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Politics and the English Language is a pretty seductive essay, but on deep examination, it doesn't really make its own case beyond some sentimental appeals and
by andolanra 10y ago
Politics and the English Language is a pretty seductive essay, but on deep examination, it doesn't really make its own case beyond some sentimental appeals and rhetorical flourishes. In particular, its thesis seems to be language has "declined", but never cites any older uses of language save a line of the Bible, which he contrasts with bureaucrat-ese and journalistic writing; he makes rough insinuations that the language can somehow affect (or even effect) thought but doesn't bother justifying how or why beyond simple rhetorical devices ("But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought [citation needed]"); he insists on a few rules to keep your language sharp, but these rules are ridiculously broad and, indeed, so hard to follow while producing clear writing that he breaks most of them himself within the first two paragraphs: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=992 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=992
The idea that you can adopt simple rules and somehow come up with speech that's not amenable to deception or fluffery is appealing for obvious reasons, but that's just not how language works: you can follow Orwell's rules to the letter, better than he does, and include just as much deceptive fluff; or you can ignore his rules and write forceful, interesting prose. (Orwell himself does!)
A rough analogue in the programming field would be the idea that you can "enforce" good code by nothing more than enforcing style guidelines. The idea that you can prevent lies in politics by banning the passive voice is roughly as silly as the idea that you can prevent bugs in code by banning tab characters.
- Swizec 10y agoLinguistic relativity: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity > The principle of linguistic relativity holds that the structure of a language affects its speakers' world view or cognition. Popularly known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, the principle is often defined to include two versions. The strong version says that language determines thought, and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories, whereas the weak version says that linguistic categories and usage only influence thought and decisions. > Currently, a balanced view of linguistic relativity is espoused by most linguists holding that language influences certain kinds of cognitive processes in non-trivial ways, but that other processes are better seen as arising from connectionist factors. For a simple empirically shown example of linguistic relativity: you can see more colors if you have names for them. https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/6thfloor/2012/09/04/its-not-easy-seeing-green/?referer= https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/6thfloor/2012/09/04/its-not...
- riprowan 10y ago... and therefore, if you actually do see more colors (since you were given more names for them) then you're more likely to need a new name for the new color that you just saw that nobody has named yet, leading to even more color-names and even greater linguistically-enabled color vision among all your peers.
- andolanra 10y agoThere is a massive gulf between "having more color words makes you distinguish more colors", which can be motivated well using experiments, and "using the passive voice makes you lie more", which is a largely unmotivated and untrue personal prejudice.
- andai 10y agoHave you heard of "e prime"? It is the English language with the word "be" (and all its conjugations) removed, so it is not possible to make claims about objective reality, only one's experience and perspective of it.