Salaam.
I don't really know which category this is under. But anyway.
I finished reading
The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker.
It feels good to finish a book. Especially since I rarely read books on my own. Well, until lately, I guess; it's really saying something that I'm willing to read Linguistics books.
When I gain new knowledge about this field, I feel more intelligent and more beautiful as a human being. Really.
I really do enjoy this.
The chapter that had the greatest impact on me in this book was Chapter 12, "The Language Mavens."
Ok, so Pinker writes:
"No one, not even a valley girl, has to be told not to say 'Apple eat the boy' or 'The child seems sleeping' or 'Who did you meet John and?' or the vast majority of trillions of mathematically possible combination of words."
In this way, he claims, every normal person is capable of speaking "grammatically" or "systematically."
But also, people are capable of speaking "ungrammatically" or "nonprescriptively" as well.
As an analogy, he writes: "...there is no contradiction in saying that a taxi obeys the laws of physics but breaks the laws of Massachusetts."
So, legislative officials make the laws of Massachusetts--that means someone's gotta be making these nonprescriptive grammar rules like "don't split infinitives."
These are the self-proclaimed "Language Mavens."
From what I perceived from this chapter, Pinker seems to think that this sense of "ungrammatical" is bullshit.
Take, for example, the pronoun-antecedent problem you always see on standardized tests:
Everyone returned to their seats.
If any one calls, tell them I can't come to the phone.
"[The language mavens] explain:
everyone means
every one, a singular subject, which may not serve as the antecedent of a plural pronoun like
them later in the sentence. 'Everyone returned to
his seat,' they insist. 'If anyone calls, tell
him I can't come to the phone.'"
Pinker argues that this rule is nonsense, for
everyone and
they are not an "antecedent" and a "pronoun" that must agree in number, but rather, a "quantifier" and a "bound variable," a different logical relationship.
"
Everyone returned to their seats means 'For all X, X returned to X's seat.' The 'X' does not refer to any particular person or group of people; it is simply a placeholder that keeps track of the roles that players play across different relationships... The
their there does not, in fact, have plural number, because it refers neither to one thing nor to many things; it does not refer at all. The same goes for the hypothetical caller: there may be one, there may be none, or the phone might ring off the hook with would-be suitors; all that matters is that every time there is a caller, if there is a caller, that caller, and not someone else, should be put off."
He says that in this situation, these "referential pronouns" that require number agreement aren't really even referential pronouns at all--"they are just homonyms of them"--and that they are actually
variables. Some languages distinguish between these, but English does not. So the language mavens decided to borrow the referential pronouns
he, him, his to substitute for the non-existent variables.
But with his logic, these aren't any better than
they, them, their.True.
This was something I'd never imagined before. A whole new perspective.
I've always adhered to "correct grammar," even in text messages or instant messaging. Pinker thinks it's unfair and insulting for language mavens to call whatever that doesn't fit their rules "incorrect grammar."
I don't know... I've always felt that there is something just inelegant and unintelligent about these "errors," and that they deserve this title of "incorrectness."
So have I been brainwashed by these language mavens?
Pinker even says that the confusion between "lay" and "lie" are insignificant. So what of confused homonyms like "their" and "there" and "they're"? I think that's pretty ignorant.
He also thinks that the belief that "the English language is becoming corrupted" by teenager talk and surfer slangs (which I do, or did? believe) is nonsense as well-- he prefers to call these, new "vehicles for expressing thought."
Geez, and I mentioned in my first blog entry my disappointment in the declination of people's communication skills today. Does that make me the Language Mavens' sidekick?
I honestly can't grasp all of this chapter yet...though Pinker does have good (perhaps convincing) arguments.
He says that "[m]any prescriptive rules of grammar are just plain dumb and should be deleted from the usage handbooks." Many, but not all, I'm assuming. In an additional commentary at the end of the book, he says that this chapter "was by far the most widely noticed." Figures. "Despite my statement to the contrary," he says, "many readers assumed that I was opposed to any kind of encouragement of standard grammar or good style." For the latter, style, he's definitely an advocate for one--at least in writing. He wrote that stylistic writing is beyond our natural linguistic capabilities as human being, and therefore that there is great room for improvement for anyone in that area. So maybe the
there, their, they're problem is an aspect to be improved, since it's only noticeable in writing.
So, good. Many of the things I thought were true are perhaps crazy, but not ALL. At least according to Pinker.
This book surely was very influential, but I refuse to suddenly drop my "good grammar" preference and to start talking, like, I don't care no mo 'bout this grammar shit, yo. Dude. Some of the style is locked in certain subcultures, anyway. No need to conform suddenly.
I need far more insight to change my own perspective. So I will continue to read. I will continue to study.
But this chapter was super interesting. The contradiction to my belief raised my eyebrow, but it's not a bad feeling at all. It tells me that there's more to discover about Linguistics.
And that's exciting.
The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker.
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