Abstract
The article analyses the notions of language and their elements in metalinguistic comments taken from comment sections in online news portals from Lithuania, Norway and Serbia. The aim is to find and categorize different types of language notions. The goals were to analyse the elements of the notions of language and categorize them according to the metaphors found in the discourse. The empirical data was taken from comments under three news (three for each country), approximately 1640 comments were collected and the ones that contained metaphorical representations of language were analysed, 257 in total. The results show eight different notions of language, which are called: prescriptivist / authoritarian, instrumentalist, ethnolinguistic, communicative, essentialist, „personal identity“, elitist and constructivist. The last three notions are specific for only one of the environments and are discussed in greater detail. From the users’ perspective, the difference between the notions is based on several elements, most importantly: the place of language in society (what is the relationship to standard and non-standard varieties) perception of change and function and functionality of language. The results also show that notions of ‘pure language’ are connected not only to the ethnolinguistic notion of language (language as a part of the identity, change is understood as decay), but also with other varieties of language are connected with different (even opposing) ideals and practical concerns (language as a neutral tool of communication, as a separate organism, substance etc.), and, finally, those notions of language, where the differentiation between the varieties of language is not important, is only connected with the communicative function (communicative notion of language – language is communication). Speaking about language ideologies in general, results show that there are of language in which standard language ideology (according to Milroy 2001) is negatively valued.
Highlights
Do linguists have a say in language matters at all? Even though prescrtiptivism has been a negative word in linguistics, a prescriptivist view of language is shared by most non-linguists, at least those living in standard language cultures: There is ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ language
In the Lithuanian case, I will try to present the findings from the notions that are more known from previous research, towards those notions diverging from common notions of language
The concern about language endangerment and national identity is shown through the metaphor of LANGUAGE IS AN INSTRUMENT OF COMMUNICATION
Summary
Do linguists have a say in language matters at all? Even though prescrtiptivism has been a negative word in linguistics, a prescriptivist view of language is shared by most non-linguists, at least those living in standard language cultures: There is ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ language. One main reason for that is the very different ideological standpoint between the linguists and the nonlinguists (Johnson 2001), but there is the question of how much new (socio)linguistic ideas are understood by the media, which can function both as a proxy and as a filter (Jaspers 2014). This is most definitely true when it comes to traditional media (TV and newspapers), where communication is oneway and users are more prone to direct media effects, such as framing and priming. I will discuss whether there are notions of language that challenge the standard language ideology and the prescriptivist notions of language
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