Questions on Milroy: Language Change and Variation
What is more common in language uniformity or variability?
Variability is more common in language, as language is continuously changing.
What kinds of variability exist?
It exists geographically and social variability, accordingly to the situational contexts in which they are used.
How do we decide if a particular group of speakers belong to a particular dialect or language?
Depending on their pronunciation, vocabulary, accent, or grammar they use.
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?
Yes, it is. Firstly, a synchronic description of language would be more important because it refers to a particular time of a language (as it is always changing, language will never be the same), rather than a diachronic definition of language, that looks at the changes of language between periods.
Secondly, it was right for the structuralists to focus on language at different periods as different entities because as language is always changing, in a particular period of time, it has an entity, and as time goes, its entity changes, so that it has a different entity and therefore its entity is finite in a particular period of time.
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 isn’t. Language is perfectly structured at some times, but flawed at other times.
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.”
People have an ideal of the language they speak, the right way to speak, which they thing they can’t speak it. So, when there is a variation in the language, as they have the ideal of the language, and the change does not fit in their ideal, they think it is a mistake, an error in the language.
Can you think of any example of non-professional attitudes to your own language?
When we do not pronounce the final “d” in one of the past tenses in Spanish. For example we pronounce “bajao” instead of “bajado”.
Why does Milroy use “scare quotes” around non-standard and errors?
Because it means the opposite than what is written.
Are non-standard dialects “incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical and deviant.”?
A nonstandard
dialect of a language is a dialect of a language that does not have the institutional
support or sanction that a standardized
dialect
has.
A nonstandard dialect has its own vocabulary and an internally consistent
grammar and syntax. A nonstandard dialect, like a standard dialect,
may be spoken using a variety of accents. A nonstandard dialect may
even have its own written form.
Describing a dialect as "nonstandard" is not
to imply that the dialect is incorrect or inferior. However, a nonstandard
dialect does not have the support or sanction of governmental or educational
institutions.
Therefore, a non-standard dialect is not incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical nor deviant.
Which of these systems is more irregular? Why?
|
Myself Yourself Himself Herself Ourselves Themselves |
Myself Yourself Hisself Herself Ourselves Theirselves |
The right column is the most regular, although it is non- standard, and the left column is the standard form of language, and more irregular.
“… 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?
Because if the decontextualized forms of language can be understood out of the context, it means, they can be understood in any context and therefore, be accepted and used.
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 language involves norm referred to the decisions made by the speakers about the way the have to speak, and agreement about the language they speak.
In Spanish, the norms we have involve the way we speak, the fact that we understand each other, and it sounds good for us, not to the institutionalised norms of language.
What is perfectly acceptable in language depends on what is agreed by the speakers in the community concerned as the consensus norm of that community, as well as social judgements.
What is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammars?
Prescriptive grammar refers to how people in a community should speak, whereas descriptive refers to the consensus norms of language of the community concerned.
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?
The prestige motivation for change concerns the society, and their attitude towards the changes of language, whereas the solidarity constraint refers to the language we use depending on the situation or the context we are.
Sound change: post-vocalic /r/ in New York/ The change from long āto ōin some dialects of English.
In New York, speakers are likely not to pronounce the pot- vocalic “r” in a word, that is, when the “r” is placed after a vowel, for example in the words “car”, “first”, “parcel” or “door”, the “r” is not pronounced at all.
Actuation: Why did /k/ palatalize before certain front vowels? PrsE: cheese, German käse English/Norse doublets shirt/skirt?
The palatization changes depending on the meaning of the doublets words.
What is the biological metaphor in language change?
Historical linguists believed that it is languages that change and not the speakers that change, as historical descriptions have generally focused on the structural properties of language and not in the speakers.
However, in the nineteenth century there was an emphasis on the independent life of language. They said that language has a life “as a man or a tree” and there was a creativity in language in developing new forms. It is not the power of man either to produce or prevent linguistic change. They said that language grows, language is a living thing that is born and dies, so it changes.
What is the difference between internal and external histories of a language?
Internal history of language, focuses on sound- change and morphological change, whereas external history change is the political, social and attitudinal contexts of language.
Look up Neogrammarians and lexical diffusion. Why are they often found in the same paragraph or chapter?
Because Kiparsky made a review of progress in the study of phonological change that involved a system- based and set in the traditional controversy about whether sound- change operated blindly and without exceptions, like the Neogrammarian exceptionlessness hypothesis or whether other approaches over the last century, such as lexical diffusion.
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."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.
The childish errors refer to the mistakes in language made by children.
The slips of the tongue are verbal behaviour mistakes that come in many different shapes and sizes, in both first and second language speech.
The possible causes for language change, include features of children language (childish errors), norm- enforcement or slips of the tongue. Therefore, they are a plea for the study of universals of language change.
Bibliography
Milroy J. 1992, Introduction: Language Change and Variation