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The “Linguistic” Theory of Usage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

R. J. Baker
R. J. Baker*
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
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Extract

The battle between the new grammarians or linguists and the school grammarians has been won decisively by the linguists. In academic journals defenses of notional grammar are rare and new work based on notional categories almost non-existent. The struggles continues in pedagogical journal and in the schools, but there are signs that the new grammar is gaining ground. No such comments can be made about the battle over the various doctrines of usage. Since what is taken to be the “linguists’” view of usage frequently hinders the acceptance of their grammar, no harm will be done by re-examining a “linguistic” theory of usage.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , Spring 1961 , pp. 209 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1961

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References

1 He quotes the story of a friend who could not work harmoniously with a group of shipyard workers until he changed his “those things” to “them things”. That may be so in the United States, but a received British speaker who tried to change a few lexical items while working with Cockney dockers would be asking for a black eye for being condes cending and “taking the mickey out of us”.

2 Without claiming undue innocence or ignorance, I must confess I cannot find an unacceptable “equivalent” for sexual reproduction. None of the derivatives of the two famous four letter works is an equivalent, even in Hall’s sense, for me.

3 James B. McMillan does a similar thing when he tries to maintain a difference between linguistic and sociological facts in language. “A Philosophy of Language”, College English. 9.385-390 (April, 1948). He there says, “The sociological facts concern the attitudes towards locutions held by people in various societal situations”. This makes all statements about language sociological. If I correct a foreigner’s pronunciation of English, I am merely revealing my attitude toward English phonology.