Questions about Milroy´s article on language change and variation:

What is more common in language uniformity or variability?

Variability is more common in language because language goes through a lot of changes throughout the time.

What kinds of variability exist?

There are:

· Social variability including gender, geography, age, accent.

· Geographical variability

· Register variability including occupation.

· Individual style

· Linguistic variability including style (formal, casual, careful), syntactic, pattern, particular sound.

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

They might be identified by the grammatical differences by the expressions and the pronunciation differentiation, by the word choice and syntactic structure.

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?

From my point of view I consider that this statement is quite logical. Since they focused on language at different periods of time, it is reasonable to understand that, that particular period of time is a finite entity and no longer exists, and therefore the importance of synchronic descriptions is more relevant rather than diachronic.

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?

The linguistic change does not look abnormal.

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?

Non-professional attitude is like when you say ´´ I hate how people in Catalunya speak´´. The interesting thing is why people have attitude? When they say ´´yo no hablo bien español´´ this is ridiculous, but we say this things and this is an example of non-professional attitude. When you are a professional linguist, then you are neutral and does not affect you so much the different languages (just like in the case of Darek , when he looks at the body just like a body). Bad and good English does not exist according to the linguistics, because they are making similarities, differences, comparisons.

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

Milroy uses the ´´scare quotes´´ because he does not really mean what he´s saying.

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

Non-standard dialects could not be seen in this way because language is in a constant change and non-standard dialects are different.

Which of these systems is more irregular? Why?

Myself Yourself Himself Herself Ourselves Themselves

Myself Yourself Hisself Herself Ourselves Theirselves

The second system is more regular, but is not non-standard. The first one is standard and more irregular.

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?

Any description of a language involves norms, it´s like a ´bush´ metaphor of the language which grows in one or another direction. Standard language it´s like- this is the language and does not exist another. In Chile they are saying ´Que bueno que viniste ´ but in Spanish is ´Me alegro de que hayas venido´. So the expression ´He ate the pie´ is not the normative. This normative is in United States. In England ´He has already eaten the pie´ is standard British, but is not standard American English.

What is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammars?

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.

Source: http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/prescriptive-grammar.html

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?

In New York in the word ´car´ - [r] does not exist, post vocalic [r] like in the ´farm´ in America, but in New York there is no [ r]. More prestigious is General American and there has been a movement to a post vocalic [r]. The normal direction goes to what is prestige. Solidarity constraint is when there is a lot of pressure to speak Standard English, or Spanish. Could be the black people who might say ´I don’t want to speak American, I want to be like a black one, so I do not have to speak like a real American´. Or in the case of Valencian people who don’t want to speak like Catalans.

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

During the process there has been some disagreement on norms at some levels in the community, but if a change is ever ´completed´ then it will be possible to say that some community of speakers agrees that what was formerly A is now B. Thus-we can take for example the post-vocalic /r/ in New York City –if a language state is observed to become more or less homogeneous within itself in the course of time, then the trend to greater or lesser homogeneity is itself a pattern of linguistic change that has to be accounted for in terms of consensus or conflict amongst speakers within the speech community.

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

What we observe here are conflicting patterns of change and stability in languages and dialects of similar structure. In these examples it seems that the proximity of the velar consonant to a front vowel may be a necessary condition for palatalization , but as did not happen in every case , it is not a sufficient condition. In the cases where change was adopted, the social conditions must have been favourable and conversely when it was not adopted, it may again have been social conditions that prevented the change.

What is the biological metaphor in language change?

The ´life´ of language is presented ´as surely as a man or a tree´. Language therefore does not have history, it has growth. The metaphor is by no means dead: this is amply demonstrated by continued references in recent work to ´language birth´, ´language death´ and the ´roots´ of 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 linguistic 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.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_history

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

They are often found in the same paragraph because they are contrasting their hypothesis. With regard to the Neogrammarian theory, has generally been interpreted to mean the relevant class of items all undergo the change at the same time, that is, that sound-change is phonetically gradual and lexically sudden. Whereas lexical diffusion affirm that sound-change may be lexically gradual: thus in a change from /e:/ to /i:/ change in words of the type meat, peace, leave, items are transferred 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.

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

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