An astounding story of linguistics in the public eye that begins with Beyoncé’s name being added to the new edition of the Larousse dictionary, an event that so impressed the BBC that on 5/2 they approached the distinguished German linguist Martin Haspelmath to comment on it, a request that MH found utterly bewildering (as did pretty much everyone who knows MH and his work — his meticulous scholarship — and Queen Bey and her work — her extraordinary voice and her presentation of herself as a flaming-hot sexual being). In fact, the more you know, the weirder it gets.
Eventually, as a genuine éminence grise (I was born in 1940, MH in 1963, and QB in 1981, so we’re dealing with three generations here), I undertook to recount some of my experience in being interviewed by the media; I’ll re-play this below. But first, an enormous amount of background.
Beyoncé. From Wikipedia:
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter (née Knowles; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter and businesswoman. Dubbed as “Queen Bey”, she is regarded as a prominent cultural figure of the 21st century and has been recognized for her artistry and performances, with Rolling Stone naming her one of the greatest vocalists of all time.
QB in action:
From the concert film Renaissance (photo by Kevin Mazur for British Vogue)
So, smokin’ hot in her bearing. And often stunningly sexual in her lyrics (while generally avoiding explicitly dirty talk). Note the report in my 11/18/18 posting “Randy Blue purifies the air”, on, inter alia, the Randy Blue gay porn company; a HuffPo “Queer Voices” feature from 4/14/14, “Randy Blue Gay Porn Stars Dance To Beyonce’s ‘Blow’”; and Beyoncé’s drippingly raunchy song “Blow”, a little hymn to cunnilingus (“Can you eat my Skittles? It’s the sweetest in the middle”).
All this is in fact relevant to the People magazine story —
“Beyoncé’s Name to Be Included in French Dictionary: The singer is one of 40 peole — including LeBron James and Cate Blanchett — who will be added to the new edition of the Larousse dictionary”
— that set off the people at the BBC and, ultimately, sent them to Martin Haspelmath: Beyoncé is not merely a figure from popular culture, but a highly sexualized one, and tainted by this, so she’s a risky addition to the dictionary — the human equivalent of taboo vocabulary (about which there have been a whole series of furors when one of them appears in some dictionary).
In any case, the BBC wanted commentary from a linguist on QB. So, for some reason — stay tuned — they approached MH.
The BBC solicits MH. What they wrote to MH:
Hi Martin,
We are covering the Beyonce being accepted into the French dictionary. While it sometimes adopts English-speaking celebrities, it still frowns on elevating the “Anglo-Saxon” jargon that has infiltrated French in recent decades.
I came across your book on the politics of language and I was wondering if you could come on to discuss the resistance to English words being adopted into other languages and why that is.
This would be an interview today over facetime / zoom/ whatsapp either as a pre-recorded interview or live interview around 17:00 London time.
(No, MH doesn’t have a matey relationship with folks at the BBC that would merit the salutation hi and the first-name address; those touches are designed to create a social closeness, a familiarity, rather than reflect an existing one; the alternative is the respectful Professor Haspelmath, which would be intended as flattery, recognizing MH’s eminence and expertise.)
MH’s response to the BBC passed over the salutation usage, and the apparent summons to an interview that same day, to fix on the deeply baffling element in the BBC’s message:
How do journalists choose the experts they interview? I don’t know how they do it in general, but today’s experience does not inspire much confidence. The BBC seems to think that I’m an expert “on the politics of language” and asks me to comment on an exciting new development in French lexicography… (I’m not making this up!)
The sticking-point in the BBC message is your book on the politics of language. MH has written books on a variety of topics, but none that he or I or anyone else I can think of would recognize as being about the politics of language.
Now, you say book on the politics of language to me in 2024, and I think:
David Beaver & Jason Stanley, The Politics of Language (2023)
Which caused me to speculate that the BBC writer had first approached David Beaver as an obvious interviewee, but had been turned down, so the writer just went on to approach another patsy, without changing the wording of the letter. (This sort of thing happens more often in the world of high time-pressure journalism than you might think.) Well, it’s just a speculation, and I’ll check with DB, who’s a friend and former colleague of mine, but it’s a more satisfying idea than the BBC writer’s having somehow picked MH’s name out of a hat.
The AZ > MH postings on Facebook. Very lightly edited.
My experience is that many media outlets with a language-related story will go to any linguist at all, so long as they come from some famous institution or already have a public reputation (I was occasionally used this way when I was at Ohio State, but when I went to Stanford, I was besieged). They hold the position that someone in a broad field of science or scholarship can be expected to provide authoritative commentary on anything within that field, and don’t understand that they’re often asking you to undertake a research project on something far from your area of expertise. In the worst cases, they aren’t actually interested in your expertise, but only want an aura of eminence to brighten up their preconceived ideas (which are often flat wrong or just confused — in which case they will edit the interview to support their case).
I eventually got a reputation for being a difficult interviewee, so they abandoned me, even though I’m at, omg, Stanford.
Addendum: they don’t pay you, and since they’re almost always working on deadlines, they expect you to reply on the spot, or within a few hours, dropping whatever else you’re doing. (I did have some really good experiences with reporters who were developing longer-range pieces and treated me as a collaborator. But they’d done their homework and came to me on some matter I’d actually published about.)
Further addendum: there are two reasons offered for why they don’t pay you. One is the idea that you are merely a source, not a contributor; you are like a political office-holder or candidate, a witness to some event, the victim of some catastrophe, etc., and reporters don’t pay sources. The other recognizes that you are in fact being asked to contribute your expertise, but holds that you should do this for free because you’re getting public recognition for your work; you are in effect being paid with an enhancement of your reputation. (Artists, writers, and musicians tend to look unkindly on the idea that fame and reputation should be sufficient compensation for their labors.)
Oh, a third reason applies to university faculty, especially at public institutions: such faculty are expected to perform services (to the institution, to the academic field, to the general public) as part of their appointment, so (the reasoning goes) they should offer their expertise to the media as fulfillment of their duties, without recompense. (This reason doesn’t apply to adjuncts and other temporary appointments, who aren’t faculty (or staff), but instead a species of academic gig worker — my status since 1994.)
The end of the story. Another Facebook commenter eventually asked MH what he’d done with the BBC’s request. MH’s laconic response:
I wrote back that this is not my area of expertise.
That suffices, and it’s a quick answer. Can’t seem to find out what the BBC did with the story, but of course they didn’t really have to have some academic analysis as a sidebar for their item.
May 9, 2024 at 12:44 pm |
A report in e-mail from David Beaver (at the University of Texas Austin):
I will ask Jason Stanley (at Yale) if he knows what they did with the interview. Meanwhile, they approached at least one other academic (this is not uncommon; it can supply material on other facets of the topic, as well as providing backup interviewees when some candidates drop out). Unfortunately, they recycled the message they used for David and Jason, without adjusting the content for Martin Haspelmath, so we don’t know why they were interested in him (except that it wasn’t for his book on the politics of language).