> The entire concept of an elocution class is wildly offensive to most of the modern linguists I know; following the rise of super-linguist Bill Labov in the 1960s, the concept that one way of speaking is “better” or “worse” than another is basically anathema. But that wasn’t at all the case for the rich kids of Westchester County, Beacon Hill, or the Main Line (those would be the home of the elites of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, respectively).
Oh, nonsense. Sociolinguistic prejudices are still with us and it's only those of us speaking the prestige varieties of English who have the luxury of pretending we all speak naturally now. If you don't think so, ask some people their opinions of AAVE or "Ebonics." Or even a Southern drawl.
I think you're misinterpreting the quote. The author isn't saying that linguists reject the existence of prejudice; they rather reject the bases for that prejudice.
But modern linguists are generally not the kind of people who'd want to take an elocution class today. Mostly people who would want to take such a class are people whose accents clearly mark them as being in a disfavored group. So if "modern linguists" really oppose the very concept of such a class I'd say they're being rather solipsistic.
And in fact I don't think they do, since linguists are among the specialists who contribute to "accent reduction" courses, which seems like a modern name for the same thing.
You'd have to ask a modern linguist, not just anybody. Class signifiers in speech still exist, but modern linguists are not likely to endorse one way of speaking as better than others.
I guess I agree with your objection though, this statement is pointless. Its comparing modern linguists to '60s rich folks from the east coast. They don't agree, what a surprise. I think you are right, in that a better comparison would be '60s rich folks from the east coast to 2010s rich folks from the east coast. And I agree that you would find things have not changed as much.
I think the whole statement was a way to introduce that the author has been talking to linguists, and start with a really crude overview of their opinion of the whole thing before we get to the details.
Oh, nonsense. Sociolinguistic prejudices are still with us and it's only those of us speaking the prestige varieties of English who have the luxury of pretending we all speak naturally now. If you don't think so, ask some people their opinions of AAVE or "Ebonics." Or even a Southern drawl.