Language Myths Summary and Reviews

Language Myths

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Book Summary Information

Editor: Laurie Bauer
Editor: Peter Trudgill
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-09-07
ISBN: 0140260234
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)

Book Reviews of Language Myths

Book Review: "Language Myths" is an apt title for this book
Summary: 1 Stars

I was made to read this book in my undergraduate days and I am writing this review from memory as I hated the book so much that I have put it away in a safe place so that its memory may come back and haunt me one day.

Many linguists have a lazy approach towards language learning and language change, and this book clearly reflects that. It forces the politically correct (but as yet unprovable, and hence unscientific) message that all languages are equal in all respects down the reader's throat. Even if languages at some level do seem to be equal in functionality, how exactly they are equal is difficult to articulate. So what these experts do is to bludgeon the reader over the head repeatedly with these so-called "truths", until the reader accepts them out of exasperation.

I take particular issue with the first essay, where the author says it is perfectly acceptable to use English any way you like as long as it is understood. Of course, this begs the question, since, if you don't use a language according to accepted patterns of usage in the first place, you can't expect others to understand you. And even if it were the case that you could expect to be understood, languages have rules, and people can follow the rules, or break them, to make a point. The author can hope to be put out of a job some time soon if there are no linguistic rules left for him to describe.

Next, he gives the exmaple of a person who says "Are you inferring I'm stupid?" to mean "Are you implying I'm stupid?" and says that when the person says A, we can take it that he means B. Now this is not entirely true, because one may both INFER (in thought) and IMPLY (through our actions) that someone is stupid. So A does not equal B and it is possible for the reader to misunderstand the speaker. Sometimes a language has different words or grammatical structures for a reason, and these words don't exist simply to confuse or dismay second language learners.

One article I did like because it didn't attempt to bite off more than it could chew was the one on how actual studies (yes, actual studies) have shown that in mixed-gender social settings, women don't actually talk as much as men, and that the age-old wisdom about women talking too much might actually be misguided.

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