Tag: Linguistics
This map should be included in every history book.
Oh wow! I’ve been wanting this for ages!
This needs to be in every history book along with a map showing where those nations have been pushed to now.
A map of the major (indigenous) linguistic groups in North America.
Tampering with Language to Shame the Devil.
In her book Feminism and Linguistic Theory Deborah Cameron makes a strong argument in the debate about eliminating sexist language:
“I do think, however, that it would be better if feminists operated with a more hard-headed, political notion of what we are trying to do. In my opinion we should be tampering with language not to tell the truth, but quite openly to shame the devil. It is disingenuous to claim that the conventions we propose are simply “better” than the traditional ones (more accurate, more precise), because really it is a question of political and ideological preferences – the traditional usage embodies one view of the world, the feminist alternative a different one, and we need to make clear that both these views are politically non-neutral. We should therefore be honest enough to defend our tampering not in terms of its purported linguistic merits, but in terms of its political utility for raising consciousness, denouncing sexism and empowering women.”
Cameron, Deborah. Feminism and Linguistic Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, 1992. p. 125
Conversation is not an equal opportunity activity.
Sally McConnell-Ginet
I found this quote in Deborah Cameron’s Feminism and Linguistic Theory, as part of a discussion of men’s (vs. women’s) dominant linguistic strategies.
I don’t go to live shows that often anymore. These days I “support the artist” after academic workshops.
For the grumpy prescriptivists of the world, there is now an extension for Google Chrome that replaces the word “literally” with the word “figuratively” on the webpages you visit. (Though you’re fighting a losing battle, dear purists: The word’s more colloquial, emphatic sense — as in, “I’m literally going to kill the next person who comments on my use of the word ‘literally’ ” — was recently added to the Oxford English Dictionary.)
