1-What is more common in language uniformity or
variability?
The
common in language is variability because always it is appearing new words.
2-What kinds of variability exist?
There
are three kind of variability: social, geographical and historical.
3-How do we decide if a particular group of speakers
belong to a particular dialect or language?
In
order to decide so we have to take into account the social, historical and
geographical situation of those speakers.
4-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?
5-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?
Linguistic
change is not abnormal. It is just that the language has to change little by
little with our society. If society changes language does as well.
6-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?
7-Why does Milroy use “scare quotes” around non-standard and errors?
He
uses that because he is using the other person’s words.
8-Are non-standard
dialects “incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical and deviant.”?
No,
they are not. Non-standard dialects just are those dialects which are not
registered or they are not used by a large number of people but it doesn’t mean
they wrong.
9-Which of these systems is more irregular? Why?
|
Myself Yourself Himself Herself Ourselves Themselves |
Myself Yourself Hisself Herself Ourselves Theirselves |
The
more irregular system is the right one because the third person uses the direct
object despite of the possessive but it is the system that language
uses,however.
10-“… 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?
11-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?
The
language always has to do with norms because
12-What is the difference between descriptive and
prescriptive grammars?
Descriptive
Grammar
A
descriptive grammar looks at the way a language is
actually used by its speakers and then attempts to analyse it and formulate
rules about the structure. Descriptive grammar does not deal with what is good
or bad language use; forms and structures that might not be used by speakers of
Standard English would be regarded as valid and included. It is a grammar based
on the way a language actually is and not how some think it should be.
Prescriptive Grammar
A
prescriptive grammar 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. Both types of grammar have their
supporters and their detractors, which in all probability suggests that both
have their strengths and weaknesses.
(http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/)
13-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?
Some languages are most prestigious than others
because of the people that use them. The languages that have not prestige
change in order to become more important by adding some features from the
prestigious ones.
Solidarity constraint requires the
speaker to conform to local community norms rather than to norms that are
viewed as external.
14-Sound change: post-vocalic /r/ in
Post-vocalic
/r/ in New York
A rhotic speaker is one who pronounces as a consonant postvocalic"r", i.e. the "r" after a vowel in words like "world" /wV"rld/. Anonrhotic speaker either does not pronounce the "r" at all /wV"ld/or pronounces it as a schwa /wV"@ld/. British ReceivedPronunciation (RP) and many other dialects of English are nonrhotic. Many nonrhotic speakers (including RP speakers, but excludingmost nonrhotic speakers in the southern U.S. they don't pronounce "r" in "for" by itself /fO:/, but they dopronounce the first "r" in "for ever" /fO: 'rEv@/. Linking "r"differs from French liaison in that the former happens in anyphonetically appropriate context, whereas the latter also needsthe right syntactic context. (http://www.yaelf.com/aueFAQ/mifrhtcvsnnrhtcntr.shtml)
Change from long ã to õ