Grammatical mistakes & Kalbouss

Tue Oct 18 20:42:01 UTC 2011

I admit that offence was too strong  a term and of course native and non-native reactions are of great interest esp. when it comes to identity issues and perceptions of users of non-standard variables.  
My specific field is second language acquisition and more particularly the acquisition of sociopragmatic variation, hence my defence of non-standard language use.  However, learners should be aware of the identity they are portraying by using such forms and when use is acceptable.  Ideally a native and non-native speaker should be able to accommodate their language to suit the context.  Think Bakhtin and heteroglossia and polyphony!
To get back to Russian, from my own experience as a classroom learner who, after 4 years of formal learning, was parachuted into a obshezhitie with Russian room mates, encountering forms such as poshlyomte, nety, datushki or ikhnii was quite a shock.  None of the terms was present in my language books.
On a related point, i'd be really interested to discover native and non-native opinions on the use of diminutives.  I resisted the use of forms like khlebushka as I initially perceived them as sounding babyish.  After 6 years residence, however, use of diminutives became the norm.
I look forward to hearing you opinions
AM

> Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 15:40:01 -0400
> From: Wwdslovene at AOL.COM
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Grammatical mistakes & Kalbouss
> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
> 
> 
> In a message dated 10/17/2011 4:59:03 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time, 
> anne_mariedevlin at HOTMAIL.COM writes:
> 
> As a linguist and someone working in the area of 
> sociolinguistics/pragmatics, I take offence at naming linguistic variation as 'atrocious grammar'. 
> The terms mentioned are variables. 
> Let's please not get too defensive about this very interesting discussion. 
> Prof.. Kalbouss merely commented on what Ms. Devlin calls variables 
> and which he has heard in Ohio. To his ears the forms which he quoted 
> sound terrible. Is there something wrong saying with that? 
> I would think that a sociolinguist would find such comments of interest
> rather than to take offense to them, i.e. the reaction of native speakers 
> to variants of his/her own language which sound uneducated, wrong, 
> or whatever term one might wish to use.
> I, for instance, find greatly amusing, a plural form of the pronoun "you" 
> in common use in the western part of my home state Pennsylvania, 
> namely in and around Pittsburgh. One hears "yuonse" ["you ones"], 
> hardly an acceptable form in standard English. A local variant - fine 
> and good, just like "ya'll" so common in the South.
> One of my areas of specialization is South Slavic, and I could not 
> begin to count the number of times that a speaker from one or 
> another part of the Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian speaking area has 
> asked me to speak in "their" language: it's "hleb"not "kruh", speak 
> ekavski not (i)jekavski, etc., etc., because, apparently, one variant 
> sounds atrocious to the ears of the other variant speaker (not to 
> mention the political implications).
> I also find it most peculiar to hear an educated Russian utter the 
> imperative form "pojexaj" or the genitive plural "sosedov", quite 
> normal formations, but hardly acceptable in the literary language.
> All I can say is "Vive la difference!!" but let's not forget that 
> languages have literary norms, and deviations from a norm may 
> strike other speakers as totally unacceptable.
> 
> William W. Derbyshire
> Professor Emeritus - Rutgers University
> freelance translator - Slavic languages
> 
> 
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