Chapter 2: Further Resources

Home , John McWhorter

Aske, Jon. In progress. Spanish-English Cognates: An Introduction to Spanish Linguistics. Open Access eBook (Open Textbook): CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US. Source: http://lrc.salemstate.edu/aske/cognates/ (2017-01-28)

Chapter 2: Further resources

2.1. Descriptivism and prescriptivism

If you want to explore the topic of descriptivism vs. prescriptivism, the following are some good sources to get started. At the end of chapters in this book and sometimes at the end of sections inside chapters, you will find recommended resources to learn more about the topic.

Fry, Stephen. “Language (Kinetic Typography on Vimeo).” Web. 27 July 2014. http://vimeo.com/15412319

Using the wonderful words of acclaimed writer, actor and all-round know-it-all Stephen Fry, Matthew Rogers has created this kinetic typography animation. The audio is an excerpt from an audio file from Mr. Fry's website, stephenfry.com. (Adapted from the webside)

Pinker, Steven. 2012. Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a Window to Understanding the Brain. (22 November, 2014) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-B_ONJIEcE

Steven Pinker - Psychologist, Cognitive Scientist, and Linguist at Harvard University. How did humans acquire language? In this lecture, best-selling author Steven Pinker introduces you to linguistics, the evolution of spoken language, and the debate over the existence of an innate universal grammar. He also explores why language is such a fundamental part of social relationships, human biology, and human evolution. Finally, Pinker touches on the wide variety of applications for linguistics, from improving how we teach reading and writing to how we interpret law, politics, and literature. The Floating University. Originally released September, 2011.

Shea, Ammon. Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation. New York: Perigee/Penguin, 2014. Print.

English is a glorious mess of a language, cobbled together from a wide variety of sources and syntaxes, and changing over time with popular usage. Many of the words and usages we embrace as standard and correct today were at first considered slang, impolite, or just plain wrong. Whether you consider yourself a stickler, a nitpicker, or a rule-breaker in the know, Bad English is sure to enlighten, enrage, and perhaps even inspire. Filled with historic and contemporary examples, the book chronicles the long and entertaining history of language mistakes, and features some of our most common words and phrases, including: Decimate, Hopefully, Enormity, That/which, Enervate/energize, Bemuse/amuse, Literally/figuratively, Ain't, Irregardless, Socialist, OMG, Stupider

p. 1 of 7 Aske, Jon. In progress. Spanish-English Cognates: An Introduction to Spanish Linguistics. Open Access eBook (Open Textbook): CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US. Source: http://lrc.salemstate.edu/aske/cognates/ (2017-01-28)

Hitchings, Henry. The Language Wars: A History of Proper English. London: John Murray, 2011. Print.

The English language is a battlefield. Since the age of Shakespeare, arguments over correct usage have been bitter, and have always really been about contesting values—morality, politics, and class. The Language Wars examines the present state of the conflict, its history, and its future. Above all, it uses the past as a way of illuminating the present. Moving chronologically, the book explores the most persis•tent issues to do with English and unpacks the history of “proper” us•age. Where did these ideas spring from? Who has been on the front lines in the language wars? The Language Wars examines grammar rules, regional accents, swearing, spelling, dictionaries, political correctness, and the role of electronic media in reshaping language. It also takes a look at such de•tails as the split infinitive, elocution, and text messaging. Peopled with intriguing characters such as Jonathan Swift, Lewis Carroll, and Lenny Bruce, The Language Wars is an essential volume for anyone interested in the state of the English language today or its future.

Andersson, Lars-Gunnar, and Peter Trudgill. Bad Language. Oxford, UK; Cambridge, Mass., USA: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Print.

Generations of school teachers have railed bitterly against the bad grammar and slovenly pronunciation of their pupils. Parents have for decades bemoaned the swearing and sloppy diction of their children. Public figures become enraged about jargon and linguistic corruption in the nation's press. Employers deplore the inarticulacy and limited vocabularies of their staff. And everyone knows that spelling and punctuation are not what they were. What is all this complaining about? Why do otherwise sane people become so apoplectic about other people's language? What are the roots of this linuistic prejudice? The authors of this book take a dispassionate look at negative attitudes to language use and try to account for the various types of hostility. They argue that most types of "bad" language have their place, and should be seen as valuable parts of the nation's linguistic repertoire. Linguistic discrimination, they suggest, should be no more acceptable in an enlightened and tolerant society than discrimination on grounds of race or sex. The work is aimed at undergraduates and specialists in English language and linguistics and the general reader.

Battistella, Edwin L. Bad Language: Are Some Words Better than Others? Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print.

Examining grammar and style, cursing, slang, political correctness, regional and ethnic dialects, and foreign accents and language mixing, Battistella discusses the strong feelings evoked by language variation, from objections to the pronunciation NU-cu-lar to complaints about bilingual education. He explains the natural desire for uniformity in writing and speaking and traces the association of mainstream norms to ideas about refinement, intelligence, education, character, national unity, and political values. Battistella argues that none of these qualities is inherently connected to language. (From the book jacket)

McWhorter, John H. Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care. New York: Gotham Books, 2003. Print.

Encourages readers to establish a boundary between an acceptable evolution of language and outright language misuse, predicting the consequences of the overuse of street English in contemporary writing, music, and society.

p. 2 of 7 Aske, Jon. In progress. Spanish-English Cognates: An Introduction to Spanish Linguistics. Open Access eBook (Open Textbook): CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US. Source: http://lrc.salemstate.edu/aske/cognates/ (2017-01-28)

Lynch, Jack. The Lexicographer’s Dilemma: The Evolution of “Proper” English, from Shakespeare to South Park. New York: Walker & Co., 2009. Print.

What does proper English mean, and who gets to say what's right? Lynch has discovered every rule of English usage has a human history, and makes sense only in a historical context. They're more like rules of etiquette, made by fallible people and subject to change.

Kamm, Oliver. 2015. Accidence will happen: the non-pedantic guide to English usage. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Are standards of English alright - or should that be all right? To knowingly split an infinitive or not to? And what about ending a sentence with preposition, or for that matter beginning one with 'and'? We learn language by instinct, but good English, the pedants tell us, requires rules. Yet, as Oliver Kamm demonstrates, many of the purists' prohibitions are bogus and can be cheerfully disregarded. Accidence Will Happen is an authoritative and deeply reassuring guide to grammar, style and the linguistic conundrums we all face.

2.2. Introduction to linguistics

Pinker, Steven. 2012. Linguistics as a Window to Understanding the Brain. Big Think lecture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-B_ONJIEcE

Handke, Jürgen. 2014. What is Linguistics (not)?. (22 November, 2014) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzz1pFWAtMo

On 1 August 2014, the VLC started two more MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) with almost a thousand participants from all over the world. Some of them might be totally unaware of what linguistics could be. Here is a brief answer: A video about what linguistics is, and, what it is not.

Handke, Jürgen. 2013. Introduction to Linguistics - The Study of Language. (23 November, 2014) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Goq_qIKojTU

This E-Lecture, which is meant as a repetition, discusses the term language and summarizes the goals of the central branches of linguistics before it eventually deals with the main principles of collecting data in linguistics.

p. 3 of 7 Aske, Jon. In progress. Spanish-English Cognates: An Introduction to Spanish Linguistics. Open Access eBook (Open Textbook): CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US. Source: http://lrc.salemstate.edu/aske/cognates/ (2017-01-28)

Rickerson, E. M, and Barry Hilton. The Five-Minute Linguist: Bite-Sized Essays on Language and Languages. London; Oakville, CT: Equinox Pub., 2006. Print.

Language is a vital part of everybodys life, and nearly everybody is interested in knowing more about it. Its all too easy for people to lose interest, though, when the answers to their questions turn out to be long and technically challenging. The Five-Minute Linguist: Bite-sized Essays on Language and Languages takes a new approach to making accurate and up-to-date knowledge about language accessible in a non-academic way. It consists of 60 short chapters adapted from the weekly scripts of a popular U.S. public radio series on language. The scripts, contributed by a cross-section of leading professional linguists in America and abroad, address questions like 2How many languages are there in the world?3 2Is elementary school too early to teach foreign languages?3 and 2How good is machine translation?3 They are written with a light touch that has been highly successful in reaching an audience of intelligent non-specialists. The book preserves that light touch while adding such features as an index (to help readers connect topics touched on in more than one chapter) and suggestions for follow-up reading. - Publisher.

McWhorter, John H. The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language. New York: Times Books, 2001. Print.

There are approximately six thousand languages on Earth today, each a descendant of the tongue first spoken by Homo sapiens some 150,000 years ago. How did they all develop? What happened to the first language?"."In this tour of territory too often claimed by stodgy grammarians, linguistics professor John McWhorter ranges across linguistic theory, geography, history, and pop culture to tell the fascinating story of how thousands of very different languages have evolved from a single, original source in a natural process similar to biological evolution. While laying out how languages mix and mutate over time, he reminds us of the variety within the species that speaks them, and argues that, contrary to popular perception, language is not immutable and hidebound, but a living, dynamic entity that adapts itself to an ever-changing human environment." "Full of humor and imaginative insight, The Power of Babel draws its illustrative examples from languages around the world, including pidgins, creoles, and nonstandard dialects. McWhorter also discusses current theories on what the first language might have been like, why dialects should not be considered "bad speech," and why most of today's languages will be extinct within one hundred years." "The first book written for the layperson about the natural history of language, The Power of Babel is a dazzling tour de force that will leave readers anything but speechless. (Book jacket)

McWhorter, John H. What Language Is: And What It Isn’t and What It Could Be. New York: Gotham Books, 2011. Print.

An eye-opening tour for all language lovers, What Language Is offers a fascinating new perspective on the way humans communicate. from vanishing languages spoken by a few hundred people to major tongues like Chinese, and with copious revelations about the hodgepodge nature of English, John McWhorter shows readers how to see and hear languages as a linguist does. Packed with big ideas about language alongside wonderful trivia, What Language Is explains how languages across the globe (the Queen's English and Suriname creoles alike) originate, evolve, multiply, and divide. Raising provocative questions about what qualifies as a language (so-called slang does have structured grammar), McWhorter takes readers on a marvelous journey through time and place—from Persia to the languages of Sri Lanka—to deliver a feast of facts about the wonders of human linguistic expression.

p. 4 of 7 Aske, Jon. In progress. Spanish-English Cognates: An Introduction to Spanish Linguistics. Open Access eBook (Open Textbook): CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US. Source: http://lrc.salemstate.edu/aske/cognates/ (2017-01-28)

Bauer, Laurie & Peter Trudgill. 1998. Language myths. London; New York: Penguin Books.

"The media are ruining English"; "Some languages are harder than others"; "Children can't speak or write properly anymore." Such pieces of "cultural wisdom" are often expressed in newspapers and on radio and television. Rarely is there a response from experts in the fields of language and language development. In this book Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill have invited nineteen respected linguists from all over the world to address these "language myths"--showing that they vary from the misconceived to the downright wrong. With essays ranging from "Women Talk Too Much" and "In the Appalachians They Speak Like Shakespeare" to "Italian Is Beautiful, German Is Ugly" and "They Speak Really Bad English Down South and in New York City," Language Myths is a collection that is wide-ranging, entertaining, and authoritative.

McWhorter, John H. Txtng Is Killing Language. JK!!! | Video on TED.com. N.p. Film. http://www.ted.com/talks/john_mcwhorter_txtng_is_killing_language_jk.html

Does texting mean the death of good writing skills? John McWhorter posits that there’s much more to texting -- linguistically, culturally -- than it seems, and it’s all good news.

English, Fiona & Tim Marr. 2015. Why do linguistics?: reflective linguistics and the study of language. London ; New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

What do we need to know about language and why do we need to know it? This book shows how viewing the world through a linguistics lens can help us to understand how we communicate with each other and why we do it in the ways we do. Above all this book is about noticing. It is about encouraging readers to pay attention to the language that surrounds them. The book addresses fundamental linguistic questions such as: Where do people's beliefs about language come from? Who decides what language we should speak? How do we choose the best way to express what we mean? It introduces a set of practical tools for language analysis and, using examples of authentic communicative activity including overheard conversations, Facebook posts and public announcements, shows how this kind of analysis works and what it can tell us about social interaction. Exploring language and language use from a social, intercultural and multilingual perspective, the authors demonstrate the relevance of linguistics in understanding day-to-day interaction. This book will help readers not only to become informed, active observers of language for its own sake, but also to be able to take on and challenge some of the misconceptions, assumptions and prejudices that so often underlie public discussion of language issues.

Davidson, John-Paul. 2011. Planet word: the story of language from the earliest grunts to Twitter and beyond. London: Michael Joseph, Penguin Books.

The way you speak is who you are and the tones of your voice and the tricks of your emailing and tweeting and letter-writing, can be recognised unmistakably in the minds of those who know and love you". (Stephen Fry). From feral children to fairy-tale princesses, secrets codes, invented languages - even a language that was eaten - "Planet Word" uncovers everything you didn't know you needed to know about how language evolves. Learn the tricks to political propaganda, why we can talk but animals can't, discover 3,000-year-old clay tablets that discussed beer and impotence and test yourself at textese - do you know your RMEs from your LOLs? Meet the 105-year-old man who invented modern-day Chinese and all but eradicated illiteracy, and find out why language caused the go-light in Japan to be blue. From the dusty scrolls of the past to the unknown digital future, and with (heart) the first graphic to enter the OED, are we already well on our way

p. 5 of 7 Aske, Jon. In progress. Spanish-English Cognates: An Introduction to Spanish Linguistics. Open Access eBook (Open Textbook): CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US. Source: http://lrc.salemstate.edu/aske/cognates/ (2017-01-28)

to a language without words? In a round-the-world trip of a lifetime, discover all this and more as J.P. Davidson travels across our gloriously, endlessly intriguing multilingual Planet Word

2.3. Spanglish

Stavans, Ilan. 2008. Spanglish. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.

Presents exploratory essays on the history and linguistic development of Spanglish and the challenges it poses in a number of areas, including education. This volume helps readers learn about the historical and cultural contexts of the slang as well as its permeation into the popular culture vernacular.

Otheguy, Ricardo & Ana Celia Zentella. 2012. Spanish in New York: language contact, dialectal leveling, and structural continuity. New York: Oxford University Press.

Spanish in New York is a groundbreaking sociolinguistic analysis of immigrant bilingualism in a U.S. setting. Drawing on one of the largest corpora of spoken Spanish ever assembled for a single city, Otheguy and Zentella demonstrate the extent to which the language of Latinos in New York City represents a continuation of structural variation as it is found in Latin America, as well as the extent to which Spanish has evolved in New York City. Their study, which focuses on language contact, dialectal leveling, and structural continuity, carefully distinguishes between the influence of English and the mutual influences of forms of Spanish with roots in different parts of Latin America. Taking variationist sociolinguistics as its guiding paradigm, the book compares the Spanish of New Yorkers born in Latin America with that of those born in New York City. Findings are grounded in a comparative analysis of 140 sociolinguistic interviews of speakers with origins in Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico and Puerto Rico. Quantitative analysis (correlations, anovas, variable hierarchies, constraint hierarchies) reveals the effect on the use of subject personal pronouns of the speaker's gender, immigrant generation, years spent in New York, and amount of exposure to English and to varieties of Spanish. In addition to these speaker factors, structural and communicative variables, including the person and tense of the verb and its referential status, have a significant impact on pronominal usage in New York City.

Zentella, Ana Celia. 1997. Growing up bilingual: Puerto Rican children in New York. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

This book provides an inside view of the social construction of bilingualism in one of the largest and most disadvantaged Spanish-speaking groups in the United States. It walks readers through a New York Puerto Rican Community and describes the five varieties of Spanish and English that constitute the community's bilingual and multi-dialectal repertoire, the four major communication patterns that predominate in the homes of twenty families with children, and the syntactic features and discourse strategies of so-called "Spanglish"

p. 6 of 7 Aske, Jon. In progress. Spanish-English Cognates: An Introduction to Spanish Linguistics. Open Access eBook (Open Textbook): CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US. Source: http://lrc.salemstate.edu/aske/cognates/ (2017-01-28)

2.4. Diglossia and lingua franca

Langfocus. What is Diglossia? (Quick Video). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL9ku7c7UTs

Langfocus. What is a “Lingua Franca”? (Quick Video). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9ZdC6wZnks

2.5. Code-switching

Langfocus. Code-switching: Jumping Between 2 Different Languages. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Na4UvRIhu4

2.6. Standard language

Crystal, David & Cambridge University Press ELT. Academic English - Prof. David Crystal on standard vs. non-standard English. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGg-2MQVReQ (20 June, 2016)

In this short extract Prof. David Crystal sets the background to the discussion about standard and nonstandard English. Watch the full lecture and practise your lecture skills at www.cambridge.org/elt/lectureC1.

Lippi-Green, Rosina. 2012. English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

In English with an Accent, Rosina Lippi-Green scrutinizes American attitudes towards language. Using examples drawn from a variety of contexts: the classroom, the court, the media, and corporate culture, she exposes the way in which discrimination based on accent functions to support and perpetuate unequal social structures and unequal power relations. English with an Accent focuses on language variation linked to geography and social identity; looks at how the media and the entertainment industry work to promote linguistic stereotyping; examines how employers discriminate on the basis of accent; reveals how the judicial system protects the status quo and reinforces language subordination.

Fisher, John H. 1996. The emergence of Standard English. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.

Language scholars have traditionally agreed that the development of the English language was largely unplanned. Fisher challenges this view, demonstrating that the standardization of writing and pronunciation was, and still is, made under the control of political and intellectual forces.

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