The Writer and Linguist Teresa Moure bids her Farewell to Deborah Cameron. Teresa Moure is a Tenured professor of General Linguistics at the University of Santiago de Compostela and Director of the Center for Feminist Research and Gender Studies (CIFEX) at that University.
Lang may yer lum reek! In memory of Deborah Cameron
Dear Debbie:
Just a few days ago, I submitted a manuscript for publication, and while reviewing it before clicking the final link, I paused to reread a passage where I had mentioned your name and an anecdote you shared with us. Now, having stopped there seems prophetic. You recounted how, in a job interview, a learned professor, upon reading the title of one of your works, Feminism and Linguistic Theory, exclaimed in astonishment, «But this is as if you had written a book on linguistics and organic gardening, isn’t it? ». With your sharp wit, you added that this gentleman was putting feminism in the same category as free love, being vegetarian, or wearing sandals. However charming the three terms in the comparison may be, your frustration was palpable, especially if one continued reading the scathing remark with which you delivered the final blow: «They didn’t give me the job». I laughed a lot when I first read it, and I’ve quoted it so many times since then that I can practically picture the dramatized scene, like watching some stale academic video. I don’t think you’d find it ridiculous to start right here. Of course, the rigid mindsets so common in universities are probably already suggesting that this isn’t the proper style for an obituary. Probably. But a good part of the legacy you’ve left us has to do with disrupting established norms to help us think outside the box.
A work by Donna Christian and another of yours have shaped my intellectual horizon for working in engaged linguistics. I don’t mean to suggest that you are the only ones claiming a space for ideology; it simply happened that way. In Christian’s case, it was about combining the rigorous principles of linguistic theory with the Marxist maxim that the point is not to understand the world, but to transform it. In yours, feminism appeared as a possible framework into which to insert those cold notions that had been instilled in us at the University. You both encouraged us to reconcile what we were learning with the political baggage we carried. Although I hardly recognize myself in that young woman who, within the classroom, obediently abandoned activism to accept empty boxes, complementary distributions, and principles of functionality, all devoid of any practical repercussions, she undoubtedly existed. And today is, unfortunately, an appropriate day to talk about what exists and what no longer does. I could have remained like that, dissociated and schizoid, all my life. But thankfully, some teachers had dared to break the mold and were paving the way. Thank you, Debbie; thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Over the years, I’ve found it very significant how some women linguists speak about others. Because it’s been the norm for men to remain silent, to not mention their mentors, much less their female colleagues or students. None of them were even touched upon —at least, not in the profusion of names in the acknowledgments. When Christine Kenneally asserts that Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, even if she isn’t as popular as Noam Chomsky, will undoubtedly go down in history, it makes me feel part of a group re-examining its own genealogy. That’s why I’m venturing to follow in her footsteps. Of the great names in sociolinguistics, none has influenced most of us as much as yours. It’s not that I’m going to create rankings to pit you against other influential male colleagues, convinced as I am that gender is too subtle a category to assume we belong to this or that group. However, your arguments concealed a capacity for subversion that must also be considered a powerful conceptual weapon in a discipline where differences of class, race, status, age, migrant status, or foreignness matter. A lot.
When you criticized Labov’s quantitative methods, you reminded us that it’s common practice to establish a correlation as the endpoint. The frequency of [r] was justified in these methods because the speaker belonged to a group —in your example, working women of Italian descent over fifty years old living in New York and speaking in a particular context, such as a formal interview with someone researching their way of speaking. After thus dissecting the analysis, you lashed out: that kind of explanation is a fallacy because, by confining itself to the idea that language reflects society, it explains nothing. What would this hypothetical speaker be doing? Expressing solidarity with other members of her group? In your opinion, it’s difficult for people to have such monolithic social identities and express themselves consistently with them. And I would add that if languages were merely reflections of perfectly established, pre-existing identities, they would cease to be interesting: my linguistic habits are a constitutive part of my identity. We learned from your goldsmith-like precision in constructing arguments how to combat the aura of authority, how to think calmly in order to question what was presented to us as firmly entrenched. It wasn’t, to change the subject, about whether we should use woke language, as conservatives call it, to display our political affiliation. On the contrary, by opting for your verbal hygiene, we ensured that our discourse represented what we truly wanted to say, without resorting to the prescribed path of social prejudices, omnipresent in our cultural heritage. And there, radiant, you wondered why so many people resist campaigns against sexist, racist, homophobic, or derogatory language. Should languages be given free rein to all forms of hatred? From there, we began to refine the expressions not because it was well-received in our group; you had convinced us that nothing happens in a sociopolitical vacuum: whoever manages to promote change will, in the end, be the one in charge.
I don’t know enough about you to write the heartfelt tribute I’d like: brief, impactful, and well-informed. As a subject, you’re beyond my grasp. But in this profession, we always deal with topics that exceed our understanding. I don’t know anything juicy about your personal life —lovers, biological or social motherhood, hobbies, whether you kept offspring of other species, or if you enjoyed cooking. I could attempt an obituary by reciting your positions at prestigious universities, but I suspect, reading your blog, that would unnerve you. I know you’ve sought to view language from a dynamic and social perspective, attentive to differences and boundaries, yet also systematic. In Representations of the Intellectual, Edward Said uses an image that has always captivated me. He says we must maintain the coldness of a sniper rather than the enthusiasm of a believer. Like a true sniper, you dedicated yourself to filtering out excesses, so that not everything other mainstream linguists said would become sacred. You have developed an unconventional, thoughtful, and subjective feminism, wary of the notion that biological traits are enough to constitute that monolithic us, women so often demanded of us, and maintaining the best example of situated thinking I know in contemporary linguistics. I hope that those of us who have learned so much from you, those of us who have felt compelled to intervene, shaking the solid pillars of academia, will succeed in having your name included among the great names of linguistics. In every discipline, women, as soon as they die, are usually erased. If any trace had been left for them, their names are replaced by those of others. I hope we can ensure that you don’t die; not entirely.
Since the only intimate and minuscule thing I know about you is this familiar name used by those who commented on your blog, I have appropriated it (perhaps improperly?) from the very beginning of this letter that will never reach its destination. I don’t want to say, «The distinguished Scottish linguist Deborah Cameron has died, leaving us important works». That’s not the descriptive tone you deserve. Since you’ve taught me to let ideology show, I won’t hide my interest in other languages, those of small, stateless peoples. That’s why I’ve used a famous Scottish proverb in the title: Lang may yer lum reek!, with the approximate meaning of «May your fireplace burn long!». In the language of your native country, it is a greeting overflowing with good wishes. I know it no longer means much to you in the strictest sense, since your fireplace has already burned down, but it serves to wish you continued presence; to say that, wherever you are, you will remain among us, speaking through books and intellectual example. Your fireplace will continue to burn. Above all, because you cannot allow us to continue so alone.
