Blog Post 11 April 10

It is interesting that language ideology and policies are what keep the English language in order. Well, kind of. This doesn’t amount for the slang that is used, especially with native English speakers who are constantly making up words to describe things. For example, people use the word “flame” to describe something that is awesome; it has nothing to do with fire. “Language policy itself is comprised not only of ‘the explicit, written, overt, de jure, official and ‘top-down’ decision-making about language, but also the implicit, unwritten, covert, de facto, grass-roots and unofficial ideas and assumptions’ about language in a particular culture (Schiffman 2006:11), or linguistic culture.” I like the part in this quote where it talks about the unwritten ideas or rules that the language policy has. There are so many unwritten rules that I feel like English Language Learners would not know about when first coming into learning the language. There are so many exceptions to the rule when learning English and this can confuse those when they are learning a secondary language. As I am writing this I am thinking to myself “What really are the exceptions to the rule?” So I used Google to search some. I did not realize until looking at sites, especially one titled “10 Reasons Why English Is a Hard Language”, how many different rules there are because English is my native language. For example, they were stating the phrases “a cute little puppy” and “a little cute puppy” means the same thing, but English speakers are more likely to use the first phrase because the second one just doesn’t sound right.

I think that monolingualism and language standardization could have the ability to destroy the difference through language and culture throughout the world. I am wondering what would happen if everyone spoke the same language. I know personally that my mom has been pushing me to “find some guy to marry that has an accent, preferably Australian or English” so that she can listen to him talk because she thinks these people speak is beautiful. But mono means one, and put that together with linguialism and that means just one universal language. Would this mean that all other languages would be completely lost along with the culture? Would pasta still be known as Italian food and would they still take siestas in Spain if we all had the same language? Culture and language are tied into together as one. “Ideal language was autonomous, stripped of indexical connections to ‘social locations and situated interests’ (Bauman and Briggs 2003:300), and thus contributed to universal rationality and social order.” I think having a monolinguistic language is an awful idea and would strip countries from their culture. I feel like each culture has worked hard to make them what they are today and changing languages would not be realistic. I think the “English Only” debate wasn’t up to par. When adding a language or subtracting a language from an individual, this can affect them personally through their identity, whether it is cultural, social or otherwise. It may seem easier for the United States to make one language in order to make people feel more comfortable around each other but not everyone speak English and I know there are some people who are too stubborn to learn English in the first place.