The Language Mavens

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The Language Mavens

• Hannah Heinrichsen
• Language and Culture
• Prof. R. Hickey
• SS06
• Hauptstudium LN

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Contents

• Rules
• Correct English
• Language Mavens
• 3.1 Types of Mavens
• 3.2 History of the Mavens
• Standard English vs. Non Standard English
• Conclusion
• References

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1. Rules

• Prescriptive rules prescribe how one ought to
  talk
• Descriptive rules describe how people do talk
• Fundamental rules create sentences, define the
  infinitives and list the words

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2. Correct English

• What is correct English? Who tells us so?
• no English language Academy
• no Founding Fathers at some English Language
  Constitution Conference at the beginning

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2. Correct English

• Legislators of correct English
• network of copy-editors
• dictionary usage panellists
• style manual and handbook writers
• English teachers
• Essayists
• Columnists
• pundits

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3. The Language Mavens

• Maven? from a Yiddish word meaning expert
• make prescriptive rules or keep them alive

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3.1 Types of Mavens

• The Wordwatcher
• The Jeremiah
• The Sage
• The Entertainer

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3.1 Types of Mavens

• The Wordwatcher
• Wordwatchers train their binoculars on the
  especially capricious, eccentric, and poorly
  documented words and idioms that get sighed from
  time to time

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3.1 Types of Mavens

• 2. The Jeremiah
• Jeremiahs express their bitter laments and
  righteous prophecies of doom

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3.1 Types of Mavens

• 3. The Entertainer
• The entertainer shows off his collection of
  palindromes, puns, anagrams, rebuses,
  malapropisms, Goldwysms, eponyms, sesquipedalian,
  howlers, and bloopers.

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3.1 Types of Mavens

• 4. The Sage
• The sages are known for taking a moderate,
  common-sense approach to matters of usage, and
  they tease their victims with wit rather than
  savaging them with invective

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3.2 History of the Language Mavens

• 18th century
• London? political and financial centre of England
• England? centre of a powerful empire
• London dialect suddenly became an important world
  language
• Unprecedented social mobility for anyone who
  desired education
• demand for handbooks and style manuals
• Competition manuals tried to outdo one another
  by including greater numbers of increasingly
  fastidious rules that no refined person could
  afford to ignore

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4. Standard vs. Non Standard

• The American Language (H.L. Mencken)
• dialect of English spoken throughout the country
• didnt become the standard of government and
  education
• the language maven claims that non-standard
  American English is not just different but less
  sophisticated and logical

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4. Standard vs. Non Standard

• e.g. the notorious double negative
• Non Standard EnglishI cant get no
  satisfaction.? The two negatives cancel each
  other out
• I cant get no satisfaction. I am
  satisfied.
• Standard English I cant get any satisfaction

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4. Standard vs. Non Standard

• Logical grammatical errors
• Everyone returned to their seats.
• Everyone means every one, singular subject which
  may not serve as the antecedent of a plural
  pronoun like them
• Everyone returned to his seat.

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4. Standard vs. Non Standard

• Logical grammatical errors
• If anyone calls, tell them I cant come to the
  phone.
• Anyone means any one, singular subject which may
  not serve as the antecedent of a plural pronoun
  like them
• If anyone calls, tell him I cant come to the
  phone.

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4. Standard vs. Non Standard

• Further Errors
• Hopefully, the treaty will pass.
• Mavens say, it should be used only when the
  sentence refers to a person who is doing
  something in a hopeful manner
• Mavens suggestions
• It is hoped that the treaty will pass.
• If hopes are realized, the treaty will pass.

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4. Standard vs. Non Standard

• 2 kinds of adverbs
• verb phrase adverbs, e.g. carefully ? refer to
  the actor
• noun phrase adverbs, e.g. frankly ? indicate
  the attitude of the speaker toward the content of
  the sentence
• some other sentence adverbs
• accordingly curiously oddly
  admittedly generally honestly

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5. Conclusion

• The whole presentation is based on Steven
  Pinkers book "The Language instinct. In his
  chapter about the language Mavens it becomes
  obvious that not all rules the Mavens prescribe
  make sense, nor are they useful.

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6. References

• Steven Pinker The Language Instinct The New
  Science of Language and Mind, Penguin 1994