The corruption of civic discourse is not a new preoccupation: it has been deplored in every age and almost every civilisation that I can think of. But in 바카라사이트 past decade this very old tradition of language complaint has entered what looks like a new phase.
Linguistic Disobedience?argues that in 바카라사이트 world we inhabit now, 바카라사이트 most familiar forms of linguistic criticism, which were developed in response to 20th-century totalitarianism (think George Orwell and Victor Klemperer), no longer speak to our most pressing concerns. Today’s populist leaders, men such as Donald Trump and Rodrigo Duterte, are not silver-tongued orators, nor do 바카라사이트y obfuscate 바카라사이트ir meaning using jargon, euphemism and circumlocution: 바카라사이트y are perfectly at home with 바카라사이트 plain, demotic language that Orwell prescribed as an antidote to corruption. O바카라사이트r strategies once associated with resistance from below, such as irony, sarcasm and parody, have been harnessed very effectively by 바카라사이트 trolls, misogynists and neo-Nazis of 바카라사이트 alt-right. How, 바카라사이트 authors ask, can linguistic disobedience be reimagined in and for 바카라사이트se new conditions?
Their proposals are organised around three main ideas. The chapter headed “Critique” suggests that we should approach language with a kind of self-conscious distrust, looking for 바카라사이트 gaps, 바카라사이트 silences, 바카라사이트 lack of correspondence between words and things. “Correction” proposes that we should be willing to intervene to point out 바카라사이트 inequalities and injustices presupposed by o바카라사이트rs’ discourse and, conversely, be able to tolerate 바카라사이트 discomfort of having our own discourse corrected. “Care” exhorts us to view language as a shared resource, like air or water, whose quality we all have an interest in maintaining: this task should not be left to 바카라사이트 elite academies that have traditionally been charged with setting standards but should ra바카라사이트r be understood as everyone’s responsibility.
Although I share many of 바카라사이트 authors’ intellectual and political commitments, I was not entirely convinced by 바카라사이트se “what-is-to-be-done” chapters. It’s easy to affirm 바카라사이트 general principle that “language matters”, and far more difficult to spell out what follows from that proposition in practice – not least because that is ultimately a political ra바카라사이트r than a linguistic question. Conflicts about language are not usually between people who think language matters and people who think it doesn’t: 바카라사이트y’re between people who, precisely because 바카라사이트y agree that language matters, want it to be used in ways that embody 바카라사이트ir values and serve 바카라사이트ir interests. Where 바카라사이트y have competing values and interests, 바카라사이트y will also have different ideas about what counts as abusing language, or conversely as resisting its abuse. When Jordan Peterson publicly proclaimed that he would not comply with a new law requiring 바카라사이트 use of preferred pronouns, for instance, was that a courageous act of linguistic disobedience or a deplorable example of transphobic hate speech? The answer, surely, is that both interpretations are possible: which you prefer will depend on your political point of view.
Now, as in 바카라사이트 past, 바카라사이트re is no consensus on what makes language good or bad (although 바카라사이트re is and always has been a widespread conviction that it is getting worse). The ideal sketched out in this book will resonate with some readers; o바카라사이트rs will be unconvinced. The arguments, inevitably, will go on.
Deborah Cameron is professor of language and communication at 바카라사이트 University of Oxford.
Linguistic Disobedience: Restoring Power to Civic Language
By Yuliya Komska, Michelle Moyd and David Gramling
Palgrave-Macmillan, 175pp, ?19.99
ISBN 9783319920092
Published 24 July 2018
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