Author : Mary Anne Winslow
It goes without saying that language is constantly changing. Many different issues factor into the
changes in structure and use of most all languages. The various roles
of language in every culture are both universal and specific.
Universal roles of language pertain cross-culturally while the
specific roles of a particular language can only be fully and truly
understood by those who understand that language through its culture
and likewise understand that culture through its language. One of the
most highly-debated issues of current linguistic anthropology concerns
the standardization of language. Many people feel that acquiring one
standard, universal language, a monoglot, would significantly
contribute towards unifying the world. Though language can create a
sense of unity among individual cultures, a worldwide monoglot culture
would inevitably be biased, limiting cultural diversity and obscuring
a true view of much of the relevant ideology of different cultures
existent throughout the world.Language is continuously adapting to cultural change. Within every
culture, issues and basic ways of life are forever altering,
influencing language alteration along with it. Negative cultural
influence can also lead to language change. Of the world's 6,000
estimated languages, 20-30% are no longer spoken by children and
linguists have predicted that within the next century, at least 50%
will disappear, being forced into the biased standardization of world
language. Power struggles have led to colonialism and
imperialism, which have dominated in some places in the world and
suppressed the language. The imperial power of the British Empire
valued 'geopolitical and monolingual standardization,' and influenced
Australia, France, Russia, and the United States to follow their
values. Though political and socioeconomic profits may benefit those
who use international language, their spread and domination has caused
and will continue to cause the loss of much native language. Colonialism and imperialism are the basis for which hegemony develops, creating one overarching social power. With hegemony, the media, the government, education, and religion all begin to operate as
a single voice. The linguistic ideology expressed through them is
based on power and control and so they all begin to sound the same and
produce this monolith.Language plays countless roles, both universal and specific,
throughout every culture and society. It functions as basic
communication and socialization, and to create and maintain
socioeconomic organization along with social coordination and
cooperation. Standardization of language "is a phenomenon in a
linguistic community in which institutional maintenance of certain
valued linguistic practices- in theory, fixed- acquires an explicitly-
recognized hegemony over the definition of the community's norm." In claiming the term 'standard,' it asserts superiority and discounts dialect and other important parts of languages. The
superiority complex encompassed in the elitism of the 'standard' is
accurately described in Michael Silverstein's essay entitled Monoglot
'Standard' in America:Even though such languages may be highly and transparently articulated
into a set of context-specific registers, bespeaking subtle
regularities of usage, may manifest all the communicative properties
of one's own language, and may be sociohistorically specific to a
cultural tradition identifiable in all other ways, still, to many
speakers of standardized languages, non-standardized one's do not seem
to be 'real' languages, which, ironically enough, are from them
thought to come in 'naturally' standardized conditions of
'objectively' distinct systems of norms.
Most all societies have particular characteristics, functions, and
culture-specific ideology, which can only be genuinely understood
through that particular culture and therefore, can only be accurately
explained through its native language. Hence, because language is so
important in determining and representing its specific cultures'
functions, a monoglot language would be unable to validly depict and
represent every culture in the world.Mary Anne Winslow is a member of Essay Writing Service counselling department team and a dissertation writing consultant. Contact her to get free counselling on custom essay writing.
Keyword : language change
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