Ax me what I think bout your perscriptivism

[muckefuck]

monshu often likes a little bit of news with his dinner, so he had CNN tuned it (because a little bit of news--wrapped in wads of fluff--is their specialty) and I perked up when I heard mention of my home town. It should come as no surprise to anyone that this was in a featurette on racially-based housing discrimination. What made it newsworthy (in the eyes of CNN at least) was the method of determining the race of applicants: Speech.

They had footage of two applicants telephoning the same landlord and receiving noticeably different treatment. The man whose idiolect was closer to the middle-class norm of the area was told about amenities and invited over for a showing; the man with AAVE[*] features in his was asked additional questions, chiefly concerning his financial history, and invited to "look around the neighbourhood" before making an appointment to see the place.

Now what gave this particular resonance for me is that I've been involved in a number of debates recently concerning linguistic prescriptivism.[#] Some proponents of correcting non-standard features in their friends' speech have offered as justification the apparently laudable goal of wanting to spare them exactly this sort of discrimination. (Most have little comment when asked if they would be as quick to offer corrections of their friends' dress, hairstyle, use of cosmetics, eating habits, choice of sexual partners, and other characteristics that are as likely to bring social discrimination. But I digress.) In a perfect world, of course, everyone could speak how they pleased without it leading to being denied housing, employment, or access to amenities. But we don't live in that world. Surely helping them change the circumstances they can--i.e., their own accents--is the path of least resistence?

One objection to this is practical, since changing one's accent is not as simple as it appear to be. What seems like a superficial affectation is actually closely tied to issues of identity and group membership. Forcibly altering one's mode of speech may not actually be less traumatic than, say, straightening one's hair or lightening one's skin. Although bidialectalism is possible, it's difficult for many people to master; they're likely to end up instead losing their familiar mode of speaking without acquiring the prestige variety well enough to prevent any bias. (Just ask a Southerner living up North about that.)

The deeper problem is that this capitulation to racial prejudice has the longer-term effect of strengthening it and I'm simply too much of an idealist to want to see that happen. The message our society should be sending is that it doesn't matter what someone's basis for discrimination is, whether it be skin colour or some proxy such as dialect, clothing (ever walked into a bar with a sign saying "No Hats"? Then you've walked into a bar run by bigots), given name, or address. Racial and ethnic discrimination is immoral, illegal, and will be prosecuted to the fullest extant of the law.

I'm not saying that all prescriptivists are bigoted against racial minorities. (In fact, I recently witnessed an interesting form of reverse racism where a prescriptivist specifically exempted from her condemnations members of a local non-Caucasian minority group. They got a pass on the presumption that these features were part of their native dialect, whereas "real" native speakers were sharply criticised for them.[&]) What's really telling to me is the choice of "errors" singled out for condemnation. Many are characteristic of large swathes of the population (and, therefore, often indications of a change in progress or a particularly unnatural and unjustified prescription). But others are primarily associated with particular marginalised groups.

For instance, ax for ask. Although it does occur in a variety of dialects (not surprising, given that it was basically the standard form until replaced by the northern dialect form ask in the 17th century), where I live it's overwhelmingly characteristic of AAVE. So when someone here calls it "egregious" but doesn't mention other frequent but more broad-based cases of metatheses (like perscription for prescription), I get suspicious. Of course, not every country has as striking a conjunction between race and class as the USA. But the fact that a lot of prescriptivism is rooted more in class prejudice[$] than racial prejudice stricto sensu doesn't make it any more acceptable in my eyes.

[*] African-American Vernacular English, a.k.a. BEV (Black English Vernacular) or Ebonics.
[#] If you're unfamiliar with the term, I suggest doing a little reading on the subject. I would offer my own definition except that I'm worried it might read as too much of a caricature of the prescriptivist position, which I confess I have little sympathy for. I'm a linguist, after all, and my descriptivist bias runs deep. I'm more interested in what people say than whether it happens it match a particular abstract standard or not.
[&] A truly uncharitable reading would be that it's one thing for darkies to speak wrong, since they don't know any better, but a good white person who imitates them is showing they don't respect themselves or their culture. I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, though, and put aside consideration of this interpretation in lieu of much stronger evidence for it.
[$] All of it, technically, since the prestige dialect is inevitably that of the societal elite--whether those who speak it realise it or not. When there's a mismatch, it is soon resolved: Either the new elite adopt the features of the prescriptivist standard (which their greater access to education allows them to do with relative ease) or the standard itself changes as features associated with the new elite become incorporated.

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

As are mine, but I'm fighting it every step of the way!