Repairing a Spider's Web by Hand: Thirteen Propositions about Subalternity and Language

Abstract

The argument I make in this study is as follows: Language is both a site of struggle and its covering over, where standardization naturalises (epistemic) violence. This violation is especially so in relation to the subalterns' (sub) "dialects”/”languages”, and is compounded by diglossia, so much so their "own” voices are systemically denied them.  Subalternity is a space where persistent "mistakes” and "nonsense” mark everyday resistance, which, if taken seriously, will undo the very normative basis of language as relatively neutral arbiter of the spectrum of (extra-linguistic) value.  Of the 13 propositions presented, the first four relate to subalternity and subaltern studies, while the next nine discuss language norms which seek to address issues that surfaced in the first four.

It is now a truism that language in its broader sense is the only access we have to everything outside of ourselves, not to mention our access to ourselves (or to use Wittgenstein's beautiful but now trivialized phrase "my language is my world") in the philosophical sense. This language in the narrow sense is also the vehicle, witting or unwitting, of values and ideology that, historically and today, have taken sides. Or, in a less theoretical formulation, the fact that 'villain' originally meant 'peasant' and 'blackguard' derived from 'kitchen worker' only goes to show just who is winning the war of words – power is ultimately the ability to make meaning stick and to do this one has to be heard. Thus, standardization adds another more insidious dimension to this struggle, since it controls and regulates structure, pronunciation, register, style, and so on, which serves to exclude many (non-elite) voices.

The hardest part for us, within these dominant paradigms, is, of course, the unlearning of our privilege in/through language. In the twenty or so years that I have been discussing these ideas with academics, teachers, intellectuals and anyone interested, the most persistent anxiety has centred around this issue of the (the loss of) authority/control, through it is invariably couched in worries about 'What will be taught in the classroom, then?' or 'Who will decide what is right and wrong?' I have argued that in this broader standard, linguistic insecurity will diminish, and with it many of the blatantly classist elements of language in society. If it comes to the stage where (almost) anything goes, and where meaning is the arbiter of acceptance, and where it is extremely difficult to reject one kind of usage in favour of another, then language would have become as level as it would get, which is not much.

Here we come full cycle, then, to the point at which our aim – as teachers of the standard, bearers of the torch etc. – is to destabilize, broaden this standard towards the creation of a situation where the onus is on us to learn (or rather unlearn) to read our students' persistent errors as resistance with or without demonstrable intention, and to respect its radical difference.  Ours was the privilege, as linguists, teachers, codifiers, standard bearers and so on to confer the privilege of language on these other Calibans so that their profit on't was to curse us in it.  Let the roles be reversed: Let us learn their (version of) language to earn the right to the privilege of ours.  Otherwise, we're simply acting out the words of Wittgenstein: a crack is showing in the [system's] foundation, and we're trying to stuff it with straw, but to quieten our conscience we're using only the best straw.