Analysis of Sandi Toksvig article

As the article was written for The Telegraph the audience is most likely traditional, older readers who probably have a prescriptive attitude to language change. This article strongly suggests that Toksvig has a descriptivist view and therefore she must mitigate the ways in which she talks about her opinion as it is conflicting with her audience.

The anecdote about a Q&A session ties in prescriptivists and descriptivist attitudes. You could suggest that the anecdote symbolises the common fight between these two viewpoints. She starts off with “…I was roundly scolded by a woman…” The use of the verb “scolded” seems to decrease the power which Toksvig has; the verb ‘scold’ can be associated with parents and their children. This may be to paint a picture of prescriptivists to the audience which may make them subconsciously agree with her. She describes this woman as irate; perhaps symbolising the ways Toksvig believes prescriptivists behave towards language change. She said that, “Naturally I felt terrible…” in response to this woman’s accusations, she allows the audience to see that she wasn’t aware of what was happening and that no one was right or wrong. She seems to remain neutral throughout the article; she does not comment on the woman in a judgemental manner. You could suggest that as her audience may be prescriptivists this subtle way of expressing her opinions does not openly criticise the view point others may hold. Her readers may not want to agree with the ‘irate’ woman because this is describes as an angry and negative opinion to hold.

The use of facts help her article to remain fairly neutral. After her comments on the Q&A session she says, “Ever polite, I didn’t feel the moment was right to remind the irate woman that English is actually a West Germanic language.” Her opinion here is wrapped up in facts. The adverb ‘actually’ could be read with a sarcastic tone suggesting that Toksvig thought this woman was perhaps less knowledgeable than her and that her opinions were based on false ideas. But the use of a fact to back up the point almost gives Toksvig the right to use a sarcastic tone, or to call her irate. This suits the audience and purpose of the article as the prescriptivist readers may not be offended and they may in fact be persuaded by the fact used. The use of a fact that any town which ends in “gate” was created by borrowing the Danish word for “street” “gade”, may debunk some prescriptivists opinions. They may have said “Margate, “Ramsgate” etc… but been unaware how these proper nouns had been formed and been perfectly accepting of the word itself. Following this with a joke, “You can just imagine the Q&A session 1,200 years ago when some poor writer would’ve been help responsible for the ‘wretched Vikings’ coming over here and ruining our perfectly good words for ‘road’,” seems to state that those who are against language change are wrong. By backing up the joke with facts suggests that it is funny that people reject language change. But her audience cannot disagree unless they have been openly unaccepting of many towns names.