Three kinds of 'incorrectness'
When we describe usage as 'incorrect' we may be talking about any one of three things: 1) foreign learners' mistakes, 2) native speakers' mistakes, or 3) native speaker variation.
Foreign learners' mistakes and intelligibility
Since adults cannot usually acquire languages perfectly, non-native speakers often make mistakes (including language teachers, who need not feel guilty if they sometimes get things wrong). How much does this matter? One approach is to elicit hearers' or readers' responses to examples of different mistakes, so as to see how these errors are perceived. In an experiment carried out in the 1980s (Hughes and Lascaratou, 1982), mistakes made in English by Greek secondary-school children were shown to three groups of people: Greek teachers of English, British teachers of English, and British non-teachers. Each group had to grade the mistakes for 'seriousness' on a scale from 1 (least serious) to 5(most serious).
The groups seemed to use quite different criteria in their assessments of error gravity. The mistakes which the Greek teachers regarded as most serious were often those that troubled the native speakers least, and vice-versa. Some examples, with the average gradings given by the Greek teachers ('GT') and the British non-teachers ('BN') are listed below:
- We agreed to went to the cinema by car.
- (GT4.6; BN2.2)
- We didn't knew what had happened.
- (GT4.4; BN1.8)
- Dizzys from the wine we decided to go home.
- (GT4.2; BN2.1)
- One children was slowly crossing the street.
- (GT4.1; BN1.8)
- The factors that cause an accident is usually the following.
- (GT4.1; BN2.6)
- The people are too many so and the cars are too many.
- (GT3.0; BN4.3)
- The bus was hit in front of.
- (GT2.6; BN4.3)
- There are many accidents because we haven't brought (meaning 'broad') roads.
- (GT2.4; BN4.1)
The native speakers were clearly most disturbed by mistakes which impeded their understanding of the sentences: When explaining the basis for their assessments, a majority referred to 'intelligibility'. The Greek teachers were more bothered by infringements of common grammar rules; in discussion, they referred repeatedly to 'basic mistakes'. What upset them most, it appeared, was the fact that learners continued to break rules which had already been taught repeatedly and which they 'should' therefore have mastered. It was as if the non-native-speaking teachers in this study were worried more by disobedience than by inefficient use of language.
Native speakers' mistakes
Native speakers get things wrong when they are off their own ground -- for instance, when they use dialects different from their own, when they work in unfamiliar stylistic registers, or when they try to handle vocabulary which is outside their range of competence (and so confuse pairs of words like flout and flaunt or prevaricate and procrastinate, for example).
In a sense, the written language is a new and unfamiliar dialect for every native speaker who begins to learn it. Written languages have their own grammar, which is not identical with the grammar of speech, and in many cultures there are complex conventions governing the structure of different kinds of writing. Not everybody is equally good at mastering these rules and conventions. Since the ability to write successfully and appropriately is widely regarded, in English-speaking societies among others, as a mark of education and/or intelligence, those who fail (native speakers and foreign learners alike) may find themselves unjustifiably regarded as 'ignorant', 'stupid', or 'uneducated'. In fact, however, spelling, punctuation, mastery of paragraphing and letter-writing conventions, and so on do not necessarily correlate with low ability or achievement in other areas.
Native speaker variation
Educated native-speaker usage often varies -- for instance, some British people use less with plural nouns, while others use fewer. Faced with such variation, many people assume that one or another form must be wrong, feeling that there is a single correct version of the language which follows rules that are to be found in grammars; that this correct version of the language is constantly under threat because of falling educational standards and the influence of other undesirable dialects (such as American English); and that if we do not exercise constant vigilance the language will decay and become impoverished.
The linguist's view, of course, is that language naturally varies in time (languages change), in space (languages have regional dialects), and across society (languages have class-based varieties). A linguist sees no basis for judgements of correctness that conflict with the facts of usage: there are no tablets of stone on which the rules of 'correct usage' are inscribed for all eternity; earlier conventions are not better by virtue of being older; formal and informal usages are each equally valid in appropriate contexts; and dialect forms are not 'mistakes' because they are different from 'standard' forms (in the memorable words of Max Weinreich, a language is a dialect that has an army and a navy).
Forms that are condemned by usage manuals as examples of unacceptable change often, in fact, have a long and respectable history. "Less" has been used with plurals for centuries -- the usage is in fact nearly a thousand years older than the rule which condemns it.
The OED shows that less has been used of countables since the time of King Alfred the Great -- he used it that way in one of his own translations from Latin -- more than a thousand years ago (in about 888). . . .After about 900 years Robert Baker opined that fewer might be more elegant and proper. Almost every usage writer since Baker has followed Baker's lead, and generations of English teachers have swelled the chorus. The result seems to be a fairly large number of people who now believe less used of countables to be wrong, though its standardness is easily demonstrated. (Webster, 1989)
Although British and American speakers invest a great deal of energy in criticising each other's usage, this aspect of 'correctness' is generally the least important for the foreign learner. The tiny distinctions that native speakers use in order to make each other feel inferior are generally of little communicative importance, and non-native speakers are likely to have greater linguistic problems in other areas.
Intelligibility and acceptability
If all that was necessary was to make oneself understood, it would be easier to decide which mistakes mattered. However, acceptability is also an important consideration. Language is more than a means of communication: It is used to express solidarity. If you speak like us, you are 'one of us'. Societies may be reluctant to confer 'insider' status on people who show, by their use of language, that they are not originally members of the group. Language is also bound up with power. If I speak 'better' than you, I can feel superior to you. Many societies use language tests as part of their battery of 'elite filters': To pass the examinations which qualify you for a good career, you may need to demonstrate a correct and fluent command of the 'standard' version of your mother tongue, and probably also of a foreign or even a classical language. Grammar, in particular, is typically given a degree of symbolic importance out of all proportion to its real value. Getting your grammar right can be a way of showing the gatekeepers of society that you are good at obeying rules and respecting authority.
Societies, then, through their educational systems and their admission procedures, typically insist on a higher level of linguistic accuracy than is strictly justified by communicative needs. To achieve such a level, learners may have to devote valuable time to relatively unimportant aspects of the language, leaving less time available for work on things that matter more (like breadth of vocabulary or spoken and written fluency). Such an approach is also psychologically counterproductive, in that it makes students nervous of making mistakes, undermining their confidence and destroying their motivation.
So what should we do about it?
We have to live in the world as it is. If our learners are going to need an unrealistic level of accuracy in order to pass exams and get jobs, and if examiners insist on favouring conservative forms of language and resisting change, then we must take account of this, however much we may deplore it. Our best approach is perhaps to 'come clean' with our students, telling them, for example, that third-person-s is not communicatively important, or that not all educated native speakers use "fewer" with plurals, but that the students' career prospects may be affected by their mastery of such conventions.
At the same time, we should do what we can to help change things. Language education requires a massive investment of time and money, and over-emphasis on accuracy wastes precious resources. The more, therefore, that educational planners, employers, and those responsible for advising them can move towards a more pragmatic view of language use, the better for all concerned; if we have any influence with such people, we should try to use it. And society's tendency to overvalue accuracy does not only come down from above; it is also formed in part by society's teachers -- that is to say, by us. If we can give our learners a more informed and realistic attitude to correctness than we were given ourselves, this may pay off when, one day, they in their turn are in a position to influence policy. Ultimately, correctness only matters as much as people think it does.
References
Hughes, A., & Lascaratou, C. (1982). Competing criteria for error gravity. English Language Teaching Journal, 36(2), 175-182.
Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. (1989). Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc.
Micheal Swan's workshop is sponsored by Oxford University Press.