language, ideology and discrimination in the united states
At Language Log Mark Liberman writes now and then on the subject of public griping about language as a ritual of group identity formation (“The social psychology of linguistic naming and shaming“): Linguistic sins, real or imaginary, are not really what’s driving this process. And the original emotion of irritation, though sometimes expressed in colorful [...]
Tue, October 18 2011 » broadcast media, Claiming authority, The subordination process » No Comments
Anthropology News has launched a Language and Culture column, an early example of which is For Ebonics, the New Milennium is Pretty Much like the Old One (Ronald Kephart, 22 September 2011). Kephart describes his experiences giving a television interview on the DEA’s controversial advertisement for “Ebonics translators.” After the news report appeared online about [...]
Sat, October 15 2011 » African American Language (AAE), broadcast media, Language ideology » No Comments
Arnold Zwicky has a recent post at Language Log on periphrastic versus inflectional comparatives and superlatives (commoner vs most common is the example that inspired the post to start with). For me the most interesting bit comes toward the end, with a good example of how the media claims authority in matters of language: Back [...]
Wed, December 2 2009 » broadcast media, Claiming authority » No Comments
One new section of EWA will be a comparison on how the news media handled two very different political events. The first is the speech the Howard Dean gave after his first primary (often referred to as ‘the Dean Scream’), and the second is Sarah Palin’s variety of American English. In the course of this [...]
Wed, December 2 2009 » broadcast media, Elections, Looking for information, Politicians » No Comments
