inter-stratal tension

Review: Verbal Hygiene

Jul 21

ThE CLOwNbook review No Comments

AUTHOR: Deborah Cameron
TITLE: Verbal Hygiene
SERIES TITLE: Routledge Linguistics Classics
PUBLISHER: Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
YEAR: 2012

REVIEWER: Noriko Watanabe, Kwansei Gakuin University

SUMMARY

The volume reviewed here is a new edition of Cameron’s (C hereafter) book,
“Verbal Hygiene”, originally published in 1995. As the author mentions in the
Forward of the new edition, the volume’s main text includes no significant
revisions. Added to the old edition are a foreword (17 pages) and an afterword
(26 pages), which give an updated frame to this classic 17 years after its
first publication.

The Foreword begins with C’s definition of verbal hygiene: “the motley
collection of discourses and practices through which people attempt to ‘clean
up’ language and make its structure or its use conform more closely to their
ideals of beauty, truth, efficiency, logic, correctness and civility” (p.vii).
C emphasizes that verbal hygiene is neither wrong nor right, but exists
because the very notion of language and metalinguistic awareness of language
as a system calls for the practice of imposing normativity. C maintains that,
although there have been changes that pertain to language since the last
edition was published (e.g. the emergence of digital experts on language on
the net and the lessened authority of printed media), her thesis has not
changed since 1995. In fact, she has learned that verbal hygiene is even more
pervasive than she originally thought.

Chapter 1 lays out the issues that C discusses in the subsequent chapters. One
issue is the problems of prescriptivism. According to C, prescriptivism is a
type of verbal hygiene. Linguists view all varieties of English as equally
appropriate for certain contexts, and they do not necessarily make value
judgments about regional and social varieties. At the same time, however, C
points out that the philosophy of “leave your language alone” is also
ideological in itself. C sees both of the positions as not escaping
normativity. Attention to normativity is often magnified because linguistic
order stands for order of a different kind. For example, prescriptivism is
deemed important and necessary because it is often claimed that communication
will break down if it is neglected, and if communication breaks down, the
unity of a nation is threatened. The verbal hygiene of prescriptivism
represents, in C’s view, fear of fragmentation.

Chapter 2 points out that style in English can be hyperstandardized and
commodified, and that the ultimate goal of the verbal hygiene of style is not
uniformity and consistency, but financial and professional satisfaction.
Through her analysis of editorial practices of English-language newspapers and
publishers, as well as the genealogy of the modern writing style, C shows that
“stylistic values are symbolic of moral, social, ideological and political
values” (p. 77).

Chapter 3 reviews the grammar reform and the “hysteria” that surrounded the
Education Reform Act of 1988 in the United Kingdom. C considers the grammar
debate to be a case of moral panic, that is, the phenomenon of a social issue
suddenly receiving intense scrutiny accompanied with attributions of moral
significance that project a sense of urgency and distraught emotion. C points
out that conflicting emotions surface in debates about grammar: failure and
humiliation on one hand, and nostalgia about the good old days of order and
certainty on the other. According to C, grammar stands for moral values, and
the debate is generated out of anxiety over the state of British culture in
the context of emergent pluralism. Conservatives have taken the opportunity to
address the fear and anxiety about the state of British culture through
control of the English language and portrayal of the development of diversity
in linguistic matters as fragmentation of the nation. The stakes in the debate
have been multiplied by the emotional and moral implications that are linked
to political and ideological issues. In the debate in question, language
ultimately served to unite conservatives who feared losing support because of
their own fragmentation as a political party. Here, C proposes that linguists
should be involved in such a debate by proposing better alternatives based on
critical examinations of standards and values.

Chapter 4 focuses on concerns over political correctness as acts of verbal
hygiene. C discusses various debates over political correctness, including
feminist crusades for non-sexist language and controversy over racially
discriminatory expressions. In C’s view, political correctness politicizes
language, and makes it impossible not to offend someone; liberals accuse
people of violating the contract that there is a fixed, word-to-world
relationship, and conservatives accuse political correctness of abusing and
prescribing our relationship with language by restricting freedom of word
meaning. What is behind the tension between political correctness and its
opponents is the question of how a society with diverse points of view and
customs can communicate and possibly share common cultures. This chapter
introduces the idea that a perfect language, in which everyone agrees on what
certain words mean, is almost impossible. As a result of indeterminacy of
meaning, it all comes down to whose meaning prevails and who can be the
authority of word semantics.

Chapter 5 examines advice to women on how to use language. The coaching
literature teaches women to be more “effective” workers, leaders, and partners
in relationships with men. C analyzes the emergence of advice to women as
essentially portraying women as being different from men. It assumes
individual women should change their ways of behaving and use language so that
they can be more like men, or get along with men, for whom there is no need
for change. Aside from the coaching literature, the author’s dissatisfaction
comes from popular literature that is marketed as books on communication
between men and women. As an example, C points out that the readers of Debora
Tannen’s popular book “You Just Don’t Understand” liked reading it not because
it will change the way women speak, or challenge the dichotomy of women and
men’s speech, but because they could find themselves in the book and indulge
in the camaraderie that stories about frustrating communication with men
bring.

Chapter 6 inquires about the functions of verbal hygiene in society. The
intensity with which verbal hygiene is pursued raises questions about the
motives for the quest. C traces the motives to a desire for order and a fear
of disorder. She further states that it is not possible to eliminate verbal
hygiene, but it is possible to tame irrational impulses. C is critical of
linguists’ views that all language usages are equal and that it is natural to
have language change because these views certainly ignore ubiquitous acts of
verbal hygiene, such as correcting grammar and attaching social meanings to
certain forms. In C’s view, rationalization of correctness and normativity is
inevitable, and thus, she questions why linguists assert that such indexical
meanings do not exist.

In the Afterword, C comments on developments since the last edition was
published in 1995: technological advances, which have resulted in the
proliferation of non-standard language in the digital world; a semantic shift
of the term “political correctness”; brain-based accounts of gender
differences, which C terms “neurosexism”; and acts of verbal hygiene that
globalization brings.

EVALUATION

“Verbal Hygiene” is a major work in sociolinguistics that addresses the
critical issue of the relationship between English and its users. It documents
a wide range of activities with which English users in the United Kingdom
attempt to control others to conform to their ideal ways of using the
language. In turn, verbal hygiene is motivated by concerns of a different
dimension, such as political stance or fear of disorder. The author gives
careful thought to case studies of language-related arguments and the politics
that underpin and fuel emotionally charged responses to them. Much of C’s
analyses are applicable to discursive interventions at the metalinguistic and
metapragmatic levels in other modern societies with standardized language,
printed media, and formal education. For this reason, the theoretical
implications of the book go beyond English. Verbal hygiene is closely related
to research on language ideologies (Silverstein 1979, Schieffelin, Woolard &
Kroskrity 1998) and, to some extent, Language Management Theory (Jernudd &
Neustupný 1987, Spolsky 2009), as C acknowledges in the Foreword of the new
edition. While the literature on language ideologies also describes and
discusses heated arguments over languages in which such ideologies are
emergent, C’s book does an excellent job of capturing the psychological
aspects of the hygienic acts and the fastidiousness which originates in
emotional linkage to language. Thus, C’s work highlights how and why arguments
about language often turn into emotionally intense bickering.

One drawback of the way C analyzes verbal hygiene phenomena is that she tends
to focus heavily on explicitly articulated language ideologies and
metalinguistic commentaries. Even though C says that she is interested in the
public’s concerns over language, many of the examples come from published
material and comments of experts in the media, such as editors, authors,
activists, educators, politicians, newspaper columnists, and other linguists.
At times, more detailed data that can support C’s points seem to be missing.
For example, when she discusses a dispute over a particular incident at an
American university regarding whether the use of the words “water buffalo” was
racist, C interprets and imagines what the offended party must have thought
instead of finding support from newspaper articles or interviews (pp.
157-158). In addition, there is no reference given for the incident, and it is
not clear how C learned about it.

There are several interesting theoretical questions the book raises that are
still relevant 17 years after its original publication. The first question is
whether sociolinguistics should be socially engaged. C explicitly questions
the attitudes of linguists who refrain from making judgments on emergent
language matters because of their opposition to what she calls
“prescriptivism”. To C, it is a contradiction that linguists oppose
prescriptivism, while subscribing to the principle of non-involvement as if it
were a prescribed rule for them. In his review of C’s 1995 edition, Milroy
(1997) states that C’s characterization of linguistics here is not fair
because the field of linguistics is populated with scholars whose academic
interests are diverse, and because those who study various subfields of
linguistics are not engaged in norm-making, nor are they interested in making
prescriptive comments to the public on issues of language. Milroy may have a
point about the limitations of C’s view of linguistics, but the question here
is the extent to which linguistics should be constructed as socially relevant
and whether linguists should be engaged with the public when language is at
the center of controversy in the political arena. C is dissatisfied with and
disagrees with the vision of linguistics as it is. In other words, C would
like to propose a change in what linguists think they should do and urge them
to reexamine how linguistics should be conceived in relation to the public and
its concerns. That is an ambitious enterprise.

Although linguists should not forget nor choose to ignore that their research
agendas exist within a broader intellectual frame, including the value system
on which society is built, how linguists engage with society is complicated.
One major point C makes is that she believes in “rational” and “informed”
debates about language matters and that linguists should offer input to
debates over language issues. As she so clearly points out, however, arguments
about language tend to be linked to moral values, and if this recognition of
what language ideologies are is taken seriously, there should be no surprise
that the definition of ‘rational’ has extremely fuzzy boundaries. In fact, at
the end of the present edition, she remarks that her confidence in the public
engaging in rational discussions on politicized linguistic issues is waning,
to some extent (pp. 262-263).

“Verbal Hygiene” is indeed thought-provoking, but there is one issue C
discusses in her Afterword that could have been developed further, possibly
into an additional chapter for the new edition: the issue of the role of
English itself in the increasingly multilingual, borderless world. In her
Afterword, she presents stimulating discussions on how verbal hygiene is used
to manage problems that are brought on by diversity and globalization. For
example, C makes a reference to TV commentator and historian David Starkey’s
linking of speaking Jafaican, a variety of English originating in
multicultural neighborhoods in London, to a 2011 riot. In addition, C
discusses that speaking English is taken as a proof of subscribing to certain
political views and cultural values: English is constructed and conceived as
unifying the country, being modern, democratic, and rational, while other
languages such as Arabic are implicated as “irrational” (pp. 239-243). This is
reminiscent of the issues she examined in Chapter 3, but is reinterpreted in
the emergent context of the post-9/11 era. C’s closer examination of such
issues is likely to be productive.

Overall, “Verbal Hygiene” successfully makes its case that people’s
involvement with language matters is indeed unavoidable and that verbal
hygiene is a pervasive phenomenon. The second edition is merited because the
theoretical issues the book raises are still relevant and worth discussing,
although the present reviewer would have liked C to have added a chapter on
English in the age of globalization and plurilingualism.

REFERENCES

Jernudd, B. H. & Neustupný, J. V. 1987. “Language plannning: For whom?” In L.
Laforge (ed.), Actes du Colloque international sur l’aménagement linguistique
/ Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Language Planning. Québec:
Les Presses de L’Université Laval, 69–84.

Milroy, James. 1997 Review of “Verbal Hygiene” by Deborah Cameron 1995,
London: Routledge, Journal of Sociolinguistics, 1/1, 127–133.

Schieffelin, Bambi.B., Woolard, Kathryn.A., & Kroskrity, Paul.V. (eds.) 1998
Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.

Silverstein, Michael. 1979 “Language structure and linguistic ideology.” The
Elements: A Parasession on Linguistic Units and Levels. ed. Paul R. Clyne,
William F. Hanks, and Carol L. Hofbauer, Chicago Linguistic Society. 193–247.

Spolsky, B. 2009. Language Management. New York: Cambridge University Press.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Noriko Watanabe holds a Ph.D. in linguistics and has taught Japanese and
English at universities in the United States and Japan. Her research
interests include writing systems, language ideologies, and narrative
discourse.