Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Series Editors' Preface
- Foreword
- 1 Overview: How politics permeates language (and vice versa)
- 2 Language and nation
- 3 The social politics of language choice and linguistic correctness
- 4 Politics embedded in language
- 5 Taboo language and its restriction
- 6 Rhetoric, propaganda and interpretation
- 7 Conclusion: Power, hegemony and choices
- References
- Index
3 - The social politics of language choice and linguistic correctness
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Series Editors' Preface
- Foreword
- 1 Overview: How politics permeates language (and vice versa)
- 2 Language and nation
- 3 The social politics of language choice and linguistic correctness
- 4 Politics embedded in language
- 5 Taboo language and its restriction
- 6 Rhetoric, propaganda and interpretation
- 7 Conclusion: Power, hegemony and choices
- References
- Index
Summary
HEARERS AS SPEAKERS
The preceding chapter looked into the political aspects of how different languages come to be recognised, as well as into obstacles to such recognition. This chapter will be concerned with the closely related question of the choices individuals make from among the ways of speaking available in their environment, with the focus on the political motivations and ramifications of their choices.
In §2.5 the point was made that, in traditional Christian doctrine, language differences do not really matter, being superficial in comparison with that inner language of knowledge that exists before any human language and is the same for all. As St Augustine (354—430) said in his Sermon on the Nativity of St John the Baptist:
Here is an inner word, conceived in the heart — it is trying to get out, it wants to be spoken. You consider who it is to be spoken to. Have you met a Greek? You seek the Greek word. A Latin? You seek the Latin word. A Carthaginian? You seek the Punic word. Remove the diversity of listeners and the inner word itself, as conceived in the heart, is neither Greek, nor Latin, nor Punic, nor of any language.
(Augustine 1863: 1304—5, my transl.)This might be considered an early version of Giles's Speech Accommodation Theory (see Shepard, Giles and LePoire 2001) or Bell's (1984) ‘audience design’, except that, whereas Augustine accords no significance to the choice of language, modern analysis sees it as important evidence that ‘speaker’ and ‘hearer’ are not polarly opposed roles.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Language and Politics , pp. 43 - 63Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2009