I was just reading a post on LinguLangu which discusses the “Grammar-Translation” method of language teaching. It’s an interesting methodology, and not all bad (from what I’ve seen), but a particular tenet of the method described jumped up and bit me. (Keep in mind that this isn’t the feelings of the author of the original post, just a description of a mindset)

Literary language is superior to the spoken language. Student’s studies are limited with target language’s fine arts and literature.

Now, you must realize that saying “language X is better than language Y” is a truly heinous offense to me, and every time somebody says something like it, an angel’s lexicon loses a word.

No languages are better, “more complete”, “less complex”, or otherwise elevated above any other languages. Hold on, I’ll say that again. No languages are better, “more complete”, “less complex”, or otherwise elevated above any other languages.

Seriously. For a language to be used by a native speaker, it literally MUST be complete, in such a way that anything which needs to be expressed, can be expressed through some means. Even in the case of a pidgin (a newly-formed language created from elements of two or more other languages), when the first group of children are raised speaking only that language, they will fill in any holes in the grammar and make the language so it’s able to express anything one would need to. When a person is raised speaking a language, dialect, or sociolect, you can nearly guarantee that they’re speaking a fully functional language/dialect/sociolect.

Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t differences between the languages, and that some languages might not be easier in some areas. For instance, Russian has a nice, simple writing system, which is nearly phonetic (every letter represents the same sound, every time), but it has a very complex system of marking aspect (completion of an action). Similarly, Nuuchahnulth (Nootka) has a very nice way of ordering words and particles (morphemes) in a sentence, but the sound system is, to this English speaker, incredibly difficult and complex. Similarly, a language of South America might have more efficient words for describing rain, whereas another language might be more adept at snow description. However, different doesn’t mean anything is necessarily any better or worse.

So, this brings me to my final point: When people say nasty things about a language or dialect, they’re really saying nasty things about the people who use it. Mind you, I’m not talking about “language X has a complex sound system”, I’m talking about “language X is inferior to language Y”. No linguist worth his or her salt will ever tell you that a given language or dialect is “better” or “worse” than any other. That’s a social judgment, and it has nothing to do with the actual language or dialect. It really only shows the feelings of the speaker about the language’s users, and generally, it’s pseudo-intellectual snobbery.

Remember, any time you hear somebody disrespecting a language or dialect, it’s one of two things. Either the person talking really doesn’t know what they’re talking about, or they’re knocking the language because they’re not willing to knock the people who speak it. Sometimes it’s both. Either way, at that point, it’s best to drop the Linguistics knowledge, put away the reference grammar, and grab yourself a raincoat, because although it might sound like actual intellectual discussion, they’re really just throwing mud on the playground.

I have an instant messaging (IM) problem. I’m always on AIM or Yahoo Messenger, and pretty frequently, I’ve got a few different “conversations” going at once. It’s a great method of communication, but there are a few difficulties inherent to the medium. Perhaps the most frequently exploited difficulty (at least, among the young and drama-prone) is the fact that you never can be 100% sure that the person talking to you is who they say they are. However, there’s one, frequently overlooked means of partially overcoming this trouble.

E-Dentity Theft

First, let’s introduce some terms, this time, from Cryptography. In cryptography examples, they frequently use a short list of recurring characters. Alice and Bob are two people trying to communicate a secret message with one another. Alice wants the message to get to Bob and only Bob. Eve is a third party, trying to break into their communications and read that message (A truly great cartoon involving Eve). So, for our examples here, Bob will be trying to get in touch with Alice, and Eve will be trying to get information from them.

Every messenger service has some safeguards (usually passwords) to try and make sure that unauthorized people don’t get on your account. This will keep Eve from signing on at her home computer and pretending to be Alice. However, once Eve has physical access to Alice’s machine, this breaks down. If Alice runs down the hall to use the restroom, closing her existing conversation, Eve can sit down and start a conversation with Bob. At this point, Bob is completely vulnerable, as he still thinks he’s talking to Alice, and will share information as such. There might be a warning sign, though.

E-Diolect

Some while back, I discussed the idea of Idiolect, or the patterns of usage, meaning, and sound that are specific not just to a group, but to a single individual. In spoken language, this might be expressed by specific turns of phrase (for instance, I’ll say “w00t” in conversation) and sound changes (I usually put a slight hint of “L” in the words “walk” and “talk”).

However, people tend to have an online idiolect (I prefer E-Diolect) as well. In email, some people tend to include a full “Hello Alice” at the start of every email, and end with a “Love, Bob”. Others will just type out the message with no formalities at all. Similarly, when quoting a message, some will split the quote with their responses, and others will just respond at the top, and leave the quote at the bottom.

Over Instant Messager services, the E-Diolect really shows up nicely, and tends to express itself in many different ways:

1. Emoticons (”Smilies”): Does the person use them at all? If so, which ones? It’s rare that people will use all the different ones available, and most people stick to a comparatively small set. That set can be used to identify them. Also, do they make the smilies using an “=” or a “:” [”=)” or “:)”]?
2. Capitalization: I capitalize pretty obsessively in IM, whereas other people will never hit the shift key. Some are a mix, capitalizing “I” and some names, but never the first letter of a new thought/sentence. aLsO, sOmE pEoPlE are prone to varying their capitalization.
3. Contractions: sum ppl r rly obsessd wit makin cntractns on im. wut bout ur friendz? (Some people will use only specific ones (like “brb” (be right back) or “ppl” (people).
4. 1337-5p34k: Pronounced “Leet Speak”, a sociolect in which people replace certain l3tt3r5 with numb3r5, among other changes. (Check out the 1337 translator)
5. Line break habits: Some people put line breaks/between every/other word, just/hitting return as/they go/writing in a/stream of/consciousness. Others prefer long messages.
6. Correction: When somebody sends a typo in IM, do they correct it? If so, how? Do they just retype the word? Do they usually put a *star in front of it?
7. Actions: When expressing taking an action via IM, some people will *put it in stars*, others use IRC markup (/me writes a post), and some even ~*~get creative~*~.
8. Punctuation: Few people use periods (.) in IM, but question marks and commas aren’t uncommon, everybody has their habits.

Applied E-Diolect Studies

So, Eve is on Alice’s computer. Bob gets a message:

cryptogeekalice: hey bob, wut did u get eve 4 xmas

cryptogeekalice: i want 2 know so i dun g3t her teh same thing ;P

If Bob paid attention, he’d quickly notice that Alice capitalizes, hates contractions, never uses any smilies but :) and :D, and uses Question marks. He’d smell a rat, and likely withhold any information about Santa-related activities.

However, it’s not always that easy. Eve might know Alice’s style too, and try and make some adaptations. However, it takes a lot of observation and skill to mimic somebody online in all of the above factors, while still maintaining a natural, conversationally believable tone. Finally, Eve will have to mimic Alice’s communicative style, making sure not to use her own catchphrases, conversational norms, and other such things.

The last words

Bob and Alice are never really safe. With enough research, observation, and planning, Eve will be able to imitate either of them, and it would be very difficult to detect without a webcam or some biometric device. However, a little observation and awareness of E-Diolect goes a long way towards discouraging Eve and people like her from engaging in a little bit of E-Dentity Theft.

Readers, I cannot tell a lie. It was I who cut down that cherry tree.

What did the above statement mean to you? Some people might see it as a sort of confession, my confessing to an act that you might not have been aware of, but without much in the way of context. However, for the readers versed in American history and mythology, that statement likely evoked the words of George Washington, declaring to his father that he chopped down a cherry tree and being a shining pillar of honesty in the process. So, perhaps the question for them was twofold: Why is he talking about this, and why is he pretending to be George Washington?

Well, not to disappoint, but I’ve never cut down a cherry tree, and, considering that the statement was false, I apparently can tell a lie. However, I can prove a point with it as well. For those who were familiar with George Washington’s quotation, that statement had an entirely different meaning than for those of you who missed the reference. At least a part of the meaning in that statement was dependent on your knowing something about the background behind my word choice.

Now, imagine you walk up to a coworker, relieved at the successful conclusion of a long, drawn out project. Smiling, you enthusiastically proclaim “It’s over!!” He stares at you for a second, and promptly breaks into tears and runs off to the men’s room. You just stand, mortified, unsure what you said or did to get such a reaction, until later, he comes back, still teary eyed, and explains that only a week ago, his now ex-wife had used those same words as she presented him with unexpected divorce papers, and that your using the unintentionally called back on that. He explains that he too is happy that the project is over, and apologizes for the breakdown.

There’s really nobody at fault here, this was just an unfortunate usage of a phrase which had a different meaning to each party in the communication. This is also a very extreme example, but still, it emphasizes the fact that meaning and connotation of words can be very individual, even on top of the widely agreed “definition” among speakers.

When you walk up to a person on the street and mention the term “dog”, their interpretation will be very different depending on their life experiences. Whereas one person with a phobia might get apprehensive, a veterinarian might smile or show concern, another person might think of Sparky, their childhood pet, and a dog breeder might start picturing a specific breed or characteristic. It’s unlikely that somebody would think of one characteristic or image to the point where they wouldn’t get the reference to a generic domesticated canine, but it’s also very unlikely that a person would only see a generic, faceless, breedless dog with no connotation.

I’m sure there are some voices in semantic theory that would disagree (and they’re welcome to comment or email me to let me post their opinion), but often, the “meaning” of a word for every individual person is the sum of their past experiences with that word and what it might have symbolized. If a child got bitten by a dog, the word “dog” might have a terrible connotation the week after, but if they were to go on to work at an animal hospital, that connotation might be replaced or altered.

One could pretend that all words have a nice, easy, abstract meaning, found in the dictionary and independent of the people using it. However, in practice, every word has both a general meaning, shared by most speakers of the language, and then a more individual shade of meaning, unique to their experiences. Knowing the context, both in which you’ll use a word, and in which the listener will hear it, is vital to understanding what to say, when.

This is easier said than done, of course, because you can very seldom get in the head of your listener to know just what a given word means to them. However, it’s always worth keeping in mind, because once you do, saying “I am glad for the successful completion of our newest project” to your newly divorced co-worker doesn’t sound nearly as awkward, does it?