30.200, Review: General Linguistics; Typology: Dixon (2018)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-30-200. Mon Jan 14 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 30.200, Review: General Linguistics; Typology: Dixon (2018)

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Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2019 16:38:11
From: Laura Dubcovsky [lauradubcovsky at gmail.com]
Subject: Are Some Languages Better than Others?

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/29/29-1241.html

AUTHOR: R. M. W.  Dixon
TITLE: Are Some Languages Better than Others?
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2018

REVIEWER: Laura Dubcovsky, University of California, Davis

SUMMARY

This short volume focuses on languages as they are today.  Dixon describes
universal and particular linguistic structures as well as main language
functions, drawing examples mostly from languages spoken in remote areas of
northeast Australia, Papua, Taveuni, and Southern Amazonia.  In the first
chapter the author is committed to “Setting the scene.” He positions
linguistics as a natural science, which as such is required to follow
mandatory steps of description, explanation, prediction, and evaluation. 
Among key functions, language assists in the process of belonging, cooperative
endeavor and social organization.  It constitutes a vehicle for displaying
emotions and aesthetic expressions, conveying scholarly information, and
developing skills of persuasion, exhortation and argumentation.  The numerous
examples do not only illustrate the distinctive purposes but also serve to
demystify misconceptions about the superiority of written over spoken
languages. 

In Chapter 2, “How languages work,” Dixon situates languages in context, as
“Each chunk … can be fully appreciated only in terms of the linguistic event
(conversation, speech, etc.) of which it is a part, and the social context
within which this occurs” (p. 24).  The author analyzes commonalities as well
as varied realizations of main grammatical and lexical components. For
example, some languages do not mark gender, while many have two (feminine-
masculine), others three (feminine - masculine - neuter), and even four
(Jarawara and Dyirbal) and seven (Swahili) gender markers.  By the same token,
word classes may assume different roles in different languages.  For examples,
kinship relations (“father,” “daughter,” etc.) are usually assigned to nouns,
but Yuman languages from California use verbs to signal the relationship
(“John is Mary’s father”); qualities and numerals (“good,” “two”), frequently
represented by adjectives, are assigned to verbs in the Jarawa language
(“amosa” means “to be good”), etc.

The following three chapters examine “What is necessary” (Chapter 3), “What is
desirable” (chapter 4), and “What is not (really) needed” (Chapter 5) in all
known languages.  Among the recurrent features are: speech acts (statements,
commands, and questions), negation, possessive case, transitive and
intransitive clauses, copula verbs, and multiple techniques to link clauses
and achieve succinct communication; yet these common traits may have different
ways of realization.  For example, the universally accepted classification
between animate and inanimate objects is subdivided more subtly in Dyirbal and
Swahili, which add other categories, such as “edible plant foods,” and “trees,
plants, and their useful products,” respectively.  Likewise, the worldwide
understanding of a temporal continuum that contains past, present and future
events, is challenged by Washo languages spoken in Nevada, as they classify
the past tense into four categories--earlier today or last night, yesterday or
a little earlier, within the speakers’ life time, and before the speaker was
born--and the future tense into three  subdivisions of immediate (up to a few
hours from now), more distant (but still within today), and tomorrow (or any
time later). 

Dixon also elaborates on optional features that may contribute to or hinder
the building of a language. For example, English includes irregularities in
verbs (“went” or “sought”), plurals (“children” or “teeth”), and suppletion of
adjectives (“good” and “bad”) in their comparative and superlative forms
(“better/ best,” and “worse/worst,” respectively), which may obscure the
meaning and create difficulties for native and second language speakers. In
contrast, redundancies and reduplications are not only needed but highly
desirable to secure a more efficient communication.  The author exemplifies
grammatical redundancies through the repetition of the gender suffix, such as
in the Portuguese phrase, “A menina nova, alta, bonita,” in which the article,
the noun and the three adjectives show the feminine case in the suffix.  By
the same token Dyirbal uses a set of affixes to show lexical redundancies
through verbs of movement and locational adverbs that reinforce the meaning of
movement, location, directionality and distance, such as “moving up-hill” and
“crossing down the river.”).

After the detailed description of mandatory and optional linguistic traits,
Dixon poses the question, “How about complexity?” In Chapter 6 he focuses on
grammar and wonders, “Is it the case that: ‘the more complex the better’? (p.
125).  He claims that languages are in constant flow, and therefore they gain
and lose complexity, according to their position, size, prestige, and
homogeneity between ethnic groups.  While languages with a large number of
speakers tend to smooth out irregularities, languages spoken in smaller
communities usually have more specific parameters, specialized markers and
refined systems of evidentiality. The author also analyzes the complexity
determined by languages in contact, by which one community’s grammar and
lexicon can affect the other, and in some cases this influence may evolve into
new dialects or creoles.  These linguistic, social and historical changes
bring about increasing levels of complexity; which yet is not enough to
evaluate the relative worth of languages.

In the following chapter Dixon moves into lexical complexity and questions,
“How many words should there be?”  He finds that a complex vocabulary depends
more on the incorporation of technical terms and nominalized phrases than on
the quantity of isolated words. First, specific terms that describe jobs (loom
operation), habits (camel’s drinking frequency), characteristics (cattle
varieties) and kinship relationships (son’s parents-in law or the wife’s
sister’s husband) more accurately build on a more sophisticated vocabulary and
assume a more  familiarized audience with specialized fields of knowledge.
Second, concrete word classes--like adjectives (“deep”) and verbs (“imitate”)
--can be transformed into more abstract nominal categories (“deepness or
depth” and “imitation,” respectively). While synonyms usually increase the
number of words of a language, they do not always convey the exact meaning
(compare “to try” and “to attempt'') and are usually chosen for the stylistic
reason of avoiding repetition.  The author does not focus on grammatical (“-s”
for plurals, third person singular and possessive case) and lexical homonyms
(“hot” indicates both high temperature and spice food) thay may carry
ambiguity. Therefore the author concludes that lexical complexity moves from
quantity to quality of more specialized and abstract words. 

Chapter 8 defines “The limits of a language.”  The first section highlights
particular realizations among languages, such as the definiteness treatment of
articles, several meanings within modal verbs, ranked degrees of evidentiality
systems, roles of inclusiveness among personal pronouns, etc.  Dixon observes
that regardless the broad variability, every language constitutes an ordered
framework that provides speakers with linguistic choices. The second section
focuses mainly on translation and the grammatical and lexical difficulties
between different linguistic systems. For example, languages that have
distinctive alienable/inalienable markers may require a convoluted
circumlocution when they are translated into languages with simpler possessive
case. Languages do not need to share the same perspective and therefore they
may follow a different word order: in English a person “caught a bad cold,”
whereas in other languages “a bad cold caught the person.” Above all cultural
statements are very hard to translate, as languages do not have a common set
of beliefs and value system.  The chapter also refers to the benefits of
bilingualism and exemplifies speech styles in two diglossic communities (Swiss
Germans and Dyirbal speakers).

Finally, Dixon reframes the title of his book and moves into the participants,
circumstances and goals of the interaction. Chapter 9 relates linguistic
qualities according to varied goals, asking whether languages are  ,“Better
for what purpose?”  On the one hand, if better languages are those that
fulfill multiple linguistic functions, then they will comprise complexity,
unceasing flux and multifaceted changes. On the other hand, if the purpose is
for a linguist to write grammar or compile dictionaries, or for an educator to
produce teaching materials, then better languages will be easier, neatly
segmented and well-structured.  The chapter closes with a common list of
linguistic features given by second language learners who live in English
speaking communities. In spite of the fact that the speakers do not share the
same first language, they all long for  the following linguistic features: (1)
distinctive formal/ informal treatment to address the interlocutor, (2)
incorporation of colorful idioms that serve as ice-breakers and release
interpersonal tension, (3) presence of emotive lexemes that cannot easily be
rendered in English, and (4) ease of expressions that allows more free
movements in the sentence. 

Dixon proposes a balanced system to reach “An ideal language” (Chapter 10), as
he indicates through examples of different language components. At the
phonological level, the author favors sufficient contrast between sounds in
order to convey meaningful distinctions, “but not so many as to make the
language more difficult than the norm to easily enunciate, or for the listener
to readily comprehend” (p. 222).  At the morphological level, Dixon evaluates
an appropriate three-term scale for demonstratives, as it perfectly
distinguishes (closer to farther) distance from the speaker.  At the lexical
level the author agrees that an ideal vocabulary will comprise general and
technical terms, relating to everyday and specialized knowledge, lifestyle and
social organization.  Dixon closes the book by “Facing up to the question”
(Chapter 11). He invites the reader to re-assess the mentioned features,
following personal criteria and using other languages for comparison, as the
book is “…in essence, speculation- a hypothesis awaiting confirmation” (p.
246). 

 EVALUATION

Dixon chooses a provocative title to analyze the role and functions of
language.  Above all, “Are some languages better than others?” highlights that
each of the several thousand languages spoken today around the globe serves
many social purposes. The author offers a handy book that summarizes key
linguistic components in a brief and dynamic fashion.  As announced already in
the preface, the simple (“although not simplified”) style will reach a general
audience interested in linguistic matters.  In addition, Dixon’s vast
knowledge of Dyirbal, Yidiñ and Jarawara helps to strengthen the exposition of
general topics and the particular argument that spoken languages involve
highly intricate grammar and sophisticated lexicon.  Moreover, the book
manages to tap into an extended list of current issues in linguistics, from
difficulties in cultural translations to the comparison of the linguistics
discipline to other natural sciences, and from the understanding of
monolingual and bilingual speakers to the presence of diglossic societies. 

Although the author offers clear explanations that can be easily followed by
lay and specialized readers, sometimes he uses an unnecessarily condescending
tone, as in Chapter 6, where he previews that the first sections “are far more
demanding,” and invites the reader “to skip these discussions, and take up the
story again in section 6.3” (p. 127).  Moreover the author introduces issues
of bilingualism and second language acquisition in a quite abrupt manner in
Chapter 8.  While he denies the statement that “the human brain has room only
for one language” (p. 188), he overlooks complicated variables of language and
cognition, probably due to space constraints. We suggest that the author
devote further elaboration to these heavily loaded subjects, as that would
produce more answers to the original question of the book title.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Laura Dubcovsky is a retired lecturer and supervisor from the Teacher
Education Program in the School of Education at the University of California,
Davis. With a Master’s in Education and a PhD in Spanish linguistics /with
special emphasis on second language acquisition, her interests tap topics of
language and bilingual education. She is currently dedicated to the
preparation of in service bilingual Spanish/English teachers, especially on
the use of Spanish for educational purposes. She also volunteers as
interpreter in parent/teachers conferences at schools and translates programs
and flyers for the Crocker Art Museum, bilingual school programs and STEAC.
She also collaborates as a reviewer with the Linguistic list serve, the
Southern California Professional Development Schools and bilingual
associations. For more than ten years she has taught a pre-service bilingual
teachers’ course that addresses communicative and academic traits of Spanish,
needed in a bilingual classroom She published “Functions of the verb decir
(‘to say’) in the incipient academic Spanish writing of bilingual children in
Functions of Language, 15(2), 257-280 (2008) and the chapter, “Desde
California. Acerca de la narración en ámbitos bilingües” in ¿Cómo aprendemos y
cómo enseñamos la narración oral? (2015). Rosario, Homo Sapiens: 127- 133.





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