We Hit Peak 2019

[Dill]

(12-21-2019, 01:47 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: So your take is that double negatives being poor grammar isn't a universal rule, it is just a way in which power is exercised in the US?

Definitely not a "universal rule"--except as qualified in my post.

Double negatives would indeed be a deviation from what I called the standard dialect. But it is not standard because it is somehow, in some transcendently universal sense, correct.  It is standard because those who spoke it in 19th century America had the power to position it as the standard in schools and universities. Once they said no double negatives or "ain'ts," the speech of millions of other Americans became defective.

And yes, the policing or otherwise standardizing of dominant dialects is one way power is exercised in modern nations. That is true in every nation which selects a dialect to be taught in its schools as the "correct" one.  Check out Fred's story about his struggle to repress linguistic aspects of his cultural heritage. He is describing how he negotiated the power differential between his and the dominant culture.

So far in this discussion, my use of the term "power" has been neutral. It is not possible for a modern Western nation to function without at least one dominant dialect, sanctioned in schools. So I am not arguing bad whitey needs to stop with the red pen and let everyone have his own personal dialect.

I am arguing, though, that people should recognize how power is exercised through language, and not mystify power relations with talk of some universal correctness--which just happens to coincide with speech of an economically and politically dominant ethnic group.