Inspired by a conversation I had with your one and wonderful Kyllorac, I’ve decided to start a series of articles for YWS with the unifying gist of “Linguistics for Writers.” Why? Well, for one thing, I’ll take almost any opportunity to linguistic-nerd out that I can find. For another, linguistics has helped my writing in so many ways, it’d be wrong not to share some of what I’ve learned. Finally, I’m writing these because if I see language mistreated one more time, my heart will disintegrate like store brand cornflakes in milk.
My reasoning is thus two-thirds selfish and one-third touchingly idealistic.
When I’ll be getting these out, I don’t know. In the meantime, I’m announcing them so I can get suggestions for topics to cover.
My planned segments include:
Linguistics and Dialogue.
Of all things linguistics has given my writing, this is the crowning jewel. Studying how conversation happens in real life has helped make my dialogue so much better. Two years ago, I wouldn’t have given a darn about conversational power structures, concepts of face, the use of modal auxiliaries and personal pronouns, humor, implications and inferences, conversational roles, participant triads, register, discourse, or presumptions. Now, I cannot only tell you what all those mean, but I use them to give my dialogue delicious layers. (Whether or not I succeed is a different matter.)
Linguistics for (Fantasy) Writers.
Now, this one is a matter near and dear to my heart. Just as my linguistic studies have increased my love and respect for Dr. Tolkien exponentially, it has also exponentially decreased my ability to enjoy fantasy books by non-linguists, even those by professional, published writers. Therefore, this guide will (in theory) help you make sure you don’t fall into any of the same pitfalls. e.g., it’ll help you make sure that your language facts are in order, that your characters’ names would actually exist, that the curses are actually effective and not just silly, and that I don’t otherwise hunt you down on YWS for language abuse.
Why You Should Leave Accents to Twain.
This one will argue that, unless you’re Mark Twain, you should abandon all thoughts of attempting to represent accents phonetically in speech. It’ll also argue that even if you do have Twain’s gift, you should think twice, because reading accents is a pain for the reader. But mainly it’ll convince you to abandon the folly of attempting to represent accents and offer alternatives to representing speech varieties instead so that the reader gets the feel for the way a character’s speaking wɪθ æot kʊnfuziŋ phipʊl.
And, then, for the poets:
Syllables in English
Syllable weight in English
Moraic theory, and what haikus are really about.
As mentioned before, I’m taking suggestions. At the very least, even if I haven't studied it myself yet, I can understand what academic texts are talking about. Conversation, grammar, poetical stuff… if it’s related to language, I can at least give it a shot.
Rachael
