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Verbal Hygiene (Politics of Language) (Paperback)

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Key Phrases: verbal hygiene for women, great grammar crusade, verbal hygiene practices, The Times, Simon Jenkins, National Curriculum (more...)

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Kindle Edition $31.25 Available for download now. Published March 14, 2007	Kindle Edition	$31.25	--	--
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Editorial Reviews

Review

'Cameron provides us with some excellent teaching materials and some remarkable examples of public statements about language in use. Most important, she leaves us in no doubt about the normative and ideological nature of language in social affairs and the failure of some language experts who have become involved in educational matters to take full account of the practical importance of these things.' - James Milroy, Journal of Sociolinguistics

'Cameron's new book should be on every ET reader's reading list. The book is written in a personal way, with anecdotes and a sense of the human writer behind the printed page, and many of the stories and examples are amusing. It's a good read.' - English Today

Cameron provides us with some excellent teaching materials and some remarkable examples of public statements about language in use. Most important, she leaves us in no doubt about the normative and ideological nature of language in social affairs and the failure of some language experts who have become involved in educational matters to take full account of the practical importance of these things. - James Milroy, Journal of Sociolinguistics

Camerons new book should be on every ET readers reading list. The book is written in a personal way, with anecdotes and a sense of the human writer behind the printed page, and many of the stories and examples are amusing. Its a good read. - English Today

Product Description

Verbal Hygiene discusses the use and abuse of language and questions what makes it good and bad, right and wrong. Verbal Hygiene examines a series of case studies with specific examples of practiced verbal hygiene which include the regulation of style by editors; the teaching of English grammar in schools; the movements for and against so-called politically correct language; and the recent explosion of advice to women on how they can speak more effectively. In each case, Cameron argues that verbal hygiene serves important purposes for those engaged in it--it offers a way of making sense of linguistic phenomena and is also a symbolic attempt to impose order on the social world.

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Product Details

Paperback: 280 pages
Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (June 30, 1995)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 041510355X
ISBN-13: 978-0415103558
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #728,697 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
verbal hygiene for women, great grammar crusade, verbal hygiene practices, radical verbal hygiene, verbal hygienists, published printed text, grammar debate, linguistic contract, hygiene advice

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
The Times, Simon Jenkins, National Curriculum, George Orwell, Robert Hughes, Humpty Dumpty, Deborah Tannen, Geoffrey Nunberg, William Rees-Mogg, Prince Charles, Chicago Manual of Style, Margaret Thatcher, Elsie Myers Stainton, Catherine Bennett, James Milroy, Second World War, Robin Lakoff, Jean Aitchison, New York Times, Shorter Oxford, Roger Scruton, John Rae, The Fine Art of Copyediting, Reverend Ducker, George Bush

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 21 books:

1984 (Signet Classics) by George Orwell on page 69, page 151, and Back Matter
Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America by Robert Hughes on page 140, page 160, and Back Matter
Oxford Fowler's Modern English Usage Dictionary by H. W. Fowler on page 33, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
The Complete Plain Words (Pelican books) by Ernest Gowers on page 37, and Back Matter
The Feminist Critique of Language: A Reader by Deborah Cameron in Front Matter, and Back Cover

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100 books cite this book:

Metalanguage: Social and Ideological Perspectives (Language, Power, and Social Process) by Adam Jaworski on 5 pages
Metalanguage: Social and Ideological Perspectives (Language, Power, and Social Process) by Adam Jaworski on 5 pages
Applied Linguistics (Oxford Introductions to Language Study) by Guy Cook on page 89, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
The Magazines Handbook (Media Practice) by Jenny McKay on page 73, page 128, and Back Matter
Language in Theory: A Resource Book for Students (Routledge English Language Introductions) by Mark Robson in Front Matter, page 108, and Back Matter

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Books on Related Topics (learn more)

Routledge Language and Cultural Theory Reader by Tony Crowley

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Grammar for Grownups by Val Dumond

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5.0 out of 5 stars Say what?, October 6, 2002

By	Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

Linguists, most of them scholars and academics, tend to accept that language is in a continuing state of evolution and change. They consider this the natural state of language, and that any attempt to stop change with a set of rigid grammatical rules and notions of standards is either counterproductive or simply wrong-headed.

Lined up against them is a more traditionalist army of grammarians, plain language enthusiasts, and keepers of "correct" usage, who feel that change is undesirable and that the laissez-faire attitude of linguists is an invitation to cultural chaos. These two groups have been at loggerheads for decades, each deeply suspicious of the other.

Along comes Deborah Cameron, a linguist at Strythclyde University (UK) who decides to take a more open-minded look at the attitudes of the traditionalists and offers her colleagues a number of insights meant to scale down the level of hostility between the two camps. Her central notion is there in the title: verbal hygiene.

She proposes that not only does language evolve; it generates its own "caregivers." These people look after its welfare, wrong-headed or not, and practice a kind of "hygiene" that counteracts the messiness of uncontrolled growth. The evolution of language, she says, is actually a dynamic between opposing forces of conservation and innovation. While there is no "right" or "wrong" way to use language, Cameron suggests that language is enlivened by the push and pull between these opposing ideas.

To challenge the idea that standard English exists apart from the people who use it, she provides an account for how it comes into being, at least as she sees it among UK writers. And she challenges the confident trust we might have in the use of dictionaries as a measure of "correctness." Reading her analysis, you realize that dictionaries are part of a circular process that both reflects and determines usage.

Cameron extends her discussion of language with insightful and entertaining analyses of "political correctness," communication between genders, and the types of politically-inspired public hysteria that spring up around the schools' perceived failure to teach correct grammar. She even takes to task our confident acceptance of George Orwell's dictums in his often cited essay, "Politics and the English Language."

This is a book for anyone fascinated by not only the language of politics but the politics of language. Its ideas are argued thoughtfully and with considerable insight. As companions to this book I'd also recommend the books of American linguist Deborah Tannen ("You Just Don't Understand") and Simon Winchester's account of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, "The Professor and the Madman."

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