"Whether it is a white cat or a black cat, as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat."
Does Academese really exist? Do “the people” and academics really speak totally different languages? It’s possible. This idea can be as terrifying as bunker-busters. One of my biggest convictions is that the most important thing for the long-term betterment of the world and humanity is the free interchange of ideas. Shared experiences and shared problem-solving are the only real way that anything ever gets better. Obviously, it is in the interest of certain groups to withhold information from others, because obviously, “knowledge is power”. Also, obvious is that this withheld knowledge is often the only (or most effective) means of resistance for many marginalized groups. In these cases, an identity politics of information management seems ethical and effective, although highly problematic as a sustained long-term ideology. Perhaps Academese can be compared to hip hop terminology. Maybe professors deliberately code their radical discourses in order to evade censorship and to ensure funding? Maybe.
The problem is that language can never be contained to a single social group or setting (maybe this is a good thing, but it’s a problem in this context). Students inevitably begin to sprinkle their language with words such as interpellate, semiotics, and praxis (not to mention the use of terms with alternative academic meanings such as signified, reproduction, and text). Eventually people outside of academia start to use these words too (see: praxis), prompting a terminology arms race as academics rush to create more words than could ever be learned or understood by anyone. To reuse the hip hop analogy, remember when everyone started adding izzle/eezy to the end of every word alla Frankie Smith/Snoop Dogg? Notice how Snoop Dogg stopped doing it until the trend died down? (This isn’t really an exclusively hip hop example but) notice how many words there are for marijuana and the police (popo, the man, the fuzz, the heat, pigs, etc). I’d argue that hip hop is a superior language of resistance in that it closer approximates the language of the greater population. Perhaps academics and more brutally/traditionally marginalized groups (I haven’t even touched on queer terminology) can create some sort of universal anti-hegemonic language alla The Underworld Dictionary while retaining their own terminologies (or creating full-scale languages) in order to ensure their autonomy while their interests are divergent. Basically, these alternative “languages” exist because groups need to secure their knowledge (and thus their power) from hegemonic discourses and normative social structures.
Another argument is that “high language” is necessary in order to more effectively and fully communicate the infinite subtleties of the universe. Thus, words like “deconstruct” are used because there’s no other word that can capture the meaning (also see: player-hater and multiverse). A similar argument is that certain words have a precision of imagery and evocation that makes them absolutely essential to communication (see: crunked, phantasmagoric, and phallocentric. Conversely see: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1189604&lastnode_id=1140332).
Interestingly enough, Vera Schwarcz is all about these two arguments, as they relate to Chinese language reform. In the early 20th century, less than 0.5% of the Chinese adult population could read. As a result, many progressives/radicals advocated script reform in order to simplify a system in which one character was the composite of many other characters, and almost every word had several quasi-homophones with a totally new meaning and character. When the Communists came to power, they loved this kind of populist-inspired reform and pushed it even further. Vera’s argument is that the script reform stripped Chinese writing of its beautiful and precise subtleties and reduced it to its lowest common denominator. Consequently, China’s language became a useful instrument for the sloganeering and formulaic diatribes of the Cultural Revolution.
This argument seems cogent to me, but it also draws attention to the possible consequences of a society in which the hyper-educated elite cannot communicate with the rest of the people. If the ultimate goal is to understand humanity and the universe to the greatest extent possible, than all sentient beings should be allowed to participate in the drive towards fulfillment of this goal. The problem is that if language is oversimplified to the point of conceptual/abstract exclusion, this is counter-productive. But if language is too technical and jargonized, only a select few will understand each other and knowledge-seeking communities and societies (all of them really) will become atomized and conflicting. William Shakespeare was a living god for many reasons, but IMHO, the most important one was that he spoke/wrote in the languages and idioms of multiple social groups (something I aspire and fail towards). He could accurately portray the gritty speech style of the London proto-proletariat or the refinement of Kings, universities, and priests (interestingly enough, Shakespeare’s more formalistic and polished language is the easier to understand, whereas his use of street slang is almost completely incomprehensible to casual contemporary audiences (cf. Christopher Marlowe)). Indeed, a tragically thin line must be walked between linguistic elitism/incommunicability and linguistic ineffectiveness. Everyone needs to be able to understand and say everything (at least superficially or with minimal amounts of effort (how long does it take to understand what deconstruction means?)).
Buddhism is important for this entry because it’s the only major religion (as far as I know) that addresses the issue of ethical/effective language. Indeed, the third of the Eight Paths to Enlightenment is known as Right Speech. The Samyutta Nikaya defines Right Speech as, “Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, & from idle chatter”. I think we can all agree that language should be precise and accurate (not lying). However, who’s to judge what constitutes idle talk? Some would say that cultural criticism is just a parlor game of academic elites, while others might say that quantum physics is useless abstraction. Of course, Buddhists would consider almost all abstract speech to be idle if it doesn’t concern nirvana (Zen Buddhists would make fun of them for saying so). My opinion is that if someone believes that a conversational topic is useful, than it is useful (a cop-out, yes, but a necessary one). Divisive and abusive speech are more interesting categories. The Majjjhima Nikaya states, “If, on reflection, you know that it would lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both; it would be an unskillful verbal act with painful consequences, painful results, then any verbal act of that sort is absolutely unfit for you to do.” It seems that this is a useful addition to the analysis of language. Obviously language shouldn’t be reduced to the “civil discourse” propagated by the Wesleyan Administration, but people should be more aware of the emotional responses generated by words (and thus gain greater communicative efficacy).
This isn’t wholly related, but from now on, I’m going to try and reintroduce the singular “they” as a gender neutral pronoun. I object to the fact that “hir” is a combination of the words “his” and “her”, so I think “their” is a better alternative. Consequently, “they” should be used too. Its use can’t be rejected on historical grounds because it was used fairly commonly and by many prominent writers up until the 19th century (including, you guessed it, Shakespeare). Furthermore, it’s already fairly common in spoken language. Also, there’s no rational reason why “they” has to signify more than one person. Nor are there pragmatic obstacles against its adoption. It seems that the only objections arise from those who see the rules of language as immutable and ahistorical, and feel that if language was allowed to simply change and grow that all meaning would eventually be lost in a relativistic/nihilistic pool of chaos. I feel that this stance is ignorant of both etymological history and the processes by which languages evolve, and also the sociology of communication and how incredibly fluid languages are. If unregulated grammar would lead to meaninglessness, wouldn’t that have already happened? One may adopt the argument that in our postmodern world of high-speed/long-distance communications that the rapidly accelerating language changes will outpace intrinsic linguistic stabilizers, but this seems implausible because inventions like the printing press and telegraph may have led to faster language transformation, but they did not destroy language. Many Romantic languages have officially-instituted bodies that attempt to monitor all political, media, and cultural communications for improper usage, but English has no such body and seems to still exist. If “they” can be understood by everyone, why not use it?
This entry has covered a lot of ground and failed to answer a lot of important questions, but I think a good heuristic is that language should strive for accessibility, precision, accuracy, and sympathy. Unfortunately, we live in a world where if everyone spoke the compassionate, effective truth at all times, these people would most likely be crucified or institutionalized. As a result, language adapts by allowing for vagueness, vocalized violence, disinformation, and esotericism. As usual, a balance must be found between the ideal and the real.
For a somewhat related issue, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis
The problem is that language can never be contained to a single social group or setting (maybe this is a good thing, but it’s a problem in this context). Students inevitably begin to sprinkle their language with words such as interpellate, semiotics, and praxis (not to mention the use of terms with alternative academic meanings such as signified, reproduction, and text). Eventually people outside of academia start to use these words too (see: praxis), prompting a terminology arms race as academics rush to create more words than could ever be learned or understood by anyone. To reuse the hip hop analogy, remember when everyone started adding izzle/eezy to the end of every word alla Frankie Smith/Snoop Dogg? Notice how Snoop Dogg stopped doing it until the trend died down? (This isn’t really an exclusively hip hop example but) notice how many words there are for marijuana and the police (popo, the man, the fuzz, the heat, pigs, etc). I’d argue that hip hop is a superior language of resistance in that it closer approximates the language of the greater population. Perhaps academics and more brutally/traditionally marginalized groups (I haven’t even touched on queer terminology) can create some sort of universal anti-hegemonic language alla The Underworld Dictionary while retaining their own terminologies (or creating full-scale languages) in order to ensure their autonomy while their interests are divergent. Basically, these alternative “languages” exist because groups need to secure their knowledge (and thus their power) from hegemonic discourses and normative social structures.
Another argument is that “high language” is necessary in order to more effectively and fully communicate the infinite subtleties of the universe. Thus, words like “deconstruct” are used because there’s no other word that can capture the meaning (also see: player-hater and multiverse). A similar argument is that certain words have a precision of imagery and evocation that makes them absolutely essential to communication (see: crunked, phantasmagoric, and phallocentric. Conversely see: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1189604&lastnode_id=1140332).
Interestingly enough, Vera Schwarcz is all about these two arguments, as they relate to Chinese language reform. In the early 20th century, less than 0.5% of the Chinese adult population could read. As a result, many progressives/radicals advocated script reform in order to simplify a system in which one character was the composite of many other characters, and almost every word had several quasi-homophones with a totally new meaning and character. When the Communists came to power, they loved this kind of populist-inspired reform and pushed it even further. Vera’s argument is that the script reform stripped Chinese writing of its beautiful and precise subtleties and reduced it to its lowest common denominator. Consequently, China’s language became a useful instrument for the sloganeering and formulaic diatribes of the Cultural Revolution.
This argument seems cogent to me, but it also draws attention to the possible consequences of a society in which the hyper-educated elite cannot communicate with the rest of the people. If the ultimate goal is to understand humanity and the universe to the greatest extent possible, than all sentient beings should be allowed to participate in the drive towards fulfillment of this goal. The problem is that if language is oversimplified to the point of conceptual/abstract exclusion, this is counter-productive. But if language is too technical and jargonized, only a select few will understand each other and knowledge-seeking communities and societies (all of them really) will become atomized and conflicting. William Shakespeare was a living god for many reasons, but IMHO, the most important one was that he spoke/wrote in the languages and idioms of multiple social groups (something I aspire and fail towards). He could accurately portray the gritty speech style of the London proto-proletariat or the refinement of Kings, universities, and priests (interestingly enough, Shakespeare’s more formalistic and polished language is the easier to understand, whereas his use of street slang is almost completely incomprehensible to casual contemporary audiences (cf. Christopher Marlowe)). Indeed, a tragically thin line must be walked between linguistic elitism/incommunicability and linguistic ineffectiveness. Everyone needs to be able to understand and say everything (at least superficially or with minimal amounts of effort (how long does it take to understand what deconstruction means?)).
Buddhism is important for this entry because it’s the only major religion (as far as I know) that addresses the issue of ethical/effective language. Indeed, the third of the Eight Paths to Enlightenment is known as Right Speech. The Samyutta Nikaya defines Right Speech as, “Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, & from idle chatter”. I think we can all agree that language should be precise and accurate (not lying). However, who’s to judge what constitutes idle talk? Some would say that cultural criticism is just a parlor game of academic elites, while others might say that quantum physics is useless abstraction. Of course, Buddhists would consider almost all abstract speech to be idle if it doesn’t concern nirvana (Zen Buddhists would make fun of them for saying so). My opinion is that if someone believes that a conversational topic is useful, than it is useful (a cop-out, yes, but a necessary one). Divisive and abusive speech are more interesting categories. The Majjjhima Nikaya states, “If, on reflection, you know that it would lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others, or to both; it would be an unskillful verbal act with painful consequences, painful results, then any verbal act of that sort is absolutely unfit for you to do.” It seems that this is a useful addition to the analysis of language. Obviously language shouldn’t be reduced to the “civil discourse” propagated by the Wesleyan Administration, but people should be more aware of the emotional responses generated by words (and thus gain greater communicative efficacy).
This isn’t wholly related, but from now on, I’m going to try and reintroduce the singular “they” as a gender neutral pronoun. I object to the fact that “hir” is a combination of the words “his” and “her”, so I think “their” is a better alternative. Consequently, “they” should be used too. Its use can’t be rejected on historical grounds because it was used fairly commonly and by many prominent writers up until the 19th century (including, you guessed it, Shakespeare). Furthermore, it’s already fairly common in spoken language. Also, there’s no rational reason why “they” has to signify more than one person. Nor are there pragmatic obstacles against its adoption. It seems that the only objections arise from those who see the rules of language as immutable and ahistorical, and feel that if language was allowed to simply change and grow that all meaning would eventually be lost in a relativistic/nihilistic pool of chaos. I feel that this stance is ignorant of both etymological history and the processes by which languages evolve, and also the sociology of communication and how incredibly fluid languages are. If unregulated grammar would lead to meaninglessness, wouldn’t that have already happened? One may adopt the argument that in our postmodern world of high-speed/long-distance communications that the rapidly accelerating language changes will outpace intrinsic linguistic stabilizers, but this seems implausible because inventions like the printing press and telegraph may have led to faster language transformation, but they did not destroy language. Many Romantic languages have officially-instituted bodies that attempt to monitor all political, media, and cultural communications for improper usage, but English has no such body and seems to still exist. If “they” can be understood by everyone, why not use it?
This entry has covered a lot of ground and failed to answer a lot of important questions, but I think a good heuristic is that language should strive for accessibility, precision, accuracy, and sympathy. Unfortunately, we live in a world where if everyone spoke the compassionate, effective truth at all times, these people would most likely be crucified or institutionalized. As a result, language adapts by allowing for vagueness, vocalized violence, disinformation, and esotericism. As usual, a balance must be found between the ideal and the real.
For a somewhat related issue, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis