Folk linguistics
Encyclopedia
Folk linguistics is a term applied to the amateur
study of linguistics
. The term is often used as a pejorative
.
The linguist
Ray Jackendoff
points out that applying folk linguistics to education can be potentially damaging to the attainment of students who speak less standard dialect
s. Characterising different speech as good or bad can have a serious effect.
The term folk linguistics can also refer to ideological ideas of language, such as nationalist views of language. The scientific understanding of language by linguists often contradicts that of native speakers.
Other beliefs may include:
Amateur
An amateur is generally considered a person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science, without pay and often without formal training....
study of linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
. The term is often used as a pejorative
Pejorative
Pejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...
.
The linguist
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
Ray Jackendoff
Ray Jackendoff
Ray Jackendoff is an American linguist. He is professor of philosophy, Seth Merrin Chair in the Humanities and, with Daniel Dennett, Co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University...
points out that applying folk linguistics to education can be potentially damaging to the attainment of students who speak less standard dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s. Characterising different speech as good or bad can have a serious effect.
The term folk linguistics can also refer to ideological ideas of language, such as nationalist views of language. The scientific understanding of language by linguists often contradicts that of native speakers.
Examples
Jackendoff (2003) http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/incbios/RayJackendoff/StructureofLanguage1.pdf cites the following statements as typical examples of folk linguistics beliefs:- “Parents teach their children to talk" - meaning that adults assume that children either learn language directly from their parents or via simple imitation. However, research in child language acquisitionLanguage acquisitionLanguage acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate. This capacity involves the picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive vocabulary. This language might be vocal as with...
shows that a child acquires language more automatically through a systematic pattern rarely noticed by adults. Although interaction with parents, adults and other children is crucial, it is actually very difficult to "correct" a child. Instead most children are able to learn to speak native languages (including those of their peers of the same age) through a process called "acquisition".http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/lang-acq.cfm Any errors noticed by a parent are often self-corrected by the child weeks or months later.
- “Children will get confused if they try to speak more than one language” - meaning that many parents are afraid a child cannot sort out input from multiple languages. In reality, children can easily become bilingual (native proficiency in two languages) if they are exposed to more than one language. There may be period of confusion, but most children are able to segregate two distinct grammars.
- "There is a proper, correct English" - meaning that speakers generally value an educated form of the language, often its written form, and that other dialectal/spoken forms are considered structurally inferior or "sloppy", and speakers of these forms are often regarded as "stupid, lazy, sloppy, hick" or other pejorative terms. However linguists generally agree that dialectal forms such as African American Vernacular English (AAVE) have the same grammatical complexity as a standard English. Folk linguistic beliefs view these forms as inferior, and as a result speakers of non-standard forms often suffer forms of linguistic discrimination.http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/incbios/RayJackendoff/StructureofLanguage1.pdf.
- "The modern language is going downhill" - meaning that changes in the spoken language (e.g. new words, innovations in grammar, new pronunciation patterns) are generally regarded as being detrimental rather than just change.
Other beliefs may include:
- A belief that a language's grammar can negatively influence and restrict how people think. This is also known as the strong Sapir–Whorf hypothesisSapir–Whorf hypothesisThe principle of linguistic relativity holds that the structure of a language affects the ways in which its speakers are able to conceptualize their world, i.e. their world view...
. Although some linguists do advocate a form of this, many linguists reject this as being too simplistic.http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/sapir.cfm For instance, just because a language does not formally distinguish "he" vs. "she" in their personal pronouns does not mean that speakers do not distinguish and treat men and women differently. Similarly, just because English speakers can distinguish events which occur "today" versus those on another day despite the lack of a formal hodiernal tenseHodiernal tenseA hodiernal tense is a grammatical tense for the current day .Hodiernal tenses refer to events of today or of the day under consideration ....
.
- Examples folk etymology such as interpreting "asparagus" as "sparrow-grass". These are cases where speakers deduce an incorrect word origin. Another folk etymology is the assumption that the New York place name "Fishkill"Fishkill, New YorkFishkill is an upscale village within the much larger town, Town of Fishkill, one of the fastest growing towns in the region, in Dutchess County, New York, USA. The village population was 1,735 at the 2000 census...
(on Fishkill CreekFishkill CreekFishkill Creek is a tributary of the Hudson River in Dutchess County, New York, United States. At it is the second longest stream in the county, after Wappinger Creek. It rises in the town of Union Vale and flows generally southwest to a small estuary on the Hudson just south of Beacon. Part of...
) means a place to kill fish. In reality, -kill is from a Dutch word meaning "creek" (found also in river names such as Schuylkil (PA)Schuylkill RiverThe Schuylkill River is a river in Pennsylvania. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River.The river is about long. Its watershed of about lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania. The source of its eastern branch is in the Appalachian Mountains at Tuscarora Springs, near Tamaqua in...
and Wallkill (NJ)Wallkill RiverThe Wallkill River, a tributary of the Hudson, drains Lake Mohawk in Sparta, New Jersey, flowing from there generally northeasterly to Rondout Creek in New York, near Rosendale, with the combined flows reaching the Hudson at Kingston....
). However the folk etymology caused animal rights groups such as PETAPetaPeta can refer to:* peta-, an SI prefix denoting a factor of 1015* Peta, Greece, a town in Greece* Peta, the Pāli word for a Preta, or hungry ghost in Buddhism* Peta Wilson, an Australian actress and model* Peta Todd, English glamour model...
to demand that the town should be renamed.http://www.cnn.com/US/9609/06/fishy.name/
External links
- Ask a Linguist with FAQs - linguists' answers to questions based on folk linguistic beliefs
- PBS - Language Prejudice - Language Myth # 17 - They Speak Really Bad English Down South and in New York City
- Language Log - Prescriptivism and folk linguistics