Celebrating working-class dialect is reactionary because domination has deformed the poor’s language

Evidence

To play off workers’ dialects against the written language is reactionary. Leisure, even pride and arrogance, have given the language of the upper classes a certain independence and self-discipline. It is thus brought into opposition to its own social sphere. It turns against the masters, who misuse it to command, by seeking to command them, and refuses to serve their interests. The language of the subjected, on the other hand, domination alone has stamped, so robbing them further of the justice promised by the unmutilated, autonomous word to all those free enough to pronounce it without rancour. Proletarian language is dictated by hunger. The poor chew words to fill their bellies. From the objective spirit of language they expect the sustenance refused them by society; those whose mouths are full of words have nothing else between their teeth. So they take revenge on language. Being forbidden to love it, they maim the body of language, and so repeat in impotent strength the disfigurement inflicted on them. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 116

Categorization

• XREF: Closely tracks Pierre Bourdieu’s later account of linguistic capital and legitimate language, and reverses the populist valorization of dialect found in writers like Orwell. — connects to: Language can distort as well as transmit human culture; Ordinary language is already purged of expressive means by society — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 651; Racialization infantilizes the colonized and scars their language — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2498 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Racialization infantilizes the colonized and scars their language #corroborates (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2498
• Ordinary language is already purged of expressive means by society #corroborates (0.82) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 651
• Everyday speech conceals society’s domination over language as hidden meaning #corroborates (0.78) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 669
• Language can distort as well as transmit human culture #qualifies (0.72)