posted
There's a concept in ethology called the isolation mechanism whereby members of a certain species only respond animals that provide certain signals, usually for mating purposes. Sometimes the outsider is met with indifference, sometimes with violence. In some cases, there are specific exclusionary stimuli that also triger aversive responses.
I was thinking about this for a little bit and I think it's possible that we've got a similar concept based on linguistic shibboleths.
I'm not so much talking about the obvious example of dislike of people who don't speak your language. I was thinking of somewhat more subtle instances.
I think a message board is a good example of this. I know I am much more willing to read something that conforms to the established rules of grammar and spelling. I don't both to read people who don't capitalize or use IM-speak, like using u for you. And, to be honest, it's not just indifference. I feel a subtle undercurrent of hostility.
The idea that subpopulations use argot to keep out outsiders is hardly a new one, but I think this is a wider context than that. Why do we put so much effort into maintaining what are often arbitrary rules of speaking and writing? Why does bad grammar or spelling often seem to be an aversive stimulus? In uneducated populations, why are people who use the more "educated" grammar generally distrusted? I think it could be because of these isolation mechanisms coming into play.
I don't know, I thought that was an interesting idea. I figured I'd share.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Language is a very powerful social force. It can tell you all about a person very quickly, and we're generally very good at determining if someone is faking something. It's a quick and easy way to tell if someone is part of our group or not.
I think it's worse with internet teenspeak because in addition to the differentness of the language, there's also the idea of open disregard for the rules and an impairment of communication. Flouting rules isn't that big of a deal by itself (male speakers do it quite often), but in this case, readability can be severely hampered.
It's like seeing an entire generation reveling in their inability to communicate effectively. And that's something that makes intelligent people cringe.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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a word, clause, or phrase or a group of clauses or phrases forming a syntactic unit which expresses an assertion, a question, a command, a wish, an exclamation, or the performance of an action, that in writing usually begins with a capital letter and concludes with appropriate end punctuation, and that in speaking is distinguished by characteristic patterns of stress, pitch, and pauses
Hmm. I don't see anything about subjects in there.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:Why do we put so much effort into maintaining what are often arbitrary rules of speaking and writing?
The reason I think we put so much effort into maintaining the grammatical status quo is for ease of communication. While the rules may be arbitrary, they are the commonly agreed-upon rules, meaning that the vast majority of people will understand what you are saying. That isn't the case with what I would consider dialects - like ebonics or l33t speak - only a small minority can understand them.
quote:Why does bad grammar or spelling often seem to be an aversive stimulus? In uneducated populations, why are people who use the more "educated" grammar generally distrusted?
I think both of these are inherantly tied to class - economic and social status. Proper grammar is indicative of education - something that for centuries has defined the classes. So, how we approach grammar and spelling is indicitive of the importance we place on education and someone's access to it (tied to social/economic status).
Posts: 5879 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
What about those many rules that don't ease communication? Split inifintives, ending a sentence with a preposition, who/whom, etc.?
Does writing u instead of you or a lot of other IM-speak actually hamper communication or does it more serve to mark the writer as belonging to a certain group? Most of it evolved out of desire to communicate more rapidly and they seem to understand it very well.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: What about those many rules that don't ease communication? Split inifintives, ending a sentence with a preposition, who/whom, etc.?[quote] Well, two of those three rules are completely artificial, and the last one is dying because it doesn't affect communication. [quote]Does writing u instead of you or a lot of other IM-speak actually hamper communication or does it more serve to mark the writer as belonging to a certain group? Most of it evolved out of desire to communicate more rapidly and they seem to understand it very well.
I'm sure all the abbreviations and acronyms do aid in rapid communication, and it's really not hard to read. It may serve to mark the writer as part of a certain group, but there's a lot more to it than just writing "you" as "u," like horrendous misspellings, broken grammar, little or no capitalization or punctuation, and so on. When every sentence is a run-on with maimed syntax, it is indeed more difficult to understand.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:members of a certain species only respond [to] animals that provide certain signals, usually for mating purposes. Sometimes the outsider is met with indifference, sometimes with violence.
Well, personally, I would never mate with anyone who used l33t. Sometimes I even respond with violence.
I'm such an animal.
But more seriously, as a nurse, I need to do a lot of communicating and educating. While I always try to retain my own voice, I do alter the way that I speak to suit my audience. Sometimes, I feel like a chameleon. While slangy and casual language may be the best way to reach a teenager (without that condescending "Dude, what's going down?" that older people do when they are trying to sound cool, but missing the boat so completely that they haven't even found a parking space at the docks before the ship has made its first port of call), an educated, geriatric client would certainly be put off, and might just discount my message because he didn't approve of my delivery.
The vocabulary varies with the client. For an educated person, I refer to the bowel movement as "stool", for someone whose grasp of the language is less sophisticated, it is "caca".
Generally, I am well-able to connect with my audience.
Advice I gave to my son regarding his first Hatrack post: "This is a site run by an author. The members appreciate and expect good capitalization, punctuation, and spelling."
Unfortunately, I think he is allergic to commas.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:For an educated person, I refer to the bowel movement as "stool", for someone whose grasp of the language is less sophisticated, it is "caca".
*giggles* Just don't refer to it as "caca" to your Spanish-speaking patients from Central or South America. It's very crude to call it that there.
And I'm not educated, but we always called it "bowel movement" or "stool" in my house. What would you say to me? Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
"Bowel movement" or "stool". Sometimes when I talk to little kids, it's "poop".
I don't look for diplomas hanging on the wall to tell me if your speech is educated. I just listen and respond appropriately.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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