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19 September 2006
Craniums and Containers. (Language and Group Identity.)
So pilots, especially fighter guys, talk funny. Not just on the radio. There is some governing dynamic to this. Considering how young aviation is, this gives us a very interesting offshoot of English from which to study language’s cultural and functional evolution. A more fascinating study would be the tactical dialect of aviation, but for reasons that should be self-evident, we won’t be deconstructing that here. Instead, we’ll use ICAO (civilian) pilot-speak, as well as out of the cockpit fighter-speak. Of course, by using fighter pilots as a case study, I won’t be doing any favors to my previous argument that the military is not misogynist. But that is neither here nor there. The real point is at the end of the post, but ‘ya have to read through the rest of it to get there. I’ll spoil it a little: its about Christians being relevant to their culture.
“I was flyin’ out at Nellis, doin’ Dark Grey WIC support,
I was out there by my lonesome ‘cause my buddy was a mort,
And I saw that big, fat ****** in a turn off to my right,
He was either lost or he was looking for a fight,
So I put him in my HUD, and I almost flipped the switch,
But then I thought, how could I miss, ‘cause that’s a huge *****,
And only a big ***** would use two Fox ones,
It’s time to get medieval, Im goin’ in for guns.”
- Dos Gringos, 'Goin' in for guns.'
The most fascinating aspect of Tolkien’s universe is the interplay between language and culture. Races develop a language to suit their world, yet that language shapes them even as they are shaped. Activities require words to be described, yet the words available in turn shape the activities, which writ large shapes culture. Because of this, you can tell much about a people’s culture and environment by their language. Specifically, the language will tell you much about the world it was shaped in, and the concerns of the people who shaped it. Language, then, becomes a stabilizing force to a culture, as it is difficult to form thoughts outside of the mainstream functional areas of the language. Language changes over time, as environments change and cultures change. This process can be unintentional, due to mountain ranges or migrations, or can be the intentional result of linguistic politics, a tool to establish cultural boundaries and an exclusive identity.
Most languages developed during a time when work life was the same as home life. There was then no need to have two vocabularies to describe two different worlds, as there is in the more segmented world of modernity. MBA-speak or computerese will not do much to ask one’s wife how the day went or vice versa. Therefore, as a function of the modernistic split between work and home, we have uniquely ‘work’ dialects. These evolve to represent the rapidly changing world of technology. There is an interesting parallel here between the technological world and the tribal world here. A language that evolved in the far north may have many words for snow, while an equatorial culture may have no words for snow. When confronted with snow for the first time, that culture may have to conglomerate the word for snow from a few extant words (e.g. very cold rain.) They may simply incorporate the word into their language from another language for the new concept. The technological word faces the unique challenge of creating things that have never existed anywhere before, for which no other languages have words that can be appropriated. They have to use the conglomerating tactic. Note, however, that instead of using clunky English combos, they generally go back to Greek and Latin for the roots to words. Latin seems to be a more ethereal language than English, where abstract concepts can be communicated more precisely with fewer words. There is an important point here. Within a language, the central concepts to its developing culture will be the easiest to express.
Consider this in English. Old words like ‘live, die, eat, buy, kill, love, war,’ are very short and easy to express. Words like ‘confiscate’ take longer to communicate, and are a bit clunkier. To a more highly structured and authoritarian culture than the Anglo-Saxons, perhaps a less unwieldy word would be used to describe that concept. So it seems that simplicity of words can be used as a measure of what is considered most familiar to an originating culture. Prefixes and suffixes adapt these words, but the root word is definitionally older, hence generally more central. Precision of words can also be considered. Where English has one word for love, the Greeks used four. Therefore, the Greek description of love can be considered more precise than the English description, which would imply that love was a more significant concept to the Greeks. So, as a closet engineer with a half-hearted MBA, I start to see metrics here. Let’s define some axes by which we can classify a language and learn about its originating culture.
Metrics. So I’m making this up as I go along. This ended up being more interesting than I thought it would be. I still fully intend on talking about airplanes. I’ll get around to it. Four metrics seem to work: reflectivity, grounding, precision, and flexibility.
Reflectivity. This axis is defined by the language‘s ability to communicate thoughts rapidly. One side of the spectrum is the reflective language, where it takes a long time to say anything. Consider the language of the Ents. They sacrifice quickness of communication for depth and deliberation. The other side of the spectrum is an operative language, where data is conveyed very rapidly so as to be quickly applied. Here is pilot-speak. A pilot desires to communicate maximum data in minimum time, and sacrifices depth to do so. A language’s position along this spectrum can be assessed by measuring memes (thoughts) expressed per unit time. On a macroscopic level (between languages), this variable tells much about the ‘speed’ of a given culture and the demands placed on it. On a microscopic level (within the language), areas within the language which are more operative indicate subjects which demand quicker responses within the cultural context, and more reflective areas indicate topics the culture deliberates upon.
Grounding. This axis is defined by the language’s ability to communicate ethereal thoughts easily. One side of the spectrum is the ethereal language, one specifically adapted to communicating abstract concepts. Latin and Japanese could be considered ethereal languages, where the theoretical is expressed with ease. The other side of the spectrum is the corporeal language. Consider English, Anglo-Saxon or Aboriginal languages, where words like dirt are easy, but words like philosophy are hard. A language’s position along this spectrum can be assessed by measuring the relative effort (syllables or time) it takes to communicate an abstract concept (analogies, theories) vice a concrete concept (things you can touch.) On a macroscopic level, this variable tells us much about the demands of economic life on the culture, ie. The more agrarian the culture, the closer its language will be to the dirt. (Etruscan v. Latin would be an interesting study here.) This variable doesn’t do us that much good on a microscopic level, because it uses a relative measure within the language. (I’m using a totally parallel structure for this section because I’m lazy and didn’t pay attention in writing class.)
Precision. This axis is defined by the ability to use different gradations of words to express a concept. One side of the spectrum is the precise language, where multiple words are available to describe a single concept. Consider the four words for Love in Greek, vice the one in English. The other side of the spectrum is the general language, where context forms the basis for understanding gradations in words. Spanish would be a good example. (I would guess that general languages prefer tenses to cases, but I don’t know enough to speak meaningfully to this.) A language’s position along this spectrum can be assessed by measuring the average number of words associate with each core concept in the language. On a macroscopic level, if you want to kick it like Weber, you could associate the ‘accuracy’ of the culture by this measure. On a microscopic level, it tells us what things the culture spends effort on describing in detail, and hence what it needs to describe in detail.
Flexibility. This axis is defined by language’s ability to adapt structures and words to describe new (foreign) concepts. One side of the spectrum is the rigid language, where more effort is required to accommodate the new concept within extant vocabulary and structures. English is such a language, which is why we need to take technology words from Latin and Greek. The other side of the spectrum is the flexible language, where new concepts can be rapidly incorporated within the language. (Note that in such a language, words for new technologies would sound more natural and less foreign.) Russian is a flexible language, though it takes the German tack of making really, really long words with a lot of prefixes or suffixes. This variable can be measured by determining what degree the language has to borrow words from other languages to describe newly evolved concepts. On a macroscopic level, perhaps if were going to rock the Durkheim party, we could try to assess the premium the culture places on progress with this variable. (This doesn’t seem to fit with the Russia example, but the Russian linguistic adaptability is a function of Stalinism and its progress fetish. Czarist Russian didn’t play the pronoun game to the same degree. ) On a microscopic level, perhaps this tells us something about where the culture is progressing the fastest. Note that this somewhat changes the French critique on ‘too many English words spreading.’ Most English techno-words aren’t really English, but Latin or Greek words placed into English grammar. Anyways.
Case Study. Now we have metrics. Yay. (This is somewhat ironic, given my diatribe against the quantitative fetish of social scientists in the last post.) Back to airplanes, and our case study of Pilot-speak and Fighter-speak.
‘Southwest 1359 is final approach fix, with the gear, for the option, will follow company traffic.’
What? Doesn’t make much sense, does it. Here’s the thing. Language always requires context. You don’t make words for things you never encounter, because you don’t have any need or reason to. If you’re a pilot flying on instruments, coming in for landing, it means a lot. So let me translate, and then we‘ll deconstruct later. I promise.
‘Southwest 1359.’ - The speaker is identifying himself.
‘is final approach fix,’ - They are located at a point in space along the approach to the runway.
‘with the gear,’ - They have lowered their retractable landing gear.
‘for the option,’ - They are intending to either stop on the runway, or take off again after landing.
‘will follow company traffic,’ - They will fly behind another Southwest aircraft on the approach.
So before deconstructing, let’s figure out the grammar. Here we are faced with a choice, this Pilot-speak is one of two things. It could be an ‘acronymized language‘, simply an abbreviated English, where words are omitted or shortened, but grammar is unchanged. The other option is that Pilot-speak is a pigdin form of English, a unique form of the language where both words and usage are changed. If this were true, Pilot-pigdin would have different grammar rules than the original language. So let’s go back to our translated sentence, and see if we can just add words and reconstitute the meaning. (In a sense, an acronymized language is ’freeze-dried,’ if you add words according to some standardized structure, you get the root language and meaning back.) If we can’t transform the Pilot-speak into normal English by adding words, then it is a pigdin, a uniquely transformed language. (This, in turn, would mean that the originating culture of the pigdin is actually significantly different in some regard from the general community of the language.) Let’s play.
‘Southwest 1539’ - [This is the] Southwest [flight] 1539. So far so good.
‘is final approach fix,’ - [the aircraft] is [located at the] final approach fix. A little more work, but okay still.
‘with the gear,’ - with the [landing] gear [down.] Still works, but ‘our’ instead of ‘the’ would seem to work better.
‘for the option,’ - […] for the option [to land or do a touch-and-go] Hmmm. ‘For’ seems to be an action verb here, but according to English, ‘for’ not a verb. Let‘s put a verb in here, and see if it works, like ‘bought shoes for running.’ [Approaching the airport] for the option. Oops. This is not what the phrase means. If a pilot were to explain ‘for the option,’ they would not describe it like this. Problems starting… it doesn’t look like we can add any reasonable sequence of words that will let us retain the meaning within English rules of grammar.
‘will follow company traffic,’ - [we] will follow [the] traffic [from the same] company. Problems. First, the word ‘traffic’ here is non-standard usage. Second, we have to restructure the sentence in order to get the word order right. Most importantly, though, we have to do backflips to make the tenses of the entire sentence agree. ‘Is’ seems to signify 3rd person, but ‘will’ here implies agency and hence the 1st person unity between the speaker and action. There seems to be much looser tense rules here, implying somehow a unity between the pilot and the aircraft. In order to reconstitute this sentence, we need to do some pretty significant grammatical gymnastics. Let’s try another one.
‘Texan 43, request start clearance on Alpha 1, with information Oscar, clearance on request.’
‘Texan 43’ - Same deal as before.
‘Request start clearance on Alpha 1,’ - [I/we] request clearance [to] start [engines, we are located] on [parking spot] Alpha 1. Sort of awkward. Non-standard usage of ‘on,’ where ’at’ would be more appropriate. The other awkward part is the big chunk in front of the on. What was one coherent fragment needs to become two in order to be reconstructed.
‘with information Oscar,’ - [we have] information [from the ATIS, of the designation] Oscar. Not good. Split one coherent fragment into two upon reconstitution, ‘with’ seems to mean ‘we have.’ Very non-standard usage, though evolution of the thought can be traced.
‘clearance on request.’ - Not even going to try. Doesn’t work.
Different grammar, non-standard usage, this isn’t really English. At least, not the kind of English that I’m currently writing. This isn’t just an instance of just filling in the blanks on a form. We aren’t just missing some vocabulary. We actually changed grammar here to suit our purposes. We have adapted English to suit our needs. One of the hardest things for a student pilot to learn are radio comms. It isn’t just learning to expect certain things at certain times. It’s actually learning a language. You start with canned radio calls, but just like with any new language, the structures start to make sense after a while. This seems to lend credence to the idea that this Pilot-ese is a pigdin. So, if it is really its own language, what can this language tell us about the culture from whence it came? Let’s try out our metrics.
Reflectivity. This is an almost totally operative language. A language for a culture that favors data flow over deliberation, for a fast paced environment. Precision. This language is tremendously precise for certain things. (Landing = Full Stop, Touch-and-go, Stop-and-go, Land and hold short, Low Approach, or the Option.) This language is for a culture tremendously interested in accuracy in certain things, and not so interested in other things. Grounding. This is a very strongly grounded language, one for practitioners, not theorists. Well suited to a culture and an environment which understands concrete outcomes. Flexibility. This language’s syntax cannot readily adapt to new concepts outside of extant parameters. ILS becomes MLS or LAAS fairly easily, but anything outside the bounds of normal aviation experience cannot be adequately described in Pilot-speak. This is a language for a very structured culture, where certain things happen at certain times. An operator’s language, one built for an environment and culture that is practical, perfectionist, and fast-paced. Check.
Evolution. Remember when we were talking about the bifurcated work/home life of modern society? Here’s where it comes back into play. English is a language built for farmers and peasants. The world that an IT professional faces is far different from the world of an English serf. Languages change over time, as do cultures, but technology creates a unique challenge to the adaptive abilities of a language. The IT world is simply different from the real world. The IT type who has a life outside of that world (which is, of course, not all IT types) must have a different language for dealing with work and real life. Work language is full of jargon and acronyms, shaped by a small group with unique shared experiences. Real life language is more generally understandable, more the common tongue defined by the larger culture and experience. So we see in this a practical function of language, developing modifications of root languages to allow sub-groups to deal with the uniqueness of their situation. There is also a cultural function of language, which unites a group as a whole (excluding those outside the group.)
There are two paths for linguistic development we have seen so far. First is the ancient pathway, where the practical language and the cultural language develop indistinguishably along parallel paths. The second is the pathway of specialization, where as a culture branches out into differing professional areas, a common cultural language is maintained as the street and home language, where the practical language is developed by sub-groups to suit the reality of their work, and is usually left at their work. Note that the function of cultural language in the second pathway here is inclusive. The IT professional probably wants to downplay his professional language if he is to get dates… he wants more to be seen as a member of the society as a whole than to distinguish himself as an IT professional. Say, for the sake of argument, you had a group who thought their job was so cool, that they wanted to continue the evolution of their practical language into a cultural language, distinct from the society as a whole. Then, interestingly, the group would be using language as an exclusive tool to proclaim sub-group identity (hence reducing allegiance to the group as a whole.) Let’s look at a case study of this: Fighter-speak.
First, I should explain Fighter-speak. As an out-group person myself, I am not going to get it all the way right, but let me give it a shot. Fighter guys (gender neutral) don’t ever say ‘head,’ they say ‘cranium.’ They don’t ever say ‘box,’ they say ‘container.’ They point with their elbows, so as to not have three fingers pointing back at them. Finally, whenever anybody says anything which remotely has any sexual connotations, such as ‘I’m going downtown,’ a fighter guy has to say ‘so to speak.’ Fighter guys don't ever call their aircraft by their official designation... a F-16 pilot will call their aircraft the 'Viper,' never the 'Fighting Falcon.' (Viper comes from the original Battlestar Galactica series, which was coming out about the same time as the -16.) Also, fighter pilots will refer to themselves generally as 'fighter pilots,' but not as pilot in regard to their specific airframe. When talking about flying their specific aircraft, its always 'driver,' like 'Viper driver,' or 'Mudhen driver.' I probably forgot some stuff. With that done, let’s explore the functional and cultural categories of language further to apply them to our case study.
Functional Language. Functional language is an adapted language by which a sub-group deals with the peculiarities of that sub-group’s experience. This can be due to geographical isolation, professional realities, or any other reason that causes the sub-group’s experience to be different from the experience of the root language members as a whole. This is a necessary adaptation which allows a culture to grow. The functional language will be more different as the experience of the sub-group is more different. The world of aviation is very different than the world in which the mass of users of modern American English reside. Before aviation, we had no need for words to describe what it looks like on the inside of a cloud. The need for such a descriptor (IMC) is a reality of the aviator’s function. We have already discussed the peculiarities of Pilot-speak.
Cultural Language. Cultural language is the language used in daily life. It can be used by the culture as a whole to enhance unity, through the inclusive function of language (everyone speaking the same language on the streets.) It can also be used by a sub-group to set themselves apart, using the exclusive function of language (the cool kids talk like this and you don’t.) The variations that groups use to set themselves apart usually arise as a function of practical language and make their way into professional language. With enough time, if the sub-group’s professional language may seep into their cultural language. (‘Let’s leave.’=‘Pull chocks.’) This pathway is regulated as a function of the strength of the sub-group identity vice the group as a whole. For instance, IT professionals might go pretty far out of their way to not talk like computer programmers in bars. On the other hand, there is a pretty common joke about pilots: ‘How do you tell if there’s a pilot at a party? Don’t worry, he’ll tell you.’ For the latter group, the peculiarities of their professional language (though softened to a degree where communication becomes possible) become the defining characteristics of their cultural speech. For fighter guys, this difference is even enhanced by replacing common use words like ‘box,’ with ‘container,’ in order to express certain things about the way they see the world (like through the eyes of a really smart, immature and very competitive 15 year old. Which is funny, usually.) These words are not functional, but rather anti-functional, as they impede out-group communication, and have more syllables, slowing in-group communication. Yet, these words set the group off from the whole, announcing a strong exclusive identity. These words function as markers. On a much less light-hearted note, we can see the roots of linguistic politics here. (Ukraine, Slovakia.) In these cases, peculiarities in language are so emphasized that they legitimate an identity split between groups previously united. The application point here is that a group interested in effectively communicating with the larger culture will partake more strongly in the inclusive function of the larger culture’s language, in diminishing its cultural linguistic differences. A group interested in setting itself apart (toward either elitism or secession,) will emphasize its sub-group’s linguistic differences in order to take part in the exclusive function of language.
Academia. Academics have their own unique language, as well. Theirs stands in pretty much diametric opposition to Pilot-speak. Academic-speak is a deeply contemplative and reflective language, one that reflects a high degree of nuance, one very comfortable with ethereal concepts. One much closer to Entish, for trees grow slowly and nothing in the academic world happens faster than the speed of sound (except, perhaps, in physics labs.) Given the nature of academic work, this language was developed as a functional dialect. It was necessary for a very speculative group to have a very speculative dialect. I would argue, however, that the academe, similar to pilots, uses its practical language as a means of establishing an exclusive cultural language. ‘Problematic’ does mean something other than ‘bad,’ but is used interchangeably with ‘bad,’ in most academic circles. Words like ‘dynamic tension,’ (I’m a total hypocrite here) indicate ‘I have some sort of advanced degree.’ Here’s the thing. A lot of stuff, especially MBA-stuff, isn’t as hard as the cultural dialect would lead one to believe. Multi-syllabic words become the linguistic distinction by which the sub-group ‘academe’ separates itself from the larger society. This isn’t normative yet, but of course I have my biases. It isn’t hard, so to speak, to tell what they are (pilots.) You can’t beat the view out of my office. (I still kind of like academics, though, but I totally won’t admit it.)
Christianity. I am going to be very normative now. This was sort of my point all along, and everything else was just the long, meandering path to get here. There is a functional language to Christianity. We need words to describe concepts like grace, sanctification, and predestination. It is simply too clunky to try to use normal culture words for that sort of internal dialogue. This is why functional language exists, to allow a sub-group to more effectively deal with their unique environment. Here’s the thing, though. The point of the Great Commission is to bring other people into this unique environment, so we must consider our interaction with the larger society in that light. There is without a doubt a Christianese dialect of American English. We use it to set ourselves apart culturally. We appeal to the exclusive aspect of language, and strongly self-identify in away that keeps us safe. This is not holiness. We are not set apart by culture. This is the mistake that Paul so aggressively addresses in his discussion of circumcision. We are set apart by the Spirit of God, and He calls us to be in the world, even as we are not of it. This is a call to relevance. We need to consider what effects our language has upon our ability to interact with the larger culture. Our practical language, by definition, must be our own, but we must take on an inclusive cultural language. A missionary would learn the language of the culture they set out to reach. We must learn to do the same. Jesus Christ understood more about sanctification and grace than any of us ever could. Yet when He spoke to farmers, He told them of spiritual things in the language of farmers. We should go and do likewise.
Addendum to Craniums.
Thanks to Corban B. for this one.
We can examine language groups, sub-groups, and perhaps individuals with these metrics. We can apply them to different levels of analysis, as long as you set a baseline appropriate to the level of analysis. We can look at a culture by examining their language in the context of other languages. We can examine a sub-group within a culture by examining their dialect against the baseline of the root language. We may be able to analyze an individual by examining their manner of speech vice that of their sub-group. In each case, we will look to the offsets from the baseline. There will likely be resolution issues, though, in the case of the individual. There may be individual discrepancies between the language imprinting process and the individual development of consciousness which would cause the application of these metrics to become problematic (not bad) past a certain point. Above this level, though, there should not be a problem applying these metrics to different levels of analysis.
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