Keeping Up With “Citizen Sociolinguistics”: A Revolutionary Blog by Dr. Betsy Rymes
Betsy Rymes, Ph.D. It gives me great pleasure as a sociolinguist and a general linguistics nerd to be able to introduce a fellow blogger of sociolinguistics, Dr. Betsy Rymes — whose blog I ran into while looking for other blogs that might be writing about the same issues that I was featuring. She is a Professor of Linguistics and also the Chair of Educational Linguists at the University of Pennsylvania. Not only does Dr. Rymes teach, but she has also published extensive research regarding language as it relates to society — specifically educational institutions. A professional sociolinguist by day, Dr. Rymes dedicates her blog to expanding the study of sociolinguistics to include not just experts, but regular people who don’t have quite an extensive linguistics background. Her blog, Citizen Sociolinguists can be found here:
Citizen Sociolinguistics.The blog focuses around a term that Dr. Rymes coined herself: Citizen Sociolinguistics. This novel idea is perhaps best expressed in her first post. Before introducing her concept, Dr. Rymes first asks the following set of questions — ones that I’m sure we’ve all asked ourselves but never took the time to answer:
“People often understand the way they speak by what other people tell them about it. Even the most eloquent speakers may hear those censorious voices behind their own: That is not proper. That sounds non-native. That’s not a word.
Why should this be? Why would we let others define the way we speak when we are the ones closest to our own communication? When, often, what other people tell us about our own language is no more informed than our own intuitions? And, when what other people tell us is less informed about the fabric of our own living? Why do we let other people tell us how to talk when we are the ones trying to communicate?”
In the same way that everyone has a distinct personality, such can be said for the way a person uses language in how we harness language and how we express ourselves. And we often deviate from standard conventions to our creative advantage so that we can portray ourselves in exactly the way we desire.
It is this process then, in which we analyze our own language and offer our opinion on the ways we tailor them that Dr. Rymes calls Citizen Sociolinguistics:
“I call such speaking up about one’s own language, Citizen Sociolinguistics. And that is what this blog is about. In this blog, I explore what people say when they speak about language from a perspective of someone who knows their own context, who uses language there, and who cares about communicating.”
If sociolinguistics is the study of society and language, then why shouldn’t the main analyzers of language be the people who comprise that society? This, I believe, is the genius of Citizen Sociolinguistics. It gives average people a chance to comment about language without having to do advanced things like discourse analysis, statistics, surveys, phonology analysis, or looking for different traits. Furthermore, Dr. Rymes shows that she wants to open dialogue about language. Her blog, invites others to comment their own opinions and generates real discussion about real issues in ‘daily linguistics’.
With her first posts starting in 2015, this blog gets a post out every couple of weeks or so. Each post, I’m captivated by the concepts that are explored. This blog has touched upon many interesting sociolinguistic topics such as hybrid languages, dialect variations, linguistic relativity, race and ethnic connections to sociolinguistics, and so much more. Of course, each time, I appreciate Dr. Rymes’ inquisitive tone. Her infectious curiosity stimulates the reader as they too begin to understand why the current topic being addressed is actually more interesting than it may have seemed otherwise. Each time, the readership is eager to jump into debates. Surprisingly, Dr. Rymes also takes the time to respond to many of her viewers’ comments and is able to facilitate reader-writer discussion.
My favorite post in Citizen Sociolinguistics is entitled Untranslatable and Multilingual Words. This relates to my area of focus so much as we find that many times immigrant patients have linguistic constraints when it comes to communicating a word or notion for their native language into English.
Anyways, Dr. Rymes first talks about words that don’t have a direct literal translation in English (untranslatable words). Then she considers the converse: words that have many different meanings within the same language (multilingual words). Once she has given us a background, she then offers a question for debate. Are untranslatable words merely ‘slang’ as some have argued, or are they a representation of a fundamental construct that is unique only in the language of which they originate? Without giving us a definitive answer, she simply concludes with a simple open-ended quote:
“As the linguists Sinfree Makoni and Alastair Pennycook wrote in 2006, in their book Disinventing and reconstituting language (p. 36):
All communication involves translation.”
And immediately, an eager reader is ready to jump in:
These “citizen” revelations that are highlighted by this blog gives me a linguistic orgasm. The simple and inviting layout in fact encourages me to not only read the post, but also begin to form my own opinion being the “citizen sociolinguist” that I have now decided to become. And I can’t help but admire Dr. Rymes for allowing discussions that would normally require higher education in linguistics to take place between normal people. Although it appears through her tone that she is very modest about her knowledgeability on many of the issues she writes about, her humility makes her blog such a fascinating read.
While readership statistics are unavailable for this blog, I can assure you as well as put my reputation as a linguist on the line, that this blog is a captivating outlet for anyone to explore their interests in language and culture — and how they might affect our daily lives.
Update: I reached out to Dr. Rymes herself and it seems that I got her approval! See her response below:
Con Aloha Siempre,
George
