Verbal Hygiene by D Cameron

Verbal Hygiene 407
Verbal Hygiene
D Cameron, Institute of Education, London, UK
2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
This article is reproduced from the Concise Encyclopedia of
Sociolinguistics, pp. 688690, 2001, Elsevier Ltd.
It is a truism that linguistics is descriptive not prescriptive concerned to describe the structure and
use of natural languages, and not to make valuejudgements on them. Verbal hygiene was the title of
a book that prompted debate among sociolinguists,
by challenging the view that value judgements are of
no relevance for linguistics (Cameron, 1995). It argued that competent language users routinely make
value judgements on language; ideas about what is
good and bad in language are central to their understanding of it, and ought therefore to be of interest
to linguists who study language use as a form of social
behavior.
What is Verbal Hygiene?
language variety. The term verbal hygiene seeks to

foreground the existence of normative metalinguistic
practices, which intervene in language use in different
ways and for different reasons, though they are equally animated by value judgements. Secondly, prescriptivism in linguistics has acquired strong negative
connotations: it is associated with ignorance, intolerance, and prejudice, and is usually represented as
something extraneous to normal language use. Verbal
hygiene, by contrast, is presented as part of a more
general metalinguistic function, which is integral to
the workings of verbal communication:
Because language-using is paradigmatically a social,
public act, [it] must be carried on with reference to
norms, which may themselves become the subject of
overt comment and debate. In our everyday interactions
we take this for granted . . . without recourse to such
ordinary metalinguistic practices as correcting slips of
the tongue, asking what someone meant by something or
disputing their usage of particular words, the enterprise
of communication would be even more fraught with
difficulty than it already is (Cameron, 1995: 2).
The importance language users accord to value judgements is seen with particular clarity in practices of
verbal hygiene, i.e., active attempts to improve or
clean up language. These practices are many and
varied. Examples include not only efforts to impose
a standard dialect, pronunciation, or spelling, but
also cases like plain-language movements or feminist
campaigns to eliminate sexist language, language
planning, and fringe movements advocating wholesale spelling reform, the abolition of copular verbs, or
the adoption of artificial languages. What these
instances have in common is not any single view of
what is desirable in language use the traditional
grammarian and the feminist, for instance, will disagree on many points of detail. But they do share the
more fundamental assumption that one way of using
language may reasonably be preferred to another.
From this point of view, it makes no sense to condemn linguistic normativity as such. Further, when
one considers the full range of normative practices
language users are engaged in, it becomes difficult to
argue that they all exemplify ignorance (cf. language
planning, a scientific enterprise) and/or prejudice
(cf. campaigns against sexist and racist language,
which embody resistance to certain forms of prejudice). While verbal hygiene practices are never valuefree, correctness is not the only value that informs
them. Others include esthetics (as in discussions of
why one local accent is preferable to another); utility
(as in arguments for official documents to be written
in plain language rather than obfuscatory jargon);
and morality (as in debates on sexism and racism in
language).
Verbal Hygiene and Prescriptivism
The Social/Symbolic Functions of

Verbal Hygiene
That assumption also underlies what linguists have

traditionally called prescriptivism: how does verbal
hygiene differ? Cameron (1995: 311) saw the two
concepts as overlapping but not coextensive. Her
main reasons for wanting an alternative to prescriptivism have to do with the meanings that term has
acquired in linguists usage. First, prescriptivism is
most closely identified with a particular subset of
normative metalinguistic practices, those that focus
on the value of correctness and equate correct usage
with adherence to the codified norms of a standard
Although verbal hygiene arises from a metalinguistic

capacity that is indispensable for communication, in
practice that capacity is used in ways that go well
beyond immediate communicative needs clearly
we do not need new spelling systems or arguments
about how best to translate the Bible into Klingon
(the invented language of a fictional alien species).
Many verbal hygiene practices are better understood
in terms of the social and symbolic purposes they
serve for those engaged in them.
408 Verbal Hygiene
In some cases, these purposes are broadly political:

verbal hygiene is used to affirm a particular view of
the ideal social order. This motivation is evident
in conservative defences of standard languages, in
feminist arguments for nonsexist language and the
counterarguments of their opponents, in purist movements to purge languages of foreign elements, and in
attempts to preserve or revive minority languages as
symbols of ethnic or national identity. Professional
and commercial interests (e.g., the interest of publishers in maintaining certain norms of written style) may
also motivate verbal hygiene. And it can also be a
form of language play (Cook, 2000) this function
is probably its main one for Klingon enthusiasts, for
instance.
can study normative practices without necessarily

endorsing them. However, the book does challenge
claims that linguistics itself is value free (the axiom
all varieties are linguistically equal, for instance,
is not just a statement of what linguists believe to be
true, but implicitly also a value judgement). If we
accept that evaluation and verbal hygiene are integral
parts of language-using, sociolinguists must engage
in critical debates about the grounds for particular
evaluations rather than denying the legitimacy of
evaluation itself.
Debates on Verbal Hygiene
Bibliography
Some linguists (e.g., Kalogjera, 2000) have criticized verbal hygiene as a revisionist concept that
rehabilitates reactionary forms of prescriptivism,
undermines the objectivity of scholarship, and
encourages sociolinguists to politicize discussions of
language attitudes and linguistic change. In Verbal
hygiene (Cameron, 1995: xi) it is noted that linguists
Cameron D (1995). Verbal hygiene. London: Routledge.

Cook G (2000). Language play. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Kalogjera D (2000). A sketch for a chronicle of (anti-)
prescriptivism. In Tomic O M & Radovanovic M (eds.)
History and perspectives of language study. Philadelphia:
Benjamins.
See also: Description and Prescription; Language Attitudes; Language Ideology; Standardization.
Verbs
A Viberg, University of Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden
Lexicalization Patterns
2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Verbs are primarily used to talk about events, but the

way events are encoded may vary dramatically. In
Kalam, a language spoken in the highlands of Papua
New Guinea, many events that are encoded as simple
verbs in English are described as a sequence of events,
each encoded by a simple verb (Pawley, 1987):
Verbs vs. Nouns

Verbs and nouns are the two major word classes in
most, possibly all, languages (see Word Classes/Parts
of Speech: Overview). With respect to meaning, basic
concrete nouns tend to follow perceptually salient
natural partitions in human environment according
to the natural partitioning hypothesis (Gentner and
Boroditsky, 2001), whereas verbs to a greater extent
are language-specific and show greater variation with
respect to meaning across languages. This feature
explains why children universally tend to acquire
early nouns before early verbs.
The verb is the core of the clause and has a relational meaning, relating to one or more participants
(or arguments) to an event. In general, verbs are more
complex than nouns and tend to represent a greater
cognitive load on processing than nouns. Another
basic characteristic of prototypical verbs is that
they crucially involve change through time, whereas
concrete nouns tend to be stable across time.
(1) Kab an an ap
yap pk-e-k
pag-p ok.
stone glass come fall it-having- it-has- that
hit-DS
broken
A stone broke the glass.
Kalam is a good example of a verb serializing language (see Serial Verb Constructions). Serial verbs
exist marginally in English, in sequences such as Go
get the book. Serial verbs are, however, characteristic
of Southeast Asian, West African, Papuan, and Oceanic languages (Crowley, 2002). Verb serialization is
defined as a combination within the same simple
clause of lexical verbs that can function independently as verbs and that must be interpreted as having the
same values for tense-aspect-mood even if those
values are not necessarily overtly marked on all of
the verbs in the series. Auxiliaries (or helping verbs)

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Verbal Hygiene 407

What is Verbal Hygiene?

language variety. The term verbal hygiene seeks to

Verbal Hygiene and Prescriptivism

The Social/Symbolic Functions of

That assumption also underlies what linguists have

Although verbal hygiene arises from a metalinguistic

408 Verbal Hygiene

In some cases, these purposes are broadly political:

can study normative practices without necessarily

Debates on Verbal Hygiene

Cameron D (1995). Verbal hygiene. London: Routledge.

2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Verbs are primarily used to talk about events, but the

Verbs vs. Nouns

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