Kalbos taisymai ir kalbinis pasitikėjimas: sociolingvistiniai nuostatų tyrimai

L. VAICEKAUSKIENĖ, V. ŠVEŽAITĖ. Language corrections and language confidence: sociolinguistic studies 235 LORETA VAICEKAUSKIENĖ Lietuvių kalbos institutas VAIDA ŠVEŽAITĖ University of Vilnius LANGUAGE CORRECTIONS AND LINGUISTICAL CONFIDENCE: SOCIOLINGUISTICAL STUDIES OF PRESCRIPTIONS INTRODUCTION The article critically analyzes several studies of language attitudes carried out in Lithuania and presents a quantitative study of language confidence carried out in 2009 with respondents with lower (secondary and special) education from three large Lithuanian cities and their surroundings: Vilnius, Kaunas and Šiauliai. The sample of the study was 200 Lithuanian respondents aged 18-60 years, selected on the basis of the so-called snowball or acquaintance-toacquaintance principle: 113 women and 87 men. Most Lithuanian studies on linguistic confidence are based on normative provisions; They investigate how – well or badly – Lithuanian language users value their language. Such studies are usually based on the assumption that the public does not know their mother tongue and therefore have to learn more. They focus on regularity as the main element of the concept of good language. But for ordinary language users, does good language only mean correct language, and can linguistic confidence be determined by knowledge of language rules alone? As far as we know, this question has not been raised in Lithuanian studies. Nor is it asked how linguistic confidence relates to language correction. In Lithuania, the respondents to sociolinguistic studies are mainly selected from the so-called middle class with higher education, as well as often students or pupils. The article presents the lower educational 236 LANGUAGE CULTURE | The survey of 82 nimo1 respondents is distinguished by the fact that there have been very few studies of linguistic attitudes with such respondents in Lithuania, and it is precisely this target group that provides interesting material for comparisons. 1. THEORETICAL BASIS OF STUDIES ON LINGUISTICAL CONFIDENCE The fact that language users’ attitudes towards other languages, different variants of the same language, and their own language are an important source of data, among other things, supplementing studies of language usage and language variants, has been discussed since the late 1960s. Since then, the interest in language users’ attitudes has only grown and the number of studies has increased. The theoretical basis for linguistic self-assessment was provided by William Lavoe's 1966 New York study, which included a study of linguistic confidence. Labov used the so-called index of linguistic insecurity (abbreviated as ILI), i.e. he counted the cases when the informant claimed to use one variant himself, and as “good” the other. From sociolinguistic theory it is known that when investigating indirect methods or observing actual usage, the lower middle class and women from all social strata show the most distrust rodydavo kitą (Labov 1991). Be Labovo taikyto tiesioginio nestruktūrinio interviu ir testo metodo, kalbinis pasitikėjimas ir nuostatos dar tiriamos – these language users are particularly prone to hypernormalisms. At the same time, women, when asked directly, are more likely to declare official, “ideologically correct” positions. Men value their spoken language (sociolect, dialect) more, and this is reportedly reflected in their language usage (phonetics, morphology, lexicon). Men are less inclined to adhere to the school standard (see Pedersen 1998 for more on accommodation of men and women). Sociolinguistic works also discuss the concept of good language. Sociolinguists are extremely critical of language supervision and the ideological attitudes of language supervisors to language norms. In the discourse of language normists, the correctness of language is the main concept, whereas in the view of sociolinguists, language variants are not to be evaluated as “better” or “worse” at all and speakers are not to be classified as “better” or “worse”.1 Recent works of sociolinguistic theory recommend the use of the criterion of duration of education (lower and higher education) to determine social status. L. VAICEKAUSKIENĖ, V. ŠVEŽAITĖ. Language correction and language confidence: sociolinguistic studies 237 can be divided into “good” and “bad”. According to sociolinguists, there are no instruments for measuring the quality of language at all, and therefore such a division is considered a manifestation of the power of certain individuals or institutions over others. There are studies showing that language correction even encourages the public to lose confidence in their own language2 (for normativism see Petersen 2007; for the ideology of prescriptivism see Vaicekauskienė 2008). It is ideological, or symbolic, power, which exists alongside the manifestations of political and economic power, that is used by those who determine what is the norm, the standard, the higher culture, good taste and aesthetic, and what is a deviation from the norm, vulgar, ugly. When such values are adopted by society as a self-evident norm, it is argued that the ideologists have achieved their goals (see Bourdieu 1991; also Sandøy 2004: 20–21). In Lithuanian society, the ideology of language purity and correctness is well known and language users apply it to evaluate their language. As we will see below, the respondents of our sociolinguistic attitudes surveys easily assess their language abilities – both when asked directly, according to a given qualitative scale, and in open qualitative interviews. Unfortunately, it must be acknowledged that the results of Lithuanian research conducted by direct methods may be influenced by official prescriptive provisions. In addition, such research rarely asks what respondents mean when they say "can't speak". 2. CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE RESEARCH IN LITHUANIA In 2006, two relevant researches were carried out on behalf of the Lithuanian Ministry of Education and Science: among other things, the linguistic attitudes of the public were investigated using the method of representative direct structured interviews. The first study focused on the attitudes of students, teachers and the public at large towards language. 2 For example, in the Faroe Islands, where the normativist ideology is particularly strong and the old purist traditions, as it is said, people think that they have a poor command of the Faroese language. According to a survey of secondary school students, 17% of respondents stated that they knew their mother tongue very well, 58.5% said they knew it well, 23% said they knew it averagely and 1.5% said they knew it poorly. According to the researchers, such low self-assessments are due to the fact that language users assess their competence based on the official concept of pure and correct language and compare themselves with the handful of people who speak this language variant. The true Faroese language is not the one spoken by people, but a kind of ideal pure language (Petersen 2007). 238 LANGUAGE CULTURE | 82 teachers from 30 different schools. In addition, a representative survey of 1110 Lithuanians aged 15–74 was conducted. The target group of the second study was higher education students and lecturers: 1200 university and college students (89% of them of Lithuanian nationality) and 414 lecturers were interviewed with a similar questionnaire (see Schools Survey 2006; Higher Education Survey 2006). The three most relevant questions of these researches are: 1) What, in your opinion, is the most important for a modern person who uses the Lithuanian language? ; 2) How do you personally evaluate your Lithuanian language knowledge and skills? ; 3) How important is it for you personally to speak, write and express yourself correctly in Lithuanian [in the given situations]? The answers to the first question show that both the representatives of individual target groups and the public in general consider correctness to be the most important feature of good language. This result cannot be accepted without reservation, because the answers were undoubtedly influenced by the type and formulation of the question: respondents had to select only one of the four answer options, of which the first refers to correctness and the only one mentions the written variant of language: 1. speak and write correctly in Lithuanian; 2. express ideas freely and fluently in a variety of situations on a variety of topics (although not always correctly); 3. speak in a rich and vivid language; 4. Other3. The first option was chosen by 42% of students, 45% of Lithuanian children and the same number of teachers, 50% of lecturers and 55% of teachers. Lithuanians. It is not surprising that regularity was more emphasized by girls and women. More than a third of respondents chose language freedom and fluency as an objective skill. The second question about their own knowledge and skills of Lithuanian language, it seems, was asked only to pupils and students. The target group of young learners rated their language abilities very well: respondents usually chose the answer good, and sometimes very good (see Table 1)4. 3 One could consider how the results would have looked if the answer options had been arranged in a different order and formulated in a different way (e.g., “to speak and write fluently and fluently”; “to express ideas in a vivid and rich language in a variety of situations”, etc.). 4 Interestingly, the results of this study are very similar to those of the Faroe Islands study mentioned above. L. VAICEKAUSKIENĖ, V. ŠVEŽAITĖ. Language correction and language confidence: sociolinguistic studies 239 TABLE 1. Assessing the language skills of students and pupils Very (percent) good (percent) Good (percent) Modera- (percent) te Bad Very bad (percent) mok. stud. mag. stud. mag. stud. mag. stud. mag. stud. Sskaitau 30 51 49 39 19 9 2 0 0 0 Rašau 6 17 44 56 42 24 6 3 2 0 I speak 13 17 57 58 28 23 2 1 0 1 Prepared by L. V. according to: Schools survey 2006; Higher schools survey 2006. The answers show that confidence in their own language also depends on which language competence is assessed: young people rated their reading skills very well (students are naturally better than pupils), slightly worse – speaking and worst – writing (especially pupils, of whom as many as 42% chose the average answer). Such results indicate that confidence in one’s abilities should be related to the practice of language correction: pupils’ language is more controlled than that of students and, probably, especially their written language. This is confirmed by the data of the reported study: more than a third of college students and about half of university students, mostly non-humanities, have not received any comments from lecturers about their speech and have not heard that their fellow students have been corrected. In answering the third question about the need for correct language, respondents, especially girls, standardized that correct language is important in various situations (this question was also asked only to pupils and students). As many as 97% of students chose the answers very important and quite important “to express ideas correctly during lectures”. 91% of pupils of all nationalities (especially those with a high annual average grade in Lithuanian) said that it is very important or quite important to express ideas correctly in Lithuanian language lessons, and 74% of pupils said this about lessons in general. 93% of students and 88% of pupils believe that correct speaking is also important outside the school, in public space (“in communication with employees of various institutions”). Even when talking about private space, family and friends, young people said that it is important to speak and write correctly (the answer “at home” was chosen by 58% of students and 48% of pupils (60% of Lithuanian pupils5); „with overall5 The report does not provide separate data for Lithuanian pupils everywhere; Most often, only the total percentages of all nationalities are given. 240 LANGUAGE CULTURE | 82 as a research method can influence the results: by clearly value orienting the respondent and giving him only one choice, the amžiais“ – 55 proc. studentų ir 58 proc. mokinių; „rašant sms, el. laiškus“6 – atitinkamai 54 proc. ir 56 proc.). Pastarųjų atsakymų paradoksalumas rodo, desired answers are obtained. When evaluating the results of such studies (see a similar study on the motivation of students to speak correctly; Kruopienė 2006) this should be borne in mind7. It can also be mentioned that the researchers were interested in the reasons for the decline of literacy in the society and the factors that negatively affect the Lithuanian language skills of respondents8. Respondents mainly chose two of the specified (standardly normative and negatively connoted) answers: “incorrect language of the media (press, TV, etc.)” and “incorrect language of some Lithuanian politicians, other well-known people”. Most of the time, these two institutions (particularly politicians) were blamed by teachers and lecturers. The attitude of young people was much more neutral, but it is noticeable that the “politically correct” positions, i.e. closer to the official attitude and teachers, were taught by girls and the most advanced students9. I would not like to agree that the language of the media is so incorrect, nor that it can have such a great (negative) effect, as the Ministry of Education’s investigation report suggests. 6 It is interesting to see that both pupils and students formulate this question in parentheses, giving young people the usual English terms for electronic communication: “Write telephone messages (SMS), electronic letters (e-mail)” (original foreign words are not highlighted in italics. – L. V.). 7 The language of the public reports themselves also leaves an ambiguous impression: the questionnaires emphasize the need for correct language everywhere, while the reports contain spelling and language errors. 8 It should be noted that the formulation of these questions was extremely tendentious from a sociolinguistic point of view (and objectively unmeasured): the question asked what are the reasons for the decline in literacy in the society (i.e., literacy is undoubtedly declining), why the Lithuanian language skills of higher school students are not improving (i.e., students who really have poor Lithuanian language skills) and so on. 9 The question of whether the media in general can influence the language of respondents is still unresolved. Although there is evidence that people themselves believe that their language is influenced by television, the traditional view of sociolinguists is that television only influences preconceptions and that many people are mostly influenced by vocabulary or idioms. The system of language itself, phonetics or syntax, it does not affect, unless the viewer makes a conscious effort to learn the common language (Chambers 1998). The effect of language, it is said, is made by people communicating and unconsciously affecting each other. On the other hand, recent data from the last decade, especially on mobile youth communities, suggest that some language traits may be acquired not only from acquaintances, but also from screen “stars”. There is no reliable data to study this problem better, so we do not have a clear answer yet. L. VAICEKAUSKIENĖ, V. ŠVEŽAITĖ. Language correction and linguistic confidence: sociolinguistic studies 241 do not consider language completely incorrect. When considering the results of the Language Inspection’s 100 journals and the listų apklausos duomenimis, dauguma teigė darantys atsitiktinių klaidų, tačiau kad kalba taisyklingai, tepasakė 8 respondentai. Vertinant šio tyrimo confidence of journalists in their own language, one must bear in mind the asymmetrical distribution of power: the questioner was the controlling body that monitors the language of the respondents and has the right to punish them. When asked how often they receive comments from the Language Inspectorate, as many as 67 respondents answered that they do so “fairly often” (see the Journalists’ Survey)10. On the other hand, not always and not all the speech of journalists and politicians is considered only a bad example. In a small study on elite language, 43 lecturers, students and gymnasium teachers of Šiauliai University mentioned politicians and journalists as well as writers and cultural figures who should be considered as the standard of language, and in addition to regularity as a mandatory feature of elite language, they also listed logic, stylistics, visuality, originality, ethics and other requirements (Župerka 2005). As will be seen below, the survey of respondents with lower educational backgrounds yields similar results. In general, although studies of spoken Lithuanian often focus too much on correctness, the communicative and ethical aspects must be raised alongside the normative aspect, especially when evaluating (and justifying!) various media language variants (cf. Koženiauskienė 2001). The attitudes of television and radio journalists were examined in another study of the attitudes of the spoken media to public language standards, norms and language policy. In 2009, 24 well-known journalists and TV hosts in Lithuania and Latvia were interviewed using the qualitative structured interview method11. Although the method of face-to-face interviewing only provides data on official standards, the qualitative interview still allows to reveal the content of those standards. In terms of questions and theoretical assumptions, this study is closest to the study of respondents with lower education discussed in the article. Its data are still being analyzed, but the preliminary results are used in the interpretation of the data obtained in the following article. It can be mentioned that during the interviews Lithuanian journalists listed many different good language 10 The survey report published on the website of the Language Inspectorate does not indicate in which year the survey was conducted. It should also be noted that there are some inaccuracies in the report's presentation of figures. 11 The project was carried out by the Lithuanian Language Institute and was called Baltic Sociolinguistics (BalSoc): Linguistic Self-Awareness of the Society in Lithuania and Latvia. It was supported by the Lithuanian Science and Studies Foundation. The project partners are the universities of Latvia and Liepaja. The study presented in this article was used as a pilot study of BalSoc. 242 LANGUAGE CULTURE | 82 traits (visuality, richness, fluidity, interestingness, liveliness, spontaneity, humor, clarity, logicalness, sonority, ethicalness, clarity, etc.). As one of the features, but not the main and not the only one, they mentioned regularity. Interestingly, when asked to assess their own linguistic competence, the vast majority of them did not apply the expressed concept of good language and based their assessment only on correctness, as if they should write a school certificate for themselves for how they have learned the rules and norms of language (see Petersen 2007). Most of them rated their language skills as good and average. This shows that journalists, on the one hand, think about language and can express their opinions as professionals, and on the other hand, feel (and experience) considerable pressure from the prescriptive Lithuanian language policy, which does not allow them to fully trust their linguistic abilities. From the official attitude and the self-assessment of the journalists, it can be concluded that their correctors – the authorities with official powers to punish, whose journalists claimed to be being monitored – rely on the so-called language deficit, or missing language. Media professionals with higher education and long-term work experience rated their language competence lower than the pupils and students surveyed in the Ministry of Education’s study and, as will be seen below, lower than respondents with lower education. The study of lower-educated respondents presented in the following article is carried out using the traditional quantitative survey method and, of course, also reveals official assumptions, but the social affiliation of respondents to the less educated stratum allows us to expect less standardization than in the case of the middle class, and the possibility to choose several of the given answer options – greater variety of answers. 3. RESPONDENTS WITH LOWER EDUCATION RESULTS OF THE STUDY In preparing the questionnaire, two pilot interviews were carried out: they allowed to refine the questions and prepare the options of answers to the questions. For example, during the pilot interviews, respondents most often mentioned that their speech was corrected by teachers, parents, friends, so these are the optional answers included in the questionnaire. It turned out that respondents had difficulty formulating what was corrected in their speech. This issue proved to be the most difficult. For example, one respondent's repli- L. VAICEKAUSKIENĖ, V. ŠVEŽAITĖ. Language corrections and language confidence: sociolinguistic studies 243 The problem was this: I don’t know what the scientific name is, but, say, instead of “face” I say “snout”. Therefore, it was decided to present several optional options (pronunciation, dictionary, other) that emerged during the interviews. The pilot interviews also showed that respondents distinguish between writing and speaking skills when talking about their language skills. The questionnaire asks you to assess written and spoken language separately. Below, the article discusses some of the questions of the survey and summarises the answers of the respondents. 3.1. Your own language competence (writing and speaking skills) Assessment Respondents were asked to assess their language (question How do you assess your language, compared to other people in Lithuania?). Asked to separately assess the writing and speaking skills, choosing one of the given options: excellent; well; moderately; poorly; very bad. The answers show that respondents are very confident in their language – both in writing and especially in speaking competence. Writing skills were rated as excellent and very good by 81% of respondents (18% and 63% respectively); on average, 17 per cent rated their writing, poorly – 2 per cent, and the option very bad – none chose. 87% of respondents rated their speaking skills as excellent or very good (11% and 76% respectively); 13% marked the answer option – moderate, and no one marked it as poor or very poor. The answers were almost identical for both sexes, but women rated their writing skills slightly better than men (27% and 58% of women chose excellent and good answers, respectively – a total of 85%; and 7% and 70% of men – a total of 77%). On the other hand, men rated their speaking skills slightly better than women (12% and 72% of women, respectively, chose the answers I speak perfectly and well – a total of 84%; and 9% and 83% of men – a total of 92%). Such responses of the male respondents of the oral survey confirm the facts known to sociolinguists, and the higher evaluation of their writing skills by women could be interpreted as a standard response, showing their tendency to attribute to themselves the competence that is officially more valued. In fact, the written Lithuanian language is more standardized and is given more attention in school (see the aforementioned studies of the Ministry of Education, where the writing competence was also assessed worse, and standardized provisions were particularly typical of women, female students and the most advanced students) (Schools Survey 2006; Higher Education Survey 2006). 250 LANGUAGE CULTURE | 82 The practice is rather restrictive: instead of encouraging the language user’s pride and confidence in the power of the mother tongue, it reduces it. This conclusion is supported by the comparison of the results of the study with those of pupils, students and – especially – Lithuanian television and radio journalists. Media professionals with long-term work experience rated their language competence the lowest. This allows us to say that the pressure of the prescriptive norm in areas of language use where the correctness requirement applies directly and where it is implemented through correction practice (in school, in the media) leads to lower self-esteem and less confidence in one’s language abilities. The respondents of the study discussed in the article, people with lower education, are a specific target group. Their educational duration is not long and the practice of normative corrections applied to them is probably limited to school in the past. In addition, unlike public speakers, for whom language is a work tool, they have to speak in an official setting much less often. It is assumed that respondents most likely valued their usual private or limited public language, which is not subject to the requirements of the prescriptive norm. Good language respondents tend to consider fluent, free language, to which the requirement of regularity may apply, but is not necessary. This suggests that the higher linguistic confidence of respondents with lower education is also determined by their perception of what is a good language. LITERATŪRA Aukštųjų mokyklų tyrimas 2006 – Lietuvių kalbos vartojimas aukštosiose mokyklose. Tyrimo ataskaita Lietuvos Respublikos Švietimo ir mokslo ministerijai, Universitetinių studijų skyriui. – Prieiga per internetą: http://www.smm.lt/ svietimo_bukle/docs/tyrimai/ataskaita_liet_aukst.pdf (žiūrėta 2009 08 24). Bourdie u P. 1991: Language and symbolic power. Ed. John B. Thompson. Polity Press. Chamber s J. K. 1998: Myth 15. TV Makes People Sound the Same. – Language Myths. L. Bauer, P. Trudgill (ed.). Penguin. Koženiauskienė R. 2001: Žiniasklaidos retorika ir elitinė kalba. – Kalbos kultūra 74, 74–81. Kr uopienė I. 2006: Taisyklingos kalbos vartosena studentų akimis. – Žmogus ir žodis 1, 74–79. Labov W. 1991: Sociolinguistic patterns, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Mokyklų tyrimas 2006 – Lietuvių kalbos (gimtosios ir valstybinės) ugdymo organizavimas bendrojo lavinimo mokyklose. Tyrimo ataskaita Švietimo ir mokslo L.VAICEKAUSKIENĖ, V. ŠVEŽAITĖ. Kalbos taisymai ir kalbinis pasitikėjimas: sociolingvistiniai tyrimai 251 ministerijai. – Prieiga per internetą: http://www.smm.lt/svietimo_bukle/ docs/tyrimai/galutine_lietuviu_klb_ugdymo_org.pdf (žiūrėta 2009 08 24). Peder sen I. L. 1998: Livsformer og sprogformer i forandringens tegn. – M. Reinhammar (red.), Nordiske dialektstudier. Föredrag vid Femte nordiska dialektologkonferencen Sigtuna 17 –21 augusti 1994. Uppsala, 223–232. Peter sen P. H. 2007: Sprog og identitet på Færøerne. Et spørgsmål om ord. – Språk og identitet, 26. Sandøy H. 2004: Språkstyring og språkendring i Noreg. Politikk eller kulturelt hegemoni? – Prieiga per internetą: http://www.sprakrad.no/upload/ sandoy.pdf (žiūrėta 2009 06 02). Vaiceka uskienė L. 2008: Preskriptyvumas ir deskriptyvumas (skolinių) norminimo politikoje. – Darbai ir dienos 50, 31–41. Župerka K. 2005: Elitinė kalba ir jos atstovai. – Parlamento studijos 4. Žurnalistų tyrimas – Radijo ir televizijos žurnalistų apklausa. Atliko Valstybinė kalbos inspekcija. – Prieiga per internetą: http://vki.lrs.lt/doc/tv_anketa.pdf (žiūrėta 2009 07 14). Gauta 2009 11 13 LANGUAGE ERRORS AND LINGUISTIC SELF-CONFIDENCE: A SOCIOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH INTO LINGUISTIC ATTITUDES Summary The paper introduces the results of research conducted in 2009 and based on questionnaires collected from 200 respondents of lower than higher education (secondary and specialised) in the age group of 18-60 years. The respondents were from three major cities of Lithuania and their neighbourhood: Vilnius, Kaunas and Šiauliai. The investigation was aimed at identifying how the concept of well-formed language and how correcting language errors influenced the respondents’ linguistic self-confidence. Differently from traditional studies focusing on the norm, the present investigation presupposes that for ordinary language users, well-formed language is not confined to grammatically correct language and that linguistic selfconfidence should be determined by other factors not limited to the knowledge of language rules. The results of the investigation have shown that the representatives of the above social group give a fairly high evaluation to their own language skills, especially speaking, and a well-formed language for them is fluent, free language which 252 TALBOS KULTŪRA | 82 might be grammatically acceptable but could also be ungrammatical. At the same time, it can be seen that linguistic self-confidence might be reduced by language errors which are corrected: the respondents whose language was corrected in situations with an asymmetric distribution of power (e.g. the corrections were made by teachers), expressed less positive attitudes towards their own skills. The conclusion is supported by preliminary data obtained from television and radio journalists of Lithuania. LORETA VAICEKAUSKIENĖ Lietuvių kalbos institutas P. Vileišio g. 5, LT-10308 Vilnius, Lithuania [email protected]