Cladistic language concepts

[bwald]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Sorry I did not have time to reply to Isidore Dyen's message sooner.  He writes:
 
>one of the main factors in linguistic change and
>perhaps the main factor is the drive for efficiency in communication which
>is dialectically resisted by the need for clarity so that efficiency does
>not actually increase and the actual level of clarity does not change.
 
I think there is good reason to keep these two traditional factors in mind
in any attempt to understand constraints on linguistic change *overall*.
There are, however, other factors involved in promoting change beside
efficiency of communication, if that is intended to refer specifically to
communication of *referential* information.  There is also the factor of
maintaining some kind of (local) social identity, viewable as a shorthand
for shared knowledge of the local society, and therefore contributing to
communication (esp what can be understood within the social group *without
having to be said*).  An important issue is the extent to which the
continual nature of the (socio)linguistic reformation of social identity,
as society continually changes, promotes linguistic change, even overriding
wider concerns with communication of referential information.  This may not
be a constant at all times.  Maybe sometimes it is more active than at
other.  It is not clear that there is a constant balance between social
factors promoting linguistic change and the counter-pull of intelligibility
(to whom? ALL speakers of the "language"?  Doubtful.)
 
One possibility is that there are constantly at least TWO regsiters (or
styles or whatever) for all mature speakers, one for wider communication,
e.g., standards and other lingua francas, and one more susceptible to
linguistic change due to the local social identity effect (usually called
the "dialect" or "vernacular").  The more lingua-franca like register is
also susceptible to change, not to mention interpenetration of what might
be viewed as (at least) two registers/styles.  However, it remains to be
seen how change in one register affects change in another.  In any case, it
affects the relation between the two more traditional factors maintaining
"balance" between  "efficiency" and "intelligibility" remains an issue in
need of more consideration in understanding the shaping of linguistic
change.
 
ID continues:
 
>I believe your characterization of mutual intelligibility as being an
>arbitrary criterion is a misconception. After all it concerns
>intercommunication, the primary function of language. The difficulty with
>mutual intelligibility lies rather in applying it and improvements in that
>area could be achieved if the importance of distinguishing languages from
>each other could reach the level of attracting financial support.
 
I wouldn't dispute that.  It's worth noting, however, that
intercommunication as the primary function of language should lead to more
concern to promote multilingualism than it does in societies such as the
US, among others.  This tells us something more generalisable about
concerns with intercommunication and its mitigation by the social identity
factor.  Even so, multilingualism attracts more financial support than
mutual intelligibility within what is considered one language.  The Ebonics
controversy was an interesting issue in trying to move a variety (of
language) from one category (dialect variation) to another
(multilingualism).
 
ID concludes:
 
>As for entropy it could not be expected to be found in the structure of a
>language since the energy input to maintain clarity prevents observable
>change in the direction of disorganization. However within a language
>regarded as a closed system, there is (for all practical purposes)
>observable changes in the direction of disorganization in
>dialectalization as diversification tending toward the shattering of a
>language. The opposing force is the rate of interlocution; as that rate
>is high it militates against diversification and if it is high
>enough, promotes homogeneity and when it is low or decreases is
>accompanied by increased dialectalization and if it reaches zero, may
>be followed by language fission.
 
I found the entropy analogy attractive when I read it in an earlier
message.  The rate of interlocution is a more complex notion.  It may not
only be frequency, but also, in some currently hard to specify sense,
diversity and/or quality of communication among different groups of
interlocutors.  Note that *inter*locution already dismisses passive
absorption of linguistic norms from the media, whether TV, books or
whatever, in favor of mutual communication, even though passive absorption
of media norms may be more frequent than active communication for many
speakers.  One must seek to understand why this is so, to the (large)
extent that it is.
 
I still maintain that measures of mutual intelligibility are difficult to
interpret in the real world because linguistic distance is not the only
factor involved in intelligibility in the real world.   Familiarity and
motivation to understand (just as in the case of unquestionable
bilingualism, and either one, arguably, even without motivation to imitate
(accomodate?)) are additional factors.