UM Dean of LS&A promotes "linguistic diversity"
University of Michigan Dean, Dr Anne Curzan, has committed her life's work to encouraging “The gatekeepers... the teachers, lawyers, newspaper editors, employers who are controlling who’s getting jobs" to consider embracing "linguistic diversity" which she defines as "the tendency of people from different races, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds to speak in different ways," rather than "stamping out linguistic diversity, with teachers and professors imposing one uniform way of speaking onto students who have no experience of speaking in that manner."
It is my understanding that this is what those at Rutgers are supporting as well- the integration of new words and phrases from a variety of cultures as they become “knowledge for real people in real time.”
Curzan points at how language has always been evolving, and adds "slang like “defriend” and “hangry” shouldn’t be dismissed outright ... but instead embraced as part of the evolving nature of communication."
Who woulda thunk Rutger would be a pioneer
Rutger probably plagarized the U of M dean. Just managed to announce it first.
Well, they did pioneer college football...
Also pioneered running a football program into the ground.
True trailblazers.
August 4th, 2020 at 11:17 PM ^
The 1869 game was a soccer game.
Harvard played the first Rugby game against McGill in 1875 and then (1877 and 1878) a series of two games against Princeton that might be called the first games of football, though there is some ambiguity and these games were 15 to a side.
The first 11 on 11 game that can be labeled football is Michigan vs. Racine in 1879.
This idea has been going around decades. With some high schools already moving to not grade on strict grammar and spelling back then. I don't think it was even a "new" idea 20 years ago.
We debated this idea in one of my college classes at UofM in the school of education back in 2000, with most, but not all in favor of changes. One of the biggest arguments was that grammar and spelling has a cultural bias that favors Asians and whites on the SAT/ACT and then hurts other groups' chances at getting into college or better colleges. The opposing argument is that it would be harder to obtain a career as a doctor or lawyer without conforming to spelling and grammar rules.
To the SAT and ACT's credit they have attempted multiple times to eliminate cultural bias, but have yet to actually accomplish it as I suppose it is difficult not to have a reading and writing section without a little bit of conformity on grammar and spelling.
Back in undergrad at UM I was involved in the dept curriculum committee as a student rep and gained a good deal of insight regarding what employers wanted from the graduating student population. The #1 complaint from them practically every year they had performed the survey was underdeveloped communication skills.
If people aren’t learning proper grammar and spelling then teach it to them. If colleges want to not worry about doing it because it’s hard/uncomfortable then it’s going to fall on employers to do it and they’re going to do it in one or two different ways, either A) through continuous mentor ship that won’t feel very good or B) by basically shunting that person to the side as an unreliable and unprofessional communicator. Neither option is appealing and both only perpetuate the issues people have been pointing to recently.
If this was just about “Axe vs Ask” I’d have a lot of sympathy for it(John McWhorter has some great thoughts on linguistics that are well worth checking out). But when it comes to writing, you have to be a professional and I don’t understand trying to give cover for something that will ultimately be hurtful in the long run.
Can we do math diversity next?
2 + 2 = 5, and f*** you if you tell me otherwise, bigot!
A better analogy would be schools recognizing there are different ways to compute "2+2=4", such as the various flavors of New Math that have sprung up over the decades. Because as someone with small children, how they're being taught certain subjects is different than the ways I was even though, ultimately, the end goal is the same.
But yeah, I can see how faux-outrage about SJW's swooping in and changing the rules plays better on this blog.
It was a joke.
You make a good point. I like new math.
I apologize then. This place has been a bit on edge and I'm probably getting overly set off.
It is. Actually, everywhere and everything is a bit on edge.
I like New Coke.
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
I mean, as long as we're sharing ...
August 2nd, 2020 at 11:01 PM ^
I use to, until I found Pepsi Zero!
August 3rd, 2020 at 10:05 AM ^
It's all about Crystal Pepsi, my friend
You do? Why? Or was that another joke?
Actually, the end goal is not the same.
Actually, the end goal is not the same.
Unfortunately, the woke are seriously arguing that 2+2=5 on Twitter right now.
I can make that work if you let me divide by 0 just one time....
The fact that a subset of the population seems surprised that subjects being taught evolve with the times is always jarring to me. The English language, like all languages, is by its nature a living entity, not one set in amber. So it makes sense that it would incorporate new variations on speech and writing into the lexicon as they became more commonplace. And not reflexively trying to force everyone to speak or write in a certain way is a positive step for education, especially when the purpose oftentimes felt more dogmatic than practical; it wasn't that people couldn't understand what was being conveyed, only they wish it was in a form they were more familiar with. It's obviously a balancing act, but it's nice to see the school recognize that diversity and work with people.
A curious byproduct of the globalization trend that has been occurring for the past several hundred years is the gradual coalescence of cultural aspects, perhaps most obvious in the form of language. An inherent artifact of increased interaction and communication between populations are the efforts (both intentional and non) to remove barriers to communication. This has resulted in the dying of numerous smaller/fringe languages, the decrease in utilization of many other languages, and the increased standardization/formalization of the most common languages. The added influence of technology, especially in the digital age, has accelerated this trend and will continue to do so. (It should be mentioned that there are other, less innocuous reasons behind the loss of languages - such as the deaths and consolidation of millions of Native Americans. Other similar examples exist around the world. Tragic for many reasons, yet still contributing to this linguistic trend.)
Sadly, it is likely a matter of time until a single language is adopted for universal mass communication and other languages will be relegated to special occasions and domestic applications (this is already in the nascent stages in Europe, Africa, and India). The process will still play out for several generations most likely (if not more), but I see no driving force for reversing the trend without some significant event to separate populations again.
As such, efforts to try and encourage the use of dialects and vernacular in their standalone form are laudable from an cultural perspective but likely futile. Some aspects of these will just become incorporated into the greater "common" language and the rest will become more of note for academia (eg Latin).
What, you don't speak Esperanza amongst friends?
I agree about languages becoming a bit "flatter" as the world becomes more interconnected; as you noted a lot of new technology terms have largely become "English-ized" in other language because they don't see a reason to create a new term for what is a commonly-understood term. And that is a little sad; English is not innately more interesting or "better" linguistically compared to other languages.
I don't know if we'll come to a set, single language, but I do think we'll see a couple become more prominent and the smaller ones die off/get subsumed by others.
I only speak Esperanto to Esperanza.
As I said, the "end result" of this linguistic consolidation will take many generations possibly hundreds or even thousands of years (although I could see many types of catastrophes, such as nuclear war, accelerating this dramatically). And this isn't to say the other languages will completely disappear, but they would only be used for specialized situations.
On that track I think Dr. Curzan's work is all the more interesting. More people in more places speaking a given language naturally leads to more ways that language is used.
It's strange in a broader sense, too, not just linguistically. Without the drive to constantly find better ways of doing things (which I believe is an inherent human trait), we'd stall out. Progress is part of the natural order of things.
Great idea, make it even harder to communicate with each other. Sorry, not much unites us anymore here in the US and linguistic Balkanization will only make it worse.
Can you give an example of a specific situation that you would take issue with? Because I can't for the life of me see how this concept would be a problem for anyone except those with a massive stick up their ass.
Words have meanings, and you have to be able to communicate to be successful. If you're not able to express your ideas clearly then you're going to have a hard time succeeding in most any field.
But if someone from south Chicago pronounces "ask" as "acks" (a common example I've had older coworkers bring up) does that really prevent them from effectively communicating? No. The complainers know exactly what they mean, they're just looking for reasons to be a jerk.
Give me a fucking break, as an immigrant my family and I came here and learned English, we decided to come here so it was our responsibility to learn the language that is predominant in this country, don't make excuses for people to be lazy and not correctly learn the language.
This is SO damn true. While people who some Americans might call "foreigners", they often learn proper English and speak it (possibly with an accent) AND write it correctly! I am all for the evolution of the language and the inclusion of new words as people use to speak Middle English and thankfully not any more, however, everything cannot be considered English and grammar should not be thrown out the window.
That's quite the run-on sentence you've got there, might want to keep studying.
I'm trying to remember the last post I've seen from you where you weren't a self righteous, condescending prick.
"... self righteous, condescending prick ..."
I see this expression so often that I'm thinking it must be in some Trumper dictionary.
A poor attempt to make a point here by me, clearly. A better articulation would have been to just say that the standard of "proper English" shouldn't be used as a cudgel. The goal should be clear communication.
I'm not trying to downplay the effort that it takes to learn a new language (or even learn a first language "properly"), but it's also possible to accept that others may not use the language the exact same way I do and that doesn't make them less professional or hard working. Embracing that kind of diversity of language also isn't some slippery slope back to a time when all we had was unintelligible grunts and pointing at things to get our point across.
But that's not what is going on here. The whole point is that rigidly deciding there is a "proper" way of speaking or writing is simply imposing a limiting standard that more commonly just reinforces societal biases. And it also, frankly, limits the natural evolution of a language. As the article points out, "tazer" becoming a verb is an example of linguistic flexibility. We all say "Google that", even though the word "google" never had anything to do with searching the internet. Every year Webster's dictionary incorporates new words or slang into the official lexicon. And sometimes words and ways of speaking from other cultures become part of the "dominant" language in a place, and trying to tamp them out feels foolish.
None of the changes being made fundamentally alter the structure of English, and nothing in this article or the teaching is designed to not encourage people to learn how to speak coherently and intelligently in it. It simply recognizes formally what happens organically, that people speak in different ways and we all wind up getting to some common ground.
This is a very intelligent and well thought out comment Bronx, I greatly appreciate the evolving of a language(s), I'm just wary of not learning or not giving incentive to learn correctly and then being able to evolve with it.
August 3rd, 2020 at 10:27 AM ^
I think there is a difference between spoken and written language. A certain dialect, argot, or local idiom is interesting in oral communication, but words need to have meaning and the way words are strung together in written form needs common structure to be useful, particularly with legal documents and agreements, engineering specifications, scientific research papers, etc. It may be fine to write in the same manner that you speak in blog postings, on Twitter and in personal emails. Not so much in formal written communication, where using uncommon syntax and slang will get your writing dismissed as unserious, uninformed and uneducated.
August 2nd, 2020 at 10:20 PM ^
This may be an oversimplification of what we're talking about here but every year the Oxford English Dictionary adds new words. They're usually slang words that have become woven into the fabric of our lexicon, like "whatevs" and "chillax." I don't think Curzan is saying that laziness is acceptable; I think she's saying that language doesn't exist in a vacuum. Its use is influenced by its users, and the more people that use it, the more it bends and changes to reflect those who speak it.
August 3rd, 2020 at 12:10 AM ^
Some of the hardest working people to ever land on the shores of the Americas were not allowed to read books and learn for hundreds of years. So over the generations they created their own versions of English.
You call that 'lazy'? I call that industrious.
Simply looking at the world through a single, myopic, lens is taking the easy path. So good on you and your ancestors for working hard to assimilate but don't look down on others who were thrust onto a different path.
August 3rd, 2020 at 12:49 AM ^
I'm not looking down on anyone. It's been 100 to 150 Years now since some people weren't allowed to read. Just be careful not to make too many excuses for people.
My point is mainly that too many people don't make a good enough effort, I grew up in ghetto Detroit, how come I speak English well enough, especially when it wasn't my first language?
So, how many congratulatory pats on the back do you want for being the "model immigrant"?
What does "Well enough " even mean? That's not an objective standard. It's just a biased opinion and negative stereotype as was your "lazy" comment. The real "lazy" is leaning into stereotypes.
Most Americans speak English differently from the people of England. Most people in England today speak English differently than it was spoken centuries ago. People in the North of England speak differently from those in the South, etc. Does that make the people speaking it differently "lazy"?
Also re the 100-150 years comment. America is highly segregated with poorly funded schools teaching the descendants of those not so "lazy" slaves (and many of these descendants worked back breaking jobs to survive post emancipation. They didn't walk off the plantation and go on a book reading holiday.). A segregated society only reinforces the differences in language.
FYI - I have read a few times so I guess it is true that "acks" for "ask" is a carry over from Scottish immigrants and was the main pronunciation in the Carolinas back in the day.
Wait, this is literally the exact opposite of Balkanization.
Suggesting that we embrace any and all forms of linguistic diversity is suggesting that each region has something to contribute to the vernacular - and it should be appreciated.
I'd encourage everyone to look at the original piece in the alum magazine.
Dean Curzan strikes me as a reasonable person from a distance. I'm sure a few people here will view her as a radical barbarian at the gate.
BTW, OP, what was the point of posting this? (It's a serious question.) I haven't bothered looking at your posting history so I can only guess.
The point of posting this was to revisit a discussion that was heavily charged initially (the post and article on Rutgers earlier posted to this board) on a foundation (the article) that was devoid of political innuendo and divisive intent.
Seems fair, thanks.
I would've put what you just posted in the OP (which looks a little bit like trolling).
> I'm sure a few people here will view her as a radical barbarian at the gate.
This made me laugh. It seems like a renowned expert on the history of the English language has more standing in any debates about this than pseudonymous commenters on a sports blog message board.