Attitudes to Language Change
Evaluate claims that English is getting worse. Test claims about newness, clarity and stated usage rules, and distinguish judgments about language from unsupported assumptions about speakers.
What a learner can do afterwards
- Restate a complaint about language use as a claim that can be tested
- Evaluate evidence for and against a claim that a usage is new or breaks a stated rule
- Identify when a criticism of language use makes an unsupported judgment about a speaker or group
1 · Read
You have compared dated language evidence. Now use it to examine complaints about change. A prescriptive judgment says which forms people should use. A descriptive claim says how people use them. 'Use this spelling in the report' sets an expectation. 'Most reports use this spelling' describes usage. Neither statement, by itself, shows that English is getting worse.
Make a complaint testable by naming the form, setting and measure. To test clarity, compare what readers understand with the writer's intended message in matched conditions, with and without the form. Dislike measures preference. 'New' needs a date: one authentic use before 2000 refutes 'never before 2000'. Finding none in a small search does not prove there were none. Check sources, dates and versions.
To test a rule, name its variety, task or guide. Read the required form, find the form used, and compare them. A dated example alone cannot settle whether a usage fits that rule. Standard English is often expected in formal tasks; other varieties also have rules. Social status can affect which varieties receive respect. A rule mismatch alone does not establish intelligence or capability. Separate criticism of a form, a misunderstanding and a person.
Imagine a manager criticizing only younger staff for hedging, or softening statements. In comparable meetings and roles, each age group uses five hedges per 100 utterances. Equal rates do not support a claim that younger staff hedge more. Criticism differs despite equal rates, but the reason is unknown. Counts alone cannot tell whether hedges signal uncertainty, politeness or another purpose, or whether the criticism applies a consistent standard.
A few confusing messages selected to support a complaint cannot establish a general decline. Define decline and compare similar settings over time. Keep evidence that challenges the claim. When communities disagree about greetings, gather wider samples from both in similar situations. Ask what speakers intend and listeners understand. A greeting's meaning can depend on context, and a few encounters may not represent a community.
An attitude is an evaluation, such as liking a phrase. Saying it first appeared in a certain year is a factual claim, even before anyone tests it. Contact, persuasion and evidence can change attitudes, but change is not guaranteed. A reader can accept an earlier use and still dislike the phrase. Agreement and dislike do not establish truth. Report what the evidence supports and what remains uncertain.
Define the claim and its setting. Check relevant evidence and its limits. Separate expectations for usage from unsupported judgments about speakers.
Lesson, questions, worked solutions and flashcards written for this learning dataset. Source study included OpenStax discussions of language, bias, prejudice and attitudes. The staff comparison is invented.
Four original readings and six flashcards written for this learning dataset. The linked TED-Ed lesson, 'Why do we use "they" as a singular pronoun?', is credited to Arika Okrent. Publisher terms are unverified.
More to read
Which part of the criticism can you check?
Imagine a student editor receiving two comments on a report. One says, 'This spelling does not follow our publication's guide.' The other says, 'People who write like that cannot think clearly.'
The comments make different claims. The first can be checked against the named guide. The second makes a judgment about people. A spelling choice alone does not establish how well someone reasons.
Begin by naming the target of a criticism. Is it a form, its suitability for a task, a particular misunderstanding, or the speaker's identity? Then ask what evidence could address that target. A guide can establish its own convention. A record of a misunderstanding can help investigate that event. Neither settles a person's general capability.
Social status can affect which varieties receive respect. Examine whether comparable uses receive comparable treatment instead of assuming a critic's motive. A double standard is evidence of unequal treatment; further evidence is needed to explain why it occurs.
Plan the comparison before choosing examples
Suppose a school magazine wants to test whether its current notices are harder to understand than notices from an earlier year. Publishing only the most confusing current notice would not answer that question.
First decide what understanding means for this task. Readers could answer questions about the action, place and time stated in each notice. Compare their answers with the information the writer intended to give. Use comparable notices and reading conditions across the two periods.
Explain how the notices and readers were selected. If one set contains short reminders and the other contains detailed safety instructions, differences in task could affect the results. A comparison should account for those differences before attributing the outcome to language change.
Keep results that challenge the complaint as well as those that support it. A confusing notice can reveal a problem worth fixing without proving that all current writing is less clear. Report what the sample shows, what it leaves out and how far the conclusion can reasonably reach.
Keep an observation separate from an assumption
Imagine hearing an unfamiliar pronunciation during a discussion. You can describe the sound you heard. That observation does not establish whether the speaker is honest, careful or skilled at reasoning.
To judge an argument, examine its claim, evidence and reasoning. A familiar accent does not make an unsupported argument sound. An unfamiliar accent does not make a supported argument unsound. Favorable assumptions also need checking.
A listener may genuinely misunderstand a word. Investigate the event rather than turning it into a judgment about a whole group. What did the speaker intend? What did the listener understand? Did clarification resolve the difficulty? These questions address communication in that setting.
It is possible to discuss a misunderstanding or explain an expected convention without treating a person's variety as evidence of their worth. Write the observation and the inference separately. If the inference concerns the person, ask what evidence supports it beyond the sound or form that first caught your attention.
A preference and a historical claim
Imagine a reader saying, 'I dislike this phrase, and nobody used it before 2015.' The sentence joins an evaluation to a historical claim. They need different treatment.
An authentic earlier occurrence would contradict the historical claim. Before relying on it, check the source, date and version. A later edition may have changed the wording. Finding an earlier use establishes that the phrase existed by that date, not the exact moment it began.
The reader may accept that evidence while continuing to dislike the phrase. Evidence against newness does not require a change in taste. Likewise, becoming fond of the phrase would not establish when people first used it.
Contact, persuasion and evidence can change attitudes, but they do not always do so. A persuasive explanation may also contain a claim that still needs checking.
Report each conclusion separately. The phrase's history, its fit with a particular style guide and its clarity in a particular setting are different questions. Settling one does not automatically settle the others.
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2 · Watch
به انگلیسیTake it off screen
Where it sits
Learn first
Optional connections
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.