Guided Reading: You Are What You Speak

YOU ARE WHAT YOU SPEAK: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity
By Robert Lane Greene
Governments foolishly try to police language development (the French Academy), nationalism leads to the violent suppression of minority languages (Kurdish and Basque), and even Americans fear that the most successful language in world history (English) may be threatened by increased immigration. A correspondent for the Economist and a self-professed lover of language, Greene takes on language "mythologizers" of all forms, like author Lynne Truss and other language "sticklers" for whom the superiority of "their" language also represents the superiority of "their" people. Greene asserts that language is about communication rather than just rules and that debates about language and its rules are often really about politics. “You Are What You Speak” is a very readable survey of all the ways our received ideas about language can lead us astray. As this fascinating book shows, everything we’ve been taught to think about language may not be wrong—but it is often about something more than language alone.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU SPEAK: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity
By Robert Lane Greene 312 pages published by Delacorte Press ISBN-10: 0553807870

I selected this book because of the many misconceptions of my students: British English is better than American English, if they speak slower and more carefully, people will understand them better and using cognates in their speech will show people that they are well-educated. A student once commented that in Spanish he recognized social levels by the way people spoke. He asked how I did the same in English. This book would have provided a better answer than an episode of The Sopranos. The Activities below are for identifying specific information and transferring the information to a more personal context.

ACTIVITY 1    After reading the Forward, can you answer the following questions? How many languages are there in the world? According to the "experts", what is the difference between "real languages" and "underdeveloped languages"? What is writing? If you can't find the answer to any of the questions or just want to state your opinion, send a post.
ACTIVITY 2  During his Preface, the author talks about learning to use "hundred-dollar" words. What are they?   What is "sticklerism"? Foreigners are not the only people with an accent; native speakers can have accents. Having an accent leads to what kind of misconceptions about the speaker? Grammatical sticklers are compared to political conservatives and nationalists. Do you agree or disagree? How does the author finally define language?
ACTIVITY 3  Chapter One   In the Book of Genesis, as related by the author, God decides to "confound the language of all the earth". He worries that "nothing will be restrained from them". What was the result of God's action? Certain languages and religions are tightly related. This relationship creates a fear of certain words for some people and allows other people to feel they are superior. Can you cite some examples? According to the author, can any word from any language be translated? Frequently, control of a language is politically motivated. Can you give an example not stated by the author? Greene writes that the political elevation of one specific form of a language and the denigration of other languages has "ugly consequences". What do you think he means?
ACTIVITY 4  Chapter Two   The lesson to be learned from this chapter is that languages change. They evolve, develop, change and change again to reflect the needs of the people speaking the language. How has Spanish changed from the times of Cervantes and his book Don Quijote de la Mancha? This is a "teacher question"(because some teacher beat it into my head): who invented the rule of never ending a sentence with a preposition and what was his reasoning? Double negatives are common in many languages but not in English. Who decided that they are not correct? Why? Strunk set out rules that are observed to this day. Even I have a modern-day modified version of his book. My "grammar bible" is Warriner's English Grammar and Composition. How many of Strunk's rules did you encounter in your English classes? Which ones? What is grammar and why is Lynne Truss wrong about it? The strict adherence to grammatical rules is also used politically. Against whom?
ACTIVITY 5  Chapter Three     The Female Brain was a best-seller because it claimed that women speak almost three times as much as men speak (actually not the only reason it was a best-seller as the sentence implies). Is the claim true? What do linguists really do? Historical linguists believe that three major languages have a common beginning. What three languages are they referring to? What is the importance of Chomsky in the area of linguistics? What do sociolinguists really do?
ACTIVITY 6  Chapter Four     If "Ebonics" is taken as an example of "code switching" in English, where would we find examples of code switching in Spanish in Mexico City? What does Chomsky's concept of Universal Grammar have to do with Nicaragua? Many linguists believe that language precedes thought. George Orwell thought that if a certain word disappeared from the language, the concept would also disappear. Do you agree? Does the author Greene agree? Do you believe all languages are equal? Is your opinion (a very valid opinion) based on a "gut feeling" or scientific evidence?
ACTIVITY 7  Chapter Five     In my obligatory college course about World History, the final exam was one question,"What Factors Led to the Downfall of Feudalism and the Rise of Nations". It was accompanied by a small blue book where we were expected to write forty pages. This chapter reminded me of that exam because one of the most important factors was language. It is something to think about. What part did language play in the decline of feudalism and the rise of nationalism? There is also some personal interest in the next question because my grandparents came from that part of the world that was annexed by Hitler. They classified themselves as Austrian-Bohemian and while they spoke Czech, at home they spoke German. What part did language play in the invasion of Czechoslovakia and the beginning of World War II? What role did language play in the founding of the nation of Israel? How did Franco use language to maintain his control in Spain? Mandela in South Africa? Gandhi in India? How did language influence the breaking up of Yugoslavia?
ACTIVITY 8  Chapter Six     While the previous chapter made me reminisce about college courses, this chapter reminds me of George W. Bush...nation building. Language planning and/or government interference and manipulation of language is usually political in nature. Language is used in nation-building and identity creation. Why does France have a language academy to oversee the French  language and Britain and the United Sates do not?
ACTIVITY 9  Chapter Seven     This chapter takes on the "English Only" debate. We find out that the U.S.A. and France are a lot more alike than different when it comes to defending their language. The second part of the chapter talks about immigrants and why some learn a new language and why some don't. Why do immigrants stick to their native language but their children lose it? I saw my Czech and  German-speaking grandparents use only English in their house; my father's knowledge of German was rudimentary at best; I speak no German at all. The Miami-Cubans are to be admired for resisting the trend and statistics and insisting that Spanish be handed down to the following generations.