Language in the world: properties and powers
Different views of language = different discourses?
At another point in the history of events we have been outlining, an attack on what was seen as the abandonment by educators of standard English was published by Honey as The Language Trap (1983). Grad dol and Swann (1988) provide an account of the debate which followed, examining details of some correspondence between Honey and the linguist Crystal, as well as press coverage of the debate and allegations on both sides that participants' positions had been mis represented. Graddol and Swann suggest in their article that the populist interpretations of the issues, as represented in the press, are part of one kind of discourse, while linguists' accounts are associated with another. These discourses are then in competition as language education becomes embroiled in a wider political debate. Crowley (1991: 10-11) suggests similarly that it is important to identify and challenge the 'discourse of "proper English" which holds that there is ... a given, settled and inflexible cultural identity in which language has a crucial determining role'. It is the aim of his collection of writings about 'proper English', he says, 'to demonstrate the ways in which the "fiction" of "true", "real", "proper" English has been constructed'.
As will be clear from what has gone before, we do not think that 'competing discourses' constitute an explanation, and indeed in the discussions to which linguists have themselves contributed there is usually a recognition of the need to distinguish between 'fact' and 'opinion'. For example, Wardhaugh (1999) observes in a discussion of the traditional grammar books which are often consulted as arbiters of 'correct' English: 'In every other serious discipline the practitioners respect their data. Only in language study do many of those who seek to influence others turn their backs on data in favor of opinion' (p.129). Cameron (1995) brings a further dimension to understanding the difference between 'lay' accounts of language and linguists' accounts. With reference to a range of closely analyzed case studies, she demonstrates that, although there are discursive differences in what non-linguists and linguists say about language, the issue is not simply about differing discourses.
it produces discourse in which opinions - not to say prejudices - do not merely substitute for facts, but are triumphantly paraded as somehow superior to facts; discourse in which it seems that what linguists know about language can simply be dismissed, because linguists do not care about language. (p.xii)
'The state of the language', she says, is a concern shared by a wide range of people, and Graddol and Swann identify a similar disjuncture in their analysis of the Honey controversy, where press debate suggests that the 'commonsense' approach is highly valued, while specialist knowledge is represented as irrelevant obfuscation. 'Very many language-users', says Cameron,
hold passionate convictions about what is right in language, and conversely about what is wrong with it. Unfortunately, the strength of passion with which verbal hygienists express their views and pursue their goals is not often matched by the strength of their arguments. (Cameron 1995: 236)
From all these accounts, a problem that emerges is the contrast between the linguists' concern with facts, evidence and objectivity and lay actors' concerns about attitudes, values and opinions. Our own approach to understanding this contrast offers a somewhat different perspective from that which sees it as mere variation in the description of language, expressed in different discourses.
