Mar 29, 2008
When people insist on "good grammar," why is that grammar always their dialect?
Liberman on “correct grammar”:
Many people believe that stipulation of shared linguistic norms is essential to communication…. [T]his idea is transparent nonsense.
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Part of the answer to your question lies in our assumptions about accents, what constitutes “good” or “bad” grammar, and most importantly, our oftentimes unspoken assumptions about the person/persons doing the speaking.
If the goal is mutual intelligibility (and in speech, that’s pretty much what we all settle for) then accent becomes less of a roadblock to understanding each other and MORE of a way of separating “us” (those without accents” and “them” (those with accents).
Well, here’s some startling information: We ALL have accents. Some are just more different from our own.
As far as “good” and “bad” grammar go…the linguist’s rule of thumb (again) is mutual intelligibility: Can we understand each other? (Remember, we’re talking about speech here, not writing – that’s another story!)
If we can, we’ve succeeded in what speech hopes to accomplish – we understand the utterances made and we are able to make ourselves understood.
If we don’t succeed at this, then we get frustrated and start looking at why WE can’t understand someone’s accent, grammar, lexicon, ie, What’s WRONG with their Grammar? Accent?
Finally, if we look closely at our own ideas about what constitutes a “good” or “bad” accent (or grammar), our assumptions have less to do with the actual speech we’re hearing and more to to with out attitudes toward the group the speaker represents.
That explains why we regard accents so differently: some accents are considered cultured, vulgar, uneducated, coarse, or intellectual.
The above poster is quite right, but I would add that some words have found their way into common usage, such as “irregardless.” That word actually has the structure and appearance of real definition behind it (analyzing the three parts the word comes up with literally “not regardless), but this is seldom how it is used. It is used in the place of regardless, and the two are actually antonyms. So I would argue that in at least some cases incorrect grammar, whether its regional or what have you, is sometimes a legitimate barrier to communication.
Sam, thanks for commenting. I’m going to disagree just a little–but only because I enjoy these kinds of discussions, not because I think you need correction so bad. :)
Are you saying that you’ve heard someone say “irregardless” and thought that they meant “not regardless”?
Thinking it’s a funny word or maybe even “wrong” is different than misunderstanding it.
It’s the likelihood of words being misunderstood that inhibits communication, not whether they are substandard or illogical.
Also, “irregardless” is a blend of “irrespective” and “regardless,” so the “ir” no longer should be taken as a negative prefix.
I’m confused…isn’t there a certain amount of objectivity to grammar and usage? Is the touchstone of proper grammar whether I’m understood?
Any word you use can mean different things depending on how you use it, so I would say there’s objectivity to meaning, but not language itself. That’s why context is so important.
If grammar and usage were objective (meaning there’s only one right way to speak), then there would only be one language.
You’re dead-on in saying that “any word you use can mean different things on how you use it.”
Language is more than words – it’s also pragmatics, which is the cultural context in which our speech acts are framed.
That’s why language instruction methods like “grammar translation” rarely work (unless, of course, the language being translated is a dead language and the translator never has to have a real conversation with someone!) because memorizing the correct and perfect way of speaking all comes apart the first time (for example) the taxi driver in Madrid speaks too quickly, in slang, with an incredibly heavy accent, and we’re jet-lagging and can’t find his second word in our handy dandy Spanish/English dictionary.
It’s really about our ability to communicate and less about speaking perfectly.
If there was only one ‘right’ way to speak, you would be speaking with a computer generated machine language (not human speech) and no one would be able to understand anyone else unless we ALL spoke perfectly, following precise rules and parameters that were clearly defined and never violated.
We all flagrantly flout the rules of discourse, when we lie, when we tell a joke, when we don’t have enough information.
It seems like Liberman’s examples (Huck Finn, etc.) work because they are…”one removed” from a grammar I *do* understand.
It seems like the value of grammatical rules (and in following them) is in part to prevent the rapid drift that would create complete confusion. (What would slang “on top of” Huck-Finn-speak be like?)