Remember the Quotes Flashcards
Burridge on Euphemism
“Serves direct human interests by avoiding those things which threaten to cause offence and distress” - social harmony
Fromkin, Blair and Collins on Euphemism
“Latin words sound scientific and therefore appear to be technical and clean whereas their Anglo-Saxon counterparts are taboo”
Fromkin, Blair and Collins on Dysphemism
“They remain in the language to vent strong emotion.”
“Words and language are not intrinsically good or bad but reflect individual or societal values”
Burridge on Dysphemism
“The focus of offensive language has definitely shifted from the religious to the secular, especially to matters relating to sexual and bodily functions”
Fromkin, Blair and Collins on Discriminatory Language
“Women are rendered invisible in the language when the masculine pronoun ‘he’ is used”
Burridge on Discriminatory Language
“There are even legally recognised sanctions against what broadly might be called -IST language”
Crystal on Political Correctness
“Political Correctness brought a fresh awareness of the nature of regional and ethnic identity, which led to greater valuing of linguistic diversity”
“The suggestion that by eradicating offensive language we would eradicate social attitudes and inequalities betrays a lack of understanding of how language works”
Allan and Burridge on Political Correctness
“PC language deliberately throws down the gauntlet and challenges us to go beyond the context of the message and acknowledge the assumptions on which our language is operating”
Orwell on Political Language
“In our time, Political speech and writing have largely been the defence of the indefensible”
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful, murder respectable and to give the appearance of solidarity to pure wind”
Watson on Political Language
“The truth is less significant than the political conquest”
Lutz on Political Language
“It is language which pretends to communicate but really doesn’t”
Holmes on Polite Language
“Negative politeness avoids intruding and so emphasis social distance”
“Different cultures and linguistic groups express politeness differently”
Crystal on Standard English and Text Speak
“The vast majority of spelling rules in English are irrelevant. They don’t stop you from understanding the word in question”
Samuel Johnson on Standard English and Text Speak
“… sounds are too volatile and subtle for legal restraint”
Crystal on Language and Identity
“More than anything else, language shows we belong, providing the most natural badge or symbol of public and private identity”
Sterling on Language and Identity
“Linguistic variation is a tool for us to construct ourselves as social beings, to signal who we are and who we are not and cannot be”
Burridge on Australian English
“Cultivated Australian English can be seen as snobbish and one often encounters hostile or amused reactions to the cultivated accent”
Burridge and Mulder on Australian English
“A broad Australian accent and the use of conventionally tabooed language become desirable macho markers of gender identity”
Crystal on Slang
“The use of slang is a means of marking social or linguistic identity”
Steve Pinker on Jargon
“Unless you are a member of a clique… it’s gibberish”
Burridge on Jargon
“It facilitates communication on one hand, but erects quite successful communication barriers on the other”
