3.4.2 |
THE VALUES OF LINGUISTIC SYSTEMS |
When we speak about cultural norms as we have done until now, we are
primarily interested in what people using a particular language ought to
do in the light of these norms (even
tho this does not tell us anything about
what they ought to do in the light of an independent ontological norm).
We have, then, already presupposed a system of one or more values, or a
theory of value.
Communication itself may be regarded as such a value but — as noted
before — almost never as an ultimate value.
Also sheer conservatism is a de facto value in linguistic affairs, whether
one likes to accept it personally or not.
Conservatism is often recognized as an orthographic principle, if it
rests on a word's etymology.
Such a principle is relative, however, since
it not seldom depends on how far back in history one is willing
to go and to disregard the neglect of etymology people in
former times displayed themselves. For example, the words
kategori(e), kritikal and kub(e) thus spelled
would be 'more etymological' than the variants with a c (and
y), and so are all words with -iz- instead of -is-
(as in neutralize and neutralization).
Beauty too is a de facto value in matters of language, but
esthetical reasons to pronounce or spell a word in one way
rather than another can never be advanced to justify a particular
official or standard linguistic variant.
On the contrary, love of beauty is an argument against any and every form
of artificially institutionalizing language, unless there exists something
like a communal or national taste.
However, if a whole language community really had the same taste and
convictions, uniformity would come naturally, that is, automatically, and
would not have to be enforced by dint of institutionalized systems.
Yet, keeping together the different parts of a linguistic or
national community has been mentioned as the key value of
institutionalized language.
This view is generally connected with the belief that a unitary language
(especially a unitary spelling, if not a unitary pronunciation as well)
is a practical necessity to enable the smoothest possible communication
between the writer or speaker and
'er contemporary readers or
listeners. Even if this were true tho, it would not
determine which variant should be the standard one, and the
proponents of unitary language have never, or rarely, based their
choice of a particular variant as
the unitary language on the criterions for the easiest way to
learn and understand that language (for example, the easiest way
to pronounce and/or spell it).
The values of the proponents of an artificially imposed unitary language
are not really the values of language as a technically adequate
communication system but usually (or always?) the values of the unitary
state, if not the values of elitism and a status quo ideology.
Insofar as language is a purely communicative device, conventions suffice
— as we have seen — to solve coordination problems, and it is
by no means necessary to formulate these conventions and to promulgate
them.
(This is not to say, of course, that it may not be convenient to come to
explicit agreements with respect to actually recurring communication
problems, for example, when in a speech community with a
great internal variation the groups farthest removed from each
other cannot understand one another any longer.) The belief
that an entirely uniform linguistic system would have to be
decreed rests on the misconception that every deviant sort of
usage would have to be excluded in general. And it also rests on
the exploded idea that communication problems could solely be
solved by means of verbal, explicit agreements. If language
were really that rigid, the 'normal' change of linguistic norms
(semantic change, for instance) would never be possible.
The norm of good communication — it has been argued — does
require of the speaker and writer that
'e violate lower-level
linguistic norms in a creative way when necessary, and it does
require of the listener and reader that 'e show the necessary
tolerance and cooperation when interpreting the information
received. Remarkable in this view is, again, that tolerance
is stressed as a value not from an ethical but from a linguistic
vantage point.
Even if there were no officially decreed or institutionalized
language, this would not mean that everything would be possible, with a
confusion of tongues as the chaotic outcome. For everyone who wants to
successfully forward or exchange information will have to
recognize (at least implicitly) a definite core of conventions
common with the group 'er information is aimed at; otherwise 'e
will simply not be understood, or otherwise people will not take
the trouble to try. Now, conventions only exist because of the
consistence of acting. Hence, it is the consistence of acting
which is the central value of language and of thought. (Altho
it may not be the de facto value of a particular linguistic
variant.) 'Inconsistent' acting must, then, not result from a
lack of principle but at most from a conflict between different
principles or rules, when a choice must be made one way or the
other.
Since not one linguistic principle or rule is the only true
one, the systematic application of several principles or rules
will probably lead to the emergence of nonuniform, but closely
related, linguistic systems, products of the spontaneous growth
of one language (called "cluster of languages" in another,
technical sense). Thus, on the basis of the phonematic principle
one spells -or (as in labor) and -er (as in
center), altho the spelling -our (labour) and
-re (centre) may be preferred on the basis of the
etymological principle. (It should be superfluous to note that the
writer's nationality or ethnicity is irrelevant in this respect.) Due to
an emphasis on different principles one may accordingly conceive of the
emergence of a more phonematic spelling system besides a more
traditional, etymological one in the language which is our
present means of communication (and in other languages using the
same or a similar script also of the emergence of a more
phonematic system besides a more morphematic one).
The conventionality of each orthographical or other
linguistic system which is actually used on a smaller or larger
scale (perhaps on a universal scale) does, and need, not depend
on a decree in which an exclusive status is rendered to only one
linguistic system or variant thereof. It should solely depend on
the common interest which two or more, independent persons take
in the exchange of their thoughts and feelings by means of the
spoken and written word. If they do not leave the communicative
core of the language in question, and if they systematically
apply its intrinsic rules, then their spoken word is correctly
pronounced, and then their written word is correctly spelled.
In
the books of this Model we will take
cognizance of the fact that the language which is our present means of
communication has a great many lexical, semantical, pronunciational and
orthographical variants. Where there are two or more options open to us,
but where it would be inconsistent to employ more than one variant, the
most regular (or least irregular) and the most phonetic (or least
unphonetic) variant is employed, regardless of its being perhaps
traditionally more frequently used in one country or region of the world
than in another. For example, catenas, criterions
and millenniums are chosen instead of catenae, criteria
and millennia, and thru, tho, fulfil and
practise instead of through, though, fulfill
and practice. In no way does this imply that other variants would be
incorrect. If they are in actual use by a sufficient number of speakers or
writers, it can only be inconsistent usage which is incorrect.
