What is more common in language uniformity or variability?
Variability is not only common, but the usual in language due to the varied causes that can happen to it along history, like contact with other languages which borrow their own words or alter it in other ways.
What kinds of variability exist?
The kinds of variability are:
1-Register: The context where the language is employed.
2-Dialects: The geographical variations of the language.
3-Historical: How the language changes along time.
4-Social: The variations in the same language between different social classes.
How do we decide if a particular group of speakers belong to a particular dialect or language?
To set up an established set of rules for determining to what dialect an idiom belongs is unclear and difficult. Differences between dialects can be slight and almost imperceptible, like the ones between Valentian and Catalan, so there is no consensus. Generally the final definition is made by political, geographical or historical reasons not purely linguistic ones.
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?
-Synchronic: Linguistic studies based in a particular period of time.
-Dyachronic: Linguistic studies in the changes from a period to another.
Milroy compares languages to a film, not to a photo to show how they change. So, according to Milroy’s, ideas this is not reasonable because Saussure doesn’t take into account these kinds of changes.
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 is abnormal, because unattested (not found, not studied) states can be the reasons of the changes in a language, so linguistic change isn’t abnormal because it is an ongoing process.
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?
For example “dequeismo”, like in “me dijo de que…” or the disappearance of letter “d” in participles like in “he quedao en …”
Why does Milroy use “scare quotes” around non-standard and errors?
Square quotes are that you really don’t mean what you are saying. Milroy uses them because he considers that such things as non-standard and errors don’t exist.
Are non-standard dialects “incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical and deviant.”?
Not, because what now is seen as an error or non- standard may be perfectly acceptable to some speakers and, perhaps, can be accepted in the future as standard.
Which of these systems is more irregular? Why?
|
Myself Yourself Himself Herself Ourselves Themselves |
Myself Yourself Hisself Herself Ourselves Theirselves |
The more irregular is the first column because it doesn’t follows in al its forms the formation rules observed by the other. Although all these, the standard systems is the first one because it is the employed one.
“… 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?
Because it is commonly thought by scholars that written data is the usually employed dialect in a period of time, so it is the one which should be studied as example of that language, not having in minds of the possible non-registered variations.
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 involves norms for keeping it regularized and the in same form over time or at least as some people, politicians and scholars, believe it should be kept. “He ate the pie” is considered acceptable in the official variety taught in schools and employed by English Government, but it is not acceptable in Old English which used “He did eat the pie”.
What is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammars?
Descriptive grammars are the grammars that reflect the actual way a language is spoken and descriptive grammars are the ones that show how the language should be.
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?
Prestige motivation changes and solidarity constraint are results from different language usage in different social ambits and there are opposed in the aspect that the first is a result from a desire of differentiation in, for example, a technical dialect, while the second is a result of the common usage of a language at a social level.
Sound change: post-vocalic /r/ in
The post- vocalic /r/ is the norm in American English. New York English, is like RP in that there is no post-vocalic /r/. However, whereas post-vocalic /r/ is prestigious in the USA, non post-vocalic /r/ is the prestigious form in England. Many New Yorkers are adopting post-vocalic /r/ so that their speech will be more prestigious. Long a changed to long o in southern dialects of British English. So stan became ston in the South but not not in Scotland, for example.
Actuation: Why did /k/ palatalize before certain front vowels? PrsE: cheese, German käse English/Norse doublets shirt/skirt?
What is the biological metaphor in language change?
Employing analogies with our environment terms taken from living beings, the speakers discusses about a totally unrelated theme. For example the economists Nelson and Winter in their work: An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (1982) employ expressions from the botanical field like branch or root to talk about economical activities.
Thus the metaphors of this kind have become more commonly employed and a change in the metaphors’ usage implies a change in the language.
What is the difference between internal and external histories of a language?
Undoubtly history is a major source of influence in language change. A community of employers of a given language can’t remain stable and immutable along time and all this events affect the idiom they speak. We can differentiate between internal and external changes considering if the source is related to the core of this community, like social changes or technical improvements, or if the source comes from outside the community like invasions from other nations or simply trading with other communities.
Look up Neogrammarians and lexical diffusion. Why are they often found in the same paragraph or chapter?
Look up social norm-enforcement, childish errors and slips of the tongue. What have they to do with language change?