Blog 2 Prompt

ENG 1101 (9): "Language Controversies"
Blog 2
Dr. Jennifer A. Hughes

This week you may choose between two prompts. This essay will be more formal. That is, you should strive for clarity and careful grammar (the prescriptive kind!). Consider especially things that we have talked about in class: avoiding ending sentences with prepositions, avoiding contractions, using active verbs. The essay should be between 300 and 600 words, but again, feel free to write more if necessary.

1. Theodore Dalrymple writes that “Pinker doesn’t really believe anything of what he writes, at least if example is stronger evidence of belief than precept.” That is, Dalrymple accuses Pinker of being a hypocrite because Pinker himself clearly values standard English since he writes in it. Is Pinker a hypocrite? Does it discredit his argument? Why do you think that he writes as he does?

2. Choose an example from our readings in Pinker that Dalrymple does not really discuss (Simon the user of ASL whose parents are not fluent ASL users, the British woman with Chatterbox syndrome, etc.) and try to argue the Dalrymple side. That is, imagine yourself to be Dalrymple and argue against Pinker over the significance of this example.