After Rhetoric: The Study of Discourse Beyond Language and Culture

Available in the electronic books section of the Beaman library catalog is Stephen R. Yarbrough's Work titled After Rhetoric: The Study of Discourse Beyond Language and Culture. Chapter 4 of this work has some very intriguing insights on linguistics and its application to communication. In the first few pages it asserts that language (especially English) is poorly equipt to adequately convey meaning due to its ambiguity and vagueness. For example, this quote from Nathaniel Bacon was cited:

"For men believe that their reason governs words. But words turn and twist the understanding. This it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences inactive. Words are mostly cut to the common fashion and draw the distinctions which are most obvious to the common understanding. Whenever an understanding of greater acuteness or more diligent observation would alter those lines to suit the true distinctions of nature, words complain.”

Do you think the very nature of our language may be at least partially responsible for the incessant word-twisting and double-meaning our polititians are so famous for?

The chapter even contained proposals to adjust the English language so that its words are given more individualistic and sensationalized meanings, which led to a discussion of the standardization of language. One of the byproducts of this standardization is what Yarbrough refers to as "Linguistic Imperialism," epitomized by the emergence of English as the "language of the civilized." Is this so-called imperialism a positive binding force for the global society or a detriment to cultural sovereignty?