DACE STRELĖVICA-OŠINA

University of Latvia

LANGUAGE CORRECTNESS AND A NEW APPROACH TO THE THEORY OF PRESCRIPTIVISM IN LATVIA

KEYWORDS: prescriptivism, language influence, sociolinguistics, language errors.

Linguistic prescriptivism and its manifestations in Latvian society are a relevant topic, but compared with the Western world (especially the English-speaking environment), where prescriptivism has long attracted the attention of linguists, they have been little studied. Attitudes toward prescriptivism are also expressed in Lithuania (Loreta Vaicekauskienė has essentially described the situation in Lithuania as follows: “When language codification fails, attempts are made to force users to change, rather than the norms” (Vaicekauskienė 2011)), and in other countries or ethnic communities with a similar historical and political experience (we will return later to the question of why and how this experience is associated with prescriptivism). Prescriptivism has existed in the history of peoples at almost all times and in all cultures, ever since the emergence of language, especially written language. Nevertheless, in post-Soviet society this concept is still relatively rarely used and known, particularly among non-specialists in language. In Latvian linguistic literature, the term prescriptivism appeared in the late 1990s—in articles by Ieva Zauberga (1998) and Andrejs Veisbergs (1999); it is also used in some publications by the author of this article (see Strelēvica 2002, 2004, 2005, 2007; Strelēvica-Ošina 2008a, 2008b, 2009, 2010a, 2010b, 2011, etc.).

So what is prescriptivism? Summarizing the ideas of various linguists, it can be said that prescriptivism is the pursuit of language correctness and, moreover, the deliberate influence exerted on language so that it will be correct and “pure.” Prescriptivists (advocates of the prescriptive approach) often proceed from the assumption that language quality is deteriorating in comparison with its formerly ideal and acceptable state, and therefore efforts must be made to halt this negative process by strictly observing language norms and avoiding, in their words, undesirable chan-

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ges in language. The scientific term (English prescriptivism) derives from the words prescribe (to prescribe [medicines, etc.], direct, establish) and prescription (instruction, regulation, [medicine] prescription), which in turn come from the Latin praescribere (literally “to write in front, at the top,” i.e. to give an instruction) and praescriptio (instruction, regulation).

What is linguistic correctness? Since correctness is attributed more to an ethical category than to science, sociolinguists have still not provided a precise definition of this phenomenon, although when discussing a person’s relationship with language, one inevitably encounters the concept of correctness. One can quote the headword given by British sociolinguist Peter Trudgill in the Glossary of Sociolinguistics (A Glossary of Sociolinguistics, 2003): correctness (correctness), where the concept is not defined, but only its use is described: “In speech communities (speech communities) that are characterized by clear focusing (see focused¹ (focused)), native speakers often understand which language forms are correct and which are not. Linguists agree that the language of a non-native user may be called ‘incorrect’ if it contains forms and usages that native speakers would never use, e.g.: ‘I am knowing him for many years’. However, linguists do not agree that forms used by native speakers can reasonably be judged incorrect. They point out that when widespread forms, e.g.: ‘I done it’, are judged in this way, the basis is social evaluation, connected with the distribution of power, wealth and prestige in the community” (Trudgill 2003: 29). This quotation aptly describes two views prevalent in contemporary English-speaking society: 1) the belief that everything a person uses in their native language is already, as the definition suggests, correct; 2) the view that judgments of linguistic correctness are primarily connected with social power and prestige. How did these views arise, and are they universal?

The first claim immediately prompts reflection: when a native speaker adopts and begins repeating an “incorrect” form used by a non-native speaker

¹ P. Trudgill agrees with Robert Le Page’s theory of “focused” and “diffuse” communities (focused and diffuse communities) and defines them elsewhere in his dictionary as follows: “According to the typology of language varieties established by British sociolinguist Robert Le Page, some speech communities and language varieties are relatively ‘diffuse’ (diffuse), while others are more ‘focused’ (focused). [...] ‘Focused’ speech communities are those in which noticeable language standardization and codification take place, most people approve of the use of norms, language users are concerned about the ‘purity’ of their language and about their variety being different from others [...]. Speech communities in Europe are clearly focused” (Trudgill 2003: 49–50).

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does a form automatically become “correct”? This question cannot be answered unequivocally. In Latvian society, an affirmative answer would be considered heretical, because the influence of other languages and other nationalities on Latvian is often regarded as a negative phenomenon (more on this later). Nevertheless, the fact cannot be denied that languages change in this way—through direct contact—all over the world. Of course, in the past such changes were regarded as manifestations of “incorrectness” (for example, August Schlegel believed that the analytic Romance languages developed from synthetic Latin because the barbarians who conquered Rome did not learn Latin well, and later “the Romans [...], hearing their language sound incorrect, themselves began to forget its rules and imitate the jargon of their new masters” (Schlegel 1818: 24)).

Today, a different view prevails. It should be borne in mind that, over the past millennium (since the arrival of French speakers in the British Isles in the 11th century), no English-speaking community has encountered conquerors speaking another language on its own territory, the presence of a privileged foreign language, and the pressure it brings. Since the emergence of Middle English (Middle English), the precursor of Modern English, under the influence of contact between English and French, the influence of other languages on English has never again been so great that English speakers adopted grammatically erroneous constructions formed by speakers of other languages (lexical borrowings do not affect a language’s structure). Thus, perhaps English-speaking authors can indeed confidently assert that any form or construction used by a native speaker of English is correct.

How, then, should we comment on P. Trudgill’s second claim, that judgments of linguistic correctness are primarily associated with power and prestige? Before answering this question, a brief historical overview is in order. In ancient cultures, great importance was attached to observing language norms mainly in religious texts and ceremonies—as Malcolm D. Hyman has noted, Sanskrit grammars were written to ensure the correctness of the language of the Vedas (Hyman 2002). Linguistic correctness also received considerable attention in Ancient Rome, as grammarians, men of letters, orators, and others wrote about it. Many sources indicate that Roman society distinguished regulated and cultivated sermo urbanus (‘the language/speech of the city’) from the ordinary spoken language of the people, or sermo rusticus (‘the language/speech of the countryside’). Various reasons encouraged concern for linguistic correctness: religious considerations, the desire to preserve a correct standard language as a symbol of social status, and efforts to protect Latin from the influence of other languages, especially as Rome’s influence grew

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imperijos žlugimo laikotarpiu (Hyman 2002). Preskriptyvizmo tradicija išlaikyta ir viduramžiais, ji ypač suklestėjo Renesanso laikotarpiu, kai buvo įsteigtos tiesiogiai kalbos taisyklingumui ir „švarumui“ prižiūrėti skirtos akademijos – Accademia della Crusca Italijoje, Académie française Prancūzijoje ir t. t. Anglijoje tokios akademijos nebuvo (nors tokių planų būta), tačiau kalbos puoselėjimu aktyviai rūpinosi ir apie taisyklingos kalbos būtinumą rašė gramatikai ir žodynų sudarytojai (ypač XVIII a., kuris daugelio laikomas ypatingu angliškojo preskriptyvizmo suklestėjimo laikotarpiu ir prie kurio dar grįšime).

It should be emphasized that, before the term prescriptivism became established, this phenomenon was sometimes called purism—the term originated in France during the Renaissance and was later adopted by English and other cultures. In the Oxford English Dictionary, the entry purism includes an excerpt from a work published in 1804 by William Mitford, which mentions “what the French call purism” (OED [1933] 1961). In turn, the OED entry purist quotes a definition from Edward Phillips’s English dictionary, published in 1706: “A Purist is one who endeavours to speak or write correctly and accurately” (OED [1933] 1961). The word was often used in the same sense in Latvian linguistics; for example, Inta Freimane describes purism as “intolerance [...] of any corruption of language” (Freimane 1993: 51) and mentions its opposite—the tendency toward antinormativity, which “is realized by denying the need for conscious intervention in the language process” (ibid.). Thus, in a certain sense, we may regard the term purism used by I. Freimane as a synonym for the term prescriptivism.

Today, purism is used mainly in a narrower sense, referring to the avoidance of supposedly undesirable lexical phenomena (most often borrowings from other languages). Sociolinguist George Thomas calls this type of purism xenophobic purism and emphasizes that it is the most widespread (Thomas 1991: 204–205). (Purist tendencies in Latvian have been surveyed by Aina Blinkena, Ina Druviete, Vineta (Zoldnere) Poriņa, and the aforementioned Andrejis Veisbergas.)

Manifestations of a negative attitude toward prescriptivism have existed almost as long as prescriptivism itself—though they are fragmentary and much less well documented than prescriptive attitudes. One of the best-known opponents of early prescriptivism was the Church Father Augustine, who lived in the 4th–5th centuries and said: “Melius est reprehendant nos grammatici quam

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non intellegant populi²” (418; Enarrationes in psalmos, 138, 20). He rejected excessive adherence to accepted norms when it meant disregarding language change and actual usage. In the 19th century, ideas were expressed that the natural development of language was preferable to prescriptive regulation and standardization. Sociolinguist John Earl Joseph summarizes: “From the perspective of nineteenth-century scientific linguistics, language standardization was a violation of the natural condition of language.” This view was still widespread in the second half of the 20th century (Joseph 1987: 9–10).

Nevertheless, the phenomenon of prescriptivism was named only in the early 20th century, when a negative attitude toward it became official policy. At that time, so-called descriptive linguistics was developing in America—a term initially applied to synchronic linguistics. The development of descriptivism was closely connected with the main directions of American linguistics at the time: structural and anthropological linguistics. One task of this linguistics was to describe the indigenous languages of Native Americans. Since these languages differed greatly from Indo-European languages in their morphological type (they were mostly polysynthetic) and sociolinguistic functions (most had no writing system and were nonstandardized in the European sense), they had to be described objectively and as accurately as possible “from the outside,” without concern for language change, users’ errors, that is, deviations from accepted norms, and so on. Previously, this had been unavoidable when linguists analyzed their own native languages from an “internal,” emic³ perspective, usually focusing on standard varieties of those languages. It should be added that, owing to the lack of written records, the history of the languages of the ancient inhabitants of the Americas was practically unknown; it was only possible to describe the languages synchronically, without offering evaluative judgments or prescriptions. This most likely prompted linguists to consider whether other languages (including English) could also be studied from a distance, and whether everything that a linguist observed and recorded in a language could be treated as a legitimate and correct part of that language.

Sociolinguist Richard Hudson believes that “one of the most important achievements of 20th-century linguistics was to destroy the idea [...] that some languages or language

² “Better that grammarians reproach us than that people fail to understand.”

³ In sociology, anthropology, and other fields, two opposing concepts are used—emic and etic perspectives. The terms emic and etic, derived from phonemic (‘phonemic’) and phonetic (‘phonetic’), were introduced in 1954 by the American linguist Kenneth L. Pike. According to various experts, they refer to an “internal” and an “external” perspective, respectively, on a phenomenon characteristic of a given group, depending on whether it is viewed from the perspective of a group member or that of an objective researcher from outside.

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“variants are better than others” (Hudson [1980] 2001: 203). In other words, the idea was rejected (on which prescriptivism is largely based) that, according to the traditional view, the standard language is more correct than dialects and sociolects. A formula was gradually formulated and has now become an axiom, repeated countless times in Western linguistics, especially in the English-speaking world (often uncritically and without close examination): “linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive.” Jean Aitchison, for example, writes: “First and foremost, linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive. The linguist is interested in what is said, not in what he or she thinks should be said. He [...] does not make laws of ‘correctness’” (Aitchison 1978: 13; emphasis added). Other authors express this idea similarly.

The concept of prescriptivism was used to describe negatively the traditional approach to language and its use; it was associated with normative grammar and the compilation of guides to correct spelling, as well as advice on “how to speak/write correctly”—as already mentioned, this English-language tradition flourished particularly in eighteenth-century Great Britain. The leitmotif of descriptivism and antiprescriptivism (a term also used by sociolinguists in the West to designate views and actions directed against prescriptivism) is often the slogan “Leave language alone,” taken from the title of Robert A. Hall’s book Leave Your Language Alone (Leave Your Language Alone, 1950). Interestingly, in the first half of the twentieth century, English-speaking linguists generally tried to ignore prescriptivism as conspicuously outdated and anachronistic, and only in the second half of the twentieth century began to regard it as a phenomenon worthy of attention and an object of study. J. Joseph’s words best summarize the attitude toward prescriptivism among English-speaking researchers in the 1980s: “The better we understand prescriptivism, the sooner we can abandon it completely” (Joseph 1987: 18). James Milroy and Lesley Milroy take a similar view in their substantial work Authority in Language. Investigating Language Prescription and Standardization (Authority in Language. Investigating Language Prescription and Standardization, 1985). Later, at the end of the twentieth century and around the turn of the century, the phenomenon of prescriptivism was examined more objectively and systematically. One of the most important contributions to note is that of sociolinguist Deborah Cameron and the conclusions presented in her book Verbal Hygiene (Verbal Hygiene, 1995): not only are language changes natural, but so too are people’s attitudes and reactions (including negative ones) to them; concern about correctness in language use is natural as well. If language is a social phenomenon, a language researcher should not condemn or disregard social factors. In turn, antiprescriptivist

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ideology, according to D. Cameron, is often no less categorical and no less dismissive of natural processes than traditional prescriptivism: “Many linguists [...] believe that they have rejected prescriptivism in principle. But if the phrase ‘Leave language alone!’ is not a prescription, then what is it?” (Cameron 1995: 7).

It can be said that sociolinguistics began to rehabilitate prescriptivism in the Western world, since it came to justify the “oversight” of language correctness as a natural phenomenon characteristic of many linguistic communities, and rejected the categorical condemnation of it that had previously been promoted by other branches of linguistics.

Twentieth-century authors most often reproached prescriptivism for being unscientific—for failing to understand natural language change and for its unfounded attempts to stop such change by treating it as “errors.” Many antiprescriptivists believed that it was impossible to act consciously on language. The British linguist David Crystal states: “Language change cannot be stopped. You may not like it; you may regret the arrival of new elements in the language or the loss of old ones, but you simply cannot do anything about it” (Crystal [2006] 2007: 89; emphasis added).

This view is somewhat exaggerated. It is possible to consciously influence language—as demonstrated by the successful spread of political correctness and gender neutrality (gender-neutrality) in English, where the words he (‘he’) and man (‘man, human being’) are now practically unused in a generic sense to refer to people of both sexes. Many authors have already written about the considerable similarity between contemporary political correctness and prescriptivism. (Perhaps the conclusion should be that it is easier to begin changing language and implement those changes than it is to stop them.)

On prescriptivism as a way of resisting change, Anne Curzan writes: “Historians of the English language have often unthinkingly equated prescriptivists’ efforts with a hopeless struggle, doomed to failure, against the forces of nature—that is, language change. In fact, if stopping such changes were considered a success, one could speak of the failure of prescriptivism. The much more complex question is how much prescriptivists’ efforts may have affected both spoken and written English, especially if we regard prescriptivism as part of the process of standardizing and codifying the English language.” (Curzan 2009: 27).

Representatives of prescriptivism are often criticized for intolerance and undemocratic practices (the standard language is elevated and privileged over other language varieties—dialects and sociolects), and for discriminating against people (because of their use of

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…language) and so on. It is no coincidence that the previously cited definition by P. Trudgill mentions the social evaluation of linguistic correctness, linked to the spread of the “wealth and prestige of power within the community” (Trudgill 2003: 29). A fine example is also the conversation between Arto Svece and Australian-born linguist Dylan Glynn, published on 16 January 2009 in the Latvian newspaper Kultūras diena. Representing the typical (or, rather, stereotypical) view of English-speaking anti-prescriptivists, the latter states: “Any linguist from the West would agree that, if you are speaking your native language and are not tired or, say, drunk, everything you say is linguistically correct. The main principle of any linguistics is description, not prescription. P r e s c r i p t i o n is a sociological phenomenon. It is significant if it i s p a r t o f t h e e x p r e s s i o n o f p o w e r s t r u c t u r e s i n l a n g u a g e” (Svece 2009; emphasis by the author).

Such claims are indeed logically well founded in the English-language context. Absolute correctness in one’s native language has already been discussed. If we consider prescriptivism as an expression of authority (power), we should remember that Britain has long had a class society in which, for centuries, one of the most important indicators of a person’s social class was the language they used. Correct standard language conforming to the norms, as in the classical period of ancient Rome, was a marker of the highest social classes. The question of linguistic correctness became particularly salient in the eighteenth century, when people gained the opportunity for upward mobility and, through their careers, achievements, education, and ability to speak standard language, to enter the aforementioned social classes.

Sociolinguist Lynda Mugglestone, describing the exceptional role of correct standard-language pronunciation as an indicator of social class in the eighteenth century, uses the term “national obsession” (national obsession) (Mugglestone [1995] 2007: 5).

The connection between prescriptivism, concern for linguistic correctness, and social power and prestige remains deeply rooted in the consciousness of English speakers. For example, the introduction to a contemporary English reference book takes it for granted that formerly popular “prescriptive rules are often s o c i a l r u l e s w h i c h, it is believed, d e s c r i b e t h e s p e a k e r o r w r i t e r a s e d u c a t e d o r a s r e p r e s e n t i n g a p a r t i c u l a r s o c i a l c l a s s” (Carter, McCarthy 2006: 6; emphasis by the author).

It should be emphasized that the “fall from favor” of linguistic prescriptivism was caused not only by new trends in linguistics, but also by various social and political

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processes associated with the development of ideas of democracy, tolerance, and the aforementioned political correctness. Perhaps hostility toward traditional prescriptivism was linked to hostility toward the policies pursued during the “golden age” of prescriptivism in Britain and other similar countries—imperialism, colonialist tendencies, racism, and other forms of discrimination? Psycholinguist Steven Pinker, a staunch critic of prescriptivism, spoke ironically in the mid-1990s of politically oriented “militant antiprescriptivism”: “Unlike some members of the academic world of the 1960s, I do not believe that teaching standard English is a means of sustaining patriarchal, capitalist, white supremacy, nor that the nation needs to be liberated so that everyone can write as they please.” (Pinker 1994: 399).

But are prescriptive attitudes really associated in every case with social hierarchy and power? There have been individual attempts to analyze manifestations of prescriptivism in Latvia using this approach—here one may mention several publications by Gatis Dilāns in the Latvian press from 2003 to 2005. The author argues that “turning language into a symbol of power gives certain groups of prescriptively minded linguists and their supporters privileged influence and power […]” and that “excessively intensive grammaticalization of language or its elaborate top-down stylization allows the proponents of this process always to feel superior […], viewing other language users as second-rate or incompetent” (Dilāns 2005). In another article, he calls manifestations of prescriptivism in Latvia “a passionate form of social control” (Dilāns 2003). Nevertheless, anyone familiar with the cultural history and social context of Latvia would describe this assessment as one-sided, since it ignores the particularity of Latvia’s (and other similar communities’) situation when viewed from the perspective of English-speaking culture and experience.

Why is Latvia’s situation different? According to I. Freimane, “Latvian has virtually never existed as a means of distinguishing the privileged classes” (Freimane 1993: 40).

One can imagine that such a situation might theoretically have emerged during the period of the first Republic of Latvia—but that period was too short for linguistic correctness to become associated with privilege and power. Among the Latvian people, who spent most of their history under foreign-language rule, no social elite distinguished by political influence and better education—an elite that people from lower social strata might hope to join by trying to learn to speak “correc-

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“proper” standard language. This is confirmed by the contemporary situation in post-Soviet Latvia: do those who hold political and economic power in the country speak the most correct standard language? And, conversely, do those who can be considered users of correct language (linguists, teachers, publishing-house employees, etc.) determine Latvia’s social, political, and economic life; how many of them have p o w e r?... (The quality of the language a person uses, or its conformity to language norms in Latvia, is generally determined by each individual’s education and interests, rather than by belonging to a more or less privileged social class.)

Latvian prescriptivism and concern for linguistic correctness are most often associated with the idea that language, as the foundation of national identity, must be liberated and protected from the destructive influence of other languages. The call to purge Latvian of “foreign rubbish” and the admonition that “one ought not chase after foreign words so foolishly” (Alunāns [1856] 1960: 17–18) were voiced as early as the nineteenth century by the Young Latvians, heralds of the first Latvian national awakening. Purist sentiment grew even stronger during the First Republic of Latvia and later, during the years of Soviet occupation. Even after the restoration of the independent state, Latvian prescriptivists often speak of language degradation, which, in their view, is encouraged by linguistic errors and loanwords. Jānis Kušķis writes: “It is unclear why present-day Latvians so enjoy dressing up like jesters in the feathers of foreign languages. If we start using the German words that had been eliminated [the author means German loanwords eradicated by the Young Latvians and replaced with Latvian neologisms, but which still exist in colloquial speech – D. S.-O.] [...], it may seem that the words of Latvian itself [...] are no longer fit for purpose and that Latvian itself is no longer fit for purpose [...]. Using German words inappropriately is already a sign of language degeneration” (Kušķis 2006: 178). Many associate the “purity” of a language with its very existence—this is well illustrated by one comment on the website of the newspaper Diena: “The Latvian language is dying. Look: Latvians use Russicisms, Germanisms, and so on every day when speaking to each other [...]. Why are we fighting here, friends? We are dying as a nation, because language is the very very very very very very most important FOUNDATION of a nation!” (Mur, September 19, 2008, www.diena.lv). As is typical of prescriptivist sentiment, there is a lament that the language has changed compared with its earlier state. The archaism of a language is sometimes regarded as an end and a value in itself. On the portal www.vok.lv, one participant in a discussion writes: “In general, we should take the Lithuanian language as an example: it is related to ours and has preserved that beautiful archaism of its own, which our language also possessed in the past

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language. We can only hope that one day it will again be renowned for this!” (Mārtiņš, December 4, 2002, www.vvk.lv).

It cannot be denied that in some cases these views are unscientific, unfounded, and considerably exaggerated, since no language can exist without changing (including in its semantics, grammar, etc.) or avoid loanwords. Kārlis Mīlenbahs has already put it vividly: “[...] When a greater harvest is gathered, larger granaries must be built to hold it. As ways of life change and knowledge increases, the same thing happens to language—it needs to change and expand. [...] Change is the basis of a language’s vitality; stagnation is its death (Mīlenbahs [1909] 1990: 233–234). Some contemporary linguists and sociolinguists—A. Blinkena, I. Druviete, A. Veisbergs, and others—hold similar views and oppose excessive and overly severe manifestations of purism and prescriptivism in Latvian society. I. Druviete argues that “what is often regarded as a threat to a language is merely a set of ordinary phenomena associated with language contact, which affect grammar and vocabulary but do not threaten the language’s competitiveness or its future” (Druviete 2000: 76).

Nevertheless, the view that nearly every violation of grammatical norms, new shift in a word’s meaning, or borrowing from English or Russian should be seen as a harbinger of the death of Latvian remains fairly widespread (although entirely opposing opinions also exist). This picture can be formed from opinions people express in direct and indirect interactions, letters published in the press, online comments, and respondents’ answers to questionnaires on language issues—one such survey, for example, was conducted in 2009 (see also Strelēvica-Ošiņa 2010b). It can be inferred from this that even unscientific prescriptivist opinions must by no means be ignored (as English-speaking linguists did at the beginning of the twentieth century). According to D. Cameron, “verbal hygiene⁴” is as integral to language use as vowels are to the phonetic structure of language, and is equally worthy of thorough investigation (Cameron 1995: 1).

Why did the notion arise that attaches such great ethnopolitical significance to the preservation of linguistic correctness? It should be added here that some English-speaking scholars also note that the intensity of prescriptivism and purism may be influenced by the historical and political experience of the community in question. More precisely, peoples who have experienced the domi-

⁴

D. Cameron used this new term to refer to prescriptivism, believing it to be broader and more neutral, and to lack the negative connotation that the older term had acquired in twentieth-century English-speaking culture.

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[...], manifestations of purism and efforts to rid the language of loanwords from other languages are often characteristic. J. Thomas emphasizes that xenophobic purism is characteristic mainly of ethnic groups that have been under the rule of other nations (Thomas 1991: 204–205). J. Joseph also acknowledges that “language is the first thing that [an oppressed ethnic group] ideologizes as a symbol of nationalism and resistance” (Joseph 1987: 46).

Therefore, in the collective consciousness of the Latvian nation, the restoration of state independence is closely connected with the preservation of the language. The Latvian language was successfully preserved, maintained, and encouraged to develop throughout the Soviet period, when the need to avoid the influence of Russian (the politically dominant nation’s language) was always indirectly raised and understood. In several publications since 2006, I have pointed out that the purist avoidance of Russian loanwords and other forms of influence during the Soviet era was, as it were, a covert symbolic weapon in the struggle against the policy of Russification. The era of the Young Latvians and the experience of that period still remained in historical memory. Thus, it is hardly surprising that for many people the protection of linguistic purity and correctness was, and still is, a guarantee of the nation’s and state’s independence.

Nevertheless, in everyday life, as in the cases described earlier in British and Latvian cultures, prescriptivism is not always invoked solely for noble purposes—as a symbol of the traditional values of a social class or of national patriotism. We often encounter cases in which prescriptivists excessively criticize particular, especially “favored,” language errors (and their users), which may be debatable or are not essential. Reproaching relatives for their incorrect language use is widespread in all cultures where prescriptivism exists, and here we might discern yet another manifestation of power—not political or social, but one individual’s psychological “power” over another. Even if prescriptivists making such remarks do not always feel this (since they criticize with the noblest of intentions—to help and educate), those reproached for errors often think that prescriptivists do so to demonstrate their power and humiliate others. Such views are often expressed by online commenters and discussion participants (discussions about linguistic correctness are frequent online); several respondents in the aforementioned 2009 survey also noted this. For example, one respondent writes that in Latvia people often “pick on” errors “because [...] they do not want to understand one another in essence; it is easier to avoid answering by humiliating the other person for using incorrect language forms. [...]. What matters more to me is what a person essentially wants to say, and unnecessary ‘picking at words’ annoys me.”

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It can be seen that one and the same phenomenon—i.e., prescriptivism—can be used for all kinds of symbolic and social functions in different cultures and even within a single culture, and can also be motivated in different ways. Having analyzed these differences in recent years (Strelēvica-Ošīna 2010a, 2010b, 2011), I began to view prescriptivism theory differently and developed the following classification of prescriptivism:

1) person-oriented prescriptivism—a strand of prescriptivism known (and criticized) in Anglophone culture, in which linguistic correctness is closely associated with a person’s social “correctness,” i.e., membership in a particular social class;

2) language-oriented prescriptivism—characteristic of Latvia and other similar communities, where the protection of linguistic correctness and “purity” is often regarded as a symbol of national consciousness and political resistance;

3) error-oriented prescriptivism—an attempt to stigmatize and eliminate particular “popular” (frequently used and/or criticized) real or alleged errors; “picking at words” (and other linguistic elements).

It is important to distinguish between the different strands of prescriptivism in order to avoid misunderstandings when assessing manifestations of prescriptivism in different cultures. Some researchers, familiar with the anti-prescriptivist ideas dominant in Western culture, attempt to apply them uncritically to the situation in Latvia (quotations from G. Dilāns), condemning the concern for linguistic correctness that is popular in Latvian society and ignoring prescriptivism’s different and highly significant symbolic role in Latvia. At the same time, it is important to study prescriptivism and inform the public about this research, so that language users can reassess their attitudes and perhaps abandon one or another excessive or unfounded prescription.

There is another prejudice associated with prescriptivism that must be abandoned. Concern for linguistic correctness, and especially for its “purity” from loanwords, is sometimes linked in the Western world to ethnic intolerance or considered its cause. For example, the French sociolinguist Philippe Blanchet states: “We began with linguistic purism, then moved on to a homogeneous culture, then to ethnic cleansing, and arrived at ethnocide and genocide.” (Blanchet 1998a). In another work, the author speaks of “collective pathologies such as racism, [...], linguistic purism, pseudo-mystical sects, aggression / the desire to wage war” (belligérance)“ (Blanchet 1998b: 72).

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A comparison of different cultures shows that the opposite is often true: a purist struggle against elements of another, “hostile” language helps eliminate negative attitudes toward the corresponding nation. In many publications since 2006, I have particularly emphasized that language-focused (Latvian valodcentrēts, -a – a term proposed by I. Druviete (2005: 53)) communities—Latvians and, for example, French-speaking residents of the province of Quebec in Canada—who devote much attention to language, which is the foundation of their identity, and to fostering linguistic correctness and purity, are usually able to maintain ethnic differences solely at the linguistic level and avoid physical aggression if there is a threat of conflict with another ethnic group, even if that group is associated with former conquerors. Aggression and violence, as global experience shows, in turn often characterize those cases of ethnic conflict in which the basis of disagreement is not language, but religious differences, economic power, and other factors.

In any case, prescriptivism has one essentially positive feature: it shows that language (and, more generally, matters of the spiritual world) occupies an important place in the scale of values of an individual and/or a nation.

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LANGUAGE CORRECTNESS AND A NEW PERCEPTION OF THE THEORY OF PRESCRIPTIVISM IN LATVIA

Summary

This article summarizes (and elaborates further) some of my previous research on the issues of language accuracy and the manifestations of linguistic prescriptivism in Latvia. Unlike the Anglophone world, where prescriptivism has been recognized, named and criticized (as unscientific and socially intolerant and non-democratic) for almost a century, in Latvian culture it has been only about ten years that prescriptive attitudes have attracted the attention of sociolinguists, and, moreover, have been attributed the term “prescriptivism”. However, the pursuit of language accuracy has always been rather intense in Latvia (and usually associated with national identity issues).

My research has led me to new insights in the theory of prescriptivism (most of them can be found in my doctoral thesis of 2010 and the book subsequently published in 2011). I have offered a new classification of prescriptivism, which includes three main types:

1) Human-oriented prescriptivism is a type of prescriptivism known (and criticised) in Anglophone culture, where language correctness is historically related to a person’s social ‘correctness’ and people have tried to improve their linguistic performance in order to assert or secure their place in the social hierarchy. Antiprescriptivists, drawing on this experience, see linguistic prescriptivism as mainly based on outdated perceptions of social prestige and power.

2) Language-oriented prescriptivism is a type of prescriptivism which attempts to ‘save’ language from alleged degradation, especially if caused by the influence of other languages. It is characteristic of communities which have been dominated by allophone ethnic groups (but have nevertheless successfully retained their language and still use it in all sociolinguistic functions), such as the Latvian community with the historical experience of German and Russian political and linguistic dominance. These communities have often regarded the protection of their language and its correctness and ‘purity’ as a symbol of and inspiration for national self-confidence and political protest. This kind of prescriptivism and purism has sometimes been credited with xenophobia and ethnic intolerance. However, as the evidence suggests, linguistic communities that attribute great importance to language as the basis of national identity, and to language issues in general (including prescriptive and purist care about language correctness), are able to maintain the ethnic controversies within the sphere of language and to avoid physical aggression.

3) Error-oriented prescriptivism is a type of prescriptivism which can coexist in parallel with either of the first two types. It is a tendency to stigmatize and

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eliminate certain ‘popular’ (often encountered and/or criticized), real or imagined language errors. This type of prescriptivism can be observed in many cultures and is sometimes seen by the recipients of the critique as the prescriptivists’ desire to psychologically humiliate other people.

The present article discusses some other aspects of prescriptivism and language correctness as well, such as challenging the popular view in Anglophone linguistics that all forms uttered by native speakers are by definition correct. While this may be true for the English language (where, for the last millennium, there has been no considerable impact on its grammar by the dominating presence of a foreign language), we should probably not assume that in any other linguistic community a form or construction used ungrammatically by non-native speakers and repeated likewise by one or more native speakers automatically becomes correct.

KEY WORDS: linguistic prescriptivism, linguistic dominance, sociolinguistics, language errors.

DACE STRELĒVICA-OŠIŅA

Latvijas Universitate

Latviešu valodas institūts

Akadēmijas laukums 1, 902 ist., Rīga LV-1050

[email protected]

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