What is more common in language uniformity or
variability?
Variability
is more common than uniformity in language
What kinds of variability exist?
we
find differents kinds of variability in different context like geographical
(dialects),social and historical (register, grammar)contexts.
How do we decide if a particular group of speakers
belong to a particular dialect or language?
Depending
on the vocabulary, accent and grammar they use.
Saussure emphasized the importance of synchronic
descriptions of languages rather than diachronic. He and is disciples
(structuralists) focused on language at different periods as finite entities.
Is this reasonable?
No,
it s no reasonable because language is always changing for these reason it is
not a finite entity.
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?
It is
not abnormal , because the language register depends
on the stage , if we change the stage , we could change the register.
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.”
Can you think of any example of non-professional attitudes
to your own language?
in
my own language some non-professional attitudes could be , for example “vamos
pa ca
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.”
Why does Milroy use “scare quotes” around non-standard and errors?
Because
some words are considered correct inside their own dialect, but in the standard
language are considered incorrect words.
Are non-standard
dialects “incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical and deviant.”?
According to Milory non_standard dialects are “incorrect,
ungrammatical and deviant” but in my opinion a dialect has its own vocabulary
and could be spoken in different accents , but comparing one dialect with
standard language we can find lots of incorrections.
Which of these systems is more irregular? Why?
The fist colum because
there is the possessive pronoums and the suffix_ self.
|
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?
Because
humans used oral speech to transmit the information before the appearance of
written speech.
What is the difference between descriptive and
prescriptive grammars?
Prescriptive
grammars lays out rules
about the structure of a language. Unlike a descriptive grammar
it deals with what the grammarian believes to be right and wrong, good or bad language use; not
following the rules will generate incorrect language.
What is the difference between internal and external
histories of a language?
Internal history of a language refers to the
historical development of its linguistics forms (phonology, morphology, syntax
and lexicon) and semantics. It is contrasted with external history, which
refers to the social and geopolitical history of the language
(Wikipedia)
Look up Neogrammarians
and lexical diffusion. Why are they
often found in the same paragraph or chapter?
Because both processes are socially gradual, both are
abrupt replacement patterns, and both can be shown to be regular in some sense.