The Construct

You might remember those sort of “controversial” posts I had on language and prescriptivism (the one commenting on the Bebigerls and another commenting on one of Mr. Jose Carillo’s posts regarding the prescriptivist versus descriptivist debate). As language studies scholar, I do swear by descriptivism, since as a an applied linguist, I have to write about language as it’s being used rather than how it “should” be used.

But I do acknowledge the role of prescriptivism today especially in language teaching. I know that some colleagues in fields such as literature and creative writing do swear by the masterful and artful use of the language. Most have minimal to zero tolerance for grammar errors and lapses. And I do acknowledge their points. In my opinion, if even only for the basis of achieving mutual intelligibility, there is premium to teaching and learning a “standard” English.

And I do concern myself with this thought as of late. I need to bone up on my academic writing. I’ve been trying to write my thesis for the past couple of months only to find myself lacking the patience and discipline to write longer stretches of academic discourse. Years doing web content writing have transformed my writing style from being clear and concise to curt, disorganized, and fluffy.

And I concede that I have to go with a prescriptivist if only to remedy my writing style for the purposes of my thesis. I have to revisit Strunk and White and the MLA Handbook. I even grabbed a few books on style and usage including a couple of Mr. Carillo’s books which I know are excellent local materials on the subject while at the bookstore earlier.

While my position as a language scholar will always be descriptivist, I do maintain that it’s not about choosing one over the other but selecting which one is apt given the context.

Oh. Interesting that I found several David Crystal titles available at National Bookstore. And it was funny to see them located next to Lynne Truss books.

Well, I have already written about prescriptivism at length before. I was really settled in letting the issue go but something caught my eye just this weekend. For some reason, I keep getting a weekly spam from the Jose Carillo English Forum. (Jose Carillo, as some might know, is an award-winning author of books that prescribe “correct English.”) In his advisory, he pits descriptivism against prescriptivism by comparing one of my favorite linguists, David Crystal with Lynne Truss of Eats, Shoots, and Leaves fame. You can find a lengthy post about it on his blog here.

Now for as a scholar of English language studies, there are a few things in the post that made me pause, back track, and read through the piece again.

Top of mind, I am quite uncomfortable with the representatives he picked for the conflicting schools of thought. David Crystal is one of the key figures in linguistics for the past couple of decades and authored many of the important books in the study of English linguistics. Lynne Truss is a writer and a journalist by trade (though graduated with a degree in English Language and Literature) who, as far as I know, has never penned any major work in linguistics. But this point is trivial (and a bit biased since Crystal is an inspiration to my current research) compared to what is probably a major oversight from Mr. Carillo in his piece.

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I’ve been continuously writing about my frustrations with the state of English language scholarship here in our country. I’ve already raised the lack of profitability of English Studies as a field of study. At times, I’ve also touched on the lack of collaboration amongst scholars.

I was talking to my mentor about the difficulties I was having with my research. Apparently, fellow graduate students were also struggling with their theses. Quite ironic, since when it comes to our own students, we’re quite sharp in critiquing their studies.

There are a number of local English language teaching and research groups. However, these groups do foster a sense of exclusivity that students are oftentimes left uninterested with the prospect of joining these groups. In fact, I only became aware of the existence of such groups years after graduating.

Hence, I created this website that would cater to all English language and literature scholars here in the Philippines – The English Studies Forum.

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I might have been brash to attack my own (dying) degree but reality does affirm that English Studies (BAES, UP Diliman) has zero profitability. Survey the graduates of our batch and not one (aside from those who are teaching) has found a field to which the core concepts of the program can be applied. Most have graduated with law degrees, some are in call centers, and others in random corporate work.

This year, a number of our majors have graduated and face the real world. Interesting to find out what careers they will pursue. I wouldn’t be surprised at the diversity of choices.

Over the years, I’ve seen fellow alums struggle to find jobs and careers to which the learning in the program can be directly applied. This greatly limits the number of choices that would fit the applicability and profitability criteria. Compare the jobs to which our graduates have access and most of them offer wages in the lower salary ranges. A fresh graduate of our program is lucky to even get half of a fresh graduate with a different degree (like an engineering or a business degree) is offered.

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Bryan (who happens to have finally launched Constant Random Change) and I have been discussing all sorts of things from technology to business. One points of our discussion was this observation on management and the technology business by former Ruby on Rails hacker Zed Shaw. Here’s his CUSEC speech where he raised these points.

A bit of tech discussions in the middle but the juicier points on management and business can be had after. This is a real treat for any graduate of tech who plans to make money using related skills.

Zed Shaw – The ACL is Dead from CUSEC on Vimeo.

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