What English Will Sound Like In 100 Years

23 October 2016

An online article by Michael Erard discusses the possible phonetic changes that English might go through in the coming decades and centuries. The best part of the article are three sound files of the opening lines of Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, read in Old English, in modern Received Pronunciation, and in what English might sound like in a century’s time.

The article provides a good summary of the influences on English pronunciation and what kind of sound changes we might expect. But take any predictions, including the one in the audio file, with a grain of salt. While we know that English pronunciation will change, and we know what phonemes are more likely or less likely to change, we really have no clue what will actually change.

The other thing to consider is it is almost certain that there will be no single pronunciation for English. There will be hundreds of different varieties of English. English may not go the way of Latin and split into multiple, distinct dialects (i.e., French, Spanish, Italian, etc.), but even if it remains a global, mutually intelligible language, there will be considerable variation, just like there is today. There will be no single pronunciation of English in centuries time.

Debunked: Students Can’t Write Anymore

21 October 2016

I’m teaching four sections of first-year English composition this semester, so this subject is near and dear to my heart. Two Stanford researchers, Andrea A. Lunsford and Karen J. Lunsford, have conducted a longitudinal study of college freshman writing, comparing the results from students in 2006 with earlier studies from 1917, 1930, and 1986, and the results are quite surprising.

First, twenty-first century students are making errors at the same rate as their earlier counterparts. The error rate in all four samples varied between 2.11 and 2.45 errors per 100 words.
Their writing has not, as many would suppose, gotten worse. The types of errors, however, have shifted. In the earlier samples, spelling errors were the most common type, but they had dropped to fifth in the 2006 group, almost certainly the result of automated spell checking. (Interestingly, spelling errors were the second most likely type to marked as wrong by the graders, indicating that teachers are especially prone to noticing them.) Instead, the most common error in 2006 was a “wrong word” error, again, probably the result of automated spell checking.

But even more surprising is the amount of writing students do today. In 1917 the average essay was a mere 162 words in length. It grew to 231 words in 1930 and 422 in 1986. But the 2006 students wrote essays that averaged 1,038 words. The article on the study published by JSTOR Daily (linked above) chalks up the longer length to word-processing technology, which was in its infancy in 1986 but almost universally used by college students by 2006.

The types of essays have changed as well. In the earlier years, the majority of the essays were personal narratives. But of the 2006 sample, only 9% fit that category. Instead, over 70% of the essays were research papers (the most common type assigned), argumentative papers without sources, and close readings and analyses. There is far more emphasis on research and intellectual rigor than in the past. The shift to research papers has also changed the types of errors being made. Source and attribution errors accounted for three of the top twenty error types in the 2006 study, but are not included in the earlier studies, which relied largely on personal narratives.

Texting and instant-messaging terms, like imho and lol, were not to be found in the essays, reconfirming what linguists have known for years, that texting is not corrupting the language skills of the young. Also, very few of the papers incorporated images, hyperlinks, multi-colored fonts, or other graphical innovations that are easily done with a computer. The students overwhelmingly stuck to plain text. (Also, the graders primarily used pen and pencil, not electronic grading and mark-up programs. And those that did use electronic marking, primarily relied on the mark-up tools in MS Word, rather than specialized programs.)

So the conclusion is that students today are, in fact, not worse writers than in the past. And, they are writing far more and in more rigorous genres than their earlier counterparts.

The full study is here.

[Discuss this post]

[Correction: I had originally said the researchers attributed the longer length of the papers to word processing technology. The study does not mention this. It is the JSTOR Daily article on the study (linked above) that makes the connection.]

950 Years Ago On This Date...

14 October 2016

Her forðferde Eaduuard king, ך Harold eorl feng to ðam rice ך heold hit XL wucena ך ænne dæg, ך her com Willelm ך gewann Ængla land.

—The Parker Chronicle (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS. 173)

(In this year King Edward died, and the nobleman Harold succeeded to the kingdom and held it forty weeks and a day, and in this year William came and conquered England.)

The Laureation of Bob Dylan

13 October 2016

A colleague of mine from the University of Toronto, Chet Scoville, has written an excellent piece on Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. I want to expand on what he says.

First, I’m not a great fan of prizes for art. Ranking one piece of art as greater than another is a highly subjective exercise, and prizes that award the artist, as opposed to a particular work, as the Nobel does, are especially problematic. Just take note of the fact that it is rare to find a university English course nowadays that focuses on a single writer. The only writer who is routinely given a regularly scheduled course of his own is Shakespeare. A few universities may also have one on Chaucer, but that’s it. Every other writer is read alongside and in conversation with others. The Nobel’s focus on the “great writer” is distinctly out of step with how we read and consider literature today.

I don’t have a problem with Dylan winning the prize; he is a great and highly influential artist. But I would resist any claim that Dylan is somehow more or less deserving than Philip Roth, Joni Mitchell, or Ursula K. Le Guin (just to name three American artists whose names have been bandied about as worthy of consideration). Alice Munro won the Nobel in 2013, and many believe that Margaret Atwood will now never win it because they “can’t” award the prize to two Canadians in a short span of time. Did Munro deserve to win? Yes. Is she a better writer than Atwood? No. Nor is she a lesser one. Such comparisons, while perhaps making an enjoyable topic for barroom debate, are essentially meaningless, especially since political factors like one’s country of origin plays into the selection process. It would be much better if the Nobel went to individual works of literature—after all, the science prizes are awarded for individual discoveries—and if there were an indeterminate number awarded every year, creating an aura of “these are a number of works worthy of recognition,” rather than “this is the best.” But, of course, that’s not going to happen.

One good thing about Dylan winning, though, is that it challenges the popular concept of literature. Of all the commentary on social media, I haven’t seen one literature professor opine that popular music doesn’t qualify as literature. That sentiment has come from outside the circle of those who study the subject for a living. The popular concept of “literature” is books, preferably books of poetry or novels, the heavier, both literally and metaphorically, the better. And if it’s written by a dead, white man, even better. But literature encompasses so much more: songs, raps, graphic novels, comic strips, journalism, science fiction, folklore, horror.... All of which deserves to be studied and the best of it honored.

The choice of Dylan is not, however, daring. Dylan is a hugely successful, commercial artist. He is as mainstream as it gets. Go out into the crowd and start asking people to name something written by Alice Munro, Philip Roth, or Margaret Atwood. You’ll get blank stares and a lot of hemming and hawing. Every now and then you might find someone who pipes in with “Portnoy’s Complaint” or “The Handmaid’s Tale,” but that’s about it. But ask them to name something by Dylan, and they’ll rattle off dozens of his songs. I’m not implying by this that Dylan doesn’t deserve to win the prize or that he isn’t an innovative artist; I’m just saying that he’s not a daring choice. I agree with Chet Scoville, choosing Alison Bechdel would be daring.