What is more common in language uniformity or variability?

In language, the most common feature is variability, but sometimes it can cause problems because people like uniformity. According to Milroy, there is not such thing as a perfectly stable human because the language is changing all time.

What kinds of variability exist?

· Linguistic variability, including style (formal, casual, careful), register, syntactic patterns, particular sounds…

· Social variability including gender, geography, age, accent..

· Geographical variability (dialects).

How do we decide if a particular group of speakers belong to a particular dialect or language?

Depending on pronunciation, vocabulary, accent, or grammar the speaker uses.

Can you think of any example of non-professional attitudes to your own language?

For example I have heard lots of Spanish people from my town, Oliva, saying that their Spanish was terrible. How can they say that? They are Spanish!

That would be a non-professional attitude to their own language, in this case: Spanish.

Why does Milroy use “scare quotes” around non-standard and errors?

“Scare quotes” help Milroy to express his disagreement with the idea of “errors”.

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?

“He ate the pie already” (In the British English, “already” is not normally used with the past). These would be standard for the United States of America.

“He has already eaten the pie” would be the standard way for Britain.

What is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammars?

Description is, for example, to describe how to do something.

Prescriptive, for example, is to say to do something in one way and not in an other.

What do you think the “prestige motivation for change” and the “solidarity constraint” mean? How are they opposed?

One of the main reasons for language changing is prestige.

For example, in New York people don´t pronounce “r” at all with words like: car, bird, bar, nurse…

But, generally, in America they do pronounce this “r” (this is more pretigious)

So, in New York, there has been a move to post vocalic “r”.

Solidarity constraint:

For example, there is a lot of preasure for us to speak standard Spanish, but we also wasn’t to feel solidarity with the language of our town, so we force our valencian accent.

For example, nowadays, in New Castle or in Birmingham, the accent is a lot strnger than before. Solidarity constraint requires the speaker to conform to local community norms rather than norms that we are viewed as external.