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Verbal Hygiene
BAAL Book Prize Winner 1996In this award winning book Deborah Cameron takes a serious look at popular attitudes towards language and examines the practices by which people attempt to regulate its use. Instead of dismissing the practice of 'verbal hygiene', as a misguided and pernicious exercise, however, she argues that popular discourse about language values; good and bad, right and wrong, serves an important function for those engaged in it.A series of case-studies deal with specific examples of verbal 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 she argues that verbal hygiene provides a way of making sense of linguistic phenomena, and that it represents a symbolic attempt to impose order on the social world.Addressed to linguistics, professional language-users of all kinds, and to anyone interested in language and culture, Verbal Hygiene, calls for legitimate concerns about language and value to be discussed, by experts and lay-speakers alike, in a rational and critical spirit.
280 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 25, 1995
3 people are currently reading
246 people want to read
About the author
Deborah Cameron
35 books80 followersDeborah Cameron, is a feminist linguist, who holds the Rupert Murdoch Professorship in Language and Communication at Worcester College, Oxford University. She is mainly interested in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. A large part of her academic research is focused on the relationship of language to gender and sexuality.Cameron wrote the book The Myth of Mars And Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak Different Languages?, published in 2007
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 12, 2020
It is interesting how language change over the years and how people wish to have an opinion on it, not because they are professionals but because they are users. PPl believe that linguists conclude that anything goes in language and it's not like that. There is a difference between appropriateness and correctness. The author, however, fails to give an answer to the never-ending question: when do we have to draw a line?
Language is constantly changing due to the fact that there are many users and there is new vocabulary or ways to talk from generation to generation. The author gives a very negative view on how people who do not have a degree on language and linguistics, teach others how to speak and therefore how to behave. That is how society works over time. There is always a dominant group of people that teaches others what to do.
Nevertheless, I believe that the author goes too broad on the matter and rambles at certain points when the matter at hand is not that complicated to explain. I struggled to understand a couple of the chapters and thank goodness I had to read this for a course and then those things were explained to me. After the explanation, I realized that the topics were much easier than what the author was leading on.
Language is constantly changing due to the fact that there are many users and there is new vocabulary or ways to talk from generation to generation. The author gives a very negative view on how people who do not have a degree on language and linguistics, teach others how to speak and therefore how to behave. That is how society works over time. There is always a dominant group of people that teaches others what to do.
Nevertheless, I believe that the author goes too broad on the matter and rambles at certain points when the matter at hand is not that complicated to explain. I struggled to understand a couple of the chapters and thank goodness I had to read this for a course and then those things were explained to me. After the explanation, I realized that the topics were much easier than what the author was leading on.
April 21, 2012
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."
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."
May 6, 2013
One of my favourite books of all time. I just finished re-reading it. Cameron explores human efforts to manage and alter both our spoken and written language. From the development of style guides, to the right-wing groan-fest over "political correctness," to assertiveness trraining that sought to teach women how to get ahead in the job market, Cameron contrasts differing perspectives on how, why, and if language should be consciously altered to reveal how underlyingly we all engage in some forms of verbal hygiene, though our motivations may differ.
April 16, 2025
Très intéressant, et une intervention salutaire et éclairante, même si je ne crois pas qu'elle soit capable d'accomplir ce qu'elle projette d'accomplir au départ.
Deborah Cameron semble étrangement mal à l’aise avec son propre objet. Elle manifeste, tant dans sa préface que dans l’avant-propos à l’édition de 2012, qu’elle ne sait pas comment répondre, en tant que linguiste, aux exigences des prescriptivistes, et que le livre l’a mise dans une situation encore plus délicate à cet égard parce qu'elle y a défendu que les linguistes ne devaient pas simplement ignorer les prespectivistes. Mais en fait elle mélange deux questions, et n'a l'air que partiellement conscient de ce fait. Le fait d’intégrer la folk-linguistic dans l’étude linguistique, comme elle le propose scientifiquement, n’a en principe rien à voir avec la séparation méthodologique du descriptif et du prescriptif, qui est le plan sur lequel se situe son malaise de "comment répondre aux prescriptivistes". En pratique, les deux sont mêlés, bien sûr, mais si les deux sont mêlés c'est pour une raison qui n'a rien à voir avec son objet scientifique (le fait d'intégrer les pratiques normatives ordinaires dans l'objet d'étude linguistique) et tout à voir avec le fait qu'on ne peut pas séparer complètement le descriptif et le prescriptif, contre ce que disait Weber et conformément à ce que dit, par exemple, Putnam.
Mais il reste que la tâche de décrire la normativité est en principe distincte de celle de parvenir à engager l’expertise de façon intelligente et non détachée dans les débats normatifs. Le fait que le premier n’aide pas au second ne doit pas forcément nous étonner. Il y a deux problèmes et deux programmes : la folklinguistique comme phénomène linguistique digne d’étude, et l’engagement normatif ordinaire comme une strate que l’expertise ne devrait pas mépriser en bloc et de laquelle elle ne devrait pas se séparer radicalement. Le projet est de mettre la première au service de la seconde, et on pourrait voir si ça marche, mais l’avant-propos suggère que non, puisque son étude ne l'a pas du tout aidé à répondre à ce problème.
Deborah Cameron semble étrangement mal à l’aise avec son propre objet. Elle manifeste, tant dans sa préface que dans l’avant-propos à l’édition de 2012, qu’elle ne sait pas comment répondre, en tant que linguiste, aux exigences des prescriptivistes, et que le livre l’a mise dans une situation encore plus délicate à cet égard parce qu'elle y a défendu que les linguistes ne devaient pas simplement ignorer les prespectivistes. Mais en fait elle mélange deux questions, et n'a l'air que partiellement conscient de ce fait. Le fait d’intégrer la folk-linguistic dans l’étude linguistique, comme elle le propose scientifiquement, n’a en principe rien à voir avec la séparation méthodologique du descriptif et du prescriptif, qui est le plan sur lequel se situe son malaise de "comment répondre aux prescriptivistes". En pratique, les deux sont mêlés, bien sûr, mais si les deux sont mêlés c'est pour une raison qui n'a rien à voir avec son objet scientifique (le fait d'intégrer les pratiques normatives ordinaires dans l'objet d'étude linguistique) et tout à voir avec le fait qu'on ne peut pas séparer complètement le descriptif et le prescriptif, contre ce que disait Weber et conformément à ce que dit, par exemple, Putnam.
Mais il reste que la tâche de décrire la normativité est en principe distincte de celle de parvenir à engager l’expertise de façon intelligente et non détachée dans les débats normatifs. Le fait que le premier n’aide pas au second ne doit pas forcément nous étonner. Il y a deux problèmes et deux programmes : la folklinguistique comme phénomène linguistique digne d’étude, et l’engagement normatif ordinaire comme une strate que l’expertise ne devrait pas mépriser en bloc et de laquelle elle ne devrait pas se séparer radicalement. Le projet est de mettre la première au service de la seconde, et on pourrait voir si ça marche, mais l’avant-propos suggère que non, puisque son étude ne l'a pas du tout aidé à répondre à ce problème.
June 18, 2014
I needed to read this for a college class. It is hard to read unless you are use to academic writing. It also wasn't what I thought it was. I thought it would have more of a pop culture aspect to it.
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July 19, 2017This is a reasonable attempt to get linguists to move away from rejecting all forms of "prescriptivism" by arguing that normative attitudes towards language use is unavoidable, so linguists should at least recognize the implicit normative components of their own scientific, descriptive approach to language. Ch. 1 is a very useful catalogue of different attitudes towards various issues in folk linguistics, including language change, decline in standards, and the role of authority in how we think about public languages.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews