Based upon Milroy’s article (1992):
What is more common in language uniformity or variability?
Variability is much more common. People use, under the influence of a variety of circumstances and aspects, different nuances in the use of the same language. Uniformity is an ideal obviously far from reality. In certain entourages, where language is related to nationalism, uniformity is desired. Language seems to be a product related to politics. Through certain agreements languages become tools for these purposes.
On the other hand, a layperson believing that there is only one correct and acceptable way to speak, could expect uniformity from a language, and thus, believe that uniformity is good.
What kinds of variability exist?
Variability could be represented in different ways and it is by this classification that we can explain the amount of variability:
· Social accents: as we find in Britain, one the most class conscious nations in the world, every person is related to a social group by the way he or she speaks. According to this classification where everyone is placed in a certain social group, which encourages guessing which kind of background people come from.
· Geographical differences: regional accents.
· Contextual differences: depending on the context i.e. the people who are talking and their situation. Examples range from scientific terminology to motherly talk.
How do we decide if a particular group of speakers belong to a particular dialect or language?
Listening to their accents, accents are decisive in the way that we catalogue people.
Saussure emphasized the importance of synchronic descriptions of languages rather than diachronic. He and his disciples (structuralists) focused on language at different periods as finite entities. Is this reasonable?
A synchronic analysis is not reasonable. What Saussure and the structuralists wanted to show does not look appropriate when we talk about language. Language is never a finite structure, it is impossible to make a static study of an entity as variable as language is.
The unattested states of language were seen as transitional stages in which the structure of a language was, as it were, disturbed. This made linguistic change look abnormal. Is it abnormal?
Unattested means periods with no written records whatsoever.
Milroy states that this is not abnormal due to the fact that nothing remains the same.
Milroy (1992: 3) says “the equation of uniformity with structuredness or regularity is most evident in popular (non-professional) attitudes to language: one variety –usually a standard language – is considered to be correct and regular, and others –usually ‘non-standard’ dialects – are thought to be incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical and deviant. Furthermore, linguistic changes in progress are commonly perceived as ‘errors’. Thus although everyone knows that language is variable, many people believe that invariance is nonetheless to be desired, and professional scholars of language have not been immune to the consequences of these same beliefs.”
What Milroy is explaining is that the relation between uniformity and structuredness becomes more evident with the rejection of any kind of regional variation which may be represented by so called 'non-standard' dialects. There is a common belief that there is a standard form of the language, which not only exists, but is better and more correct. Unfortunately, as Milroy states, this misconception does not only exist within popular circles, but also by professional scholars. What Milroy is also doing in this piece of writing is criticising other professionals who have been surprisingly trapped in this confusion.
Can you think of any example of non-professional attitudes to your own language?
· As I see it, my own country is an entity that has been, and still in some ways, a paradise for the rejection of other ways of speaking. Deviant is not only used as the defining adjective when talking about other languages, which have wrongly been called dialects, as Valencian or Galician used to be referred to. This also happens within the Castilian territory where variation is not widely accepted, not to mention the absurd castration which is also applied to other parts of the globe like Central and South America.
Why does Milroy use “scare quotes” around non-standard and errors?
Scare quotes are normally used “to draw attention to an unusual or arguably inaccurate use”(From The Oxford Dictionary of English )
For Milroy these two kinds of concepts do not have the negative connotation which they have for others . In Milroy’s vocabulary good or bad simply, does not exist, this is the justification for his use of scare quotes .
Are non-standard dialects “incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical and deviant.”?
No, they are not. But they are socially unaccepted, politically rejected.
Which of these systems is more irregular? Why?
Surprisingly, the one in the first column is more irregular, despite being the “standard”. Following the possessive pronoun patterns of my, your, his etc.; the 2nd column would not only be more grammatically logical but also conceptually logical if we take into account the fact that our
“self” is ours or their selves are theirs and not “themselves”. And so,the 3rd person singular and also plural would be more regular using the left hand side column: from his- hisself and not himself and from their, theirselves and not themselves. This shows, once more, that language is about agreements and what we call “standard” is just one more.
|
Myself Yourself Himself Herself Ourselves Themselves |
Myself Yourself Hisself Herself Ourselves Theirselves |
“… much of the change generally accepted body of knowledge on which theories of change are based depends on quite narrow interpretations of written data and econtexutalized citation forms (whether written or spoken), rather than on observation of spoken language in context (situated speech). (Milroy 1992: 5) Why do you think this is so?
Any description of a language involves norms? Think of the descriptions of your own language. Why is this so? For example: He ate the pie already is considered to be non-standard in which variety of English and perfectly acceptable in which other?
Norms are used for saying if one way of using a language is correct or not. It seems a way of reducing the possibilities in terms or regulating a language. Norms and rules are made to consecrate languages, making, therefore, some groups better than others, depending on the adjustment to the rules.
Another way that we have of forcing a language is by presenting it in the fixed, written form. Written language is artificial. For example in my mother tongue, the ending –ado, is not pronounced in many cases in speech as it is written: it is pronounced by many people –ao but is considered to be incorrect. Other examples in my language, but this time to do with vocabulary, are some non-standard words like the verb “chopar”totally used in Valencia by the influence of the Valencian but considered non-standard.
“He ate the pie already” is perfectly acceptable in American English but considered incorrect in the UK. One of the main differences between these two forms of English is the use of the present perfect: American English speakers do not, generally, use this tense as much as the British. This is also the case with Latin American and Spanish from Spain. In both cases the “correct” sentence would be: He's already eaten the pie.
As we have seen, non-standard use of language is considered to be, in many ways, incorrect and ungrammatical.
What is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammars?
Prescriptive is what is precise, (in Linguistics: that lays down rules of usage. OED) and descriptive is assigning a quality, rather than restricting the application of the expression modified(Oxford Reference). Based upon these definitions we can think that descriptive grammar is wider than prescriptive.
Weinreich, Labov and Herzog’s (1968) empirical foundations of language change:
Constraints: what changes are possible and what are not
Embedding: how change spreads from a central point through a speech community
Evaluation: social responses to language change (prestige overt and covert attitudes to language, linguistic stereotyping and notions on correctness).
Transition: “the intervening stages which can be observed, or which must be posited, between any two forms of a language defined for a language community at different times” Weinreich, Labov and Herzog 1968: 101)
Actuation: Why particular changes take place at a particular time.
What do you think the “prestige motivation for change” and the “solidarity constraint” mean? How are they opposed?
There is a tendency to aim towards what is considered to be a more prestigious way of speaking. This could be done for many reasons such as improve social standing or as a way of differentiating themselves from their own social class. “Solidarity constraint” on the other hand, is used to describe the way people decide to use their language, not aiming towards a higher standard, but rather, based on local usage of the language.
Sound change: post-vocalic /r/ in New York/ The change from long āto ōin some dialects of English.
Actuation: Why did /k/ palatalize before certain front vowels? PrsE: cheese, German käse English/Norse doublets shirt/skirt?
As we can found in Milroy’s text this kind of palatalization happens in some particular language(or dialect) whereas this is not seen in a closely related one(Milroy 1992)These examples are well known examples of varying developpement of this kind.
What is the biological metaphor in language change?
According to the orthodox position, “language has a life ‘as surely as a man or a tree’, and creativity in language in developing new forms is attributed to the ‘marvellous power of language’ itself. ’It is not in the power of man either to produce or prevent’ linguistic change. According to Müller linguistics is a physical science and not a historical science. Language therefore does not have history, it has growth.”(Milroy,J 1992: 23)
What is the difference between internal and external histories of a language?
When we talk about internal histories of a language, we are focusing on sound-change and morphological change. The external histories are the political, social and attitudinal context of language, for example, speaker -attitudes to variation as they were expressed by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century commentators as if in a couple of centuries could also see.
It is commonly believed that the “real” is its internal system-based history.
Look up Neogrammarians and lexical diffusion. Why are they often found in the same paragraph or chapter?
We are facing two different apptoaches about whether sound-changes operates.While lexical diffusion model holds that sound-changes may be lexical gradual, Neogrammarian theory has generally been interpreted to mean that th erelevant class of items all undergo the change at the same time, that is, that sound-change is phonetically gradaual and lexically sudden.
Look up social norm-enforcement, childish errors and slips of the tongue. What have they to do with language change?