The fallacy of linguistic dirigisme

The fallacy of linguistic dirigisme, therefore, is based on supposed parallels with economic dirigisme, which controls the economy by controlling the money supply, the means of production, wages, prices, exchange rates, interest rates, imports, or any and other commodities, currencies, or things and substances of value, the supply of which is finite, or can be made finite by state control. Language, however, is not a finite substance or commodity that can be controlled in this way, for a number of reasons.

1.

Utterance Supply One is that each speaker (of any language whatsoever) in the polity generates his/her own supply of utterances. This is a basic fact about language and how it works that is often misunderstood, and not just in French culture.

2.

Divine Origin of Language In many cultures of the world the idea that language has divine origins, or stems from some Platonic higher consciousness, leads culture-bearers to assume that language can therefore be controlled (or must be controlled) in various ways, and that the utterances that speakers make can be discounted or devalued if they do not meet some pre-established standard.See Schiffman 1996 for examples of mythological ideas about language.

3.

Covert Prestige It seems to me that French linguistic culture would have it that self-generated utterances of a non-standard sort are like debased currencies or contraband, and must be driven out of existence. The problem is, as Gresham's law has it, bad money drives out good, so the existence of corrupt language has paradoxical effects; people pay lip service to good' language, but non-standard language also has symbolic value to its speakers (Labov refers to this as covert prestige because though speakers overty deny the value or validity of non-standard forms, they retain and use them for certain purposes, because at some level, they have meaning for them. (Labov 1972)) because it authentically represents par excellence their personal, social, regional, or even sexual identity in ways that the standard language never can.

4.

Belief systems Though there is no proof that dirigisme is ever effective when applied to language and linguistic habits, the belief that it works is firmly grounded in French ideas about language (Catach 1991; Schiffman 1996). It is now being called upon to save French from the corruption and perturbations brought on by wholesale borrowing of franglais (English and American words and phrases), which bring with them an unsavory ideology and life-style, which, if not resisted at all costs, will undermine and debase French culture beyond recognition.