Peter Farrugia meets acclaimed linguist David Crystal and gets a fresh perspective on the future of literature, code-switching and censorship in Malta.

At the invitation of the English-Speaking Union of Malta, David Crystal’s long-awaited visit to the island began with a presentation entitled ‘The Future of Englishes’. The University’s Sir Temi Zammit Hall was crammed to the rafters with students and academics enthralled by Crystal’s anecdotal lecturing style and animated delivery.

Everyone in attendance received a crash-course in modern varieties of English by one of the field’s leading scholars.

Crystal’s books, many of which are set-texts at secondary and tertiary levels in Malta, deal with linguistics in the broadest terms.

He’s tackled stylistics, the application of linguistics to religion and education, the development of language and its sociological contexts.

He is perhaps best known for two encyclopedias on the English language produced for Cambridge University Press. Crystal is Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, a fellow of the British Academy, and taught at the University of Reading for over a decade.

Crystal had just finished an impromptu book signing during a brief lull in between his pressing engagements during his visit.

Asked about his earliest interest in linguistics Crystal says: “You develop an inevitable curiosity about language if you’re brought up in a bilingual area, which I did because I was brought up in Wales”.

He said the moment that a child realises his language is not the only one in the world, that other people use different words to express themselves (and how best to cross that divide), has fascinated him ever since.

The conversation turns to bi-lingualism in Malta, and anxiety over Malta’s current standard of English. Following a report by the English Speaking Board last year which noted something of a decline in spoken fluency, the need to pursue formal levels seems more pressing than ever.

Crystal’s reply is measured: “One has to be realistic. There must be a formal standard to promote mutual intelligibility and continuity with the literature of the past, but on the other hand it is a fact that language always changes and new styles of English emerge.

“There’s no point in condemning change, it’s inevitable.”

Crystal’s work has often focused on the strength of alternative varieties of English and the ways they form unique identities within the larger family of standard language.

His lecture included references to Singaporean and South African English, both of which have developed their own dialectical differences while creating a great deposit of new vocabulary.

“The important thing is that educational systems learn to respect the diversity of language that exists,” continues Crystal, “maintaining the standards of the past but recognising the existence of new standards that are going to affect the future.”

Next, that perennial bugbear – code-switching. Anyone who has studied linguistics in Malta at whatever level will know that our attitude to this phenomenon is consistent with certain European, rather than international, reactions.

Switching from one language to another is still something of a class marker in Malta, and depending on what side of the fence you sit on, it’s either an indication of affluence or ignorance (perhaps a mixture of both).

Local studies have concluded that young, upwardly mobile women from Sliema and its environs are most likely to code-switch but evidence of the practice can be heard all over, whether it’s in place names or entire sentences, imported grammatical forms or words with meanings that are often modified.

However passionate people might get about code-switching as evidence of declining ability in either language, or the creation of something new and exciting, Crystal takes a practical approach:

“The extent to which it becomes respected depends largely on whether institutions like newspapers and television programmese come to reflect it.

“And, of course, literature, a tradition of code-switiching in Maltese writing, will change people’s perceptions.”

“What you’d need to do is analyse situations where Maltese and English are used, and understand the nature of the tensions that develop where two languages exist side by side.

“It takes time for a sense of mutual respect, and delight, to replace the negative things that come for a very recent colonial past, after all.”

Moving on, Crystal talks about his interest in all things technological and the dramatic way technology has changed our lives.

“The internet has always been a big deal in my work because it’s always changing so fast.”

When asked about these changes in the context of contemporary literature, Crystal’s remarks reflect his research:

“The goalposts are moving all the time – if you had written a novel in 1997 based on a search engine like Excite, which no longer exists, it would be terribly dated, and novelists are concerned about this.

“Facebook and Twitter have changed the mindset of younger people, and novels which don’t take this into account will be perceived as historical. There’s an interest in text messaging novels, but will anybody read them in 10 years time?

“Downloadable novels may not be popular in Britain but they are very popular in India and China. Certainly, we can see that an internet literature is slowly evolving.”

Crystal was asked for his opinion on the recent censorship scandal, where various books are “preserved” (to echo the University Students’ Council’s imaginative use of the word) by the library in sealed cabinets. These include works of fiction and non-fiction by authors such as Alfred Sant, D. H. Lawrence and Voltaire.

“Well, it’s a situation that existed in Britain 50 years ago. What I wonder is, why do people worry about it?

“Censors list the consequences of letting certain books out in the public domain but did those negative scenarios come to be? Did Britain suffer because of it?

“All it seems to do is create an immediate upsurge in interest, but then it settles down. People in British schools are being taught about the strengths and weaknesses of those works, but they are always respected as literature.”

Prof. Crystal’s talk was the first in a series planned by the English-Speaking Union, being held until June. Other events include the Inter-Schools Debating Final which will be held on March 2.

More information can be found at the ESU Malta website: www.esumalta.org.