Dennis Baron
Encyclopedia
Dennis Baron is a professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
. His research focuses on the technologies of communication; language legislation and linguistic rights; language reform; gender issues in language; language standards and minority languages and dialects; English usage; and the history and present state of the English language.
in 1965; an M.A. from Columbia University
in 1968; and a Ph.D. in English language and literature from the University of Michigan
in 1971. He taught high school English in New York City
and in Wayland, Massachusetts
. Before joining the faculty at the University of Illinois in 1975, he taught at Eastern Illinois University
and at the City College of CUNY. Baron is of Romania
n-Jewish descent on his grandmother's side.
Baron has held a Fulbright Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities
Fellowship. He twice chaired the National Council of Teachers of English
Committee on Public Language, which gives out the annual Doublespeak and George Orwell Awards; he edited the monograph series Publications of the American Dialect Society
, and he has served on professional committees of the Modern Language Association
and the Linguistic Society of America
.
and Facebook
, and communally generated texts like Wikipedia
, Urban Dictionary
, and YouTube
.
In The English-Only Question: An Official Language for Americans?, Baron writes about the philosophical, legal, political, educational, and sociological implications of the English-only movement
, tracing the history of American attitudes toward English and minority languages during the past two centuries, and how battles to save English or minority languages have been fought in the press, the schools, the courts, and the legislatures of the country.
In his Guide to Home Language Repair Baron answers the questions that he is most frequently asked about English grammar
.
Declining Grammar and Other Essays on the English Vocabulary contains essays about English words, and how they are defined, valued, and discussed. "Language Lore," examines some of the myths and misconceptions that affect attitudes toward language—and towards English in particular. "Language Usage," examines some specific questions of meaning and usage. "Language Trends," examines some controversial trends in English vocabulary, and some developments too new to have received comment before. "Language Politics," treats several aspects of linguistic politics, from special attempts to deal with the ethnic, religious, or sex-specific elements of vocabulary to the broader issues of language both as a reflection of the public consciousness and the U.S. Constitution and as a refuge for the most private forms of expression.
Grammar and Gender traces the history of the sexual biases that exist in the English language and describes past and present efforts to correct these biases by reforming usage and vocabulary.
In Grammar and Good Taste: Reforming the American Language, Baron writes about the history of American language, the development of the concept of Federal English in post-Revolutionary America, the movements for spelling reform, for the creation of a language academy on the model of the French Academy, and the role of the common schools in directing the course of English through grammar instruction.
; The Washington Post
; the Los Angeles Times
; the Chicago Tribune
; and other newspapers, on topics such as official English, American resistance to studying foreign languages, and grammar. He has been a columnist for The Chronicle of Higher Education
and has written for Inside Higher Ed
. Baron has also been quoted as an expert in many articles about language.
Baron has been interviewed on CNN, NPR, the CBC, the BBC, the Voice of America, and other radio and television stations discussing topics ranging from the impact of computers on language, to gender-neutral language, to official English, to slang and profanity.
Baron has been a legal expert witness, interpreting the language of contracts and advertising materials and offering opinions on the readability of documents. Baron was lead author, together with colleagues Richard W. Bailey
and Jeffrey Kaplan, of "the Linguists' Brief," an amicus brief in District of Columbia v. Heller
before the U.S. Supreme Court, providing an interpretation of the Second Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution (the "right to bear arms" amendment) based on the grammars, dictionaries, and general usage common in the founders' day, and showing that those meanings are still common today. The brief was mentioned positively in the dissenting opinion of Justice Stevens, and negatively in Justice Scalia's majority opinion deciding the case.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
. His research focuses on the technologies of communication; language legislation and linguistic rights; language reform; gender issues in language; language standards and minority languages and dialects; English usage; and the history and present state of the English language.
Education and Professional History
Baron received a B.A. from Brandeis UniversityBrandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
in 1965; an M.A. from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in 1968; and a Ph.D. in English language and literature from the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
in 1971. He taught high school English in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and in Wayland, Massachusetts
Wayland, Massachusetts
Wayland is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 12,994 at the 2010 census.For geographic and demographic information on Cochituate, which is part of Wayland, please see the article Cochituate, Massachusetts.-History:...
. Before joining the faculty at the University of Illinois in 1975, he taught at Eastern Illinois University
Eastern Illinois University
Eastern Illinois University is a state university located in Charleston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1895 as the Eastern Illinois State Normal School, a teacher's college offering a two-year degree, Eastern Illinois University gradually expanded into a comprehensive university with a...
and at the City College of CUNY. Baron is of Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n-Jewish descent on his grandmother's side.
Baron has held a Fulbright Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
Fellowship. He twice chaired the National Council of Teachers of English
National Council of Teachers of English
The National Council of Teachers of English is an American professional organization dedicated to "improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education...
Committee on Public Language, which gives out the annual Doublespeak and George Orwell Awards; he edited the monograph series Publications of the American Dialect Society
American Dialect Society
The American Dialect Society, founded in 1889, is a learned society "dedicated to the study of the English language in North America, and of other languages, or dialects of other languages, influencing it or influenced by it." The Society publishes the academic journal, American Speech...
, and he has served on professional committees of the Modern Language Association
Modern Language Association
The Modern Language Association of America is the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature...
and the Linguistic Society of America
Linguistic Society of America
The Linguistic Society of America is a professional society for linguists. It was founded in 1924 to advance linguistics, the scientific study of human language. The LSA has over 5,000 individual members and welcomes linguists of all kinds. It works to advance the discipline and to communicate...
.
Research
Baron's most recent work, A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution, describes people's relationship with computers and the internet describing how the digital revolution influences reading and writing practices, and how the latest technologies differ from what came before. Baron explores the use of computers as writing tools. Both pencils and computers were created for tasks that had nothing to do with writing. Pencils, crafted by woodworkers for marking up their boards, were quickly repurposed by writers and artists. The computer crunched numbers, not words, until writers saw it as the next writing machine. Baron also explores the new genres that the computer has launched: email, the instant message, the web page, the blog, social-networking pages like MySpaceMySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
and Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
, and communally generated texts like Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
, Urban Dictionary
Urban Dictionary
Urban Dictionary is a Web-based dictionary of slang words and phrases, which contained over 6 million definitions . Submissions are regulated by volunteer editors and rated by site visitors...
, and YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
.
In The English-Only Question: An Official Language for Americans?, Baron writes about the philosophical, legal, political, educational, and sociological implications of the English-only movement
English-only movement
English-only movement, also known as Official English movement, refers to a political movement for the use only of the English language in official government operations through the establishing of English as the only official language in the United States...
, tracing the history of American attitudes toward English and minority languages during the past two centuries, and how battles to save English or minority languages have been fought in the press, the schools, the courts, and the legislatures of the country.
In his Guide to Home Language Repair Baron answers the questions that he is most frequently asked about English grammar
English grammar
English grammar is the body of rules that describe the structure of expressions in the English language. This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses and sentences...
.
Declining Grammar and Other Essays on the English Vocabulary contains essays about English words, and how they are defined, valued, and discussed. "Language Lore," examines some of the myths and misconceptions that affect attitudes toward language—and towards English in particular. "Language Usage," examines some specific questions of meaning and usage. "Language Trends," examines some controversial trends in English vocabulary, and some developments too new to have received comment before. "Language Politics," treats several aspects of linguistic politics, from special attempts to deal with the ethnic, religious, or sex-specific elements of vocabulary to the broader issues of language both as a reflection of the public consciousness and the U.S. Constitution and as a refuge for the most private forms of expression.
Grammar and Gender traces the history of the sexual biases that exist in the English language and describes past and present efforts to correct these biases by reforming usage and vocabulary.
In Grammar and Good Taste: Reforming the American Language, Baron writes about the history of American language, the development of the concept of Federal English in post-Revolutionary America, the movements for spelling reform, for the creation of a language academy on the model of the French Academy, and the role of the common schools in directing the course of English through grammar instruction.
Contributions to public discussions of language and technology
Baron blogs regularly about communication technology and about language issues on the Web of Language and has written articles on language issues for The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
; The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
; the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
; the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
; and other newspapers, on topics such as official English, American resistance to studying foreign languages, and grammar. He has been a columnist for The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty, staff members and administrators....
and has written for Inside Higher Ed
Inside Higher Ed
Inside Higher Ed is a daily online publication focused on college and university topics, based in Washington, D.C., USA.The publication was founded in 2004 by Kathlene Collins, formerly a business manager for The Chronicle of Higher Education, and two former top editors of The Chronicle, Scott...
. Baron has also been quoted as an expert in many articles about language.
Baron has been interviewed on CNN, NPR, the CBC, the BBC, the Voice of America, and other radio and television stations discussing topics ranging from the impact of computers on language, to gender-neutral language, to official English, to slang and profanity.
Baron has been a legal expert witness, interpreting the language of contracts and advertising materials and offering opinions on the readability of documents. Baron was lead author, together with colleagues Richard W. Bailey
Richard W. Bailey
Richard Weld Bailey was a noted American linguist, scholar of the English language, and the Fred Newton Scott Collegiate Professor of English at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor....
and Jeffrey Kaplan, of "the Linguists' Brief," an amicus brief in District of Columbia v. Heller
District of Columbia v. Heller
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 , was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects an individual's right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes in federal enclaves, such as...
before the U.S. Supreme Court, providing an interpretation of the Second Amendment
Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights.In 2008 and 2010, the Supreme Court issued two Second...
to the U.S. Constitution (the "right to bear arms" amendment) based on the grammars, dictionaries, and general usage common in the founders' day, and showing that those meanings are still common today. The brief was mentioned positively in the dissenting opinion of Justice Stevens, and negatively in Justice Scalia's majority opinion deciding the case.
External links
- Dennis Baron front page at University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignThe University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
Department of English website - The Web of Language at University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignThe University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
website - Dennis Baron on Twitter