What is more common in
language uniformity or variability?
According
to Milroy there is no such thing as a perfectly stable human language because languages are changing all the time. Therefore, logically, variability is much more common that nuniformity. Uniformity is
only found in
Standardized languages that have been normalized.
What kinds of variability
exist?
Geographical:
different geographical varieties or dialects. Accents.
Social variabilityincluding gender, age, occupation
Linguistic
variability depending on register:
Register: is a result of differences in the social situation of use
(Word
choices, syntactic ordering of utterances). Is socially motivated and
it
is defined
by the circumstance and purpose of the
communicative
situation. It has three dimensions:
-field
social setting
-tenor refers to the relations between the participants in
the
event
-mode
the medium of the communication
Style: the variation within register that represents individual choices
along
social dimensions.
Variables
that
depend on one’s health or emotional state. Pronouncing /dəʊ/instead of /nəʊ/ when
we have a cold, for example.
How
do we decide if a particular Group of speakers belong to a particular dialect or language?
We can decide by seeing if a particular person’s grammar and
pronuncaition are shared with other people. If we are looking at
langauges coming from completely different language
groups, it is quite easy, for example, Spanish and Chinese. However, if two linguistic
Systems are very similar such
as the case of Valencian/Catalan, it can be
very difficult. It is so difficult, infact, that it
is impossible to decide if a Person
belongs to a particular dialect or language
as the difference between dialect and
language is not just based on linguistics but on politics,
economics, sociological factors, etc.
For further information see the Hudson document
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?
Not really. Languages are in a
constant state
of flux(change) so pretending that
There
are finite states that can be studied in isolation from those coming before and after is not
realistic.
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?
This
view is ideological as
change is seen as somehow being an abnormal state of affairs. It is not. Change is the norm. A language which does not change is a romantic view of
language. I
use the Word romantic in its political sense. As we do not have complete records of the history of the
language, there
are bound to be
unattested states of the language.
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 perceivedas ‘errors’. Thus although everyone knows that language is variable, many People relieve that in
variance is none the less 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?
First
of all, an
attitude is an opinión that is not based on fact. For example, I can say that I like the Irish Accent and that I don’t
like the RP Accent or that the NewYork accent is ugly and the Scottish accent is beautiful. These are opinions.
However, in linguistics, feelings should not be included in our
description of a language. So any attitude to
language that is
not base
on facts or data
is non- professional.
Why
does Milroy use “scare quotes” around non-estándar and errors?
The
use of scare quotes shows that Milroy either disagrees with the concept of “errors” or that he wants to show us
that the
Word “errors” should be attributed to someone else.
Are non-standard dialects “incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical and
deviant”?
No, they are not. It is ridiculous to say that “me se cayó” is incorrect,
irregular, ungrammatical and deviant. It is just a non-standard way of
saying“se
me cayó”. Testa
is the standard Italian
Word for head. However, orginally it was actually the Word for something like plantpot (maceta).
Maybe
in the future, chola
will replace the Word cabeza. Wyf, as we have seen, meant “woman”. Now it means a married
woman. We
saw in the case of
the reflexive pronouns in English that the non-standard forms are more regular than the
standard forms.
“…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?
This was because nearly all the information about the history of English is
written. This influenced the way
the theories on the history of the language. The tape recorder is a recent invention and soonly recently has it been possible to study the spoken
language. (See
Labov video) Now
that we
have been able to study
actual spoken
language we have had to question some of the fundamental ideas in diachronic
linguistics.
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?
He
ate the pie already is the
norm in American English. In British English we say He has already eaten the pie. Neither is
intrinsically better than the other. There are norms in Spanish and Catalan too, of course. However, this does not mean that non-normative varieties of the language are “worse”.
What
is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammars?
Descriptivegrammar
(definition#1) refers to the structure of a
language as it is
actually used by speakers and writers.
Prescriptivegrammar
(definition#2) 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 underlieour useof words, phrases, clauses, andsentences. 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
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
above are pretty self-explanatory so I will only explain the ones that might not be.
Constraints: There are linguistic constraints. For example, in English there are no consonant clusters (groups) made up of the following
sequence/rbl/ so
is difficult
to foresee such a cluster existing in English. Thes olidarity constraint is completely different. It means that if you live in a very
close community, you tend to follow the
norms of your community in solidarity with its members.
Evaluation: Many people wish to adopt prestige forms of the language
–perhaps an RP pronunciation
instead of their own pronunciation of English.
That is overt prestige. Covert prestige refers to
people who adopt non-standard forms to belong to
belong to a group.
Transition: SeemyBuny an example in the answers to the questions
on sound change.
What
do you think the “prestige motivation for change” and the “solidarity constraint” mean? How
are they opposed?
Some
varieties of language are more prestigious than others. These prestigious
varieties can influence less prestigious varieties which usually incorporate
some features in order to become more
prestigious. For example: the use of post- vocalic /r/ in New
York.
Solidarity
constraint requires
the speaker to conform to local community norms rather than to norms that are viewed as external.
It
means that for example in the case of Belfast vernacular, the pronunciation of /ei/ was not motivated by theprestige. Prestige refers to the external norms, while solidarity
constraint refers to internal norms (of the community). With the advent of radio and
television, many
people thought that everyone would adopt a standard accent and grammar. However, in cities like Liverpool and Newcastle there has
been no weakening in the use of the local accents. Many people are proud of their accent –it is part of
their identity.
So
prestige factors and solidarity factors are pulling in opposite directions.
Soundchange:
post-vocalic /r/ in New York /The change from long ā to ō in some dialects of
English.
The
post-vocalic /r/ is the norm in American English. NewYork English, is like RP in that there is no post-vocalic /r/. However, whereas post-vocalic /r/ is prestigious in the USA, no post-vocalic/r/ is the prestigious form
in England. Many
NewYorkers are
adopting post-vocalic/r/ so that their speech will be more prestigious. Long ā changed to ō in southern dialects of BritishEnglish. So stān became stōn
in the South but not in Scotland, for example.
Actuation: Why did /k/ palatalize before certain front vowels? PrsE:
cheese, German käse English/Norse
doublets shirt/skirt?
According to Milroy one condition Could be that the
proximity of the velar consonant to
a front vowel may be necessary for the
palatalization, but it is not a
sufficient condition. He says that social conditions must be favorable, which means we must take into account the activities of
speakers in social contexts in addition to the internal structural
properties of language.
What
is the biological metaphor in language change?
Language
is seen as a living organism. This contrasts with those, like Milroy, who stress that it is people, not languages, which bring about change. A language is not a
living thing.
What is the difference between internal and external histories of a
language?
Internal histories of the language put the emphasis on change within the
language whereas external histories of the language put the emphasis on
bottowingfromforeignlanguages. I like to keep a balance
between the two.
There
is, for example, a lot of internal influence of Cockney on RP.
Look
up Neogrammarians and lexical diffusion. Why are they often
found in
the same paragraph or chapter?
Because
the opponents of theNeogrammarians say that rounds change through lexical difusssion and do not happen throughout the whole language
system.
Look
up social norm-enforcement, childish errors and slips of the tongue. What have they to do
with language change?
Childish errors and slips of the tongue might be causes of innovation and
eventuallyofchange. Social norm-enforcement normallymakesit lessdifficult
for innovations to take hold.
These are the answer provided by the teacher so you can contrast my answers with the answers given by him.