Top-down imposition versus natural evolution of language

In his interesting article ‘The Front Lines of the Language Wars’, Jeff Deist discusses the frictions between top-down and bottom-up language use: ‘We can analogize attempts to impose preferred language with interventionist central planning in a “marketplace,” while bottom-up evolution involves linguistic entrepreneurs acting in a laissez-faire system.’

The top-down use of language con be deployed as an instrument to dominate. Deist discusses four key concepts to understand the front lines between natural evolution and top-down imposition:
1 Words are intentionally stripped of all meaning by overuse and abuse.
2 Words are coded and embedded with meaning beyond their simple agreed-upon definitions.
3 The newly imposed words contain their own admonitions and exhortations.
4 the newly imposed lexicon is not intended to advance communication and understanding but rather to browbeat and demoralize.

You can read this fascinating article in its entirety here: https://mises.org/wire/front-lines-language-wars

Picture Richard Eisenmenger via Pixabay

The perfect match

The other day a language teacher asked me: what does Linguaclick charge? May answer was: Linguaclick doesn’t charge anything at all. In Linguaclick, every teacher decides his/her own price. We merely inform students of available teachers, and they contact them directly, without our interference. So Linguaclick would be something like the shop window, but you own the shop.

Linguaclick really believes in independent language teachers. They all are different, they have had different training, different experiences, they use different methods, and of course, they charge different prices.

And we believe that’s good, because language learners are different too. They have different needs and different means. So it all comes down to finding the perfect match between teacher and learner. And that is what Linguaclick is all about.

So, go ahead and find out for yourself: https://linguaclick.com/teacher-create-account/

Afbeelding van Naassom Azevedo via Pixabay