over stability is at best na�ve, and at worst, dangerously destructive. Supposing English
teaching (for example) were to be carried out on the basis of a rejection of
the strictures of grammar, the fostering of password-creation over order word
reinforcement, and encouragement of free innovation for its own sake? If we take at face value their claims that
language is not primarily about conveying information, then perhaps a situation
where conveying information becomes virtually impossible is the situation we
should strive for? How else are we to
take Deleuze�s
call for the creation of �vacuoles
of noncommunication, circuit breakers, so we can elude control� (N 174)?
In short, a Honeyesque
critique of Deleuze-Guattari�s stance on language would place them as two well-educated
intellectuals devaluing everyone else�s right to join the club of standard language users (an
argument he uses against critics of SE, Raymond Williams and Roy Harris[19] [19] ) by
arguing that standardised, State-sanctioned language is the vehicle of
oppression (rather than, as Honey argues with some force, of liberation). While
of course Deleuze-Guattari were not setting out to contribute directly to
debates about education policy, there is nonetheless a worry here that their
views �
if they are supposed to be taken to have any practical applications whatsoever,
which I assume they are �
smack of armchair anarchism.[20] [20] What use is minor literature if you have
never learned to read?
The rather distasteful conclusion
from this could be that Deleuze-Guattari�s position is something like �Of course people have to be taught to read and write in
accordance with the major language. If they cannot give and receive
order-words, they can�t
free up the passwords within; if they can�t talk like a native in the first place, they cannot learn
to talk like a �foreigner
in their own tongue�.
We only said �vacuoles� of noncommunication � we didn�t mean whole housing estates!�
In other words, to the extent that Deleuze-Guattari are critical of the
Strata they are also complicit, and their criticisms only carry weight insofar
as they assume the continued existence of the Strata regardless. Rather than
the anarchic revolutionaries that are perhaps suggested by the radical
educational policy I fancifully extrapolated from them above, they are actually
interested in �becoming-minor� in language as a literary or
artistic exercise, an exercise that is only interesting against the backdrop of
the continued dominance of the Major language of representation.
This reading of Deleuze-Guattari
suggests that affirming passwords over order-words amounts to little more than
a lifestyle choice, open only to those privileged enough to be able to discern
the difference, with absolutely nothing to say about the problems caused by
high levels of illiteracy the world over. For example, Goodchild�s Deleuze and Guattari appears to present their politics in this
fashion, where the point is to explore your own private becomings and leave
politics in the capable hands of the social democrats.[21]
[21] I hope now to show that their
account runs much deeper than this in its dissection of the social functioning
of language, and rather than proposing an aesthetic judgement of password over
order-word, they do in actual fact have a substantial contribution to make to
issues of language teaching that surpasses the Honey stance.
In �Postulates of Linguistics� they argue that major and minor are not opposing categories
of language, but the same language
from two different points of view: that of the institutional grammarian (in the
prescriptive sense), extracting pseudo-universals from the flows of language on
the one hand, and on the other, an experimental approach focusing on the continuous variation of language, its
dependence in any given instance on the specifics of the social context in
which it arises. As far as the teaching of language goes, this could take the
form of a shift of emphasis (one that has already taken place) from a focus on
supposedly immutable rules, to a sensitivity to the importance of
paralinguistic aspects �
intonation, the interplay of formal and informal registers, body language, and
perhaps most importantly, the indexes of relative power in social interaction.
The last thing such an approach would be is blind to the kind of prejudices
Honey talks about against non-standard forms. Rather than seeing standard uses
as something of value for their own sake, language teaching on a pragmatic
basis would equip the student with an understanding of the embeddedness of speech and writing in a variety of different situations,
and that discourses about language are (like discourses about anything else)
only comprehensible in relation to the power relationships of which they are an
expression.
In any case, communication has never
been as simple as the model of �telementation�, or the transfer of thoughts from one head to another,
suggested. As I have tried to show in this thesis, language is not a fixed
code, and its flexibility also entails what could be seen as its greatest
weakness � indeterminacy. Exact transfer of ideas from mind to mind is a
hopeless idealisation, that makes inexplicable the enduring appeal of
�non-standard� literature from Tristram
Shandy to Dr Seuss, and reduces language to a transparent medium of
communication.[22] [22] As Deborah
Cameron puts it,
Non-standard and unconventional uses of language can
only be seen as a threat to communication if communication itself is conceived
in a way that negates our whole experience of it (VH 25).
In the following discussion of
�verbal hygiene�, I will explore the possibilities of a fundamentally
political, pragmatic understanding of how language works, in order to show that
these ideas are a much more appealing basis for investigating and teaching
languages than Honey�s commitment to standardisation as means, and maximised
communication as goal.
7.4 Metalinguistic Practices
[H]umans do not just use language, they comment on the
language they use (VH 1).
In her book Verbal Hygiene, Deborah Cameron, like Honey, argues against the
supposed objectivity of linguistics � though she is keen not to dismiss its
insights and innovations. The problem with it is its failure to take adequate
account of metalinguistic practices,
both institutional, subcultural and individual. These practices or movements in
the modification of speech and writing, she argues, are as old as language
itself, predating modern linguistics by millennia. Her point, as we will see,
is very close to that of Deleuze-Guattarian pragmatics
� namely that there is no zone of language use that is free of investments in
social and political concerns; language is never simply about information or
communication, but always arises in particular social contexts, in particular
relationships of power: the abstract entity �Language� does not exist beyond
its concrete instantiations in particular social contexts.
It is important for linguists to acknowledge that
there is more to people�s beliefs than the ignorance and prejudice that meet
the eye; for in order to displace the most powerful ideology there is, namely
common sense, it is necessary to grasp its hidden principles and to understand
the reasons for its enduring popular appeal (VH xiii).[23] [23]
In explaining her choice of the term
�verbal hygiene� to designate the practices she is investigating, Cameron
contrasts it with the traditional distinction in linguistics between the
descriptive and the prescriptive, arguing that the discipline has tended to
distance itself from any investment in the latter area. As Steven Pinker was
cited as arguing above, prescribing �correct� language use is an activity for
people who do not know any better � people who have not recognised that
everyone (barring such exceptions as the mentally subnormal) automatically and
necessarily has the means to express themselves fully, as language necessarily
arrives as a totality, differences between idiolects notwithstanding.
Linguistics is concerned with examining this natural phenomenon, in charting
its changes and differences through history, across continents and through the
economic strata of society. Notions of �correctness� are alien to linguistics,
since while it recognises that certain uses may be privileged by certain groups
over others, these are simply data to be recorded and interpreted in the manner
befitting a true science.[24] [24]
Cameron argues that while the study
of language in accordance with scientific practice is clearly possible and
productive, such an approach cannot escape the fact that language operates on
the basis of norms. Language is not a phenomenon like gravity or the speed of
light; it is neither an artefact of culture, nor a living thing in its own
right � �any more than swimming, or birdsong, is a living thing�[25] [25] (cf. Pinker�s suggestion that �language is
like the song of the humpback whale� (LI 370)). The rules linguistics
�discovers� no doubt capture actual regularities in speakers� behaviour, but to
say therefore that such rules exist �in the speaker� or indeed �in the
language� conceals the social apparatus giving force to such rules and
maintaining such regularities, a process in which linguistics is itself
thoroughly implicated.
Cameron refuses to allow by
unchallenged, any appeals to how (a) language or grammar simply �is�. Such appeals, while more innocuous
and perhaps unavoidable in the natural sciences, are in linguistics
mystifications, in that they take for granted the authority of some set of
facts of past or present usage, to arbitrate in disagreements over new
formulations. The point is not so much that you cannot derive an �ought� from
an �is�, but (firstly) that the facts (or �ises�) brought to bear in such
disputes will always be overdetermined by some already operational set of
�oughts� left outside the realm of argument, and (secondly) that when it comes
to language use, there are no mere �ises�, just the �oughts� that successfully
took root and became entrenched.[26] [26]
For example, in English the
masculine third person pronoun has found itself on the receiving end of verbal
hygienists, on the fairly obvious basis that it excludes half of humanity.
Traditionalists argued that �he� actually meant �he or she� all along, or at least
that it does now, and that in any case it is vastly preferable to such ugly
constructions as �he or she�, or worse still, the shudder-inducing
�they�-singular. People of this view to this day can be heard grudgingly
correct themselves (�...sorry, he or she...�)
making it clear what a terrible imposition this concession is. Nevertheless,
when I hear �he� when what is clearly meant is �he or she�, it jars. Expressing
the same sentiment slightly differently (and using the technique of
�experiencer deletion� as listed among Bolinger�s list of techniques of
�non-neutrality in grammar�[27] [27] ), it is no longer acceptable to say �he� when
you mean �he or she�. Needless to say, if I had been brought up to believe
that �he� could be said to apply to both sexes, rather than its use being due
to the subordination of women, it is likely I would strenuously argue that it
is both acceptable and correct, and that anyone who says otherwise is either a
fool or a dangerous extremist. In partial concession to the Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis, if the way we were taught language doesn�t actually affect how we
think about things in general, it certainly affects how we respond to
challenges to our verbal hygiene!
This distinction (fool or extremist)
Cameron brings out as evidence of the contradictory stance taken by opponents
of language change. In such an example as the above, they are inclined to say
on the one hand that these changes are offences against the way language
actually is, and on the other that it doesn�t matter anyway � why do these
campaigners think that such superficial changes are anything to do with any
real plight women and racial minorities might actually be in? This translates into two equally
contradictory responses to changes that have become established (e.g. Black (or, if appropriate, African-American) replacing Negro, disabled or dysabled replacing
handicapped, as well as the more
obviously pejorative forms nigger and
cripple). Either such changes are
simply seen to be due to geological shifts in language caused by impersonal
social currents rather than the result of individuals campaigning, or they are
cosmetic shifts of little consequence that will probably change again tomorrow
as fashion dictates. Both responses depoliticise language, and negate the efforts
of the campaigners involved.
Cameron argues that linguistics
cannot keep its hands clean in issues of verbal hygiene, because the
distinction between what it does and what popular (and unpopular) verbal
hygienists do is very difficult to maintain:
both prescriptivism
and anti-prescriptivism invoke
certain norms and circulate particular notions about how language ought to work
[...] �description� and �prescription� turn out to be aspects of a single (and
normative) activity: a struggle to control language by defining its nature� (VH
8).
Linguistics may purport to merely
observe, but the often-unquestioned authority of science and the
underdetermination of theories by empirical data mean that its objectivity
should not be taken for granted.[28] [28] Instead, a linguistics that takes the
normativity of language as fundamental will be better placed to understand its
own political roles.
Verbal hygiene practices[29] [29] in all
their diversity point to two key notions. The first is that people constantly talk
about talk, and modify the way they and each other speak and write. In other
words, rather than being something we just do, the way we do it is as important
(if not more so) than whatever it is we are speaking or writing about � and we
are constantly making (more or less conscious) decisions about this just as we
are about every other activity. In contrast to this, the disinterested stance
of the linguist seems ludicrously alien: surely language-use of all things has
to be investigated with rigorous attention, if not necessarily to the inner
world of the individual, then at least to the actual situation she is acting in
(and her effect on it). In Deleuze-Guattari�s terms, utterances can only be
understood in relation to particular collective assemblages � this last phrase
marking a distinction both with the speech
of the individual and the language of
the society, and instead focusing on the particular milieu on which the
utterance occurs.[30] [30] Indeed, collective assemblages, the
boundaries of which are far from self-evident in A Thousand Plateaus, can be carved out on the basis of the verbal
hygiene practices (along with other order-words) in circulation at a given
moment. You comprise a collective assemblage with the rest of your Plain
English pressure group, or with your fellow speakers of rural Doric, Jamaican
patois or poststructuralist philosophy jargon.
What becomes of the individual in
the collective assemblage? Cameron�s
arguments against those approaches which negate the roles of individuals in language change could
conceivably be turned against the notion of the collective assemblage � is this
not simply the return of the notion that impersonal geological shifts in
society facilitate change rather than, perhaps, actively campaigning individuals
(be they feminists, the Acad�mie Fran�aise, or whoever)? This point raises the issue of the nature of
the individual and the acts that can be attributed to it. Arguing with
Deleuze-Guattari, all utterances are collective, and (as Cameron would presumably
concede) it is the collective nature
of such verbal hygiene movements that result in change, rather than their
happening to consist in groups of particularly influential individuals. The
individual is constructed from the collective assemblages, rather than the
other way round, particularly with relation to politics and the politicisation
of language. We will shortly examine Cameron�s account of the construction of
the individual.
The second point � why verbal
hygiene practices are as relevant as any other socio-political campaigns or
movements � is that they are never simply about language. As I have just
suggested they can be defining characteristics of particular groups (most
obviously in the case of those formed with explicitly linguistic aims) and in
such cases, what might lie behind the ostensive activities is investment in a
group of like minds, united in their alienation from prevailing attitudes. But
more significantly, as Cameron points out, verbal hygiene debates are generally
the symbolic expression of ��deeper� social conflicts� � or rather the two
levels are in �complex interaction� to the extent that neither can be
understood without reference to the other (VH 12). In Deleuze-Guattarian terms,
the two are in reciprocal presupposition � the collective assemblage defined by
its utterances (where what is said is not separable from the way it is said: medium = message[31] [31] )
and the machinic assemblage defined by bodies, their actions and passions. On
both sides, it is a matter of the enforcement or rejection of traditional norms
and the creation and maintenance of new norms, behaviours and social
obligations linked through the switching point of the order-word.
7.5 Subjectification
Cameron proposes three zones � authority, identity and agency � in which this interaction is
played out. Each of these draw their significance from the uses of language,
and show why disputes over the uses of language go �all the way down� as
regards the structuring of the social. Crucially, she argues that
Linguistic conventions are quite possibly the last
repository of unquestioned authority for educated people in secular society.
Tell such people that they must dress in a certain way to be admitted to a
public building and some at least will demand to know why; they may even reject
the purported explanation as absurd and campaign for a change in the rules.
Tell them, on the other hand, that the comma goes outside the quotation marks
rather than inside (or for that matter vice versa as is conventional in North America)
and they will meekly obey, though the rule is patently as arbitrary as any
dress code (VH 12).
The point is that while the rule
itself may be arbitrary, its social function is not. As Honey argued, failing
to comply with standard usages marks you out as legitimately
discriminatable-against, where almost nothing else would � as Cameron puts it,
�linguistic bigotry is among the last publicly expressible prejudices left to
members of the western intelligentsia. Intellectuals who would find it unthinkable
to sneer at a beggar or someone in a wheelchair will sneer without compunction
at linguistic �solecisms�� (VH 12). For Cameron, this is prejudice (though she
freely admits experiencing the �jarring� effect of bad spelling and grammar
herself[32] [32] ); for
Honey it is natural and legitimate, since he is already convinced of the
superiority and importance of standard forms. Both agree that �correctness� is
neither arbitrary or trivial, and that to perpetuate or challenge the authority
of grammar is to take a stand on far more than just language (and hence, will
often be an utterly futile and counterproductive gesture). For Cameron, this is
an indication that verbal hygienists of every stripe disingenuously or
deliberately confuse the issues by failing to see the underlying social
processes that are at stake.
The inexorability of grammar runs as
deep as all other social behaviours � we are as likely or unlikely to want to speak or spell incorrectly as we
are to want to draw attention to ourselves, act aggressively or obscenely, or
otherwise contravene our internalised codes of acceptable behaviour. Take the
following excerpt from a conversation about correct and nonsensical sentence
constructions cited by Bolinger, between a mother and her seven-year-old daughter:
M: What�s the difference how you say things as long as
people understand you?
D: It�s a difference because people would stare at you
(titter) [...] I don�t want somebody coming around and saying � correcting me.[33] [33]
For Cameron, a major failing of
sociolinguistics has been its taking for granted of �people�s demonstrable
sensitivity to linguistic norms, their fine-tuned awareness of prestige and
stigma�, without paying any attention to the actual mechanics of how this
sensitivity and awareness comes about (VH 14-15). Her suggestion is to examine
the construction of identity (or in
terms of the present investigation, subjectification),
turning on its head the sociolinguistic assumption that linguistic behaviour
can be explained in reference to a pre-existing identity, and looking instead
at how social positions and relationships are constructed through linguistic
and other behaviours. Drawing on Judith Butler�s performative account of
identity-construction, Cameron asks �If identity pre-exists language, if it is
given, fixed and taken for granted, then why do language-users have to mark it
so assiduously and repetitively?� (VH 17). This continual, performative marking
of identity is necessary because �identity does not exist outside of the acts that
constitute it�, each of which are in interaction with the �highly rigid
regulatory frame�[34] [34] of social
norms.
This frame defines what acts are required to produce
an intelligible, acceptable or normal identity; its definitions cannot simply
be ignored, but they can be negotiated, resisted and in some circumstances
deliberately modified [...] Debates on verbal hygiene are of particular
interest: conflict renders visible the processes of norm-making and
norm-breaking, bringing into the open the arguments that surround rules. Verbal
hygiene practices that are not the subject of debate are also illuminating:
examined closely, they show how norms become naturalized and how unquestioned
(�conventional�) ways of behaving are implicitly understood by social actors.
Overall, then, the investigation of normative practices, whether contested or
taken for granted, has the potential to cast light on the relations between
language, society and identity (VH 17).
The third zone of agency brings
together problems of authority and identity, in the question of agency � that
of the extent to which we speak language, or, to paraphrase Heidegger, it
speaks us. For linguistics, as we have seen, language is a natural phenomenon
or a living organism with its own pattern of evolution and change; for verbal
hygienists, it might either be something whose decline needs to be prevented,
or whose outmoded forms need to be brought in line with changing attitudes. It
is under the banner of agency that Cameron presents her middle path between the
notions either that language use (as natural process) cannot be made
artificially to square with so-called passing whims of the age (such as
political correctness) � and that attempts to make it do so are misguided
prescriptivism, or that if changes are seen to take root they are merely the
gradual evolution of language due to the effects of social change. In either
case agency is denied and the �naturalness� of language is strategically
appealed to � in the first case, because the fact that changes can be argued
for successfully and can take root as a result is denied, and in the second,
because linguistic changes are seen as mere epiphenomena of social change.
A high level of conformity need not mean everyone
assents to the relevant norms; it could mean rather that they live within
social relations that make deviance and resistance particularly difficult (VH
238n4).
Because science itself has authority in modern
society, while at the same time the discourse of value remains a highly salient
one for everyday talk about language, the absolute distinction between
observing norms and enforcing them cannot be maintained in practice (VH 8).
Cameron cites right wing commentator
John Marenbon, who argued that the linguists who argue for description over
prescription have missed the point:[35]
[35]
�grammar prescribes by describing�. The point of doing
a �descriptive� grammatical analysis is precisely to establish what the norms
of grammar are, so they can be prescribed with confidence to users of the
language (VH 10).
But though Cameron agrees with this
point, she disagrees with his assumption that we are therefore obliged to
follow one set of prescriptions over another. By accepting that normativity is
inescapable in language use, you open the very question of which normative
strategies to follow at any given point � a question that bares directly on the
social and political investments of each.
I would argue that there is not the
radical distinction Cameron proposes between the normative practices of verbal
hygiene and normativity in other social arenas, in that the latter are often so
ingrained as to be largely invisible much of the time. Examples of this could
be the behaviours which mark someone as weird or insane-looking. Making this
comparison brings up the corresponding argument one might make, to the effect
that people who break social norms, whether by running around naked or by
machine-gunning their workmates probably are
insane, just as the illiterate or inveterately ungrammatical are deficient. Just because these norms
are in one sense socially constructed, they are nonetheless real forces on
people�s behaviour, and there are real consequences for failing to conform to
them.
The analogy can be taken further.
Should there be any proponents of �grammatical atheism�, or the idea that
grammar, or the regime of signification/subjectification in its entirety, is a
set of shackles to be thrown off, or radically refigured, they would bear
comparison with the radical antipsychiatry of someone like Thomas Szasz.[36] [36] While the
present approach is happy to suggest that psychiatry and linguistics alike have
had roles to play in ordering and controlling society in a rather less
disinterested way than that in which they like to be presented, it is another
thing altogether to suggest that either psychiatry (with its not infrequent
successes in preventing people commit suicide or helping them get through
difficult and dangerous periods of their lives) or the various sciences and
proto-sciences of language should be declared our enemies. The point is not to
criticise the very idea of norms, or to suggest that we could do without them,
but rather to explore the possibilities of modifying or replacing those norms.
Having realised that they are there and that they are to some extent open to
debate, it will not do to appeal to them as natural principles, as a covert way
of maintaining their power. Above, we saw how John Honey appealed to people�s
ill-dispositions towards non-standard forms of English, such as Black English,
as justification for the active promotion of SE in schools. �There is,� retorts
Cameron, �a lot of colour prejudice in Britain, but that fact is never invoked
to suggest that black children [...] should be taught the proper use of skin lightening
cosmetics� (VH 98).
7.6 Conclusion
To sum up the findings of this
chapter: in contrast to the stance of nativist linguistics, grammar is unlikely
to be an innate faculty, one essentially devoted to the production and
reception of sentences. What we have argued for instead, is the faculty of
order-words, which is not a biological property of human neuroanatomy, but
rather, is a contingent social property of human societies (at least, all those
that have been encountered so far). In other words, the behaviours we
understand as language use, at least on present data, are everywhere
accompanied by custom, regulation and control � social obligation � though this may take radically different forms
at different times and places. The implication for linguistics is that language
can only be separated off from a pragmatic examination of its particular
context, at the risk of detaching it from life � in spite of Chomsky�s claim
that it is the cataloguers of linguistic variation who are the �butterfly collectors�
as opposed to those true scientists of language in the schools of generative
grammar (LR 57). Our discussion of verbal hygiene emphasised that linguistic
and metalinguistic practices are intertwined with social, political and
economic struggles, and that there are no mere
matters of language: that is, for all the time spent dealing about the
�merely linguistic�, one is prevented or distracted from talking about the
�bigger picture�. Discussions of verbal hygiene, alongside debates about social
practices, are vivid examples of the distribution of the visible and the
articulable being contested and reasserted.
[1]
[1] Edward
Sapir, Language: An Introduction to the
Study of Speech, New York: Harvest, 1949: 22
[2]
[2] To use
Deleuze-Guattari�s phrase, they each posit �an Abstract Machine of language that does not
appeal to any extrinsic factor� (TP 85).
[3]
[3] Judith
Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the
Subversion of Identity, New York: Routledge, 1990
[4]
[4] Noam
Chomsky, �Review of B. F. Skinner�s Verbal Behaviour�, in Readings in Language and Mind, ed. Heimar Geirsson and Michael
Losonsky, Oxford: Blackwell, 1996
[5]
[5] Frederick J.
Newmeyer, Linguistic Theory in America:
First Quarter Century of Transformational Generative Grammar, London:
Academic Press, 1997. Dwight Bolinger notes that despite the approach having
been originated by Hjelmslev, no other linguist has matched Chomsky�s success in bringing formal linguistic theory into its own � at least in its heyday from 1958
for about ten years (AL 512).
[6] [6]
Noam Chomsky, Language and Responsibility, Based on
conversations with Mitsou Ronat, tr. John Viertel, Sussex: Harvester Press 1979
(hereafter LR): 48-49.
[8]
[8] Noam
Chomsky, Knowledge of Language: Its
Nature, Origin and Use (hereafter KL), London: Praeger 1986
[9]
[9] Lest we are
misled by the dualist implications of �mind� in this context, Chomsky shortly makes clear
he means �mind/brain�, and further remarks that while, for present purposes we �regard talk of mind as talk about
the brain undertaken at a certain level of abstraction at which we believe,
rightly or wrongly, that significant properties and explanatory principles can
be discovered� (KL 22), linguistics and psychology as a whole may ultimately be
reducible to biology (KL 27). I will argue that this abstraction with regard to
�mind� is flawed in the same way as
Chomsky�s other abstractions (UG, �idealized speech community�, etc) � it is not nearly abstract enough.
[10]
[10] L.
Bloomfield, �A Set of Postulates for the Science of Language�, Language 2, 1928. Reprinted
in M. Joos, (ed.), Readings in
Linguistics, Washington: American Council of Learned Sciences, 1957.
[11]
[11] It is
difficult to avoid the air of tautology in this definition, though it goes with
the territory � Chomsky also resorts to similarly awkward formulations, e.g. �The I-languages that can be attained
with S0 fixed and experience varying are the attainable human
languages, where by �language� we now mean I-language� (KL 25-26).
[12]
[12] Deleuze-Guattari
are quoting William Labov, Sociolinguistic
Patterns, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972: 186.
[13]
[13] A �shibboleth�, Hebrew for �torrent�, is an offence to �correct usage� which reveals the perpetrator as an
ill-educated ignoramus. Popular examples are double negatives, split
infinitives and non-standard past participles like �drownded� and �snuck�. In the Old Testament, the
Ephraimites who, when challenged, pronounced the word �sibboleth�, revealed themselves not to be
Gileadites and were duly slain (Judges 12: 5-6; LI 375).
[18]
[18] Deborah
Cameron, Verbal Hygiene (hereafter
VH), London: Routledge, 1995. NB.: �Disinterested� here means impartial, though as
both Pinker and Cameron point out, this definition is in the process of being
superseded by uninterested, a fact
Pinker laments (despite his insistence that such gripes in the face of
inevitable language change are futile and illfounded). Admittedly, my phrase �disinterested objectivity� is clumsily tautologous.
[19]
[19] LP 114-116,
e.g. �So we have Roy Harris ridiculing those who, when nowadays urging the
case for �standard English� (a term he puts in quotation marks) use the argument that �is the [kind of] English to learn
for better job opportunities and improved social status� [...] It is easy for someone who
has himself moved upwards socially from lesser beginnings to a university
professorship [...] to belittle the ambitions of others who would like to do
the same� (115).
[20]
[20] There is a
parallel here with feminist criticisms of their notion of �becoming-woman�, whereby the assumed starting-point
is always that of White Man Face, and the first stage is always becoming-woman.
How does this apply, how can this be even vaguely relevant, to people who have
never been in the subject-position of White Man Face?
[21]
[21] Philip
Goodchild, Deleuze and Guattari: An
Introduction to the Politics of Desire, London: Sage, 1996. I allude also
to a response by Goodchild at the Thinking
Alien conference at Leeds University (1997) where he said that there was no
particular correlation to be found between Deleuze�s metaphysics and his politics.
Compare Deleuze�s remark that all philosophy
is political, made so by the many things that are shameful about being human,
from Nazism to ��jolly people� gossiping� (N 172), and that �There�s no democratic state that�s not compromised to its very core by its part
in generating human misery� (N 173).
[22]
[22] Laurence
Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram
Shandy, Gentleman, Ware, Herts.:
Wordsworth Classics, 1996. Dr Seuss, Hooray
for Diffendoofer Day!, New York: Random House, 1998 (for example).
[23]
[23] Deleuze-Guattari
reject the notion of ideology; indeed they deny that there is any such thing.
Accounts based on ideology relegate oppressive power structures to the realm of
ideas, as though it were simply a matter of consciousness-raising, rather than
one of deeper social change. Cameron is drawing on Norman Fairclough, Language and Power, Harlow: Longman,
1989.
[24]
[24] As mentioned
at the end of Section 4.4, Deleuze-Guattari write: �Linguistics can claim all it wants
to be science, nothing but pure science � it wouldn�t be the first time that the order
of pure science was used to secure the requirements of another order� (TP 101).
[25]
[25] Here
Cameron is quoting James Milroy, whose characterisation of language (as �a vehicle for communication between living things, namely human
beings�, the idealisation of which as homogenous (the type of characterisation
Chomsky dubs E-language) wrongly shifts the emphasis away from the activities
of individual speakers) she agrees with, but whose dismissal of prescriptivism
as unnatural, she rejects (VH 5, 9). While we disagree that language is
primarily a �vehicle for communication�, we agree that �the processes affecting it are
social processes� (VH 5).
[26]
[26] It could be
argued that there are biological constraints � lung capacity, the nature of the
mouth and ear, and so on � that result in languages tending to function in some ways rather than
others. Following the doubts raised about nativism earlier in the chapter, I
wish also to suggest that the argument that language has to be thus and so, because of the facts of biology, is guilty
of a reductionist fallacy that serves to give the status quo objective
justification, just as those who argue on the basis of �facts� of grammar. The fact that things
are how they are is no reason to believe they always have been or that they can
never change.
[27]
[27] AL 260-1.
Other examples are It is obvious that... (obvious
to whom?); It is a known fact that... (known
to whom?), or John seems to be lying rather
than It seems to me that John is lying.
[28]
[28] Steven
Pinker gives an example of the elusiveness of the descriptive/prescriptive
boundary in the popular imagination, when he writes: �A linguist�s question to an informant about
some form in his or her speech (say, whether the person uses sneaked or snuck) is often lobbed back with the ingenious counterquestion �Gee, I better not take a chance;
which one is correct?�� (LI 371)
[29]
[29] examples of
which Cameron gives as �campaigning for the use of plain language on official forms; belonging
to a spelling reform society, a dialect preservation society or an artificial
language society; taking courses in �communication arts� or �group discussion�, going for elocution lessons,
sending for correspondence courses on �good English� or reading self-improvement
literature on how to be a better conversationalist; editing prose to conform to
a house style; producing guidelines on non-sexist language, or opposing such
guidelines� (VH 9).
[30]
[30] In this
regard, the importance of standard usages (as discussed in reference to Honey
above), whether they are deemed positive or negative, will depend on the
particular assemblage concerned.
[31]
[31] �The Medium is the Message�: Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, London: Sphere, 1967
[32]
[32] �I can choose to suppress the irritation I feel when I see, for example,
a sign that reads �Potatoe�s�; I cannot choose not to feel it� (VH 14).
[33]
[33] Bolinger,
citing Lila R. Gleitman, Henry Gleitman and Elizabeth F. Shipley, �The Emergence of Child as Grammarian�, Cognition: International Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 1: 137-64, 1973 (AL 275).
[35]
[35] John
Marenbon, English Our English: The New
Orthodoxy Examined, London: Centre for Policy Studies, 1987
[36]
[36] Thomas S.
Szasz, The Myth of Mental Illness:
Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct, London: Paladin, 1972, and Ideology and Insanity: Essays on the
Psychiatric Dehumanization of Man, London: Marion Boyers Ltd, 1983.