Activities on Language Change and Variation

1. What is more common in language uniformity or variability?

We, humans, know that one of the most important facts of our language is that it is always changing. The whole world knows that language have changed in the course of the history. But it is problematic because people like uniformity. Languages are never uniform entities.

2. What kinds of variability exist?

Register: Depending on the context; it is a contextually based variety. It can be formal or informal.
Geographical: it depends on the place the language is spoken.
Social: This kind of variability includes all the changes of languages carried out by the environment in which the speaker develops him/herself.
Historical: the language has changed in the course of the history.

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

We decide it using the historical, academicals, geographical and social ideas.  Also, we can observer the phonetics, and linguistics aspects of the language. But it is not always so easy to distinguish two languages, or a dialect: for example Portuguese vs. Galician.

4. 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?

I think it is not reasonable by the fact that the language is always changing and Saussure talks about the language as a finite entity.

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?

I must affirm that linguistic change is not abnormal; everyone knows that language is variable. No language is ever uniform.

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?

Yes, it is the famous case of Valencian and Catalan. For me, they are the same, because Valencian is a dialect from Catalan, but some people do not think in this way. They affirm that they are not the same.

If you read the grammar, it tells us what we should say. Milroy criticise the views of historical language. There are millions of people who speak in different ways. All these things are happening now. In our language there are lots of errors: “dequeísmo, laísmo, leísmo, loísmo,...” with regards to Spanish normative. But in the future, it may be accepted. Who knows?

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

Mainly, Milroy uses “scare quotes” to show us that he doesn’t accept the term. He uses them because the equation of uniformity with structuredness or regularity is most evident in non-professional (popular) attitudes to language: one variety is considered to be correct and regular but others (non-standard) are considered to be ungrammatical. Linguistic changes in progress are commonly perceived as “errors”.

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

I think we must take account that it depends on what we consider a non-standard dialect is. So, any language has its own rules, and you must do them but in many cases people uses different words to say another one. For example, people living in Andalucía, they use the “ceceo” but it is accepted in books, but I think it is not as good as the rest of Spanish speakers.

9. Which of these systems is more irregular? Why?

The second is more regular, without any doubt. Such is the power of standerdness. So the first is more regular. The second is non-standard. The standard is the first column. For example, between Catalan and Apitxat, which one is more beautiful? The standard.

We must remark that “Hisself” and “Theirselves” are not grammatically accepted but they can be used in many contexts.

I think the following information about the use of those pronouns can be interesting:

“Our Living Language Speakers of some vernacular American dialects, particularly in the South, may use the possessive reflexive form hisself instead of himself (as in He cut hisself shaving) and theirselves or theirself for themselves (as in They found theirselves alone). These forms reflect the tendency of speakers of vernacular dialects to regularize irregular patterns found in the corresponding standard variety. In Standard English, the pattern of reflexive pronoun forms shows slightly irregular patterning; all forms but two are composed of the possessive form of the pronoun and -self or -selves, as in myself or ourselves. The exceptions are himself and themselves, which are formed by attaching the suffix -self/-selves to the object forms of he and they rather than their possessive forms. Speakers who use hisself and theirselves are smoothing out the pattern’s inconsistencies by applying the same rule to all forms in the set.·A further regularization is the use of -self regardless of number, yielding the forms ourself and theirself. Using a singular form in a plural context may seem imprecise, but the plural meaning of ourself and theirself is made clear by the presence of the plural forms our- and their-. Hisself and theirselves have origins in British English and are still prevalent today in vernacular speech in England”.

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 decontextualized 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?

Historical linguists have generally insisted that the history of language is primarily the history of spoken language. But traditionally, it was not possible to follow this out very thoroughly since investigators did not have the technology to study spoken discourse in extensor, and could almost have imagined how complex the patterning of spoken interaction in situational contexts would turn out to be when it did become possible to analyse it. However, it is in spoken, rather than in written, language that we are able to detect structural and phonetic changes in their early stages. This is the main reason that our understanding of the nature of linguistic change can be greatly enhanced by observing in a systematic way recurrent patterns of spoken language as it is used around us in day-to-day context by live speakers.

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?

I must say that in all languages there are norms and rules but also that there are lots of exceptions to norms and rules and in the colloquial register we miss them out.

The sentence “he ate the pie already” is a colloquial expression considered non-standard in speech, when we talk quickly, with our friends.

12. What is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammars?

Descriptive grammar refers to the structure of a language as it is actually used by speakers and writers.

Prescriptive grammar refers to the structure of a language as certain people think it should be used.

Both kinds of grammar are concerned with rules but in different ways. Specialists in descriptive grammar (called linguists) study the rules or patterns that underlie our use of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences. On the other hand, prescriptive grammarians (such as most editors and teachers) lay out rules about what they believe to be the “correct” or “incorrect” use of language.

(http://grammar.about.com/od/basicsentencegrammar/a/grammarintro.htm )

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

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

Solidarity constraint refers the way we adapt our language depending on the social context we are so as to be accepted by other groups or people and the prestige motivation for change is the way we use our language to show our social status, that is to say, the way in which we observe our language and how other people use it.

They are totally opposed since the first is concentrated in our wish to be accepted by others and be integrated; and the former must consider our desire to be superior or show our higher condition.

15. Sound change: post-vocalic /r/ in New York/. The change from long “ā” to “ō” in some dialects of English.

*POST-VOCALIC /r/ IN NEW YORK:
Many of us who speak English as a native language pronounce words like darling, far, bore or near the same as we write them: with vowel followed by r in the same syllable. But there are many other English speakers who do not pronounce the r - sound in this place (called ‘postvocalic r’) - although they have the sound everywhere else, like at the beginning of a word. Linguists use the classy terms rhotic and non-rhotic for these two pronunciations.

In some people’s speech this ‘dropped’ r reappears when the word is followed by a vowel, so you sometimes hear nevah but never again. Such speakers occasionally go on to insert an r where it doesn’t belong, and say sofa but sofer and chair .

Looked at geographically, American speakers who most commonly drop the r are those from Eastern New England and parts of the South, particularly the coastal area where the old ‘plantation’ culture once existed. It is also part of Black English Vernacular speech. Until recently, dropping the r was part of New York speech as well, though more and more New Yorkers seem to be perceiving it as ‘vulgar’ and avoiding this pronunciation. Even though there is no officially recognized ’standard’ English in the U.S., ‘r-speakers’ are clearly an overwhelming majority, something you hear reflected in the mass media.

British speakers today whose speech is closest to standard British English (called ‘Received Pronunciation’) do not pronounce r after vowel. Postvocalic r was still regularly pronounced in English speech back in Elizabethan times, and it was around that time (l6th century) that the ‘r-less’ pronunciation started spreading across much of England. It did not spread as far as Ireland and Scotland, which is why we hear the ‘r’ pronunciation from the Irish and the Scots today. Many of the original immigrants to the colonies were from Scotland and Ireland, although at the time of settlement most English speakers were still pronouncing r after vowel too.

(http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/southern/dahlin g/)

*THE CHANGE FROM LONG “Ā” TO “Ō” IN SOME DIALECTS OF ENGLISH.
The father-bother merger is a merger of the Early Modern English vowels /ɑː/ and /ɒ/ that occurs in almost all varieties of North American English (exceptions are accents in northeastern New England, such as the Boston accent, and in New York City).[1][2][3] In those accents with the merger father and brother rhyme, and Kahn and con are homophonous as [kɑn].

Unrounding of EME /ɒ/ is found also in Norwich, the West Country, the West Midlands and in Hiberno-English, but apparently with no phonemic merger
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English _low_back_vowels)

16. Actuation: Why did /k/ palatalize before certain front vowels? PrsE: cheese, German käse English/Norse doublets shirt/skirt?

The ultimate aim of historical linguistics is to explain the causation of linguistic change. The question of causation is beset with difficulties, but we can focus on it by standing Weinreich, Labov and Herzog’s formulation of the actuation problem. It is so challenging that historical linguists do not usually address it directly.

The Weinreich, Lavob and Herzog formulation has several implications that are important for a theory of language change and we can cite the example of sound-change, which is sometimes called “natural”.

We must analyse the case of the question: if we have two languages which are very close, and one of theme undergoes this palatalization and the other one does not. We must ask why it happened in one variety but not in the other.

What we observe here are conflicting patterns of change and stability in languages and dialects of similar structure.

I personally think, the point of palatalization must be changed so as to check in a good way that they have a different meaning.

17. What is the biological metaphor in language change?

It is a notion used by Müller who thinks it does not seem to have been a metaphor at all: linguistics, according to him, is literally a physical science on a par with geology, botany and biology, and not a historical science, such as art, morals ore religion.

The metaphor has weakened since Müller wrot, but there have been many publications on language history since then that have benn based on the idea of the independent “life” of language.

The metaphor is by no means dead. Its acceptance is widespread enough for it to appear in the title of a book on linguistics.

18. What is the difference between internal and external histories of a language?

Maybe, as a result of the emphasis on internal language systems, descriptive accounts (such as histories of English) commonly separate the internal history of a language form its external history.

Internal history: Some historical accounts of English, such as Wyld (1927), have been mainly internal, which typically focus on sound-change and morphological change. It include all aspects of the development of the language structure: the evolution of phonology (and writing), grammar, vocabulary and sematincs.

External history: that is, the political, social and attitudinal context of languages. Some historical accounts such as McKnight (1928), have been about the external history of the language, discussing, for example, speaker-attitudes to variation as they were expressed by seventeenth- and eighteenth- century commentators. It deals with all non-structural factors which have exerted certain influence on the development of the language. These factors can be of a different nature: political, social, economic, scientific and cultural.

Both of these approaches can of course yield insights; however, it is commonly believed that the “real” history of a language is its internal system-based history and that the external history is relatively less important.

19. Look up Neogrammarians and lexical diffusion. Why are they often found in the same paragraph or chapter?

First of all they are often found in the same paragraph or chapter because they are totally opposed and are sometimes compared.

*The lexical diffusion model (William Wang, 196), holds that sound-changes can be lexically gradual: so, in a change from /e:/ to /i:/ (such as the EModE change in words of the type meat, peace, leave), items are sent to the new class at differential rates, often leaving a residue of items that do not get transferred (in this case such words as great, break, steak)

*Neogrammarian theory has generally been interpreted to mean that the relevant class of items all undergo the change at the same time, I mean, that sound-change is phonetically gradual and lexically sudden. Neogrammarian theory was thus never intended to account for changes in the phonological representations associated with individual lexical items. So, to sum up, I’ve written a question: What was the Neogrammarian theory of language change? Languages change systematically, not randomly.

20. Look up social norm-enforcement, childish errors and slips of the tongue. What have they to do with language change?

A Social norm is the sociological term for the behavioral expectations and cues within a society or group. They have been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit. Failure to stick to the rules can result in severe punishments, the most feared of which is exclusion from the group." They have also been described as the "customary rules of behavior that coordinate our interactions with others."[2] The social norms indicate the established and approved ways of doing things, of dress, of speech and of appearance. These vary and evolve not only through time but also vary from one age group to another and between social classes and social groups. What is deemed to be acceptable dress, speech or behaviour in one social group may not be accepted in another. Deference to the social norms maintains one's acceptance and popularity within a particular group; ignoring the social norms risks one becoming unacceptable, unpopular or even an outcast from a group.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm_(sociology))

Studies of the social networks of speakers have demonstrated the impact of interlocutors on linguistic behavior. Milroy (1987), for example, shows that the more concentrated one’s social network is in a neighborhood-based community, the closer one will approximate the linguistic norms of that community. However, sociologists acknowledge an increasing trend for people’s social ties to transcend geographic boundaries (Wellman 2001). This study focuses on immigrants whose networks span the Atlantic Ocean, and explores the linguistic consequences of having substantial network ties with speakers of different varieties of English: in this case, Irish English (IE) and American English (AE).

(http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/lingu/event s/lanyu_fora/2004-fall/KarenKirkeNYUabstract.pdf)

Concerning ‘childish’ errors in language, we can mention that children make mistakes because their language formation is not all completed, they need more information, they need to learn more. As I say, everything is possible with the time. So, for example, a child can not know that there are irregular verbs and he/she uses an /–ed/  instead of the right form: “I eated two apples”.

With regard to Slips of the tongue, everyone seems to produce such them. Sigmund Freud was aware of this fact and in 1901 based his monograph, Psychopathology of everyday life, on such errors claiming that slips of the tongue resulted from repressed thoughts which are revealed by the particular errors which a speaker makes. While it is possible that Freud is correct in some cases, such errors reveal as much if not much more about the structure of language as they do about repressed thoughts.

Linguists have collected and analyzed slips of the tongue at least as far back as the 8th century when the Arab linguist Al-Ki-sa-i wrote his book, Errors of the populace.

(http ://psikoloji.fisek.com.tr/psycholinguistics/Fromkin.html)

These could be good examples:
1) stick in the mud  >  smuck in the tid (consonant segments exchange)
(2) ad hoc  >  odd hack (vowel segments exchange)
(3) unanimity  >  unamity (syllable deleted)
(4) easily enough  >  easy enoughly (suffix moved)
(5) tend to turn out  >  turn to tend out (words exchange)
(6) my sister went to the Grand Canyon  >  the grand canyon went to my sister (whole phrase exchange)