「媒库文选」方言是活水（语法是明灯）

参考消息网10月11日报道

Ever-Changing Dialects Keep English Moving But Grammar Is Its North Star

方言是活水，语法是明灯

Simon Jenkins 西蒙·詹金斯

I say tomahto and you say tomayto. My wife says dahrling and I say my dear. We all speak differently， and some of us speak different. Does it really matter？

Things matter if people think they do. I remember being with a group of Manchester businessmen whose bitterest complaint was that London stole their brightest young people and carried them off south. And not just that. As the young migrated south， they dropped their regional accents to conform to what London called “standard” English. When they came home they sounded like foreigners.

Last week the Dutch/Lancastrian linguist， Willem Hollmann， gave a new meaning to levelling up. He declared that teaching standard English and “received pronunciation” or London RP in schools discriminated against the majority of English children who did not use them at home. This should stop， he argued. There should be no such thing as correct diction because“children who do not speak received pronunciation might struggle and may feel marginalised”. Hollmann wants children to carry their Norse/Saxon grammars and exotic regional vowels to the metropolis with pride. If they fail to get posh jobs as a result， so be it.

Where Hollmann is on more difficult territory， I believe， is over grammar. As he has pointed out in his other writings， grammar holds the key to understanding in all forms of communication. The deployment of nouns and verbs， adjectives and adverbs carries with it the essence of meaning. I cannot see virtue in refusing to teach children standard English as “correct”， just to protect supposed regional sensitivities. How to say tomato does not matter. What does matter are the clarities embodied in singulars and plurals， tenses and conditionals， qualifiers and determinants. Clarity of language is crucial to the presentational skills now so important to a young person"s career – and so rarely taught while time is wasted on algebra and geometry.

No one wants to see the demise of English dialects. Dialect is rooted in ancient customs and cultures. Of course， it should be honoured and studied in schools and colleges. Grammar is different. Accent we can leave to the diversity of the human marketplace. But the gods of grammar we should surely respect.

我说tomahto，你说tomayto（西红柿tomato的两种发音——译者注）。我妻子说dahrling，我说my dear（“亲爱的”的两种说法——译者注）。我们的发音各不相同，有时用词也不同。这真的重要吗？

如果人们觉得重要，那就重要。我记得曾和一群曼彻斯特商人共处，最令他们愤愤不平的是，伦敦拐走了他们那里最聪明的年轻人并把他们带到了南方。还不止如此。随着这些年轻人南迁，他们丢掉了当地的口音，以顺应伦敦所谓的“标准”英语。他们返乡时听起来就像外国人。

上周，英国兰开斯特大学荷兰籍语言学家威廉·霍尔曼给拉平（levelling up是英国首相鲍里斯·约翰逊的核心施政目标，意思是在提升英国整体经济水平的同时，减少各地在发展上存在的不均衡——译者注）这个词赋予了新的含义。他宣称，在学校教标准英语和公认发音，也就是伦敦RP，是对在家不使用这种语言的大多数英国儿童的歧视。他认为，应该停止这种做法。不该有正确发音一说，因为“不说公认发音的孩子或许会陷入困境，可能感到受排斥”。霍尔曼希望孩子们带着古斯堪的纳维亚语/撒克逊语语法和有异域色彩的当地特有元音，傲然步入伦敦这座大都市。如果他们因此而不能得到光鲜的工作，随他去吧。

我认为，语法对霍尔曼来说是更棘手的领域。正如他在其他著述中所指出的，语法是理解各式交流的关键。名词与动词、形容词与副词的排兵布阵承载着意义的精髓。就为了保护所谓的地区敏感性而拒绝把标准英语作为“正确”用语教给孩子，我看不出这样做有什么好处。怎么说西红柿无关紧要。真正要紧的是单复数、时态与条件句、修饰词与限定成分所体现的明晰。语言的明晰对表述技能至关重要，这种技能如今对年轻人的事业发展意义重大——却很少教给他们，时间都浪费在了代数和几何上。

谁也不想看到英语方言的消亡。方言植根于古老的习俗与文化。当然，它应该得到尊重并成为院校学习内容。语法则不同。口音的问题可以留给大千世界的纷繁多样。但是对语法之神，肯定还是要恭敬以待。（李凤芹译自9月25日英国《卫报》网站）