ENG 1101 (2): "Language Controversies"
Blog 2
Dr. Jennifer A. Hughes
This week you may choose between two prompts. This essay will be more formal. That is, you should strive for clarity and careful grammar (the prescriptive kind!). Consider especially things that we have talked about in class: avoiding ending sentences with prepositions, avoiding contractions, using active verbs. The essay should be between 300 and 600 words, but again, feel free to write more if necessary.
1. Theodore Dalrymple writes that “Pinker doesn’t really believe anything of what he writes, at least if example is stronger evidence of belief than precept.” That is, Dalrymple accuses Pinker of being a hypocrite because Pinker himself clearly values standard English since he writes in it. Is Pinker a hypocrite? Does it discredit his argument? Why do you think that he writes as he does?
2. Choose an example from our readings in Pinker that Dalrymple does not really discuss (Simon the user of ASL whose parents are not fluent ASL users, the British woman with Chatterbox syndrome, etc.) and try to argue the Dalrymple side. That is, imagine yourself to be Dalrymple and argue against Pinker over the significance of this example.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, can not be discredited or called a hypocrite for his style of writing. Pinker writes on the instinct of language, writing “Language is a complex, specialized skill, which develops in the child...without conscious effort or formal instruction.” Pinker chooses to write in the Standard English, because his writings are directed towards the “intelligent public”. Had Pinker chosen rather to write in “black English” the chances are his book would not have reached its twenty fifth printing, because typically there is not a high demand for language books written in coarse English. Darwin compared language to an art saying, language ability is “an instinctive tendency to acquire an art” comparing it to a bird’s song, it is only natural that Pinker would want to write with the elegance and the beauty that can be found in language, and that the reader would prefer to read the more elegant writing.
ReplyDeleteA person’s dialect or language is determined by that person’s social environment, geological location, and personality, Pinker a professor at Harvard would not have the same language as the dentist down the street, it is understood that since he is a professor other professors shall read his work and expect him to use the standard. His argument can not be discredited, because even though Pinker does not write in coarser English, does not mean that he has not researched or come to a correct conclusion that language is an instinct, much like the instinct of a butterfly to create a cocoon. He gives examples of children which have never been taught “proper grammar”, but develop more complex sentence structures then those around them. In all fairness one must understand that Pinker almost had to use Standard English to be at all successful, using a crude style of writing would have been stereotyped or maybe even discredited. So one can not discredit Pinker or call him a hypocrite, he was merely writing in the style assumed to him by his readers and the “intelligent public
Dane Knudsen
ReplyDelete#1
Theodore Dalrymple’s “The Gift of Language” serves primarily as a form of contradiction to the works of Doctor Stephen Pinker. Dalrymple obviously disagrees with the majority of Pinker’s thoughts, and he “point[s] out that Pinker doesn’t really believe anything of what he writes, at least if example is stronger evidence of belief than precept.” This statement calls Pinker out as a hypocrite, chastising him for writing his works in standard english, when his own works criticize standard english.
The question remains though, is Pinker a hypocrite? In my opinion, no, I do not think that Pinker is a hypocrite at all. Though his writings say that no dialect is better than another, Pinker chooses to write in standard english, the very dialect people of the time had been saying was the most grammatically correct. I believe that Pinker chose to write in this particular style because it is one of the simplest to put on paper and to be read. Pinker’s target audience was mainly educated professors, though by writing in standard english, his works became accessible to anyone with the ability to read. I think that is why he chose to write in standard english; its simplicity of grammar allowing many people to read his works.
Pinker’s opinion is that there are no right or wrong dialects or languages, as long as each serves as a form of communication. It is unfair for him to be labeled a hypocrite just because he chooses to write in the acknowledged standard of writings, because of its simplicity and credibility. He could have written a paper in a different dialect, such as ebonics, however it would have been very difficult to comprehend on paper. I think the choice to write in standard english was wisely made, and that Dalrymple unfairly accused Pinker a hypocrite.