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

Variability

2. What kinds of variability exist?

Geographical, Chronological, sociological, registers.

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

We decide it according to the similarities and differences in lexis, pronunciation, grammar or even syntax that exist in the language they speak.

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?

I do not think so. Every single language has a past, they have developed an evolution, and obviously a future some aspects of which can be more predictable than others.

Languages undergo a process and they will keep on changing so I think it is important to study and to know what kind of changes has suffered a particular language along its history and what answers and solutions have been adopted when facing a problem because they may explain how the future of the language is going to be.

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?

No, it is not; we cannot take different time periods of a language in isolation as if change only underwent at a certain point in the past. Languages are always changing and we cannot admit that one state is better (more balanced or has a more stable structure) than other. We cannot think about stable states of a language, they are only idealizations.

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?

Of course, I think that the same is happening here with the Valencian- Catalan question. Scholars admit that Valencian is a logical and consequent variation of Catalan. But there are some people, obviously laypeople, who defend that they are two different languages and that they are only related because of their Latin origin (roman languages); there are even those who think that it was Catalan the one which derived from Valencian evolution. It seems that they have forgotten that languages are changing entities and that the features that both share and the evidences we have from the past show a common origin but only with some geographical variation.

In addition, it is normally Spanish speaking people who uphold this theory, which only contributes to the isolation of the Valencian variety and to worsen its normative rules.

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

He uses scared quotes because he is using these words in an ironic way: he does not agree with what they mean and he has to highlight his opinion in a certain way.

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

I do not think so. I am sure that there are irregularities in the standard variety of a language too and that some aspects of a non-standard variety are or will be reflected in the standard dialect. But I believe that there is no reason for non-standard varieties to be incorrect, ungrammatical or deviant.

A standard is only a convention, an idealization too and we must not take it as the only possible way of speaking properly.

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

Myself Yourself Himself Herself Ourselves Themselves

Myself Yourself Hisself Herself Ourselves Theirselves

The first, that is to say, the accepted one is more irregular. Although it is the adopted and recognized system, we must admit that it is the one in the second square of the table which is more regular, as it respects the possessive pronoun forms and does not ‘invent’ more irregularities.

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?

I think this is so because of strongly established belief of historical linguists that socially-based reasons were not suitable to explain language change and the reason is that as they could not access to the spoken languages of past centuries they could not study this aspect of the language and realize that it is spoken language which conditions variation.

Maybe their arguments derived from the fact that they had no means, no technologies to help them to analyse this kind of stuff.

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?

Yes, it does, but this description of language only takes into account the variety of language structures that occur in a dialect and take them as norms. Therefore, these norms cannot be described independently from society: they are an established consensus of a particular community and cannot be considered as general rules which affect the whole language. This is so because different varieties of a language are not equal and they differ in some aspects: what can be regarded as a totally correct statement in a certain variety, may be seen as ungrammatical in others, so we cannot take a norm for granted and reject other possibilities.

‘He ate the pie already’ is considered to be non-standard in Southern varieties of English but it is perfectly acceptable in American, Irish and Scottish English dialects.

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

DESCRIPTIVE GRAMMARS:

They only focus on a particular aspect or variety of language and describes it, but admitting that they are only taking into account that particular feature and not generalising nor imposing a hierarchy among varieties.

PRESCRIPTIVE GRAMMARS:

They analyse language as if only the standard variety of that language, the established as the common one, is the only one we can accept and do not consider any differences on varieties. They do not accept the variability and plurality feature of languages and so that have to take them as fixed entities.

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?

As the standard may not share some features with other varieties of the same language, these other dialects are thought by some scholars to move from their aspect or characteristic to the established one. But there must be an interest for the non-standard speakers to change from the way they pronounce, express, say, etc a word to the way the ‘official’ variety does.

This ‘prestige motivation for change’ refers to the supposed ‘superiority’ of the established dialect and the thought of moving from individual and, so that, original features to the general ones only because of this hierarchy, because of this ‘order’.

The ‘solidarity constraint’ refers to the ‘feeling’ that the speaker of a non-standard variety may ‘suffer’ towards leaving his/ her language norms and adopt imposed , even considered ‘foreign’, ones.

14. Sound change: post-vocalic /r/ in New York/ The change from long āto ōin some dialects of English.

CHANGE FROM LONG A TO O IN SOME DIALECTS OF ENGLISH:

Weinreich, Labov and Herzog focused their programmes on locating linguistic changes in progress, while Milroy’s work was based on describing variation in a speech community and looking for establishing different patterns in social terms.

Traditional codifications of sound-change have generally focused on sound-segments as they have changed across time. A linguistic change can be thus described as a change from A to B in some lexical set:

From Old English [a:] in words such as ‘stan’ or ‘ham’ has derived an [o:]- like sound in Present English: ‘stone’, ‘home’.

We can find during the Middle English period the transitional stages showing the west- northward progress of the rounded vowel towards the East.

Many 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. Such speakers occasionally go on to insert an r where it doesn't belong.

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 perceived 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 reflected in the mass media.

http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/southern/dahling/

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

Actuation, or why particular changes take place at a particular time, is related to language in used, that is, it depends on its usage by its speakers, so that it is socially-imposed. Sound-changes are more or less predictable and there are certain kinds of sound-change that are frequent and therefore considered common, and which are called ‘natural’.

Scandinavian languages have a palatalization of /k/ (Swedish and Norwegian have, but not Danish). Old English underwent this palatalization too, but Old High German did not. A necessary condition for this palatalization to happen is the proximity of the velar consonant to a front vowel. But it is not sufficient, as German also has a front vowel but does not palatalize. A sufficient reason may be the favourable social conditions for the change to be adopted. Thus, what we would have to do is to study the speaker’s activities in those contexts where the change happened and those where it did not.

16. What is the biological metaphor in language change?

Some linguists think that language has a life ‘as surely as a man or a tree’ and that creativity in language in developing new forms is attributed to ‘the marvellous power of language itself’ and not to the speakers use and actions: ‘it is not the power of man either to produce or to prevent‘ linguistic change. ‘Language does not have a history, it has growth’. But obviously, it is not true that language is a living thing.

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

The concept of ‘INTERNAL HISTORY’ refers to the language development through time: the changes it has suffered because of speakers’ use. On the other hand, the concept of ‘EXTERNAL HISTORY’ refers to the political, social and attitudinal contexts that have affected, modified and reformed that language.

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

The terms are usually found in the same paragraphs as they are opposed concepts.

Lexical diffusion explains the feature of all sound changes deriving from a variation of a single word or a small group of words that later affects other words with similar characteristics, but do not necessarily have an effect on all words that they potentially could do.

On the other hand, the Neogrammarian hypothesis establishes that a given sound change applies to all words with related features at the same time.

Milroy thinks that sound changes have normally been observed to spread gradually through the lexicon (lexical diffusion), so that he is against the Neogrammarian theory.

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

SOCIAL NORM-ENFORCEMENT:

A social norm is the sociological term for the behavioural 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 behaviours. These rules may be explicit or implicit. The social norms indicate the established and approved ways of doing things. These vary and evolve not only through time but also vary from one age group to another and between social classes and social groups. . Social norms tend to be tacitly established and maintained through body language and non-verbal communication between people in their normal social discourse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm_%28sociology%29

CHILDISH ERRORS:

Normally, children make mistakes not only at speaking, with pronunciation, but also at spelling or at syntax, making grammar structures. This is due to their little knowledge of the language and experience with it.

SLIPS OF THE TONGUE:

It is a feature that exists in every single language, as it depends on speakers’ attitude: This concept refers to mistakes a speaker can make if s/he speaks fast, nervously, etc, but they have made it accidentally and although they may not realise at first their error, they know how to say it properly.