Making Peace In The Language Wars Analysis

David Foster Wallace’s essay, “Authority and American Usage” is essentially a book review of lexicographer Bryan A. Garner’s Dictionary of Modern American Usage. However, Wallace takes his review further than just an analysis of the dictionary, but rather the necessity of usage rules in our society. Wallace sums up his argument on pages 393-394, writing:

“Authority and American Usage” written by David Foster Wallace, poses an argument about the English language, and the different beliefs of its usage. This essay was written in defense of Bryan A. Garner’s, A Dictionary of Modern American Usage. His argument in “Authority and American Usage” is the difference the between prescriptivism perception and the descriptivism perception (Linguistic terms that could easily be made into smaller, more understandable words for people like me). Since the beginning of time, language has evolved. From biblical times, to Shakespearean times, to present day; the English language has been continuously changing since it’s birth and has no intentions on stopping.

Next, in his essay, Wallace notes Garner’s use of Ethical Appeal. The use of ethos, Wallace says, is refreshing because it is hardly ever used in dictionary. Most dictionaries are political battle ground in a war that is fought between the Prescriptivists (linguistic conservatives) and the Descriptivists (linguistic

George Orwell, in an essay from Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays titled “Politics and the English Language” (1950), argues that the English language, through a cyclical process of sloven language and foolish thought, has become “ugly and inaccurate.” He supports his argument by using expert opinion, metaphors, and historical context. Orwell’s purpose is to demonstrate the debasement of the English language in order to prompt writers to make a conscious change in their writing . He adopts an informal tone (“Look back throughout this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against”) for writers in a time of political turnover and rising superpowers.

George Orwell’s essay, Politics and the English Language, first published in 1946, talks about some “bad habits”, which have driven the English language in the wrong direction, that is, away from communicating ideas. In his essay he quotes five passages, each from a different author, which embody the faults he is talking about. He lists dying metaphors, operators, pretentious diction, and meaningless words as things to look out for in your own writing and the writing of others (593-595). He talks about political uses of the English language. Our language has become ugly and the ugliness impedes upon communication. Ugly uses of language have been reinforced and passed down in the population “even among people who should and do know

In George Orwell’s essay, “Politics And The English Language” Orwell discusses how the English language is changing negatively. His purpose is to show how modern writers, especially in politics, has become bogged down with the poor use of language. Orwell does this by using examples, critiques, and inductive reasoning. The author also has a serious tone that shows what he is talking about is very important to him and should be to his audience.

This book was revolutionary not only because it sought to "Americanize" the classroom, but because of the tone of the book. Most previous grammars were prescriptive, meaning that they informed the student how the words should be spoken or spelled. The "Blue-Backed Speller," on the other hand, was a descriptive work, meaning that it merely showed how words were actually used and pronounced by real speakers of the language (Millward 245).

From generations to generation grammar has been a big part of the English language. It has also changed since it first develops. From texting complete sentences like “See you later” to “C U l8r” or from using the spelling two and using the number form of it to replace that. Using slang word such as those can ruin a person’s reputation. In the stories of The Joy of Texting by Lynne Truss and I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here’s Why. by Kyle Wiens, both show some main similarities for it uses of correct grammar and why it should be that way. Grammar can make or break a person and could cost serious chances in life.

The second level grammatical-rhetorical analysis aims to investigate the relationship between grammatical choice and rhetorical function in written English for science and technology. Discourse analysis as interaction represents the third level of language description. Most importantly, interactional analysis outlines the concept of interpretation of discourse by the reader or listener. Discourse analysis appears to have steadily moved from surface-level analysis to a deeper description of language use. However, in the context of language teaching for specific purposes, applied discourse analysis seems to represent a rather narrow description of language in use and is inadequate in its explanation. In order to introduce a thick description of language in use, it is necessary to combine socio-cultural and psycholinguistic aspects of text-construction and interpretation with linguistic insights to answer the question: why are specific discourse-genres written and used by the specialist communities the way they are? Genre analysis as an insightful description of English for specific purpose texts has become a useful and powerful tool to arrive at significant form-function correlations which can be utilized for a number of applied linguistic purposes.

Using the English language effectively can be difficult at times. You must consider many factors: who your audience is, what kind of tone you wish to convey, the message you are attempting to get across, and any kind of lasting effect wished upon a reader’s mind. After reading through two essays, Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” and Brockenbrough’s “Does IM Make U Dum?” each reveals different mindsets about the advancement and usage of the English language. On one hand, Orwell seems to advocate the simplification of speech and writing. Rather than seemingly sagacious phrases, useless terms, and

In the words of George Orwell, “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” Language has been spoken for over 350,000 years. It has expanded tremendously, but its power has never changed. The use of language shapes peoples' perceptions and the depth of interactions because it can demean, avoid, portray emphasis, persuade, and conceal from simple phrases such as “I feel like” and “just”.

/Synthesis of “Hiroshima” by John Berger and “From Ancient Greece to Iraq, the Power of Words in Wartime” by Robin Tolmach Lakoff/

George Orwell states that, “our civilization is decadent and our language…must inevitably share in the general collapse” (Orwell 2000, 1), when he argues for prescriptivism (though toned down from what was taught and accepted in his day). While Garner posits that, “describers, meanwhile, remind us that linguistic change is a fact of life – and conclude that it’s therefore not worth opposing” (Garner, Making Peace in the Language Wars 2008, 272). When David Foster Wallace discusses descriptivism, he makes a historical reference to, “Philip Gove’s now classic introduction to Webster’s Third [which] outlines this type of Descriptivism’s five basic edicts: ‘1 – Language changes constantly; 2 – change is normal; 3 – spoken language is the language; 4 – correctness rests upon usage; 5 – All usage is relative.’” (Wallace 2005, 83). Wallace himself argues against most of these edicts, proving himself to uphold his snootitude. Bryan A. Garner creates a list similar to that of Gove’s, while addressing the argument that “learning grammar may seem like an exercise in pedantry,” which is a point argued by many descriptivists:

Ever wonder how good grammar can lead to success? Think about it like this, say you just sent an essay to the college of your dreams, and you’ve worked on that essay for weeks fixing it, making sure the grammar is perfect. Finally the letter you been waiting for is here, and you’re so nervous and scared to see what it says. Once you open it you see that you’ve gotten accepted, and they’re amazed with the grammar used in your essay, and that they’ll love having someone with that good of a grammar at their college. Good grammar doesn’t only lead to good success, but great opportunities in life which is better for our future.

Perscriptive and Descriptive Language Use An essay or paper on Perscriptive and Descriptive Language Use. This research takes the form of an informative essay on the subject