Cognitive Models in Language and Thought: Ideology, Metaphors and Meanings [Reprint 2012 ed.] 9783110892901, 9783110177923

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Cognitive Models in Language and Thought

W DE G

Cognitive Linguistics Research 24

Editors Rene Dirven Ronald W. Langacker John R. Taylor

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Cognitive Models in Language and Thought Ideology, Metaphors and Meanings Edited by Rene Dirven Roslyn Frank Martin Pütz

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York 2003

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin

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ISBN 3 11 017792 7 Bibliographic

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Bibliothek

Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at . © Copyright 2003 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in Germany

Preface This collection of papers is the result of the 29th International LAUD Symposium entitled "The Language of Socio-Political Ideologies", which was held at the University of Koblenz-Landau in Landau (Germany) on March 27-29, 2002. Thanks to the generous support by the DFG (German Research Foundation), the University of Koblenz-Landau, the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Rhineland-Palatinate, the Gillet Foundation (Edenkoben) and the Friends and Supporters of the University of Koblenz-Landau (Campus Landau), many internationally wellknown scholars could participate in the symposium. Thanks are also due to the organizing LAUD team of the conference, in particular Heike Ramsauer, Angelika Daniel and Holly Hirzel for their enthusiasm and kind assistance. Beyond these, a sincere thanks goes out to the authors in this volume, who have responded with alacrity and professionalism to all the requests that have been made of them. We are also indebted to two of the editors of the book series Cognitive Linguistics Research: Ronald W. Langacker and John R. Taylor, whose support was crucial to the emergence of the present volume. Our deep gratitude must also go to those who made this publication possible: to all colleagues who kindly agreed to act as referees and who reviewed the papers, offering valuable advice both to the contributors and to the editors; furthermore, to Anke Beck and Birgit Sievert (Mouton de Gruyter), for their kind assistance and cooperation with this venture; and to Jörg Behrndt (Duisburg), whose expertise and infinite patience gave the volume its final computerized shape. Rene Dirven (University of Duisburg) Roslyn Frank (University of Iowa) Martin Pütz (University of Koblenz-Landau)

Contents Preface

ν

Introduction: Categories, cognitive models and ideologies Rene Dirven, Roslyn M. Frank and Martin Pütz

1

Section 1: Cognitive models of linguistic variation Cultural models of linguistic standardization Dirk Geeraerts How to do things with allophones: Linguistic stereotypes as cognitive reference points in social cognition Gitte Kristiansen

25

69

Section 2: Cognitive models of cultural/social identities Shifting identities in Basque and Western cultural models of Self and Being Roslyn M. Frank Language and ideology in Nigerian cartoons Oyinkan Medubi

123

159

Three mandates for anti-minority policy expressed in U.S. public discourse metaphors Otto Santa Ana

199

Has the consciousness of modern industrial societies rendered "housewife" no longer a value-free cultural model? Lewis Sego

229

viii

Contents

Section 3: Cognitive models as covert ideologies Conceptual metaphor as ideological stylistic means: An exemplary analysis Hans-Georg Wolf and Frank Polzenhagen

247

Metaphor and ideology in the press coverage of telecom corporate consolidations Michael White and Honesto Herrera

277

Section 4: Cognitive models in covert social debates Ideological functions of metaphor: The conceptual metaphors of health and illness in public discourse Andreas Musolff Genetic roulette: On the cognitive rhetoric of biorisk Craig A. Hamilton

327

353

Deciphering the human genome: The semantic and ideological foundations of genetic and genomic discourse Brigitte Neriich and Robert Dingwall

395

List of contributors

429

Index

435

Introduction: Categories, cognitive models and ideologies Rene Dirven, Roslyn M. Frank and Martin Pütz

This volume results from the 29th International LAUD Symposium, held on March 27-29, 2002 at the University of Koblenz-Landau in Landau, Germany. The conference theme "The Language of Sociopolitical Ideologies" concentrated on various aspects of the theory and application of cognitive linguistics and other linguistic models, and more particularly on the interplay between language and ideology seen from various linguistic sub-disciplines. While the present volume has a clear focus on cognitive linguistics in general and cognitive models and metaphor in particular, the other conference volume (eds. Pütz, Neff-van Aertselaer & van Dijk forthcoming) likewise deals with language and ideology, but takes a different perspective, i.e. critical linguistics in discourse and ecolinguistic studies. In this introduction the focus is on the societal orientation of cognitive linguistics, on the many descriptive tools developed in cognitive linguistics, and on the way the contributors have explored and exploited these tools in their analyses of ideologies.

1. The interplay between cognitive linguistics and ideology On the one hand, this collective volume is an attempt to investigate empirically what cognitive linguistics has to offer as research tools for the definition, detection, analysis and interpretation of languagebased societal systems such as ideology. Both in its neutral and in its "loaded" senses, ideology is a system of beliefs and values based on a set of cognitive models, i.e. mental representations - partly linguistic, partly non-linguistic - of recurrent phenomena and their inter-

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pretations in culture and society. As such, the volume is an invitation to all scholars iiwieighboring fields, such as functionalism, pragmatics and critical linguistics or critical discourse analysis, to take cognizance of the instrumental repertoire developed within cognitive linguistics and its ability to address symbolization of overt and covert conceptualizations of belief and value systems and their expression in language. On the other hand, this volume is also an invitation to cognitive linguists, and to all linguists of whatever orientation, to put their analytical tools to work, not only on the system-internal areas of conceptualization and linguistic structure, but also on the crucial areas of socio-political thought, organization and communication. To be more concrete, this volume acts as an incentive to further develop and expand cognitive linguistics in the direction of a cognitive sociolinguistics, i.e towards investigations encompassing cognitive views of language politics and language attitudes, cognitive discourse analysis, cognitive stylistics and cognitive rhetoric. Functioning together in one broad theoretical framework, these various sub-disciplines will be far better equipped to develop large-scale ideology research programs. In this way, cognitive linguistics is heading for its own builtin final destination, that of cognitive semiotics. The ball is in both courts now. Scholars not yet familiar with the tenets and analytical tools of cognitive linguistics are invited to find out more about them. And cognitive linguistic scholars are invited to look beyond the familiar so-called language-structure areas and to come to grips with the societal belief and value systems that these linguistic structures serve, maintain and perpetuate. This may be, in a nutshell, the essence of ideology research. Linguistics, as an academic subject of critical reflection on the many aspects of linguistic structuring and functioning, has, just like most academic disciplines, witnessed the total split between the various paradigms which have developed because of the changing spirit of the times. In turn, due to the neglect or even total exclusion of meaning as a central concern in structuralist thought, and due to its minimalist role in the successive generative approaches, it was only a matter of time before vigorous new sub-disciplines such as pragmat-

Introduction: Categories, cognitive models, and ideologies

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ics and discourse analysis would arise. Similarly, due to the lack of concern for the social symbolizing function of language, it was equally natural that with time other vigorous sub-disciplines such as sociolinguistics, ethnomethodology, conversational analysis, critical linguistics, and critical discourse analysis would come into being. This picture of a total split between all these sub-disciplines in the global linguistic scene may look gloomy, but it is even more disheartening to witness that most linguists seem to feel rather safe in their isolated niches. Yet, cognitive linguistics does not intend to become a new niche for all those who want to safeguard the primacy of meaning. Because cognitive linguistics is fully committed to meaning, it must approach meaning in its deepest societal reality, that is, as negotiated meaning, i.e. as symbolization by human conceptualizers who wish to create and construe the meaning complexes they want to exchange with partners in interaction. Grammar, viewed as the inventory of all possible conventionalized assemblies and constructions of meaning complexes in a given language, is moreover usage-based. As such, cognitive linguistics aims to integrate all the multi-faceted dimensions of linguistic communication. It has an equal commitment to the structuring of linguistic exchanges and to the communicative functions that linguistic expressions are supposed to serve. Cognitive linguistics thus claims to be the very first linguistic model that is all-inclusive or all-embracing. That is, cognitive linguistics is simultaneously both a fully developed grammatical model and a fully user- and usage-oriented model covering the functional, pragmatic, interactive and socio-cultural dimensions of language-inuse. This theoretical stance is not really new for it has been implicit in most of Ron Langacker's and George Lakoff s writings, and it has come to explicit formulations, for example, in Langacker's essay "Culture, cognition and grammar (Langacker 1994). What is new, however, is that a number of cognitive linguists are beginning to explore the second route offered by this all-embracing commitment.

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2. Cognitive tools for ideology research The research tools that the papers in the present volume explore and exploit are not new, but rather they are the very tools inherent to the cognitive approach. Problems of ideology are analyzed from two basic vantage points: a non-metaphorical one (Geeraerts, Kristiansen, Sego, Nerlich & Dingwall), or else a metaphorical vantage point (most other papers), or a mixture of both (Hamilton). This gives ample proof of the fact that cognitive linguistics has much more to contribute to the study of ideology than its know-how on metaphor and metaphorical thought. Indeed, its most basic and strongest research tool is its insightful ability to lay bare the structuring of conceptions and concepts. Therefore, it is only natural that this most basic tool is central to the contributions that cognitive linguists can make to the analysis of ideology. Cognitive linguistics is an approach to language that, as Langacker (2000: 1) puts it, sees the semantic pole as inseparably linked to the phonological pole in the symbolic structure that is language. Though there is dispute about the exact differentiation between meaning and conceptualization (see Levinson 1997), there is no doubt that meanings are conventionalized conceptualizations (see Bartsch 2002). In fact, metaphoric thought should not in any way be seen as opposed to this basic conceptualization tool. Rather it should be understood as a special although all-pervasive subtype of conceptualization. What the metaphorically based papers show is that because of their very nature, metaphors and metonymies offer a surplus in that they often have a great deal of ideological impact. But it is also clear from the content of the various papers in this volume that this ideological potential can equally well be pinpointed by non-metaphorical, that is, non-imaginative, approaches.

2.1.

Common, non-imaginative

conceptualization

From a cognitive perspective, conceptualization operates on various units of conceptual structures, such as categories, cognitive models,

Introduction: Categories, cognitive models, and ideologies

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prototypes and stereotypes, frames, domains, and mental spaces. Langacker (1987: 118ff.) sees a category as a gestalt-like structure, consisting of a profile and a base; the profile is the selected chunk of perception, or more generally, of experience, and the base is the wider context or background against which the profile is projected. Thus a tongue, as the movable and flexible organ in the mouth, has 'the mouth' as its base; the mouth itself is profiled against the face, the face against the head, the head against the body, etc. Category disputes can arise whenever an important component of a category is at stake, e.g. when Hamilton (this volume) reveals the now fuzzy boundaries between animal and human genomes in the special case of the implanting of genetically manipulated organisms in food, or, in the foreseeable future, the implanting of animal parts in humans. Just like Langacker, Lakoff (1987: xv) also considers the gestalt character of any category as essential. But, as a philosophicallyoriented linguist, he also connects this to parameters of the origin and goal of categories, or more generally, of thought. Categories are either grounded in bodily experience through perception or body movement (this is their "embodied" aspect or else they result from "imaginative" processes (metaphor/metonymy, or other mental imagery). Thus in English, tongue as a physical/physiological category or its equivalents in Latin and French, i.e. lingua / langue - is metonymically extended to denote non-bodily experienced entities such as "speech" and "language." From a goal-oriented viewpoint, categories and thought have "ecological" structure, i.e. they depend for their efficiency on the overall structure of the conceptual system. Lakoff uses the term cognitive model for any category, since categories exhibit most of these characteristics. As may be clear from the structuring of the four parts of the present book, the notion cognitive model is taken here in a somewhat more specific sense, i.e. as denoting societal categories. Nonetheless, in essence this view is fully compatible with Lakoff s description of the term, the only difference being that here in our case it is reserved for a more abstract type of categories encountered in culture and society, such as linguistic variation, social or cultural identity, ideology as a system, and many more.

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As Eleanor Rosch (1978) revealed, categories (or cognitive models) have internal structure, i.e., all members of a category do not have the same status within the category: some occupy a more central place while others are relegated to a less central or even a peripheral one. As Taylor (1995: 226) and Winters (1998: 231) convincingly show, this also holds for categories used to describe language, i.e. linguistic categories such as phonemes. Thus the linguistic category of the English consonant Iii has as its members: [th] (aspirated t as in top), [t] (unaspirated t as in fat), [?t] (glottal stop plus t, as in catcall), lateral [r] (flap in intervocalic position as in city [siri], or reduced to zero [0] as in [sii]. The more central allophones [th] and [t] are the prototype, whereas the others are less central or even peripheral. A peripheral allophone may come to be used as a social marker, e.g. the widespread use of the glottal stop in Cockney English. Then, as Kristiansen shows in her contribution, a small set of such markers may constitute a stereotype, a simplified, although not necessarily negative picture of a social group, whose main function is to serve as a reference point for the given social or regional group. In between a (simple) "category" and the very wide notion of "domain", we make use of categories of intermediate complexity which we can, after Fillmore (1975), Fillmore, & Atkins (1992) or Minsky (1975), though in somewhat different senses, call "frames". According to Kristiansen (this volume), frame is a category composed of a number of other categories which form an internally structured whole. Simple examples are chair, window, car; more complex ones are commercial transaction scene, lawsuit, social identity. As a frame, the category "social identity" contains a number of slots such as religious values, (other) ideological values, economic factors, and appearance (sex, skin color, hair, etc.). Part of the appearance is also the use of given allophones, so that, as Kristiansen puts it, a very peripheral element of a phoneme in a very peripheral personality trait of social identity can metonymically come to stand for the whole of a speaker's social and/or regional identity. The various slots of a frame (or parameters, or any other term suggesting a set of different elements) invoke different domains, i.e. various dimensions against which a (complex) category is profiled,

Introduction: Categories, cognitive models, and ideologies

7

such as the abstract domains of religion or other belief and value systems, the economic domain, the physical domains of sex, skin and hair color, pronunciation, etc. In contrast to these various usagebased types of categories, the actual use of categories in discourse can only be accounted for by means of a "bridge" between them. This takes the form of what Fauconnier (1985) calls "mental spaces". Mental spaces are small packages of knowledge and information set up during discourse which enable the interactants to keep a record of the entities (or categories) actually called up in discourse or implied in other categories, especially in frames. Even if the elements of a frame like car are not all activated by referring to this category, (e g. we do not necessarily think of the car's petrol tank when we refer to a car), no problems arise when we ask at a petrol station Can you fill her up?, since the petrol tank is actually accessible as part of the overall car frame. This brief overview of the battery of cognitive tools may have shown sufficiently that cognitive linguistics can make serious attempts at exploring the links between language and thought.

2.2. Imaginative conceptualization In addition to these non-imaginative ways of conceptualizing, cognitive linguistics has revealed the conceptual potential of imaginative routes of conceptualization, especially by means of metaphor and metonymy. The volume's metaphor-based papers all reveal that it is not so much a single metaphor that is apt to carry ideological associations, but rather the various metaphorical instantiations of a common underlying conceptual metaphor. This is especially made clear in the papers by Frank, Santa Ana, Wolf & Polzenhagen, and White & Herrera, who all in different ways exploit and explore the concept of conceptual metaphor. For example, Wolf & Polzenhagen illustrate the potential of conceptual metaphor for the domain of trade negotiations. These can be conceptualized by means of a variety of conceptual metaphors. In turn, each conceptual metaphor acts to impose its particular perspective, i.e., the metaphorical instantiations inherent in the conceptual metaphor chosen. Thus the conceptual metaphor

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(as a sub-category of ARGUMENT IS WAR) imposes a conflict perspective, whereas ARGUMENT IS SPORT(S), while still keeping the competitive winner-loser antonymy, foregrounds a game-like scenario (not taking things too seriously), e.g. allowing for cheating, and even allowing for a draw in some favorite sports such as soccer (see Cubo de Severino et al. 2001). Still there are other conceptual metaphors for TRADE NEGOTIATIONS such as MARKETS ARE CONTAINERS and TRADE is A JOURNEY. But it is not only the conceptual metaphor as such that determines the ideological perspective, but also, and equally decisively, the various linguistic expressions instantiating the underlying conceptual metaphor. Here stylistic factors are of fundamental importance. Thus in the trade war between Japan and America, the American phrasing of the TRADE IS WAR image is rendered in terms of demanding, which reflects a nonhostile stance on the part of one party, namely, America, and hence serves to promote a positive auto-stereotype; in contrast to this, the xeno-stereotype, associated with the Japanese posture is portrayed by aggressive verbs as in "Hashimoto accuses the U.S. of bullying Japan by threatening...". The conceptual frames of "self-presentation" and "other-representation" (see Morgan 1997, Sandikcioglu 2001) are caught up in the antonymy us vs. THEM, which obviously is part and parcel of ideological categorization. TRADE NEGOTIATIONS ARE BATTLES

A highly specific and usually visual representation of a conceptual metaphor is what Hawkins (2001) has called iconographic reference. This term can be understood as the metaphorical pendant of a stereotype in that it is a representation based on simplistic images of the targeted people, groups or ideas, and associated with familiar values, either positive or negative ones. All these conceptualizations tend to operate at a subconscious or unconscious level of thought. This lack of consciousness is directly linked to the rather conventionalized character of conceptual metaphor and iconographic reference. As is the case with all conventionalized categories, so too for metaphorical categories does the rule hold true: the more deeply categories and metaphors get entrenched in people's consciousness, the less conscious people become of their existence. Whereas conceptual metaphor and iconographic reference tend to operate automatically

Introduction: Categories, cognitive models, and ideologies

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and hence remain below the level of conscious awareness, conceptual blending or conceptual integration is rather a dynamic process, as the two nominalizations already suggest. Mental space theory not only solves a number of referential problem areas previously thought to be insoluble, it also represents a congenial contribution to the cognitive theory of metaphor. And again as with the natural link between categorization and metaphorization, there is a natural link between the two uses of conceptual blending in referential blends and in metaphorical blends. In comparison with the two-domain theory of metaphor, the blending theory of metaphor is revolutionary, firstly because it breaks through a fairly static two-domain view with a source domain being mapped onto a target domain, and secondly because it develops a multi-space view. This allows elements from various input spaces associated with the source domain and the target domain to be joined together as a generic space, and to be mapped into a blended space, or blend. This volume clearly underscores the success of the "conceptual blend" approach for it is exploited or, at least implicitly invoked in many of its papers, i.e. in those by Kristiansen, Medubi, Wolf & Polzenhagen, Musolff, Nerlich & Dingwall, and Hamilton. The most typical representative is perhaps Medubi's discussion of the lack of awareness of a national ideology or identity in her country, Nigeria. In her approach, blending theory can account both for non-metaphorical and metaphorical blends. A nonmetaphorical blend occurs in the coining of the term Military President, which blends the military dictatorship space with the democratically elected head of state space, and thus creates the illusion that there is still a democratic component in such a military type of president. In a more subtle way, the iconographic reference represented by the conceptual metaphor OUR LITTLE SON is used as a conceptual metonymy standing for the split into ethnic identities of Nigeria's ethnically thinking and acting groups. Since the source OUR LITTLE SON as an iconographic reference stands for the target FAMILY AS AUTHORITY, the implicit inference is that the soN-politician's actions must respond to the interests and expectations of his FAMILY subjects, i.e. the members of his ethnic group.

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In summary, in this section we have looked at the various analytical instruments the papers use, illustrate or develop. In the next section, we will examine the contribution that each paper makes individually in terms of its insights into various other aspects and areas of socio-political ideology.

3. Single cognitive inroads to ideology research In the present volume, cognitive models and the ideologies of which they are constitutive, are approached along two different axes: a thematic axis (sections 1 and 2) and a methodological axis (sections 3 and 4). The papers selected thematically focus on cognitive models of linguistic variation and on cognitive models of cultural and/or social identities. On the other hand, the papers selected methodologically focus on the way cognitive models in ideologies are communicated, which can be accomplished either in a covert form or in overt public debates. Therefore, we can state that along the thematic axis it appears that human communities have built up cognitive models, not only of social structures, but also of the instrument used to develop social structures, i.e. language itself.

3.1.

Cognitive models of linguistic

variation

In his contribution "Cultural models of linguistic standardization", Dirk Geeraerts starts out from the simple assumption that any language, or a particular type of discourse, contains or expresses ideological elements. His paper, however, is focused on a more encompassing area of interest, namely the field of language variation and linguistic standardization which likewise is inherent in the relationship between language and ideology. According to Geeraerts, the choice of a particular language variety as the standard is an ideologyladen decision; as such, it can implicate concepts such as emancipation, democracy, participation in public life, etc. His discussion of the standardization of one (or more) of the language varieties within a

Introduction: Categories, cognitive models, and ideologies

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language community shows that in Western thought two basic cognitive models have prevailed as a means of conceiving the relation between social reality and language, i.e. a rationalist and a romantic model. On the one hand, there is the Enlightenment rationalist model, which views language as a neutral medium of democratic participation and emancipation, transcending geographical differences and social distinctions. On the other hand, there is the Romantic model, which sees language as the intimate expression of a specific identity, foregoing the necessity of mediating between identities. The 19th century witnessed the development of an influential nationalist model that combined issues from both basic models; finally, the late 20th century was characterized by a shift towards questions of globalization, linguistic imperialism and the international position of English. Thus, although both of these models have developed over time, they still continue to be the fundamental determinants of language policies and people's acceptance of norms or standards which shape the language attitudes of linguistic communities. In strong contrast to most studies in the field of stereotypes carried out so far, Gitte Kristiansen, in her paper "How to do things with allophones: Linguistic stereotypes as cognitive reference points in social cognition", takes a positive view of stereotypes as manifested in regional and social accents and the covert ideology encapsulated in them, since accents function as reference points in social cognition. Using models of cognitive linguistics, Kristiansen argues that phonetic variants form part of larger cognitive structures which in turn relate to social categorizations and self-categorization. Seen from a listener-oriented perspective, the hearer can be provided with answers to essential questions such as "Where is this speaker from?" and "What is this speaker like?" The second part of her paper deals with the claim that the categories themselves may be caused to change which she explains in terms of a conflict between core and peripheral components, core components often being ideological in nature. Her theoretical framework is cognitive in nature in the sense that the use we make of non-cotext dependent phonetic variants should entitle us to place them at least in a fuzzy area as far as

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meaning-making is concerned. In a more general sense, in Kristiansen's opinion one of the current challenges of cognitive linguistics is the application of models to levels of linguistic structure apart from that of the lexical item, namely the identification of allophonic variation which may become part of linguistic stereotypes. The latter are regarded as cognitively useful tools relative to which speaker and hearer locate each other and actively position themselves, i.e. as cognitive reference point constructions which in turn relate to larger conceptual frames of a more propositional content. Kristiansen concludes that allophonic variation may actually embody and express ideology thus playing a socially distinctive role and even representing a distinct world. Unarguably, the papers by both Geeraerts and Kristiansen can thus be seen as manifestations of a nascent cognitive sociolinguistics.

3.2.

Cognitive models of cultural/social

identities

Cognitive models may be idealized representations of smaller systems such as variation in language, or of much larger cultural systems such as, for instance, the European or Western model, African ethnic models, ethnic minority models, or even lesser known indigenous cultural models. Roslyn Frank's paper entitled "Shifting identities in Basque and Western cultural models of Self and Being" investigates the influence of the general European model on a specific aspect of the Basque model. Each of the two models is based on different image schemata, which shape overarching cultural models laid down in the root metaphors of language. Thus the Basque model relates more to indigenous models of different continents than to the European one. Still, socio-cultural identity, especially that of the younger Basque generation, appears to be increasingly affected by the European model. Frank shows that the different image schemata structure the cognitively backgrounded field of conceptual categories and related strategies upon which representations of ideology, as well as definitions of Basque identity, have been and are played out, often quite unconsciously. The study deals with the way certain conceptual

Introduction: Categories, cognitive models, and ideologies

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frames are undergoing change and reorganization in Euskera, the Basque language. Furthermore, the thesis is defended that - in line with Sapir - perception remains susceptible to the influence of language habits. At the same time, language choices by both the European and the Basque group involve ideological positioning on the part of the individual speaker. In the article "Language and ideology in Nigerian cartoons" Oyinkan Medubi reveals how in Nigerian politics one can witness the lack of a national ideology and identity, and how social group ideologies, either ethnic or regional ones, gain prevalence, leading to ethnic and regional models of power as well as to profit seeking for the in-group. Due to the fact that Nigeria is a conglomeration of peoples of disparate experiences and diverse languages/dialects the country seems to be ideologically confused to a large extent. Medubi has looked at 150 political cartoons from three of Nigeria's most important newspapers, The Punch, The Guardian and Vanguard. She starts out discussing three approaches as complementary instruments for analyzing ideological situations in the ongoing political life in Nigeria, namely Turner and Fauconnier's blending theory, Raskin's script/scenario approach, and Voloshinov's semiotic theory. Her research questions deal with issues relating to how speech patterns function to express the individual's or group's social identity and in what ways the linguistic behavior and lexical choices are reflective of the perceived aims of the individual or group. Medubi shows that cartoons serve as vehicles in the construction of a society's sociopolitical life: they function as mirrors in which sociocultural realities and ideologies are reflected. As a result, careful interpretation of the ideological positions portrayed in the cartoons provides a means of reconstructing the understandings implicit in them as well as their role in directing these socio-political processes. She concludes her article by asserting the view that the underlying ideology in Nigeria today is one of political coercion, manipulation and power control through forceful subjugation (the military) and blackmail (ethnic politics). The study unearths a disturbing fact: the desire to dominate other groups and individuals is still unusually strong in each identi-

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fied collective, and furthermore, this was one of the fundamental causes of the last civil war. Likewise focusing on the interrelationship between language, power and society, Otto Santa Ana unmasks the American cognitive model of U.S. Latinos that excludes them from the dominant model of American identity. In his article "Three mandates for anti-minority policy expressed in U.S. public discourse metaphors" the model is shown to be based on three predominant conceptual metaphors which are all negative in orientation, i.e. PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS, SOCIAL BACKWARDNESS IS A DISEASE, a n d

SOCIAL MEASURES ARE MERELY

Making USe of a fUllscale study (4,500 text metaphors extracted from 670 Los Angeles Times articles, dating from 1992-98), Santa Ana examines the linguistic material of naturally-occurring public discourse, in order to preclude common criticisms of metaphor analysis of ideology, i.e. bias and non-representativeness. Santa Ana maintains a strong form of the view that language constitutes ideology and that human knowledge is constituted in terms of metaphor. He argues that metaphor constitutes public opinion and the publicly shared world view, specifically how U.S. public discourse reproduces and reinforces the unjust social order which debases Latinos as an ethnic group. Generally, the metaphors used by Americans to speak about Latinos constitute the key elements of the national ideology that drives policy decisions affecting this large minority population. Santa Ana therefore demonstrates that the long-sought unit of analysis for critical discourse analysis is indeed common everyday metaphor. The study of metaphors that Americans unthinkingly use in legitimated discourse potentially offers a window into the US public's worldview, i.e. its ideology: Latinos are never the arms or heart of the U.S.; they are portrayed as burdens or diseases of the NATION AS BODY, or as foreigners that invade the NATION AS HOUSE. REMEDIES FOR THE SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE.

Lewis P. Sego, in turn, analyses the traditional cognitive model of the "housewife", one that is now disappearing in a world where more and more women are occupying full-time jobs that take them out of the home. Referring to the rapid economic and technological changes that have taken place since the beginning of the industrial age and the

Introduction: Categories, cognitive models, and ideologies

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subsequent information age, Sego examines how the term 'housewife' has responded to these cultural changes. The article "Has the consciousness of modern industrial societies rendered 'Housewife' no longer a value-free cultural model?" demonstrates that the new socio-cultural context favors new conceptualizations such as homemaker or house husband, but still regards them as unstable neologisms. Making use of concepts such as form and structure, function and essence, Sego demonstrates the cognitively complex nature of the model. For example, in regard to the functional value of the term 'housewife', the assumption is that there is an aspect of causation to everything we can talk about or examine or imagine, i.e. once we see a few housewives performing a certain service, the image may become integrated into our cognitive model. Following Fauconnier and Turner, Sego sees compression and conceptual integration as some of the most basic phenomena in an understanding of human life. Cause and effect offer the mind a grasp of most things around us and this is no less the case with the underlying cultural model supporting the term housewife. Moreover, in the world of work the entry of many women into a place of prominence within the professions and within businesses and places of commerce certainly has redefined what 'work' is.

4. Cognitive models as covert ideologies Covert cognitive models and ideology are strongly associated with the functions of conceptual metaphors. The paper "Conceptual metaphor as ideological stylistic means: An exemplary analysis" by Hans-Georg Wolf and Frank Polzenhagen integrates conceptual metaphors, ideology research, and stylistics. The authors introduce three theoretical models in the respective research areas of metaphor, style and critical linguistics, namely (i) the distinction between conceptual and linguistic metaphors, (ii) the concepts of "global stylistic pattern" and "local stylistic effect", and (iii) the notion of "systematicity" in the selection of ideologically charged linguistic categories which by their varying specific instantiations in the dis-

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course create coherence in the text and a certain image of the parties involved. The three positions, which are said to be mutually supportive of each other, are carefully outlined and the way in which their convergence can benefit a linguistic analysis of ideology is explained. In the final part of the paper, a text is exemplarily analyzed to show how the methodological tool of conceptual metaphor can be applied to the study of style and ideology. The object of study is a newspaper article taken from USA TODAY where the economic tensions between the US and Japan are outlined. Wolf and Polzenhagen explain the metaphoric structure of the text and then trace the ideological underpinnings and implications of the conceptual metaphors identified, i.e. TRADE NEGOTIATIONS ARE BATTLES and, closely related, TRADE NEGOTIATIONS ARE CONTESTS. The authors convincingly show that metaphor, ideology and style become interdependent; consequently this approach can be said to be a first attempt at setting up a cognitive stylistics (but see also Sego 1985) within the framework of critical linguistics. Michael White and Honesto Herrera show that in journalism the prevailing cognitive model which assumes a complete separation between information and opinion in press coverage, is another unsustainable and, therefore, false dichotomy and that, like most other oppositions, they are best understood as endpoints on a conceptual continuum. In their paper entitled "Metaphor and ideology in the press coverage of telecom corporate consolidations" this becomes especially apparent when one takes a wider view of the discourses going on in society, e.g. when the discourse on trade is itself seen as composed of many different domains and their discourses, such as those of economics, business, politics, government, etc. For example, business events are characteristically explained via core metaphors such as MONOPOLIES ARE DINOSAURS, BUSINESS IS WAR; BUSINESS IS COLONISATION and COMPANIES ARE ANIMALS, which impose a particular profile and which allow the same metaphor to be exploited in different ways. These metaphors, and the particular aspects highlighted through the different instantiations are examined from different perspectives. White and Herrera claim that the metaphors in question are overtly and covertly used with ideological charges and implications

Introduction: Categories, cognitive models, and ideologies

17

and that they play an essential role in how the companies involved present their decisions to the public. By using evidence from press coverage in English and Spanish, White and Herrera highlight cultural similarities and differences and they furthermore show how stereotypes are more prone to enter the scene where transnational coverage is involved.

5. Cognitive models in overt social debates An interesting insight into the covert and overt ideological functioning of conceptual metaphors and conceptual blends is provided in Andreas Musolff s paper entitled "Ideological functions of metaphor: The conceptual metaphors of health and illness in public discourse". The paper analyzes parts of a bilingual German-English corpus concerning the use of imagery in German and British press coverage on European Union topics during the 1990s. Musolff combines a cognitive metaphor analysis with corpus-based methods in order to show the characteristic ideological contrasts between the uses within a source domain in the German and British communities. Because conceptual metaphors are largely linguistic habits that are automatic and unconscious, they can strongly favor the spread of ideological thought. Moreover, conceptual metaphors rely on deeply felt patterns of experience and are thus apt to appeal to the emotions. Whereas all this happens unconsciously, conceptual metaphors can be consciously developed into all sorts of blends by ideologues, thus directing the course of metaphoric reasoning and the related inferential processes. Musolff s discussion of metaphors of health and illness reveals these to be richly textured conceptual metaphors which historically have had strong ideological purport in public discourse. Different cognitive models of the European Union are identified. For instance, in Germany the public debate centers around illness metaphors, while in Britain it is carried out in terms of heart metaphors; and in both cases many blends may arise. However, rather than analyzing the characteristic contrasts between German and British metaphor use as conceptual differences in the Lakoffian sense, it seems to

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be more appropriate to view them as variations in the argumentative application of 'internal'meaning aspects of the metaphorical source domain. In his paper "Genetic roulette: On the cognitive rhetoric of Biorisk", Craig Hamilton investigates the public discourse surrounding genetically manipulated food (GMF) and organisms (GMO) by analyzing the category struggles that have arisen between interest and action groups over the issue of which of the two types of food (GMF or GM-free food, i.e. natural food) is exempted from being specifically labeled as such, and thus destined to become the default case. Generally, Hamilton assumes, the connection between language and ideology is clearest in recent debates over the production and consumption of genetically modified food. At the two extremes of the discussion he sees biotech companies producing genetically modified foods and green consumer groups. He compares the positions these stakeholders take in both spoken and written texts (e.g. television documentaries, print advertisements, newspaper articles). By making reference to 'cognitive rhetoric' (Turner 1991), the linguistic constructions and conceptual frames are highlighted and by doing so a better understanding of how ideology is served by language in the fight over genetically modified food can be achieved. The competing ideologies of the biotech companies and the green groups rely heavily on category disputes, metaphors, and conceptual blends in order to frame the debate on their terms and for their specific purposes. As Hamilton argues in his paper, it is precisely at this point where language and ideology converge that the cognitive rhetoric inherent to the debate provides interesting insights into the issues analyzed. In their article entitled "Deciphering the human genome: The semantic and ideological foundations of genetic and genomic discourse" Brigitte Neriich and Robert Dingwall explore the semantic and ideological foundations of genetic and genomic discourse. The production of a 'working draft' of the human genome was announced on June 26, 2000 at a linked US/UK press conference involving President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair. Their paper analyses the politicians' speeches, the accompanying press releases, with contri-

Introduction: Categories, cognitive models, and ideologies

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butions from leading scientists associated with the project, and British national newspaper coverage of this event. Nerlich and Dingwall expose the false categorization of the DNA or human genome as "a code" or as "the book of life" which is to be deciphered by scientists. This decontextualized view of the genome is a reflection of the earlier view in linguistics of language as a decontextualized code and has misguided much of past genetic and genome research. The authors argue that if this research continues to use a language metaphor, it can only make new gains by exploiting the more recently developed contextualized, usage-based cognitive views of language. By critically analyzing a series of speeches they show that the older genetic discourse still permeates modern genomic discourse, notably through the use of metaphorical expressions such as "the book of life". In their conclusion the authors ask the question as to whose language is more 'ideological', that of the politicians, the media or the scientists themselves.

References Titles referred to in the contributions are not listed here Bartsch, Renate 2002 Generating polysemy: Metaphor and metonymy. In: Rene Dirven and Ralf Poerings (eds.), Metaphor and Metonymy in Comparison and Contrast (Cognitive Linguistics Research 20), 49-74. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Bolinger, Dwight L. 1980 Language: The Loaded Weapon. London: Longman. Dirven, Rene, Bruce Hawkins and Esra Sandikcioglu (eds.) 2001 Language and Ideology. Volume I: Theoretical Cognitive Approaches (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 204). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Dirven, Rene, Roslyn M. Frank, and Cornelia Ilie (eds.) 2001 Language and Ideology. Volume II: Descriptive Cognitive Approaches (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 205). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Fauconnier, Gilles 1985 Mental Spaces: Aspects of Meaning Construction in Natural Language. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.

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Fillmore, Charles J. 1975 Santa Cruz Lectures on Deixis 1971. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Linguistics Club. Fillmore, Charles J and Beryl T.S. Atkins 1992 Toward a frame-based lexicon: The semantics of RISK and its neighbours. In: Adrienne Lehrer and Eva F. Kittay (eds.), Frames, Fields and Contrasts: New Essays in Semantic and Lexical Organization, 75-102. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hawkins, Bruce W. 2001 Ideology, metaphor and iconographic reference. In: Rene Dirven, Roslyn M. Frank, and Cornelia Ilie (eds), 27-50. Johnson, Mark 1993 Moral Imagination: Implications of Cognitive Science for Ethics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George 1987 Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1992 Metaphor and war: The metaphor system used to justify war in the Gulf. In: Martin Pütz (ed.), Thirty Years of Linguistic Evolution. Studies in Honour of Rene Dirven on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, 463-481. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 1996 a The metaphor system for morality. In: Adele Ε. Goldberg (ed.), Conceptual Structure, Discourse and Language, 249-266. Stanford, Cal.: CSLI Publications. 1996 b Sorry, I'm not myself today: The metaphor system for conceptualizing the self. In: Gilles Fauconnier and Eve Sweetser (eds.), Spaces, Worlds and Grammars, 91-123. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1996 c Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know that Liberals Don't. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 1987 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, Vol. I: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1994 Culture, cognition and grammar. In: Martin Pütz (ed.) Language Contact. Language Conflict, 25-53. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 1999 A dynamic usage-based model. In: Michael Barlow and Suzanne Kemmer (eds.), Usage-based Models of Language, 1-63. Stanford, Cal.: CSLI Publications.

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Grammar and Conceptualization (Cognitive Linguistics Research 14). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Levinson, Stephen C. 1997 From outer to inner space: Linguistic categories and nonlinguistic thinking. In: Jan Nuyts and Eric Pederson (eds.), Language and Conceptualization (Language, Culture and Cognition 1), 13-45. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Minsky, M. 1975 A framework for representing knowledge. In: P. H. Winston (ed.), The Psychology of Computer Vision, 211-277. New York: McGraw-Hill. Morgan, Pamela S. 1997 Self-presentation in a speech of Newt Gingrich. Pragmatics 7: 275-307. Pütz, Martin, JoAnne Neff-van Aertselaer and Teun van Dijk (eds.) Forthcoming Language, Discourse, and Ideology. 2 vols. Rosch, Eleanor 1978 Principles of categorization. In: Eleanor Rosch and Barbara B. Lloyd (eds.), Cognition and Categorization, 27—48. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Sandikcioglu, Esra 2001 b Orientalism: The ideology behind the metaphorical Gulf War. In: Rene Dirven, Roslyn M. Frank, and Cornelia Ilie (eds.), 161— 188. Sego, Lewis 1985 [Conference paper] " A model for computerized analysis of cognitive stylistics in literary texts", Midwest Modern Language Association, St. Louis, MO. Taylor, John R. 1995 [1989] Linguistic Categorization: Prototypes in Linguistic Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Winters, Margaret 1998 Language across time: Historical linguistics. In: Rene Dirven and Maijolijn Verspoor (eds.), Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics, 217-246. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Section 1 Cognitive models of linguistic variation

Cultural models of linguistic standardization Dirk Geeraerts*

Abstract In line with well-known trends in cultural theory (see Burke, Crowley & Girvin 2000), Cognitive Linguistics has stressed the idea that we think about social reality in terms of models - 'cultural models' or 'folk theories': from Holland and Quinn (1987) over Lakoff (1996) and Palmer (1996) to Dirven, Hawkins and Sandikcioglu (2001) and Dirven, Frank and Ilie (2001), Cognitive linguists have demonstrated how the technical apparatus of Cognitive Linguistics can be used to analyze how our conception of social reality is shaped by underlying patterns of thought. But if language is a social and cultural reality, what are the models that shape our conception of language? Specifically, what are the models that shape our thinking about language as a social phenomenon? What are the paradigms that we use to think about language, not primarily in terms of linguistic structure (as in Reddy 1979), but in terms of linguistic variation: models about the way in which language varieties are distributed over a language community and about the way in which such distribution should be evaluated? In this paper, I will argue that two basic models may be identified: a rationalist and a romantic one. I will chart the ways in which they interact, describe how they are transformed in the course of time, and explore how the models can be used in the analysis of actual linguistic variation. Keywords: cultural model, Dutch, Enlightenment, nationalism, romanticism, standard language.

* For comments and suggestions with regard to an earlier version of the paper, I cordially thank Rene Dirven, Stef Grondelaers, Lieve Jooken, Gert De Sutter, Jose Tummers, and Bart Vandenabeele.

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1. Cultural models and language variation There are two preliminary remarks that I should make in order to situate the present paper against a wider background. First, the analysis is a marginal offshoot of a more central interest in empirical methods for studying linguistic variation and change. The work that I have been doing over the last ten years or so with my research group has specifically focused on various aspects of lexical variation and change: diachronic semantics (Geeraerts 1997), the relationship between semantic and lexical variation (Geeraerts, Grondelaers & Bakema 1994), and lexical variation within pluricentric languages such as Dutch (Geeraerts, Grondelaers & Speelman 1999). Within the latter line of research, we have been particularly concerned with the development of quantitative techniques for measuring lexical variation and processes of lexical standardization (see section 4 below). There are two ways, then, in which the present more or less essayistic paper links up with the more rigorous descriptive and methodological work that is my basic field of interest. For one thing, an investigation into linguistic usage needs to be complemented by an investigation into the way in which the users of the language perceive the actual situation. The cultural models that I will be talking about define, in a sense, basic language attitudes - and an adequate interpretation of language variation should obviously take into account language attitudes along with language behavior. At the same time, both perspectives (the behavioral and the attitudinal) have links with Cognitive Linguistics. Whereas the attitudinal approach draws inspiration from the Cognitive Linguistic analysis of cultural models and folk theories, the descriptive approach is a further development of the Cognitive Linguistic interest in lexicalsemantic variation as represented by prototype theory. Underlying the publications mentioned above is a logical line of development from semasiological prototype theory (Geeraerts 1997) to a model of lexical variation encompassing onomasiological variation (Geeraerts, Grondelaers & Bakema 1994), which then further broadens to the

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investigation of 'external', sociolectal and dialectal factors of variation (Geeraerts, Grondelaers & Speelman 1999). As a second preliminary remark, is there a difference between a 'cultural model' and an ideology? It is a common idea in Cognitive Linguistics that the cultural models underlying reasoning and argumentation are to some extent idealized entities (see, for instance, the notion of ICM's or 'Idealized Cognitive Models' as introduced in Lakoff 1987). Actually occurring phenomena and situations usually differ to a smaller or a greater extent from the models that act as cognitive reference points: the models themselves, then, are to some extent abstract, general, perhaps even simplistic, precisely because we use them to make sense of phenomena that are intrinsically more complicated. With regard to social phenomena, this means that cultural models may turn out to be not just idealized entities, but also ideological ones. Cultural models may be ideologies in two different respects: either when their idealized character is forgotten (when the difference between the abstract model and the actual circumstances is neglected), or when they are used in a prescriptive and normative rather than a descriptive way (when they are used as models of how things should be rather than of how things are). In the latter case, an ideology is basically a guiding line for social action, a shared system of ideas for the interpretation of social reality, regardless of the researcher's evaluation of that perspective. In the former case, an ideology is always to some extent a cover-up, a semblance, a deliberate misrepresentation of the actual situation, and a description of such ideologies will of necessity have to be critical. The distinction is of course well-known in ideology research, and there is an extensive linguistic literature probing the relationship between language and ideology. There are two basic (and to some extent overlapping) approaches here: on the one hand, all forms of critical discourse analysis, as represented by van Dijk (1998), Wodak and Meyer (2001), or Blommaert and Bulcaen (1997); and on the other, the 'ideologies of language' approach, as represented by Joseph and Taylor (1990), Woolard, Schieffelin and Kroskrity (1998), and Schiffman (1996). The former approach critically analyzes any

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text with regard to its position in the social power play - with regard to the way, that is, in which it reproduces or counteracts existing social relations. The latter approach concentrates on how beliefs about language variation and specific linguistic varieties manifest themselves explicitly (as in language policies) or implicitly (as in educational practices), and how they interact with group identity, economic development, social mobility, political organization. In the following pages, I will not take a critical approach, but rather start from a neutral and descriptive conception of linguistic cultural models. Rather than critically analyzing specific practices and policies as ideological, I will try to explore the underlying structure and the historical development of the competing cultural models that lie at the basis of such practices and policies as well as their critical analysis.

2. The rationalist and the romantic model In this section, I will present the two basic cultural models that I think need to be distinguished if we want to get a grip on the logic of standardization debates: the rationalist one and the romantic one. I will present them in mutual contrast, showing how they are to a large extent each other's counterpart, and how they are dialectically related. The present section will not however exhaust the comparison between both models. In the next section, the comparison will be further expanded, leading to the identification of two historical transformations of the basic models, in the form of a nationalist and a postmodern model.

2.1. The rationalist model So what are the characteristics that are ideally (and perhaps ideologically) attributed to standard languages? The most conspicuous feature is probably the generality of standard languages. Standard lan-

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guages, in contrast with dialects and other restricted languages, are general in three different ways. They are geographically general, in the sense that they overarch the more restricted areas of application of dialects. Further, they are socially general because they constitute a common language that is not the property of a single social group but that is available to all. Finally, they are thematically universal in the sense that they are equipped to deal with any semantic domain or any linguistic function. More advanced domains of experience in particular (like science or high culture) fall outside the range of local dialects. Because of their generality, standard languages have two additional features. First, they are supposed to be a neutral medium, with a mediating function, in an almost philosophical sense of 'mediation'. Standard languages, in fact, transcend social differences: they ensure that men and women from all walks of life and from all corners of the nation can communicate freely. In that sense, they are a medium of participation and emancipation. Because of their neutrality and because of their functional generality, standard languages are a key to the world of learning and higher culture: functional domains par excellence for standard language use (or, reversing the perspective, functional domains that cannot be accessed on the basis of dialect knowledge alone). Perhaps even more importantly, standard languages are supposed to contribute to political participation. The possibility of free communication is a feature of a democratic political organization, in the sense of the ideal 'herrschaftsfreie Kommunikation' as described by Jürgen Habermas. If then linguistic standardization contributes to mutual understanding and free communication, it is a factor of political emancipation - just as it is a factor of social emancipation when it contributes to the spreading of culture and education. By contrast, if you believe in the beneficial effects of standardization, dialects are mere relics of an obscurantist social and political system that opposes democracy and emancipation. In a context of postmodern ideological debunking, such a positive conception of standardization is definitely suspect, but it is crucial for my line of argumentation that at least in the context in which it origi-

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nated (that of the 18th century Enlightenment), there was a genuine positive appraisal of standardization. To illustrate, let us have a look at some excerpts from reports presented to the revolutionary Convention in France. Barere (1794 [1975]) puts matters as follows: (1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

Citoyens, la langue d'un peuple libre doit etre une et la raeme pour tous. (1794 [1975]: 297) [Citizens, the language of a free people has to be one and the same for all.] Les lumieres portees ä grands frais aux extremites de la France s'eteignent en y arrivant, puisque les lois n'y sont pas entendues. (1794 [1975]: 295) [The lumieres, when they are brought with great difficulty to the remote corners of France, die out when they arrive there, because the laws are not understood.] Laisser les citoyens dans l'ignorance de la langue nationale, c'est trahir la patrie; c'est laisser le torrent des lumieres empoisonne ou obstrue dans son cours; c'est meconnaitre les bienfaits de rimprimerie, car chaque imprimeur est un instituteur public de langue et de legislation. (1794 [1975]: 296-297) [To maintain the citizens in their ignorance of the national language is to betray the country. It permits the torrent of the lumieres to be poisoned or obstructed in its course. It means disavowing the blessings of the printing press, because all publishers are public teachers of the language and the legislation.] Citoyens, les tyrans coalises on dit: l'ignorance fut toujours notre auxiliaire le plus puissant; maintenons l'ignorance; eile fait les fanatiques, elle multiplie les contre-revolutionnaires; faisons retrograder les Franfais vers la barbarie: servons-nous des peuples mal instruits ou de ceux qui parlent un idiome different de celui de 1'instruction publique. (1794 [1975]: 291) [Citizens, the allied tyrants have said: ignorance has always been our most powerful helper. It creates fanatics, it breeds counter-revolutionaries. Let's make sure

Cultural models of linguistic standardization

(5)

31

the French degrade into barbarity: let's take advantage of the badly educated peoples or of those that speak a language that is different from that of public education.] Les habitants des campagnes n'entendent que le bas-breton; c'est avec cet instrument barbare de leurs pensees superstitieuses que les pretres et les intrigants les tiennent sous leur empire, diligent leurs consciences et empechent les citoyens de connaitre les lois et d'aimer la Republique. Vos travaux leur sont inconnus, vos efforts pour leur affranchissement sont ignores. (1794 [1975]: 292-293) [The inhabitants of the countryside speak only the Breton dialect. It is with that instrument of their superstitious way of thinking that the priests and the plotters keep them under their thumb, control their minds, and prevent the citizens from knowing the laws of the Republic. Your works are unknown to them, your efforts to bring them liberty are ignored.]

The characteristics that we have attributed to standard languages (generality and communicative neutrality, emancipatory and participatory effects, opposition to obscurantism) can be easily identified in these fragments. Fragment (1) expresses the generality and uniformity of the standard language. Fragments (2) and (3) stress the emancipatory function of knowledge of the standard: citizens who only know their dialect will not understand the laws of the Republic (the assumption being, of course, that these have a liberating effect), nor will they, more generally speaking, be able to profit from the benefits brought by the printed press. Fragments (4) and (5) associate dialects more directly with counter-revolutionary obscurantism: it is suggested that priests and 'tyrants' deliberately maintain ignorance by preventing the common people from acquiring the standard language. A similar pattern can be found in the following quotes from Gregoire (1794 [1975]), who actually presents an entire educational project to the Convention to 'abolish the dialects and generalize the use of the French language'. (His notion of 'dialect' actually includes not just the dialects of French, but also the different languages spo-

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ken in the territory of France, like German in the Alsace region, Flemish in the northern area, or Breton in Brittany.) (6)

(7)

Mais au moins on peut uniformer le langage d'une grande nation, de maniere que tous les citoyens qui la composent puissent sans obstacle se communiquer leurs pensees. Cette entreprise, qui ne fut pleinement executee chez aucun peuple, est digne du peuple fran9ais, qui centralise toutes les branches de Γ organisation sociale et qui doit etre jaloux de consacrer au plutöt, dans une Republique une et indivisible, l'usage unique et invariable de la langue et de la liberie. (1794 [1975]: 302) [But at least one can standardize the language of a great nation, to the extent that all its citizens can mutually communicate their thoughts unhindered. Such an enterprise, which no people has fully achieved as yet, is worthy of the French nation, which centralizes all aspects of the social organization and which must endeavour to endorse as soon as possible, in a Republic that is one and indivisible, the sole and invariable use of language and freedom.] Ί1 y a dans notre langue, disait un royaliste, une hierarchie de style, parce que les mots sont classes comme les sujets dans une monarchie'. Cet aveu est un trait de lumiere pour quiconque reflechit. En appliquant l'inegalite des styles ä celle des conditions, on peut tirer des consequences qui prouvent Γ importance de mon projet dans une democratie. (1794 [1975]: 316) ['There is in our language, a certain royalist said, a hierarchy of styles, because the words are classified just like the citizens in a monarchy'. This confession constitutes a ray of insight for any thinking person. If we apply the inegality of the styles to the inegality of the conditions under which people live, we may come to conclusions that prove the importance of my project (of linguistic standardization through an educational language policy) in a democracy.]

Cultural models of linguistic standardization

(8)

33

Tous les membres du souverain sont admissibles ä toutes les places; il est a desirer que tous puissent successivement les remplir, et retourner ä leurs professions agricoles ou mecaniques. Cet etat de choses nous presente l'alternative suivante: si ces places sont occupees par des hommes incapables de s'enoncer, d'ecrire dans la langue nationale, les droits des citoyens seront-ils bien garantis par des actes dont la redaction presentera l'impropriete des termes, Γ imprecision des idees, en un mot tous les symptömes de l'ignorance? Si au contraire cette ignorance exclut des places, bientöt renaitra cette aristocratie qui jadis employait le patois pour montrer son affabilite protectrice ä ceux qu'on appelait insolemment les petites gens. [...] Ainsi l'ignorance de la langue compromettrait le bonheur social ou detruirait l'egalite. (1794 [1975]: 303) [All members of the sovereign people are eligible for all positions. It is desirable that all may successively fill these positions, and afterwards return to their agricultural or industrial professions. This state of affairs yields the following alternative. If the positions are taken up by men incapable of expressing themselves or of writing in the national language, will the rights of the citizens be safeguarded by laws that are characterized by improper choice of words, by imprecise ideas, in short by all symptoms of ignorance? If on the contrary this ignorance prevents people from taking up office, then soon enough we will witness the rebirth ofthat aristocracy that once used the dialects to demonstrate its affability with regard to those that it insolently named 'the small people'. [...] Thus, ignorance of the language either compromises social happiness or destroys egality.]

Fragment (6) points to the communicative generality of the standard language: having a unitary language not only symbolizes the unity of the nation, but it also ensures that the citizens can freely communicate their thoughts. Fragment (7) symbolically links the absence of standardization to the pre-revolutionary situation: the existence of

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hierarchically ordered varieties within the language mirrors the hierarchical organization of society. Fragment (8) aptly describes the politically emancipatory function of standardization. The egalitarian ideal implies that any citizen can take part in the government of the nation; in fact, the ideal would be that all citizens successively fulfill political functions and then return to their professional environment. However, in order to be able to fulfill these functions, a thorough knowledge of the common language is necessary. People should not be prevented from taking up office by their ignorance of the language. Hence, an educational effort to ensure standardization is necessary: Gregoire is an ardent defender of the 'Ecole publique' as a standardizing force. In section 3,1 will describe the transformations that the rationalist, Enlightenment ideal of standardization goes through in the course of the last two centuries. Even in its transformed shape, however, the positive evaluation of standardization refers to one or another of the features mentioned here: a neutrally mediating communicative function, and an emancipatory and participatory effect, both of these supported by an educational system geared towards the spreading of the standard language.

2.2.

The romantic model

The romantic conception of standardization may be easily defined in contrast with the two dominating features of the rationalist model. First, as against the emancipatory and participatory goals of the enlightened view, a romantic view will tend to point out that standard languages are themselves instruments of oppression and exclusion. At this point, of course, the analysis of standardization takes the form of an ideological criticism: it will argue that the enlightened ideals are not often realized, and that, in fact, processes of standardization typically achieve the reverse of what they pretend to aim at. Although the term is not often used, this type of critical discourse boils down to a demonstration that linguistic standardization exemplifies what Horkheimer and Adorno (1947) called the 'Dialektik der Auf-

Cultural models of linguistic standardization

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klärung' - the (negative) dialectic of Enlightenment. Horkheimer and Adorno argue that rationalist positions have a tendency to lead to their own dialectical counterpart (in the sense, for instance, in which a growing technical mastery of man over nature may lead to the destruction of the natural world). Now, if we look back at the three types of generality that standard languages are supposed to characterize, it is easy to see that the actual realization of the ideal may tend to contradict the ideal - which is then a case in point of the 'Dialektik der Aufklärung'. First, standard languages are supposed to be geographically neutral, but in actual practice, processes of standardization often have their starting-point in a specific region that is economically, culturally, and/or politically dominant. For people in the other, outer provinces, then, the standard language is not an impartial medium, but it rather affirms the dominance of the leading province. Standard French, for instance, is not just an unbiased language coming out of the blue; it is the language of the upper and the middle classes of Paris and the Ile-de-France, and it is associated with the role that the central province has played since the medieval era. Second, standard languages are supposed to be functionally general, but in actual practice, they are typically used in cultural, educational, scientific, administrative, and political contexts - at least in those circumstances in which a language community is not entirely standardized. Non-standard varieties may then naturally acquire additional, contrastive overtones. For one thing, if the standard language is the language of public life, the non-standard varieties will be appreciated as the language associated with intimacy, familiarity, the personal rather than the public sphere. For another, if the standard language functions in typically intellectual contexts (education and science), non-standard varieties will be invested with emotional values. For speakers of a dialect, the dialect is often the language of the emotions, of spontaneity, of naturalness, in contrast with the official and educational language. Ironically, the functional generality of standard languages engenders a functional specialization, separating the public sphere from the personal, and the emotional sphere from the intellectual.

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Third, standard languages are supposed to be socially neutral, but in actual practice, they are typically the language of an elite. The link between an economical, cultural, or political elite and the standard language is in fact an inevitable side-effect of the functional generality of standard languages. If standard languages are typically used in cultural, educational, scientific, administrative, and political contexts, then those speakers of the language that act in these contexts will more easily learn the standard language or adopt it as their first language than speakers who remain foreign to these functions. The outsiders may then perceive the greater linguistic proficiency of the elite as a factor contributing to social exclusion. In Gregoire's view, knowledge of the standard language contributes to social mobility, but conversely, the real social distribution of standard language functions may turn the standard language into an instrument of discrimination. We can see, in other words, how the alleged generality of standard languages actually takes the form of a series of specializations. The process of standardization takes its starting-point in the language of specific regions, specific groups of speakers, specific domains and functions, and this largely inevitable fact may subvert the very ideal that standardization was supposed to serve. When that happens, the original ideal may be critically unmasked as an ideological pretence. Needless to say, this dialectical reversal may also affect the educational system. If the standard language is recognized as an instrument of oppression, discrimination, social exclusion, the educational system will likewise be rejected as contributing to such processes of social exclusion. Rather than seeing the school as an institution that spreads knowledge of the common language (and knowledge in general), creating possibilities for social mobility, it will then be pointed out that the educational system, relying on perhaps more than contributing to the knowledge of the language, favors those language users whose background makes them more familiar with the standard language, and thus reproduces rather than neutralizes social inequality. But why call this critical reversal of the appreciation of the standard language a 'romantic' model? Why not simply call it a 'realis-

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tic' or a 'critical' or an 'anti-ideological' one? The reason is that this critical stance is often (though not necessarily always) accompanied by a second feature, that may be contrasted with the second characteristic of the rationalist model. That is to say, we have just seen how a critical approach questions the emancipatory, participatory conception of the Enlightenment model. But what about the second feature? What about the communicative aspects of the rationalist model? We get a truly 'romantic' model of language variation when the critical attitude towards official standards is coupled with a view of language as expression rather than communication. According to the Enlightenment perspective, languages are means of communication, and a standard language is a superior communicative tool because it is functionally general and socially neutral. According to a romantic perspective, languages are primarily expressive rather than communicative. They express an identity, and they do so because they embody a particular conception of the world, a world view or 'Weltanschauung' in the sense of Herder. The link between this well-known romantic conception of the relationship between language and thought and the standardization debate will be clear. If languages or language varieties embody a specific identity, then a preference for one language or language variety rather than another implies that the specific identity of a specific group of people is neglected or denied. Not recognizing the language is not recognizing the language users. If some language varieties are relegated to second rate status through the existence of a standard variety, then the speakers of those language varieties are denied a fundamental right: the right to express themselves in their own language - the only language, in fact, that could do justice to their individual identity, according to the romantic conception of the relationship between language and identity. A correlate of this position is the positive evaluation of variety. Whereas the rationalist approach cherished linguistic uniformity as the symbolic expression of a free and open community in which all citizens have equal rights to speech, the romantic approach values diversity as a recognition of a fundamental respect for different identities.

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In short, a fully romantic view of language variation and linguistic standardization opposes the Enlightenment view of language as communication with a view of language as the expression of an individual identity. It opposes the emancipatory and participatory rationalist ideal with a critical view of standardization as a tool of discrimination and exclusion, and it opposes the positive appreciation of education as an instrument for the dissemination of linguistic knowledge with a fundamental distrust of schools as part of a system reproducing social inequality. In order to illustrate this model, I will not (as I did in the case of the rationalist model) use an historical example, but I would like to have a brief look at the current debate about linguistic genocide and the international position of English. In that interlinguistic form of variation, English replaces the standard language of intralinguistic variation, and minority languages threatened with disappearance replace the non-standard varieties. All the objections that a romantic approach would level against a dominating standard variety, could then be applied against the international domination of English. Consider, as an example, the following excerpts from an abstract of Skutnabb-Kangas (2000) (The abstract, by the author herself, may be found on the author's homepage). (9)

Indigenous peoples and minorities are the main bearers of linguistic and cultural diversity in the world - over 80% of the world's languages exist in one country only and the median language has no more than 5,000 speakers. Some of the direct main agents of linguistic (and cultural) genocide today are parts of what we call the consciousness industry: formal educational systems and the mass media. [...] The book shows that the education of most minorities and indigenous peoples in the world is organized in ways which both counteract sound scientific principles and lead to the disappearance of linguistic and cultural diversity. [...] Schools are every day committing linguistic genocide. [...] They also do it by forcibly moving children from one group (indigenous or minority) to another group (the dominant

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group) through linguistic and cultural forced assimilation in schools. [...] This inevitably includes a consideration of power relations. The book shows how the formal educational systems participate in maintaining and reproducing unequal power relations, here especially between linguistic minorities and others, but also more generally, and how the ways of doing this have changed and are constantly changing, and how control and domination are resisted and alternatives are constantly created and negotiated, managed and controlled, and recreated. The deficiency-based models that are used in most minority education invalidate the linguistic and cultural capital of minority children and their parents and communities. They make the resources of dominated groups seem handicaps or deficiencies, instead of valued and validated non-material resources, or they render them invisible and therefore not possible to convert into material resources and positions of structural power. This happens just as much in global international relations and the Mcdonaldization of the world as it happens in ESL classrooms. Regardless of whether Skutnabb-Kangas is right or not (see Joseph forthcoming for a critical reaction), the components of the romantic approach are conspicuously present in her statement. First, the disappearance of languages and the disappearance of cultures are equated. The very notion of 'linguistic genocide' in fact invokes the extermination of an entire people (or at least culture) together with its language. As opposed to this process of forced assimilation and disappearance, different cultures have to be accepted as fundamentally equal, and diversity should be treasured as an end in itself. Second, the international dissemination of English does not lead to emancipation and participation, but rather serves purposes of international oppression, notably by multinational companies. And third, the text has explicit misgivings about the role schools play in this linguistic and cultural power play.

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2.3. The rationalist and the romantic model and the origins of language In the previous pages, I have not only sketched the rationalist and the romantic model of standardization, but I have also indicated that they exhibit a specific and narrow relationship. Not only is one the counterpart of the other, but there is a dialectical relationship between the two, in the sense that actual processes of standardization seem to be caught in a negative 'dialectic of Enlightenment' in the course of which the positive rationalist ideals tend to be subverted, thus giving way to a romantic, critical appreciation of the standardization process. This dialectical relationship, which is summarized in Figure 1, does not however exhaust the links that exist between the two basic conceptions.

linguistic-philosophical basis

the rationalist model

the romantic model

language as a medium of communication

language as a medium of expression

conception of standardi- a democratic ideal: standard language as a neutral zation medium of social participation

anti-ideological criticism: standard language as a medium of social exclusion

conception of language variation

language variation as expressing different identities

language variation as an impediment to emancipation

Figure 1. The rationalist and the romantic models of standardization.

In this section, I will have a brief look at the theoretical linguistic background of the basic models: is there a specific conception of language that goes hand in hand with either of the perspectives? I will argue that 18th century theories about the origins of language complement the picture painted so far. It was suggested above that the romantic and the rationalist approach differ in their theoretical

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conception of language: the former starts from an expressive conception of language and the latter takes its starting-point in a communicative conception. The distinction between both perspectives can get more relief if we have a brief look at some of the theories on the origins of language that were formulated in the 18th century - in the period, that is, in which we situate the intellectual sources of the rationalist and the romantic conception of language variation. The expressive conception of the origins of language may be illustrated on the basis of Herder's views, while Condillac may serve as an illustration of the communicative view. Herder's conception of language as the expression of an inner view of the world shapes the way in which he describes the birth of language: language arises when man expresses his understanding of the world. In the following passage, Herder explains how man, in giving names to the animals (in this case, a sheep) identifies and expresses a specific feature (in this case, the sheep's bleating). (10)

Weiss, sanft, wollicht - seine besonnen sich übende Seele sucht ein Merkmal, - das Schaaf blocket! sie hat Merkmal gefunden. Der innere Sinn würket. Dies Blöcken, das ihr am stärksten Eindruck macht, das sich von allen andern Eigenschaften des Beschauens und Betastens losriss, hervorsprang, am tiefsten eindrang, bleibt ihr. Das Schaaf kommt wieder. Weiss, sanft, wollicht - sie sieht, tastet, besinnet sich, sucht Merkmal - es blockt, und nun erkennet sies wieder! 'Ha! du bist das Blöckende!' fühlt sie innerlich, sie hat es Menschlich erkannt, da sies deutlich, das ist, mit einem Merkmal, erkennet und nennet (1772 [1978]: 33) [White, soft, woolly - its cautiously exercizing soul looks for a characteristic feature. The sheep bleats! It has found a feature. The inner sense is working. This bleating, which impresses it to the utmost, which detaches itself from all other visual or tactile features, which springs forth, which makes an impression, stays with it. The sheep comes back. White, soft, woolly - the soul sees, feels, reflects - the sheep bleats, and

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now it recognizes it! 'Ha! You are the bleating one', it feels within itself, it has recognized it in human fashion, because it has recognized and named the sheep clearly, that is, by means of a characteristic feature.] Herder's story may be contrasted with Condillac's view about the origins of language. Whereas Herder looks for the origins of language in a cognitive, epistemological urge to identify things (and more specifically, to identify them in a specific way that reflects man's understanding of the things in question), Condillac points to a communicative situation. In his story about two children, he describes how a cry for help by one is recognized by the other, and is gradually conventionalized as a specific sign. (11)

Celui qui souffroit parce qu'il etoit prive d'un objet que ses passions lui rendoient necessaire, ne s'en tenoit pas ä pousser des cris: il faisoit des efforts pout l'obtenir, il agitoit sa tete, ses bras, et toutes les parties de son corps. L'autre, emu ä ce spectacle, fixoit les yeux sur le meme objet; et [...] il souffroit de voir souffrir ce miserable. Des ce moment il se sent interesse ä le soulager, et il obeit ä cette impression, autant qu'il est en son pouvoir. Ainsi, par le seul instinct, ces hommes se demandoient et se pretoient de secours [...]. Cependant les memes circonstances ne purent se repeter souvent, qu'ils n'accoutumassent enfin ä attacher aux cris des passions et aux differentes actions du corps, des perceptions qui y etoient exprimees d'une maniere si sensibles (1746 [1973]: 194-195). [A person who suffered from being deprived of an object that his passions made necessary for him, did not restrict himself to shouting: he made an effort to obtain it, shook his head and arms and body parts. The other person, moved by this spectacle, fixed his gaze on the same object, and suffered from seeing the miserable other person suffer. From this moment on, he grows interested in coming to his relief, and he obeys this sentiment to the best

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of his powers. In this way, by instinct alone, men mutually ask and give help. [...] But such events could not repeat themselves often before people got used to attaching to the passionate cries and bodily actions the views that they expressed so tangibly.] The difference between Herder and Condillac correlates with a difference in their view of the relationship between language and culture. Unlike Condillac, Herder does not think it possible to explain the origins of human language from instinctive emotional cries. Understanding needs to be present before human, conscious language can arise. In Condillac's account understanding or "reflection" takes shape gradually, through the use of signs in a communicative situation. For Herder, the birth of language presupposes the existence of a human culture, a culture that is being expressed in the language. From Condillac's point of view, human culture develops from instinctive beginnings through the use of signs and the development of language. (Compare Sapir 1907 for a more elaborated view.) If it is indeed correct that the intellectual origins of our cultural models of linguistic standardization have to be sought in the 18th century, quotations (10) and (11) suggest that there was a link with the linguistic theorizing of that period. This recognition opens the way towards the broader historical study of the relationship between theories in linguistics and the philosophy of language on the one hand, and language policies on the other. To what extent have theories about the origin, nature, structure of language influenced the way in which people (and governments) have thought about matters of language variation and linguistic standardization? The existing literature offers many points of departure but mostly concentrates on standardization processes and language policies within a single language or nation. One interesting way to use the cultural models identified above, could be to see whether they can be used as the basis for a more synthetic view of these historical links between linguistic theory and standardization.

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3. The historical transformation of the models The present section will have a look at various distinctive moments in the development of the competing models, in particular charting the transformations that they go through in the 19th and the 20th centuries. First, I will argue that the nationalist model of standardization that rose to prominence in the 19th century constitutes a specific blend of the rationalist and the romantic model. Further, I will have a look at the way in which our contemporary postmodern awareness influences the competition between the rationalist and the romantic model. It is an interesting question, by the way, whether the models ever occur in their purest form. Even in the examples from the French revolutionary period, a link with patriotic nationalism is present. If this is indeed the case, the models presented in the previous section are to be seen as analytic reference points, as 'idealized cognitive models' in the sense of Cognitive Linguistics.

3.1. The 19th century and the nationalist model Both the rationalist and the romantic model have a problem with the level at which they should be situated. If the rationalist model is carried to its extreme, it implies the necessity of a universal, international language. If the driving force behind standardization is maximizing mutual communication, then a universal language that transcends all existing language variation is to be recommended: the neutralization of interlinguistic variation complements the neutralization of intralinguistic standardization. And of course, the ideal of a universal, ideal language (Esperanto, Volapük and the like) is precisely the historical realization of this consequent interpretation of the rationalist approach. In actual practice, however, Esperantist movements and the like remained marginal. The real level at which standardization processes took place, lay at a lower level - that of the nation. Starting from the Enlightenment model, there is a simple logic to this (which can, in fact, be identified in the quotations from Barere and Gregoire that we

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discussed): if standardization aims at democratic, political participation, then obviously the nation, as the ideal form of political organization, becomes the locus of standardization processes and the educational efforts supporting them. In itself, then, a link between nationalism and the rationalist view of standardization cannot come as a surprise. Linguistic standardization is primarily standardization within a nation, because it is within the nation that the processes of political decision making take place that linguistic standardization is supposed to contribute to. A terminological clarification may be useful at this point. 'Nationalism' is the political ideology in which a state, as a political organization, derives its political legitimacy from its people, rather than from tradition, divine right, or the like. A state that lives up to this requirement is a nation. Nationalism, in other words, claims that any state should be a nation. The nationalist relationship between the people and the state may be conceived of in two different ways: according to a distinction that is customary in the literature on nationalism, we may make a distinction between civic nationalism and identity nationalism. On the one hand, civic nationalism is the conception of nationalism in which the nation derives its legitimacy from the active participation of its citizens, through a system of political representation. This is the liberal, rationalist conception of nationalism. On the other hand, identity nationalism is the conception of nationalism in which the nation derives its political legitimacy from the cultural identity of the people. This is the romantic conception of nationalism. 'Nationalism' also refers to the claim and the efforts of a particular group to become a nation. Existing states eure not necessarily nations according to the nationalist view: either because they do not achieve democratic legitimacy (the liberal point of view), or because they do not recognize the cultural identity of certain groups (the romantic point of view). Historically speaking, then, 'nationalist movements' may be either movements trying to establish a liberal democracy, or movements claiming independence for a specific group or region. (In contemporary usage, though, the focus tends to lie more on the latter type.)

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The link between nationalism and language that we described above clearly involves the liberal, rationalist version of nationalism: if the nation derives its legitimacy from the active participation of its citizens, then maximizing mutual communication through standardization is an instrument of participation. But if we turn to identity nationalism, nationalism has a similar, and maybe even stronger link with a romantic conception of language. Whereas the rationalist perspective contains a tendency towards universality, the romantic perspective has a tendency towards individuality. If carried to its extreme, the romantic conception of language variation implies that each person may have his or her own language. Just like the rationalist perspective tends to maximize communicability, the romantic perspective tends to maximize individual variation. Again, in actual practice, this is an extreme position that can hardly be realized as such. Except perhaps in the romantic admiration for the 'individual voice of the poet' and the like, the romantic conception deals with the language of groups rather than with the language of individuals. The identity that is expressed by the language is the identity of a community, and the community is a nation when it acquires political autonomy. Hence the well-known romantic link between nationalism and language: see, among many others, Deprez and Vos (1998). On the one hand, language correlates with identity according to the romantic model, and on the other, nations may derive their legitimacy from the cultural identity of the people (which is not to say that all nationalism is linguistic nationalism: as is well known, the sense of identity may come from many other sources, like religion or ethnicity). From two different angles, then, nationalism links up with language, and this recognition may be linked to the distinction between two basic types of nationalism that is often made in political theory. On the one hand, civic nationalism is the conception of nationalism in which the nation derives its legitimacy from the active participation of its citizens, through a system of political representation. In such a liberal, rationalist conception, the common language is the medium of participation. On the other hand, identity nationalism is the conception of nationalism in which the nation derives its political

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legitimacy from the cultural identity of the people, and language is one of the factors establishing such identity. The actual alliance between both forms of reasoning may be briefly illustrated by the following quotes from Verlooy (1788). A Dutch-speaking lawyer in Brussels, which was then under Austrian rule, Verlooy argues against the growing use of French in public life and in favor of the use of the native Dutch tongue. In 1789, Verlooy played a role in the 'Brabantse Omwenteling', an (ineffective) insurrection against the Austrians. His pamphlet of 1788 may be read as the intellectual basis of his nationalist stance of the next year. But what is the role attributed to language in Verlooy's nationalism? (12)

(13)

Het is zonder twyffel een goed voor eenigelyk wel ter tael en ter spraek te zyn, en zyne redens vaerdig en onbelemmert te voeren. Doch hier toe is een' zekere frankheyd noodig. Maer, gelyk by ons gezien en geplogen is, wanneer zullen wy frank zyn in die vremde tael? (1788 [1979]: 58) [Without any doubt, it is good for any person to be able to speak fluently, and to engage in conversation freely. But to achieve this a certain candour is necessary. However, as can be observed in our case, when will we obtain such candour in this foreign language?] Door ons frans schynen wy van die middelbare geleertheyd en borgerlyke wysheyd af geheel het gemeyn, onze bestgemoedde en weetgirige borgers, ambachtslieden, akkermans, en onze vrouwen: die't frans teenemael niet, of ten minsten zoo verre niet en weten, dat-ze 't met vermaek of zonder moyelykheid können lezen: die daer door als als gedoemt schynen tot een' gezogte onwetendheyd. (1788 [1979]: 49) [By speaking French, we separate from this common knowledge and this civic wisdom all the common people, our well-humoured and inquisitive townsmen, craftsmen, farmers, and our women: who do not know French, or at least not well enough to read it easily and efficiently, and who therefore seem to be condemned to ignorance.]

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Voor het vaderlanderschap eener natie is zeer dienstig zoo veel eygen en bezonder te hebben als mogelyk is (...) en zelfs hoe meer een' zaek uytwendigs heeft, gelyk de tael, dragten, toneelen, godsdienst, zeker plechten; hoe meer zy de gemoederen van 't volk zal aentrekken. [...] Waerom werken wy dan om zoo bekwamen band van vaderlanderschap, de moederlyke tael, te bannen? (1788 [1979]: 59-60) [For a feeling of national identity within a nation, it is useful to have as many common and specific features as possible, and these features will more readily attract the hearts of the people to the extent that they can be externally observed, like the language, the attire, the theater and the public entertainments, the religion. Why then do we endeavour to discard our mother tongue, which constitutes such a strong tie of patriotism?]

Quotation (12) emphasizes the individual and emancipatory perspective: it is important for people to be able to express themselves freely, and this can only be guaranteed in their mother tongue. In the same vein, quotation (13) stresses the importance of a common language for an open communication within a given society and for the dissemination of knowledge: the further use of French would engender an undesirable rupture between the middle classes and the lower classes. By contrast, quotation (14) stresses the importance of a common identity for nation-building. Both rationalist and romantic themes, in other words, may appear in the discourse of proponents of nationalist movements. With the development of the national movements in the 19th century, though, the nationalist emphasis tended to fall more and more on the romantic notion of national identity. Minorities aspiring towards independence naively assume or explicitly construct an identity, and nation states may blatantly enforce a common identity, linguistic or otherwise. These processes are well known from the nationalism literature (in the line of Hobsbawm, Anderson, Gellner, Smith). For our present linguistic purposes, the crucial point is to see that this romantic nationalism reveals the paradoxes of the romantic

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cultural model that we identified above. The transition from the romantic model as described earlier to the nationalist model constitutes so to speak a 'Dialektik der Romantik' that parallels the 'Dialektik der Aufklärung', i.e. an almost natural process through which the original romantic model becomes subverted and contradicts at least some of its own starting-points. The paradox of the romantically inspired nationalist model, in fact, is this. On the one hand, it claims recognition of diversity, equal rights, political independence for one (linguistic) group with regard to other groups. On the other, it has to assume an internal homogeneity within that group, for the simple reason that within the romantic logic, it is the identity of the group that legitimatizes the claim for recognition. And so, the identity may have to be imposed or constructed, and dissident voices within the group may have to be stifled. The romantic model, then, is no less prone to contradictory developments than the rationalist one. In the linguistic debate, the specific form of the romantically nationalist position is a concern for the purity of the language. Defending the common language against foreign influences (loan words, basically) is at the same time a defense of the cultural identity of the people. In the nationalist subversion of the initial romantic model identities are not only expressed, but they are also made permanent. Again, the link between purism and nationalism is well-known, and there is an extended literature on purism. What I would like to stress, in this respect, is less the phenomenon as such, but rather how it fits into the overall pattern that defines the paradoxical logic of the rationalist and the romantic model of language variation. This paradoxical logic, to sum up, resides in the following points. First, although the basic models are opposites, they find a common ground in the notion of nationalism. Because the rationalist model cannot easily realize its extreme universalist claims, and because the romantic model cannot easily realize its radical individualist claims, both models meet on a middle ground where groups of people claim political identity and independence. Second, this coalescence of the models does not annihilate the tensions that exist between them: the

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history of the past two centuries brims with examples of conflicts between a more rationalist Staatsnationalismus ( civic nationalism at the level of the nation-state) and a more romantic Volksnationalismus (ethnic or cultural identity nationalism). Third, in addition to the tensions between the models, we have to take into account tensions within each model: the rationalist model is subject to the danger of a discriminatory 'Dialektik der Aufklärung', and the romantic assumption of internal homogeneity may likewise have oppressive sideeffects.

3.2. The 20th century and the postmodern awareness Living as we do in the aftermath of the nationalist era, we should complete our overview of the historical transformations of the cultural models of language variation by charting what changes are brought to the debate by our post-nationalist environment. The current situation can best be characterized by two overlapping developments: globalisation and postmodernism. Globalisation is economic and political (to the extent that the growing importance of international organisations diminishes the older importance of the nation state). But it is also linguistic: the international spread of English almost realizes the old rationalist's dream of a universal language. The postmodern awareness, on the other hand, resides in two features. First, the so-called 'disappearance of the Great Narratives' signals a weakening of the older patterns of interpretation. There is a great deal of suspicion with regard to the rationalist model of a smooth, emancipatory progress as well as (and perhaps more dominantly so) with regard to the nationalist model. Postmodern thinking is the self-consciousness of the late 20th century: progress is not automatic, and nationalism is dangerous. This critical attitude entails a second feature: if the old models are no longer self-evident, a dehierarchicalization and informalization occurs. If, for instance, the original hierarchical ordering of high culture and low culture is rejected as part of the old models of inter-

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pretation, then popular culture may claim equal rights with regard to high culture. These two features imply that postmodernism is to a large extent a renewed form of the original romantic attitude: it renews the critical, 'countercultural' attitude with regard to the official stories, and it revives the claims for diversity. The interesting question from our point of view is whether these changes lead to a fundamental transformation of the cultural models that are used to discuss language variation. Basically, there is a growing emphasis on the international relationship between languages rather than the national relationship between language varieties. The initial models of standardization are essentially models of standard languages in comparison with dialects or other varieties of the same language. In the nationalist era, the debate sometimes involves national languages as opposed to minority languages, but it is only in our days that the debate concentrates on the international relationship between different languages, viz. the relationship between English as a world language in comparison with local, possibly endangered languages. Now, to the extent that the position of global English is at stake, the old opposition between rationalist and romantic attitudes receives a new impetus. I have shown above how Skutnabb-Kangas's argumentation about the treatment of minority languages is largely situated within what I would call a 'romantic' frame. At the same time, it is not difficult to see what form the basic pattern of a rationalist reply with regard to the position taken by Skutnabb-Kangas would probably take. First, against the identification of language and culture, the rationalist could point to cases where the same language is unproblematically shared by different cultures, or conversely, where the same culture unites people with different languages. Second, against the allegation that the international dissemination of English is discriminatory, the rationalist might want to stress the actual emancipatory effects of a knowledge of English. If English is indeed the key to international communication (and if, indeed, acquiring English is possible for all), then it can only be welcomed that

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more and more people are able to participate in that kind of communication. At the same time, though, the contemporary discussions seem to lead to the development of a model based on a functional differentiation between the varieties involved - an 'and/and'-model rather than an 'either/or'-model, so to speak. In the discussion about the international situation in particular, there is a growing recognition that multilingualism is a natural situation. Interestingly, the shift towards multilingualism as a (so to speak) dialectic synthesis of the opposite forces may be derived from the rationalist as well as from the romantic model. In the previous section, we saw that the shift towards nationalism fitted into the logic of both basic models, if account was taken of the 'problem of levels'. At this point, we can see in a similar way that a new focus on multilingualism fits in with both models. On the one hand, a multilingual solution seems to presuppose some form of functional distribution: one language is used for a specific set of circumstances, and the other for another set of circumstances. Such a diglossic or polyglossic situational specialization is not incompatible with the original rationalist model. After all, the rationalist model is motivated by a desire to assure maximal democratic participation in what are sometimes called 'secondary domains' of social life: specific, public domains of experience, to begin with higher education and political life. For the 'primary domains', beginning with the more private aspects of life, the existence of less uniform, more local language varieties does not fundamentally contradict the ideological basis of the model. On the other hand, the postmodern twist of the romantic model entails a new attitude towards the question of personal identity. It is often said, in fact, that one of the hallmarks of the postmodern mentality is the fragmentation of identity. People no longer experience a single personal identity, but they exhibit a number of different, possibly shifting identities, of a professional, social, ethnic, cultural nature. Different languages may then, following the original 'expressive' logic of the romantic attitude, express this fragmentation (or perhaps rather multiplication) of identities.

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Although multilingualism would thus appear to provide a possible synthesis of the initial models, the multilingual solution does not, however, completely remove the tensions. Just like the nationalist convergence of the models in the 19th century engendered a tension between nation states and minorities, the multilingual convergence entails tensions about the exact functional and situational distribution of the language varieties. A simple case in point is the current reform of higher education in Europe. The imposition of a uniform Bachelor/Master system is intended, among other things, to stimulate student mobility, and this in turn increases the pressure to introduce English as a language of instruction at least at the Master level. But many, of course, are reluctant to accept such a functional restriction on the original national language. Likewise, internal tensions within each model continue to crop up. For instance, those welcoming international English as an opportunity for all to participate equally in a global culture may easily be blind to the fact that access to English is not equal for all. And the champions of linguistic diversity may readily overlook the fact that the people they purport to defend often prefer the educational and professional opportunities provided by the non-native language (as appears to be the case, for instance, in most African countries that are ex-colonies of Britain). All in all, then, we may sum up the present situation in a way that largely parallels the summary at the end of section 3.1. On the one hand, just like nationalism allowed for a coalescence between the rationalist and the romantic model, multilingualism may constitute a point of convergence for the post-nationalist manifestations of the models. On the other, just like nationalism did not abolish the basic tension between the models nor the internal tensions within the models, a multilingual model does not cancel out the tension between rationalistically seeing global English as a communicative and educational opportunity and romantically seeing it as a threat to diversity and local identity. At the same time, though, we should keep in mind that the multilingual model is only beginning to emerge, and that the positions in the current debate have not yet crystallized as much as they have in the older nationalism debate.

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3.3. Summarizing the models and their transformations We can now identify the pattern that emerges from the discussion in the previous pages. Referring to the philosophical and cultural climate of the 18th century, we have distinguished between a rationalist and a romantic basic model of linguistic standardization. Starting from a communicative conception of language, the former stresses the emancipatory function of a common language as an instrument of political and educational participation. Starting, on the other hand, from an expressive conception of language, the romantic model stresses how the imposition of a standard language may discriminate specific cultural identities. There is, then, a tension between the models to the extent that they are each other's counterpart. That tension is enhanced by the 'Dialektik der Aufklärung', the mechanism, through which the implementation of the rationalist ideals may generate its own opposite. In the successive transformations that the models undergo in the 19th and the 20th centuries, we have not only identified variants of the two models as such, but we have also indicated how the tension that exists between them reappears in different forms. Figure 2 charts the various positions. The 19th century witnesses a partial convergence of the models round the concept of nationalism. Both basic models do, in fact, have a problem of levels: how general should the communicative community of the rationalist model be? And how specific can the identity get that is expressed according to the romantic model? Rather than going for (respectively) universalist or individualist extremes, the nationalist interpretation of the models focuses on an intermediate level. From the rationalist point of view, the nation is, by definition, the level at which democratic participation should be guaranteed. From the romantic point of view, the identity to be expressed is a common identity, the identity of the group that constitutes a nation. These two forms of nationalism are well known, of course: liberal nationalism (civic nationalism, Staatsnationalismus) sees the nation as the basis of a liberal democracy, and romantic nationalism (identity nationalism, Volksnationalismus) sees the nation as a focus of

Cultural models of linguistic standardization

55

cultural or ethnic identity. The tensions between both are equally well-known: the liberal nation state need not coincide with a single cultural or ethnic group, and these groups may then claim a status as an independent nation. Needless to say, linguistic differences may play a crucial role in the definition of the groups involved. Note, in addition, that a federal political model constitutes a rather frequent compromise for the tension between claims of nation states and those of nationalist groups. 18th century: the basic models

19th century: the nationalist transformation of the models

the rationalist position

the nation as the the common lanbasis of a liberal guage as an instrument of politi- democracy cal and educational participation

the romantic position

the standard language as a discrimination of specific identities

the tension beopposition between tween both posi- the models, entions hanced by the 'Dialektik der Aufklärung'

late 20th century: the postmodern transformation of the models global English as an opportunity / multilingualism as functional specialization

the nation as a global English as a focus of cultural threat / multilinor ethnic identity gualism as the expression of fragmented, postmodern identities conflict between nation states and ethnic/cultural groups

what is the exact shape of the functional specialization?

Figure 2. Cultural models of standardization and their historical transformations.

The late 20th century is characterized by a process of political and economic globalisation that has its attitudinal counterpart in a post-

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modern view of the world, and that has its linguistic counterpart in the global spread of English. The debate accordingly shifts towards the position of English vis ä vis local, possibly endangered languages. Although the process has not perhaps reached its culmination yet, the debate seems to find a new focus in the concept of multilingualism as a way of reconciling the different positions. In the same way in which the nationalist focus of the 19th century followed logically from the initial models (through the problem of levels), the focus on multilingualism can be equally motivated on the basis of both models. For the rationalist model, multilingualism involves an acceptable functional specialization of different languages: if language is an instrument of communication, different communicative situations may require different languages. For the romantic model, multilingualism correlates with the fragmented identity of the postmodern individual: if people may so to speak have different identities, they may use different languages to express those identities. However, the shift towards multilingualism does not eliminate the tension: the exact functional specialization of the languages involved remains a cause for conflict.

4. Applying the models The rationalist, romantic, nationalist, postmodern models that we have identified may basically be used in two different ways in linguistics. On the one hand, they may be used as the basis for an analysis of any discourse concerning problems of standardization. The previous pages have already given some examples of how the cultural models can be used in the analysis of the logic of standardization debates. In general, such an analysis identifies the components of a given discourse as expressing, amending, opposing aspects of the basic models. We could go one step further by identifying standard patterns of statements and replies that may be expected in this kind of discussion, but it is not my intention to do this systematically here.

Cultural models of linguistic standardization

57

On the other hand, language attitudes based on one or the other of the models may influence the actual development of standardization processes. In the following sections, I will illustrate this second domain of application. I will do so by having a closer look at the work that I have been doing with my research team on the internal variation of contemporary Dutch. In section 4.1., I will summarize the main results. (This section could be skipped by readers less interested in the technicalities of the project.) In section 4.2., I will discuss the way in which the cultural models of standardization may be brought to bear on the findings of the project.

4.1.

Contemporary Dutch as a pluricentric

language

Dutch basically comes in two varieties: Dutch as used in The Netherlands, and Dutch as used in the Flanders region of Belgium (sometimes referred to as 'Flemish'). The situation of the standard language in both countries is somewhat different. In Flanders, the standardization process that started off (as in most European countries) in the Early Modern Period was slowed down as a result of Flanders' political separation from The Netherlands during the Eighty Years' War. Standard Dutch developed in The Netherlands in the course of the 17th century, but as Flanders was politically separated from The Netherlands, remaining under foreign (Spanish or Austrian) rule, it did not link up with this process of standardization. Rather, French was used more and more as the language of government and high culture, a practice that received an important impulse after the birth of the Belgian state in 1830. Dutch then survived basically in the form of a variety of Flemish dialects. However, as a result of a social and political struggle for the emancipation of Flanders and the Flemish-speaking part of the Belgian population, Dutch again gained ground as a standard language (the language of learning, government, and high culture) in Flanders. This process started somewhat hesitantly in the late 19th century as a typically romantic movement, gained momentum during the first half of the 20th century, and finally made a major leap after World War II

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and during the booming 1960s. Still, most linguists agree that the standardization process has not yet reached its final point, or at least, that the level of standardization has not reached the same height as in The Netherlands. The latter observation is the starting-point for our research: can we quantify the relationship between Belgian Dutch and Netherlandic Dutch (and the internal stratification of both varieties)? Can we calculate how close or how distant both varieties of Dutch are with regard to each other? More specifically (given that our research team is primarily interested in lexical variation), how does one quantify lexical convergence or divergence between two language varieties? In Geeraerts, Grondelaers and Speelman (1999), a measure of lexical overlap was developed, based on the notions onomasiological profile and uniformity. The onomasiological profile of a concept in a particular source is the set of synonymous names for that concept in that particular source, differentiated by relative frequency. Figure 3 contains the onomasiological profiles for OVERHEMD 'shirt' in the Belgian and the Netherlandic 1990-database: B90

N90

hemd

31 %

17%

overhemd

69%

46%

shirt

0%

37%

Figure 3. Onomasiological profiles for SHIRT in the Belgian and Netherlandic data (1990).

Uniformity is a measure for the correspondence between two onomasiological profiles. Our computation of uniformity has its startingpoint in the idea that a common language norm triggers uniform linguistic behavior. In its most extreme form, lexical uniformity in the naming of a concept obtains when two language varieties have an identical name for that concept, or several names with identical frequencies in the two varieties. Much more frequent than these exam-

Cultural models of linguistic standardization

59

pies of 'ideal' uniformity, however, are such partial correspondences as illustrated in Figure 3. Let us, for the sake of illustration, assume that the relative frequencies in Figure 3 represent 100 actual naming instances in each of both profiles, rather than percentages. The partial overlap between the profiles in Figure 3 is quantified by counting the naming instances for which there is a counterpart in the other profile. In the ideal scenario outlined above, each of the 100 naming events in each of both profiles has its counterpart in the other profile, yielding a maximal uniformity of 100 %. In Figure 3, however, 14 instances of hemd in B90 have no counterpart in N90, 23 Belgian overhemden have no Netherlandic counterpart, and there are no Belgian counterparts for the 37 Netherlandic shirts. On the grand total of 200 naming events in the two profiles, only 200-(14+23+37)=126 instances have counterparts in the other profile, which yields a uniformity of 126/2=63%. For the sake of quantitative convenience, it should be noticed that this percentage equates the sum of the smallest relative frequency for each alternative term, i.e. 17+46+0=63%. If more than one concept is investigated, a uniformity index U is defined as the average of the uniformity indexes of the separate concepts, whereas uniformity index U' is defined as a weighted average, in which the relative frequency of each concept in the investigated samples is taken into account. In the present context, we will focus exclusively on the weighted uniformity U', in which high frequency concepts have a more outspoken impact on the overall uniformity. The empirical foundation of the research project consisted of 40.000 observations of language use. We collected the different names (and their frequencies) used to denote thirty concepts, fifteen from the field of clothing terminology, and fifteen from the field of football (i.e. soccer) terminology. The resulting database allows us, for instance, to calculate the proportion in Belgian and Netherlandic sources of the term buitenspel 'offside' and the loanword offside for the concept OFFSIDE; in the case of the concept JURK 'dress', we can determine whether the lexical choices involve a preference for either jurk, japon, or kleed. The core of the observed material consisted of magazine and newspaper material recorded in 1990.

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This core was extended in two ways. In the first place, similar material was collected for 1950 and 1970, which enabled us to carry out a 'real time'-investigation of lexical convergence or divergence processes. In addition, the stratification of language use was taken into account. Between standard and dialect, there are a number of 'strata' on which register differences may co-occur with an increasing geographical specialization. For an investigation of the relationship between Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch, these strata - viz. the regionally colored informal variants of the standard language - are extremely relevant: it can be expected that the linguistic differences between Belgium and The Netherlands will increase on this regiolectic level. This intermediate level between dialect and written standard language was represented by the clothing terms we collected from labels and price tags in shop windows in two Belgian (Leuven and Kortrijk) and two Netherlandic towns (Leiden and Maastricht). The intended audience of this form of communication is more restricted than the national or binational audience which is the target of the magazines from which the core material was selected. The fact that we are dealing with written language in a semi-formal situation, on the other hand, ensures that we steer clear of the purely dialectal pole of the stratificational continuum. Given this database, what can we expect to find with regard to the relationship between the various language varieties? With respect to the status and the development of Belgian Dutch, two uncontroversial hypotheses can be found in the linguistic literature. First, there is an expectation of diachronic convergence between Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch. The standardization process in Flanders is characterized by an explicit normative orientation towards Netherlandic Dutch: the standardization of Belgian Dutch took the form of an adoption of the Dutch standard language that existed already in The Netherlands. In addition, the unfinished character of the standardization of Belgian Dutch is believed to manifest itself in a larger synchronic distance between local and national language in Belgium than in The Netherlands; even to the untrained observer, it is obvious that the differences between regional and supraregional registers are much larger in Belgium than in The Netherlands.

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The diachronic and the synchronic hypothesis may now be made operational in terms of uniformity values as defined above. Diachronically, convergence and divergence can be quantified as increasing or decreasing uniformity. Synchronically, the larger distance between national and local language we expect in Belgian Dutch, will manifest itself in a smaller uniformity between magazine and shop window material in Belgian Dutch than in Netherlandic Dutch. B50/N50:

69,84

B70/N70:

74,59

B90/N90:

81,70

B90 / Bsw90:

45,90

N90 / Nsw90:

67,75

Figure 4. U' values comparing Belgium and The Netherlands (1950-1970-1990) and comparing written data from magazines and newspapers with local shop window data (1990).

Figure 4 contains the relevant results. B50 stands for 'Belgian data from 1950', N50 stands for 'data from The Netherlands from 1950'. Bsw90 refers to the shop window materials in Belgium, in contrast with B90, which stands for the data taken from magazines and newspapers. The data in Figure 4 unambiguously confirm the diachronic as well as the synchronic hypothesis. Diachronically, the increase in uniformity between Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch suggests an evident lexical convergence between both varieties: U'(B50,N50) 69.84

< U'(B70,N70) < 74.59

< U'(B90,N90) < 81.70

Synchronically, the delayed or unfinished standardization of Belgian Dutch manifests itself in a distinctly lower uniformity between the Belgian magazine and shop window data than between the Netherlandic magazine and shop window material: U'(B90, Bsw90) 45.90

<