Verbal Hygiene (Politics of Language)

Book Cover......Page 1
Half-Title......Page 2
Title......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
Preface......Page 7
Acknowledgements......Page 15
SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME…......Page 18
PROBLEMS OF ‘PRESCRIPTIVISM’......Page 20
THE LINGUISTICS AND POLITICS OF VERBAL HYGIENE: AUTHORITY, IDENTITY AND AGENCY......Page 28
Authority......Page 29
Identity......Page 32
Agency and ‘the natural’......Page 34
COMMUNICATION: VERBAL HYGIENE AND THE FEAR OF FRAGMENTATION......Page 40
HYGIENE IN HISTORY......Page 44
EXPLORING VERBAL HYGIENE......Page 47
STYLE AS VERBAL HYGIENE: CLEANING UP THE PRINTED WORD......Page 50
STYLE AS CRAFT: FROM UNIFORMITY TO HYPERSTANDARDIZATION......Page 55
Uniformity: selling standards......Page 58
Diversity: ‘style’ as a commodity......Page 60
Hyperstandardization and competing ‘authorities’......Page 63
Restrictive practices......Page 67
FROM PRACTICE TO THEORY: THE CONSTRUCTION OF ‘COMMON USAGE’......Page 70
MOVING WITH THE TIMES: 80 YEARS OF A NEWSPAPER’S STYLE......Page 74
STYLE AS IDEOLOGY: TRANSPARENCY AND ‘PLAIN LANGUAGE’......Page 80
Plain language and the defence of democracy......Page 85
‘Collateral damage’ and the politics of discourse......Page 89
STYLE, COMMUNICATION AND AGENCY IN LANGUAGE......Page 92
STIRRING THE POLITICAL JUICES: DR SYNTAX MEETS MRS GRUNDY......Page 96
MORAL PANIC......Page 100
THE GRAMMAR ‘PANIC’: A BRIEF HISTORY......Page 103
GRAMMAR AS MORAL METAPHOR: THE ROOTS OF PANIC......Page 111
CONSERVATIVES VERSUS LINGUISTS: THE ATTACK ON THE ‘NEW ORTHODOXY’......Page 115
CONSERVATIVES VERSUS THE ‘EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENT’: THEDEFENCEOF DRILLS AND DESKS......Page 121
CONSERVATIVES VERSUS PLURALISTS: THE NATIONAL CULTURE......Page 125
CONSERVATIVES VERSUS CONSERVATIVES?......Page 129
THE MORAL OF THE STORY…......Page 130
THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE......Page 134
WARS OF WORDS: WHO’S TO BE MASTER?......Page 136
‘POLITICAL CORRECTNESS’ AND THE POWER OF DEFINITION......Page 140
Defining our terms: A brief history of ‘political correctness’......Page 141
Discursive drift......Page 145
DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN: NON-SEXIST LANGUAGE REVISITED......Page 148
Reform and resistance: non-sexist language guidelines......Page 149
Friendly persuasion: civility, accuracy and fairness......Page 151
THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE-CHANGE: TAMPERING AND TRIVIALIZING......Page 156
Only words?......Page 157
Murky waters: the question of ‘euphemism’......Page 161
BREAKING THE LINGUISTIC CONTRACT: ‘POLITICAL CORRECTNESS’ AND ‘NEWSPEAK’......Page 166
Newspeak......Page 168
Facts and values: liberal versus radical verbal hygiene......Page 172
Fixed codes and speech codes......Page 174
CULTURAL POLITICS AND THE ‘DREAM OF A COMMON LANGUAGE’......Page 177
Free speech, normativity and what’s in the back of our minds......Page 180
FROM RAGS TO RICHES: LANGUAGE, GENDER AND TRANSFORMATION......Page 184
CLEANED UP WOMEN: VERBAL HYGIENE AND FEMININITY......Page 187
Advice: a genre with a gender?......Page 189
Verbal hygiene for women: traditional advice......Page 190
Feminism and verbal hygiene: the case of ‘assertiveness’......Page 194
WHY CAN’T A WOMAN BE MORE LIKE A MAN?......Page 201
Careers advice for women: ‘talk like a man’......Page 202
Relationship advice for women: ‘it’s different for girls’......Page 210
Divisions of labour: evaluating ‘difference’......Page 215
THE PROBLEM OF WOMEN’S SPEECH: FACT, FANTASY OR FIGURE?......Page 218
READING SELF-HELP: NORMALITY AND NORMATIVITY......Page 222
Reading between the lines......Page 224
Empowering fictions? Feminism and self-help......Page 227
STORIES OF LANGUAGE......Page 230
AGAINST NATURE......Page 232
THE SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF VERBAL HYGIENE......Page 233
AGAINST MAGICAL THINKING......Page 237
LANGUAGE MATTERS......Page 239
Not a manifesto......Page 241
2 Rules and reasons......Page 242
4 Having regard to the facts......Page 244
LINGUISTICS AND VERBAL HYGIENE......Page 246
Beyond ‘anything goes’......Page 247
PREFACE......Page 254
1 ON VERBAL HYGIENE......Page 255
2 RESTRICTIVE PRACTICES: THE POLITICS OF STYLE......Page 256
3 DR SYNTAX AND MRS GRUNDY: THE GREAT GRAMMAR CRUSADE......Page 258
4 CIVILITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS: LANGUAGE AND ‘POLITICAL CORRECTNESS’......Page 260
5 THE NEW PYGMALION: VERBAL HYGIENE FOR WOMEN......Page 261
6 ON THE STATE OF THE STATE OF THE LANGUAGE......Page 264
References......Page 266
Name index......Page 274
Subject index......Page 278