Language Variability
1.- What is
more common in language uniformity or variability?
Variability is more common in language than uniformity, because as
Milroy says: "at any given time a language is variable".
2.- What
kinds of variability exist?
Depending on the historical, geographical and social
factors, we can find four kinds of variability:
·
Register: Contextually based variability.
·
Dialect:
Is a Geographical variability. It depends on the place the
language is spoken.
·
Social: It Depends
on the environment in which the speaker develops. The language used can
be rude or polite.
·
Historical: Languages change through the history.
3.- How do
we decide if a particular group of speakers belong to a particular
dialect or language?
By listening to them and observing the historical, geographical and
social factors which can help us. The linguistics, the grammar, and the
phonetics used are also important in this case. But when we
don’t know exactly if a person belongs to a particular
dialect/language or another, we can resort to shibboleth, which may
help us.
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?
In my opinion it is
not reasonable, because if we bear in mind that languages are variable
at any given time, it would make more sense to study the language from
a diachronic point of view.
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, Languages are always in a state of evolution in
order to get adapted to new times, so they doesn’t reflect
any “disturbed structure”.
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?
The case of Valencian, is a
good example, because it reflects the different opinions people have
whether it is a language, or a dialect of the Catalan.
Our language contains a lot of
errors, as “leísmo” (“using
le”: le veo), “dequeísmo”
(which is a mistake in Spanish grammar when
de que is used instead of just que. For
example: Me dijo de que estaba cansado ("He told me
that he was tired") is a case of dequeísmo, since the proper
construct is Me dijo que estaba cansado.
Milroy uses scare quotes
around non-standard and errors because
he does not agree with these non-professional ideas that he is
expressing, and he uses the irony to show what he really thinks.
8. Are
non-standard dialects “incorrect,
irregular, ungrammatical and deviant.”?
This subject depends on what
we might consider to be a non-standard dialect. Any language which
serves for the purpose of communication and which has their own grammar
rules shouldn’t be regarded as incorrect, irregular,
ungrammatical or deviant
|
Myself Yourself Himself Herself Ourselves Themselves |
Myself Yourself Hisself Herself Ourselves Theirselves |
Even though the first column is the standard
one, it is also more irregular system than the second one, because the
reflexive pronouns in the first column are accepted as grammatically
“normative”, and in the case of the second row the
words are composed by the possessive forms of the pronouns and the
suffixes –self or –selves.
The terms “hisself”
and “theirselves”
of the second column, are not considered standard because they are not
commonly used, so they are not grammatically correct.
The following extract is a clear example of the
usage of the two terms I have mentioned before (“hisself” and
“theirselves”)
which shows that there are some cases where these two terms are still
valid:
“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
(The American Heritage® Dictionary of
the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by
Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin
Company. All rights reserved.)
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 decontexutalized 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?
As
far as I am concerned, I believe that this is so due to the extreme
variability of spoken language in context. As opposed to spoken
language, the written language does not change as frequently as spoken
does, so that is why it is easier to base theories on it.
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?
All
languages present norms and rules, but, however, there are always
exceptions to said rules because in the colloquial variety these
exceptions are frequently used. The phrase “he ate the pie
already” might be considered as acceptable in colloquial
speech, but if we want to use it in a formal context, we ought to say
“he has already eaten the pie”.
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.
http://www.usingenglish.com/glossary/descriptive-grammar.html
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/prescriptive-grammar.html
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.
·
The
“prestige motivation for change”
refers to the way we view our language and the way others speak it. It
shows us how often we use language to prove our superior social status.
The
“solidarity constraint” refers
to the manner we use language, adequating it, and imitating the way
other people speak in order to fit in and feel integrated in this
group. This often means that our language will vary depending on the
social context in which we find ourselves.
These two terms, prestige motivation for change and solidarity
constraint, are totally opposed due to the fact that the first is
linked to the fact of wanting to indicate our superior social status,
whereas the second refers to the idea of fitting in socially.
15.- Sound
change: post-vocalic /r/ in
Post-vocalic
/r/ in
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 (in
what follows we’ll occasionally call this the
‘r-less’ pronunciation) are those from
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
http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/southern/dahling
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
16.- Actuation:
Why did /k/ palatalize before certain front vowels? PrsE: cheese, German käse English/Norse
doublets shirt/skirt?
The place of palatization varied in order to
differentiate the meaning between the word doublets.
The biological metaphor in
language change is related to the fact that languages are passed from
one generation to the next.
18.- .What
is the difference between internal and external histories of a language?
“All
kinds of language change can basically be assigned to one of two types:
either the change is caused by a structural requirement of the language
— this is internally motivated change — or it does
not in which case one speaks of externally motivated change.
Internally motivated
change usually leads to balance in the system, the removal of marked
elements, the analogical spread of regular forms or the like. As
language consists of various modules on various levels, a change in one
quarter may lead to an imbalance in another and provoke a further
change.” <http://www.uni-due.de/SHE/HE_InternalExternal.htm>
19.- Look
up Neogrammarians and lexical diffusion.
Why are they often found in the same paragraph or chapter?
NEOGRAMMARIANS
The Neogrammarians (also Young
Grammarians, German Junggrammatiker) were
a German
school of linguists,
originally at the University
of Leipzig, in the late 19th century who proposed the Neogrammarian
hypothesis of the regularity of sound change.
According to this hypothesis, a diachronic
sound change affects simultaneously all words in which its environment
is met, without exception. Verner's
law is a famous example of the Neogrammarian hypothesis, as
it resolved an apparent exception to Grimm's law.
The Neogrammarian hypothesis was the first hypothesis of sound change
to attempt to follow the principle of falsifiability
according to scientific
method. Today this hypothesis is considered more of a guiding
principle than an exceptionless fact, as numerous examples of lexical
diffusion (where a sound change affects only a few words at
first and then gradually spreads to other words) have been attested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neogrammarian
In historical
linguistics, lexical diffusion is both a
phenomenon and a theory. The phenomenon is that by which a phoneme is
modified in a subset of the lexicon, and spreads gradually to other
lexical items. For example, in English,
/uː/ has changed to /ʊ/ in good and hood
but not in food; some dialects have it in hoof
and roof but others do not; in flood
and blood it happened early enough that the words
were affected by the change of /ʊ/ to /ʌ/, which is now no longer
productive.
The related theory, proposed by William Wang in
1969 is that all sound
changes originate in a single word or a small group of words
and then spread to other words with a similar phonological make-up, but
may not spread to all words in which they potentially could apply. The
theory of lexical diffusion stands in contrast to the Neogrammarian
hypothesis that a given sound change applies simultaneously
to all words in which its context is found.
William
Labov, in Principles of Linguistic Change,
takes the position that there are two types of sound changes: regular
sound change (respecting the Neogrammarian hypothesis) and lexical
diffusion. Labov lists a typology, according to which certain phenomena
are typically or exclusively regular (example, vowel quality changes),
while others (example, metathesis, or vowel shortening) tend to follow
a lexical diffusion pattern.
Paul
Kiparsky, in the Handbook of Phonology (Goldsmith editor),
argues that under a proper definition of analogy
as optimization, lexical diffusion is not a type of sound change.
Instead, Kiparsky claims it is similar to leveling, in that it is a
non-proportional type of analogy.
The terms are often found in
the same paragraph because the theory of lexical diffusion is opposed
to the Neogrammarian approach.
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
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, 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. What is deemed
acceptable to young people is often unacceptable to elderly people;
this difference is caused by the different social norms that operate
and are tacitly agreed-upon in such different groups of people. Social
norms tend to be tacitly established and maintained through body
language and non-verbal communication between people in their normal
social discourse. We soon come to know when and where it is appropriate
to say certain things, to use certain words, to discuss certain topics
or wear certain clothes and when not to. We also come to know through
experience what types of people we can and cannot discuss certain
topics with or wear certain types of dress around. Mostly this
knowledge is derived experientially.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norm_(sociology)
Referring to childish errors
in language, it can be mentioned that children make mistakes because
they do not have a completely knowledge of the language. They have not
already finished their learning process. E.g.: a child would say
“I drinked my glass of milk” because they do not
know the irregular verbs.
Slip of the tongue is an error in
speaking in which a word is pronounced incorrectly, or in which the
speaker says something unintentionally. E.g.:
ad hoc > odd
hack (vowel segments exchange)
unanimity > unamity
(syllable deleted)
easily
enough > easy enoughly
(suffix moved)
tend to turn
out > turn to
tend out (words exchange)
my sister went to the Grand Canyon > the
grand canyon went to my sister (whole
phrase exchange)
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/slip+of+the+tongue
http://psikoloji.fisek.com.tr/psycholinguistics/Fromkin.html
Academic year
2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Barry Pennock Speck
© Myriam Martín Torralba
mymarto@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press