donn (12/02/82)
'Linguistic relativism' is NOT ordinarily used in linguistics to
characterize a philosophy which holds that no dialect is superior to
another, or more baldly, that there is no 'correct' way to say
anything. I think most linguists would associate this term with the
so-called Whorf-Sapir hypothesis, which was propounded back in the
structuralist age of linguistics. The Whorf hypothesis claims that
differences in language between cultures directly reflect differences
in thinking. It may be impossible to translate a sentence in language
A into another language B simply because speakers of language B are
incapable of the thought processes which are necessary to assimilate
the sentence. This hypothesis has led to a number of peculiar science
fiction novels, among them THE LANGUAGES OF PAO by Jack Vance and
BABEL-17 by Samuel Delany. The problem with this hypothesis is that it
follows from it that there is no point in trying to make universal
generalizations about language structures, because languages may be
arbitrarily different from one another; it emphasizes the contrasts
between languages instead of the similarities. For this reason and
others, the Whorf hypothesis no longer has much of a following.
However the notion of linguistic relativism does manage to capture a
persistent sentiment among linguists, namely that all languages and
even all dialects of all languages are equally deserving of study.
'Modern linguistics' (if there is such a beast) has reified the enemy
in the form of grade school English teachers and 'prescriptivists'.
'Prescriptivism' is the linguistic philosophy which holds that there is
always a right way to say something (and the way I say it is the right
way). There is no real term for 'anti-prescriptivism' because it is
assumed that every sane linguist is an 'anti-prescriptivist'.
If you think about it, it really is impossible to be a prescriptivist
and a (modern) linguist; true prescriptivism would put a linguist out
of work. Once a language enters the rigor mortis implied by
prescriptivism, most of the interest leaves it; it isn't a 'natural'
language any more, just a philosophical figment. (We'd be forced to
join English departments, or quit.) Fortunately most people ignore the
dire warnings they see in the newspapers about the pending corruption
of the English language and blunder on talking like they always do.
This is not to say that linguists don't depend on being able to tell
the difference between 'good' and 'bad' sentences, or between 'good'
and 'bad' pronunciations. It's just that if two people disagree about
a sentence or a pronunciation, instead of saying that one person is
wrong and one is right, a linguist will try to explain the difference
between them.
It is true that many people do have an intuition that there is a way I
say it, and a way I ought to say it. The current theory in linguistics
is that many multi-dialectal societies have a 'prestige' dialect; such
a dialect is associated with wealth, education, status and many other
things which speakers of other dialects would like to have but don't.
Speakers of the non-prestige dialects alter their language to the
extent that they think it will confer upon them the advantages
associated with the prestige dialect. I remember an example of this
(probably inaccurately): New Yorkers will change the percentage of
syllable-final 'r's they utter in proportion to the formality or status
of the occasion. Informal occasions, no 'r's; formal occasions, as
many 'r's as they can manage. Clearly for New Yorkers, the prestige
dialect has 'r's in it. Listen to Howard Cosell on Monday Night
Football and you'll discover that sometimes he makes his 'r's and
sometimes he doesn't, pretty much at random. Of course How-wood has
been around so long he probably does it on purpose by now.
So much for prescriptivism.
Donn Seeley UCSD Chemistry Dept. RRCF ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdchema!donn
UCSD Linguistics Dept. ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdamos!donn
PS No, there is no such thing as 'chemolinguistics'.
('Chemolinguistics', the study of the effects of chemicals on language...)