Linguists, Romglish and “Verbal Hygiene”

Emphasising the importance of language ideological research into the attitudes of linguists (Milroy 2012) and taking as points of reference concepts such as “verbal hygiene” (Cameron 1995), “standard language ideology” (Milroy and Milroy 1999) and “language myths” (Watts 2011), the present paper focuses on two recent interviews given by prominent linguists, where the emphasis falls on “Romglish”, a much-discussed label in the contemporary Romanian media. The paper identifies (as central to these linguists’ attitudes) myths such as those relating to homogeneity and legitimacy, discussing the pertinence of such myths in the present context of globalisation.