Prescriptivism and Power: An evaluation of ‘proper’ language and its use as a tool of societal and political control on a global scale


We often hear of the idea of ‘proper’ language, both written and spoken – a concept that finds itself in the media, education and academia alike. But what exactly is ‘proper’ language? Who defines it, and could it have sociopolitical impacts? This essay will seek to define linguistic propriety, evaluating its relationship with power before comparing different ways in which the ideology is enforced in order to conclude whether the concept has become outdated in our modern society, and if there are feasible alternatives.


1 Defining ‘Proper’ Language

In order to evaluate the merits of a standard ‘proper’ language in our society, we must first define what this ‘proper’ language is, and who defines it. In general, the concept of a single ‘correct’ manner of writing and speaking can be defined as prescriptivism from the perspective of a linguist; from a more general societal view this can be referred to as standard language ideology (SLI), referring to an individual or institutional bias towards a standard form of a language (Lippi-Green 67). This ideology further states that deviations from this form are improper or even uncivilised, and that discriminating against non-standard forms is justified (J. Milroy and L. Milroy 33). Linguists generally agree upon this definition, though naturally views on the concept and its validity differ - Milroy and Milroy go as far as to call it the “complaint tradition” (33). The standard version of English (and indeed French, Latin, etc.) was, historically, often based on translations of the Bible, especially the King James version (Crowley 79), as part of a long-standing relationship between the Church and academia. However, in the modern day the situation is more complicated and differs between languages, and it is important to consider not only what the standard language in a speakers’ community is, but who defines this standard and the impact this has socially and politically. Many languages have centralised authorities who have legal and political power to define what is standard – for example, the Académie française in France. These languages can be described as centralised (although they do still have dialects, these are either too small to be a separate standard or are distinct enough that they will be considered separately for the sake of simplifying this evaluation). By contrast, English is largely decentralised, and while authoritative organisations exist (most famously the Oxford English Dictionary), they do not have any legal or political status, and there are a number of different organisations with differing views on what Standard English is. This has significant implications on the link between language and power in Anglophone communities (especially the United Kingdom) – this power dynamic, as well as the efficacy of both centralised and decentralised approaches to SLI will be discussed later in this essay.


2 Language and Power Structures

It is undeniable that language and power have always been linked, with English being the perfect example of this – despite being classified as a Germanic language, loanwords from the French language are “so extensive that they changed the whole balance of the language, […] well over half of it comes from French and Latin sources” (Myers 131). The level of influence on Old and Middle English from various forces (namely, the Normans and Romans) highlights the impact that political change can have on linguistic variation, and in the same way that Norman French was imposed as the standard language of William’s society post-1066, it is not unreasonable to expect political change in the 19th century and beyond to have an impact on SLI. However, I would like to go further by proposing that the relationship is two-way; in the same way that central power structures can exert an influence on how people talk with standard language, the existence of language purism exerts a control on society and culture, consolidating the aforementioned structures. Continuing our historical perspective, we can see that following the Norman Conquest, “French gradually replaced English as the language of bureaucracy and officialdom” (Blake 111). By creating a language barrier between what the general populace spoke and what was used officially, the Normans were able to prevent the English people from having any major influence on their government, and to this day many words relating to politics and law have French roots (Myers 129). This is mirrored in the modern day, with the distinction being between Standard and non-Standard English, and this situation has led a number of linguists, sociologists and politicians to assert that linguistic prescriptivism has been used to strengthen social divides and negatively affect marginalised groups.


2.1 Language Control in British English

We often mystify standard language, promoting it as the perfect model of a speaker, something to aspire to and base one’s language on (Lippi-Green 70). A major emphasis is placed in schooling on the ‘correct’ way of speaking through heavy emphasis on standardised phonics and spelling – this can lead to non-standard language becoming disassociated with academia and even intelligent traits in general, creating a societal stigma against non- Standard English. A phonetic example of these attitudes can be seen with regards to Standard Accented English (SAE) – a study shows that SAE is associated with greater status and prestige than the accents of non-SAE speakers (Acheme and Cionea 100). The crucial detail here that demonstrates why SLI could play a role in class division and restricted social mobility is the fact that Standard English is often modelled from upper class British English – Received Pronunciation, the standard for spoken English, was originally referred to as “Public School {1} English” (Jones 15). These individuals already have increased access to political spheres due to their social status – 35% of MPs elected in 2010 were privately educated, despite representing 7% of the populace as a whole (Sutton Trust 2). As a result, privately educated students have had a headstart in getting into politics, and are subsequently able to leverage this advantage to strengthen SLI-based attitudes. Current efforts to alleviate this divide have been focused on teaching students from all backgrounds to use Standard English, though this has been to little avail – only 28.4% of FSM {2} recipients achieved Grade 5 in English and Maths in 2023, compared to 55.4% of non-FSM students (Department for Education n.p.). This could be attributed to a number of factors, most notably a lack of resources and the influence of politics on educational policy.


2.2 Using SLI to Resist Linguistic Control

On the other hand, there are examples where SLI is used as a means to protect a language from influence or eradication by others. This resistance is often to languages with lingua franca status that are used globally, such as English or Mandarin Chinese. An example of this is in Mongolia, where linguistic purism with regards to Mongolian (part of the largely isolated Mongolic language family) is used to “resist the Chinese political-linguistic hegemony” (Baioud and Khuanuud 330), preventing the sinicisation of Mongolian culture. Similarly, in Quebec, where the aim is rather to prevent anglicisation, speakers of Canadian French – more at risk from being influenced by American English - were shown to have more critical attitudes towards anglicisms (loanwords or calques from the English language) than French speakers (Walsh 448). In both cases, it can be argued that rather than being used as a tool of oppression, linguistic prescriptivism is necessary in order to protect cultures from being dominated by those associated with more powerful entities (such as English or Chinese). However, there are problems with this approach. Firstly, it can lead to the same elitist attitudes that it hopes to resist against. For example, a study shows that Québécois French speakers respond more positively to government signage that is in French only as opposed to bilingual signage (Leimgruber and Fernández-Mallat 412). This suggests that an anti-English culture may have been cultivated among some French Canadians, which could easily extend to purism within the French language as well as between languages. In a similar sense, SLI can lead to linguistic in- and out-groups, where those who do not use the standard, ‘pure’ form of the language could be considered ‘traitors’ or ‘invaders’ of the culture. Furthermore, questions can be raised about how effective this purism actually is at ‘defending’ their cultures, as will be shown later in this essay.


3 Comparing linguistic power structures

As previously mentioned, a distinction can be made between centralised and decentralised models for how languages and their regulators are distributed. A good example of a centralised language would be French. Although some linguists (such as Lüdi) have argued that the inevitable variation of regional French (155) implies a pluricentric and decentralised model, from the perspective of SLI there is only one body to regulate ‘Standard French’ {3}. This body is the Académie française, an organisation perhaps most well known for its vehement opposition to anglicisms (such as deriding “email” and instead suggesting “courriel {4}”). However, despite the legal and political recognition that the Académie benefits from, many French speakers continue to use language in a way that is not considered ‘standard’ by the Académie, even in formal settings; indeed analysis of a corpus of both spoken and written French finds that 2.8% of word types consisted of anglicisms (Harris 56) – this would seem to suggest that even if linguistic prescriptivism is the correct approach to linguistics, the current mechanisms by which it is enacted in a policy sense are not effective. The decentralised model suffers from a similar problem, largely because the different varieties of language will eventually drift apart enough that they deal with entirely separate linguistic communities; rather than having no legal standard, there may end up being several. For example, Australian English is beginning to develop as a standard in the Pacific (Leitner 211). This divergence of standards is likely to lead to smaller centralised models that exist to avoid being eradicated by the original standards – we may be likely to see a scenario similar to that of the Francophone world in future Anglophone contexts, which are likely to fall victim to the same inefficiencies. Additionally, even if there is no de jure recognition of a standard, there will be de facto standards that pose similar risks in terms of power (such as the Oxford English Dictionary). Furthermore, the decentralised model continues to suffer from the same inequalities as the centralised model, as even if there are several ‘proper’ ways of speaking, there will always be varieties considered non-standard or “wrong” (compare the attitudes towards AAVE {5} and MLE {6} in the United States and in England respectively). As a result, it is clear that neither approach to linguistic prescriptivism is truly effective or just.


Conclusion

Overall, this essay has discussed how standard language ideology can be used to create class barriers to prevent the working class from playing a role in academia and politics, and how using this ideology to ‘protect’ a culture from oppression can cause it to become oppressive instead. Additionally, flaws with both models for prescriptivism have been exposed. As a result, it is clear that the concept of a ‘proper’ language cannot exist in any way without leading to either significant cultural and social inequality or being rendered obsolete by an ever-changing population of communicators. I would instead propose the model of descriptivism, where the ‘correct’ language is simply the language that people use; in the same way that we do not insist that our children learn Shakespearean English, we should not insist that they follow a form of linguistic gospel from above, instead focusing on fostering clear and effective communication for all.


Footnotes


Works Cited


/linguistics/

Proxy Proxied from the original at gemini://noahk.flounder.online/linguistics/prescriptivism.gmi
About Gemini
Hosted on flounder