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Ideologies of Language: Authority, Consensus and Commonsense in Canadian Talk About Usage IDEOLOGIES OF LANGUAGE: AUTHORITY, CONSENSUS AND COMMONSENSE IN CANADIAN TALK ABOUT USAGE Jaclyn Marie Rea B.A., University College of the Fraser Valley, 1995 M.A., Simon Fraser University, 1998 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Department of English O Jaclyn Marie Rea 2006 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSlTY Summer 2006 All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without permission of the author. Approval Name: Jaclyn Marie Rea Degree: Doctor of Philosophy (English) Title of Thesis: Ideologies of Language: Authority, Consensus and Commonsense in Canadian Talk about Usage Examining Committee: Chair: Dr. Margaret Linley Assistant Professor of English Dr. Janet Giltrow Senior Supervisor Professor of English University of British Columbia Dr. Richard Coe Professor of English Dr. Kathy Mezei Professor of Humanities Dr. Gary McCarron Internal External Examiner Assistant Professor School of Communication Dr. Margery Fee External Examiner Professor of English University of British Columbia Date Defended/Approved: Tun.&/UG SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY~i bra ry DECLARATION OF PARTIAL COPYRIGHT LICENCE The author, whose copyright is declared on the title page of this work, has granted to Simon Fraser University the right to lend this thesis, project or extended essay to users of the Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or single copies only for such users or in response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its own behalf or for one of its users. The author has further granted permission to Simon Fraser University to keep or make a digital copy for use in its circulating collection, and, without changing the content, to translate the thesislproject or extended essays, if technically possible, to any medium or format for the purpose of preservation of the digital work. The author has further agreed that permission for multiple copying of this work for scholarly purposes may be granted by either the author or the Dean of Graduate Studies. It is understood that copying or publication of this work for financial gain shall not be allowed without the author's written permission. Permission for public performance, or limited permission for private scholarly use, of any multimedia materials forming part of this work, may have been granted by the author. This information may be found on the separately catalogued multimedia material and in the signed Partial Copyright Licence. The original Partial Copyright Licence attesting to these terms, and signed by this author, may be found in the original bound copy of this work, retained in the Simon Fraser University Archive. Simon Fraser University Library Burnaby, BC, Canada Abstract This study attempts to understand the tenacity of everyday talk about language and its seemingly effortless ability to present itself as commonsensical and authoritative. Focusing on Canadian public domains as important sites for the performance and play of language ideologies, this project addresses three interrelated concerns: the commonsensical character of these ideologies, the authoritative positions they offer, and the ways talk about language might manufacture consensus in the service of linguistic authority. Seeing the generic forms, vocabulary and grammar of this talk as central components of its saliency, I draw on recent research in new rhetorical genre theory and on linguistic pragmatic accounts of politeness and relevance. To examine emblematic methods of thinking and talking about language in Canadian locales, I analyze a cluster of terms that operate in an important genre related to the production of national identity: Canadian English dictionaries that market generic claims of national distinction via the codification of a national-linguistic consciousness. Inspecting the style of statements about language for evidence of a grammar of perspective and position measurable in its characteristic syntactic and pragmatic features, I examine a Canadian press style guide and letters to the editor for the ways these arbitrating texts might structure commonsense ideas about language. My analysis indicates that the authority and thus tenacity of commonplace talk relies on the invocation of doxa, the appeal to a unified opinion, a shared linguistic consciousness that must be continually renewed and calibrated. In these locales, language itself becomes a place - or topos - where identifications and corresponding strategies of distinction are practised and enacted. I suggest that the very style of statements about language ratifies consensus, disperses talk about language into civil and civic atmospheres where the enactment of polite social orders secures the rulings of those who make authoritative claims on and about language. This study also found that the always-already relevance of commonplace statements lies in their ability to make mutually manifest, make 'public', a surplus of interest and identification that encourages new strategies of distinction and therefore new routes for the traffic in commonplace ideologies to take. Keywords: language ideologies, Canada, commonsense, authority, politeness theory Acknowledgements I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all those who have provided me with the support and encouragement needed to complete this project. I am especially indebted to my supervisory committee for their expertise and advice. I would like to thank Janet Giltrow, my senior supervisor, for her interest in my work, her guidance and for the many ways she inspired me to go beyond the intellectual commonplace. Her inexhaustible curiosity about all things related to language resulted in the most wonderful conversations, which led me down the most unexpected and rewarding of paths. I was also fortunate to work with Richard Coe, whose rigorous attempts to understand how "wordlings" word contributed to my own understanding of why rhetorical studies of language matter. And, I was fortunate to work with Kathy Mezei, whose friendly encouragement and sound advice always came at just the right moment. This project has benefited enormously from the support of my beloved friends and valued colleagues, all of whom have provided and continue to provide me with a lively intellectual community: Deanna Reder, Shurli Makmillen, Yaying Zhang, Kathryn Alexander, Jan Fraser, Nadeane Trowse, Marlene Sawatsky, Bonnie Waterstone, Daniel Dunford, Sharon Josephson, Lori Prodan, Sarah Parry, Dana Landry, Kim Norman, Nancy Gillespie, Tatiana Teslenko, Robert Alexander, Angela Mills, and Susan Spearey. In addition, I am indebted to The Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, whose support in the form of a doctoral award enabled me to complete my research. I also wish to acknowledge those who, during my years as an undergraduate student, pointed me in the right direction: Professors Eric Davis, A1 McNeil and Virginia Cooke for giving me a sense of what was possible, and Fay Hyndman and Gloria Borrows for offering me an invaluable opportunity to work with them in The UCFV Writing Centre. Finally, I wish to thank my family, most especially my mother, Charmaine, and my son, Gordon, for their love and generosity. They are my inspiration and my compass, and it is to them that I dedicate this work. Table of Contents .. Approval ............................................................................................................................11 ... Abstract .............................................................................................................................111 Acknowledgements ..........................................................................................................iv Table of Contents ..............................................................................................................v Introduction .......................................................................................................................1 Authoritative Distinctions: Some Historical Commonplaces ........................................ 3 Ideologies of Language: The Field ...............................................................................11 Rhetorical and Pragmatic Frameworks ......................................................................... 19 'Canadian' Ideologies of Language: The Chapters ...................................................... 22 Chapter One Commonsense: Intelligibility and Authority in Language ................. 27 Chapter Two Making Canadian English: "The Codification of Our Common Understanding" ...............................................................................................................49 Nation. History and Consciousness: Some Preliminaries .............................................57 A Living Language: Paradoxes of Scene and Substance .............................................. 62 The Making of Canadian English .................................................................................73 Prelude to a National-Linguistic Consciousness....................................................... 73 Stories of Existence and Non-Existence ................................................................... 79 Stories of Origin and Essence ...................................................................................87 Chapter Three The Grammaticalization of a Common Sense and Sensibility: Genteel-Scientific Talk in The Globe
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