- HOME
- INTRO TO THE FORUM
- BADLY WRITTEN, BADLY SPOKEN
- GETTING
TO KNOW ENGLISH - PREPARING FOR ENGLISH PROFICIENCY TESTS
- GOING DEEPER INTO ENGLISH
- YOU ASKED ME THIS QUESTION
- EDUCATION AND TEACHING FORUM
- ADVICE AND DISSENT
- MY MEDIA ENGLISH WATCH
- STUDENTS' SOUNDING BOARD
- LANGUAGE HUMOR AT ITS FINEST
- THE LOUNGE
- NOTABLE WORKS BY OUR VERY OWN
- ESSAYS BY JOSE CARILLO
- Watching Out Against The Verbal Fallacies
- Which Words Pack the Most Wallop
- No Earthly Reason Why The Clergy Should Be Bad In English Grammar
- Here’s Hoping For Better English In This Year’s Graduation Rites
- Looking Back to Easter Sunday’s Earthly and Celestial Foundations
- Our Need For Thinking National Leaders With The Gift Of Language
- ABOUT JOSE CARILLO
- READINGS ABOUT LANGUAGE
- TIME OUT FROM ENGLISH GRAMMAR
- NEWS AND COMMENTARY
- BOOKSHOP
- ARCHIVES
ADVICE AND DISSENT
This section features discussions on education, learning and teaching, and language with particular focus on English. The primary subjects to be taken up here are notable advocacies and contrary viewpoints in these disciplines and their allied fields. Our primary aim is to clarify matters and issues of importance to language and learning, provide intelligent and useful instruction, promote rational and critical thinking, and enhance the individual’s overall capacity for discernment.
Palinspeak is exactly the English making Palin an American avatar
The irrepressible Sarah Palin, whom we will recall was John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate in his failed bid for the US presidency in 2009, continues to either fascinate or infuriate her American audiences with her unique kind of English—a language that media writers have labeled as Palinspeak. In an article for the April 6, 2010 issue of The New Republic, “What Does Palinspeak Mean,” John McWhorter attempts to analyze that kind of English. “Palin strings her words together as if she were doing it for herself,” he says. “Meanings float by, and she translates them into syntax in whatever way works, regardless of how other people making public statements do it.”
Photo from The New Republic
McWhorter finds it remarkable that despite Palin’s way of speaking, “a meandering phraseology” that he describes as basically unattractive child talk, she is “lionized by a robust number of perfectly intelligent people as an avatar of American culture.” But then he realizes how the modern American indeed relates so warmly to the use of English that summons the oral, as when Palin effortlessly says “You betcha!” and “Yes we can!” With this thought, McWhorter ultimately concedes that linguistically speaking, Palinspeak is precisely what makes Palin the avatar of American culture that she is.
Read John McWhorter’s “What Does Palinspeak Mean” in The New Republic now!
Click to read responses or post a response
View the complete list of postings in this section
(requires registration to view & post)
