The decline of literacy

I find myself frequently having to modify and simplify my language to avoid misunderstandings. This is partly because of traditional divergences between British and American usage and the inevitable compromises that come with globalized and inter-cultural communication. But it goes further than this and relates, I think, to declines in levels of literacy. Levels of literacy impact not only on written but also on spoken forms of language. General literacy allows for larger lexicons and more complex syntactic forms.

Another factor is that, as the status and role of literary models have diminished, foundations for normative grammar have been eroded. In the past, languages and dialects without a (written) literature were widely perceived as inferior to languages with an established literature. Such a view is mistaken. But it was widely held. Writers were seen not only as adding value to the culture and the language but as culture-creators and nation-builders.

As I say, such beliefs are problematic, but texts did provide semantic and syntactic stability. The existence of a canon of literary texts implicitly promoted a standard form of the language as well as providing cultural reference points.

What’s more, a standard education typically incorporated elements of historical linguistics and/or classical languages. This meant that most educated speakers had a relatively sophisticated grasp of the nature and dynamics of language which in turn affected how language was used in day-to-day life.

One aspect of this which is not often discussed relates to etymology and subtleties of meaning. Knowledge of the original meaning of a word-stem affects the way a word is used and understood, even if the meaning has changed significantly over time. These sorts of subtle, etymology-based connotation no longer apply for most listeners or readers, with the result that certain fine distinctions of meaning become impossible to convey.

We currently have a cultural elite which is ostensibly – and paradoxically – committed to anti-elitism, a situation which militates against standard, or "prestige", forms of language being supported or promoted. Political and cultural fashions will inevitably change but the sorts of literary-oriented values which were embedded until recent times in Western and some Eastern cultures are probably lost forever.

Technological factors (especially the digitization of information and communication) will no doubt continue to drive changes in the longer term, and these changes – especially the replacement of reading for pleasure with other easily-accessible forms of entertainment – mean that the high levels of literacy and linguistic knowledge which characterized the professional and middle classes until the later 20th century will not return any time soon.