Many studies by linguists over the past several years confirm that language does indeed function as one of the criteria for assessing social status.
According to some views language does bear this symbolic function.
There is prompt judgment of ‘linguistic malpractice’. (George W Bush as an example) certain usages, it is dryly said, are considered ‘to stigmatise their users as uneducated, unintelligent, or even morally reprehensible’.
The arguments is whether language should serve as a symbol of social status, and whether the correct way to speak listed in usage books are in fact the linguistic features listeners use in making social judgments.
Let us then judge. Which pair of sentences sounds better to you?
"I stared at her more often than I should have
"I stared at her more often than I should have done
or this pair of sentences
* I liked her better than I do.
* Tom saw Betty more often than he will.
However not even the doughtiest or dottiest linguistic conservative
would deny that in the long run, in language as in everything else, however much s/he enjoys acquiescing in the linguistic status quo, it is undeniable that in language use the de facto (the existing) soon becomes the de jure (legitimate usage).
Some thrill to the historical inevitability of words going out of use through usage.
In a wordy way they disclaim about the uselessness of combating usage.
For they know that history of the landscape of language is littered, with usages that came to ruin, with neologisms that died as neonates, and with every kind of linguistic fossil. The things that are still alive, on the other hand, are – needless to say – still alive. But their dead siblings and ancestors are dead there they lie caught in a lost glacier full of dead words.
According to some views language does bear this symbolic function.
There is prompt judgment of ‘linguistic malpractice’. (George W Bush as an example) certain usages, it is dryly said, are considered ‘to stigmatise their users as uneducated, unintelligent, or even morally reprehensible’.
The arguments is whether language should serve as a symbol of social status, and whether the correct way to speak listed in usage books are in fact the linguistic features listeners use in making social judgments.
Let us then judge. Which pair of sentences sounds better to you?
"I stared at her more often than I should have
"I stared at her more often than I should have done
* I liked her better than I do.
* Tom saw Betty more often than he will.
However not even the doughtiest or dottiest linguistic conservative
would deny that in the long run, in language as in everything else, however much s/he enjoys acquiescing in the linguistic status quo, it is undeniable that in language use the de facto (the existing) soon becomes the de jure (legitimate usage).
Some thrill to the historical inevitability of words going out of use through usage.
In a wordy way they disclaim about the uselessness of combating usage.
For they know that history of the landscape of language is littered, with usages that came to ruin, with neologisms that died as neonates, and with every kind of linguistic fossil. The things that are still alive, on the other hand, are – needless to say – still alive. But their dead siblings and ancestors are dead there they lie caught in a lost glacier full of dead words.
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