Department of English

Topic: English and the Culture of Correctness

This is fundamentally a course about language attitudes. People talk about speaking and writing English “correctly,” but — with regard to a language — what is “correct”? Correctness has not always been a concern among speakers and writers of English: when did it become so, why, and who determines what is correct? Do  notions of correctness affect our practice? Are they all talk, or do they make some difference in the world? Arguably, they do make a difference to the benefit of some and the detriment of others. We'll consider the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, on one hand, and language attitudes and ideologies on the other.