What is more common in language uniformity or variability?

Variability is more common in language.

What kinds of variability exist?

We can find variability in different contexts 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?

Because of the accent, vocabulary and grammar.

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 is unreasonable because language is always changing so 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?

No, because the language register depends on the stage so if we change the stage we should 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?

Some non-professional attitudes in my own language could be, for example “Anar paca ací” instead of “Anar cap ací”.

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

Miloy use “scare quotes” around non-standard and errors because some words are considered correct inside their own dialect but, at the same time, these same words are considered incorrect in the standard language.

Are non-standard dialects “incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical and deviant.”?

According to Milroy non-standard dialects are “incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical and deviant” but not in my opinion because a dialect has its own vocabulary. It could be spoken in different accents but it doesn’t mean that it was incorrect.

Which of these systems is more irregular? Why?

The second column is more regular than the first because they consist of possessive pronouns 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 before the existence of written speech the humans transmitted all the information by oral speech.

What is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammars?

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.

www.usingenglish.com/glossary/prescriptive-grammar.html

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.

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_history

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.