1.What is more common in language uniformity or variability?
Variability is more common in language.

2. What kinds of variability exist?
Geographical, social, depending on the context used.

3.How do we decide if a particular group of speakers belong to a particular dialect or language?
 Each dialect has a group of characteristics used by a particular group of speakers which differs from other dialects or languages.

4.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?
 No, I think language’s study have to focus in all the periods of history, because language is changing all the time. 

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?
 I think it isn't abnormal, because the language is constantly changing. If language is transitional, then it will suffer linguistic changes.

6.Can you think of any example of non-professional attitudes to your own language?
 At home or with your friends, for example.

7.Why does Milroy use “scare quotes” around non-standard and errors?
 Because it is a denomination which a lot of people wouldn't agree with.

8. Are non-standard dialects “incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical and deviant.”?
No, what is important is to communicate something in a correct context.

9.Which of these systems is more irregular? Why?

Myself Yourself Himself Herself Ourselves Themselves

Myself Yourself Hisself Herself Ourselves Theirselves

 The second. Because it's not what we learned at school .

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 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 they didn't have the means to study language in context.

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?
 I think all languages have norms to create a standard language, as to be understood.

12.What is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammars?
 Descriptive grammar refers to the structure of a language as it is actually used by speakers and writers. Prescriptive grammar refers to the structure of a language as certain people think it should be used. <grammar.about.com/od/basicsentencegrammar/a/grammarintro.htm>

13.What do you think the “prestige motivation for change” and the “solidarity constraint” mean? How are they opposed?The prestige motivation for change refers to our social status , to imitate the high level of language in order of change, as the language is always changing.  On the other hand, solidarity constraint means to adequate your dialect to a more informal one .

14.Actuation: Why did /k/ palatalize before certain front vowels? PrsE: cheese, German käse English/Norse doublets shirt/skirt?
 The /k/ is palatalized differently in order to distinguish the meaning of seemed words.

15.What is the biological metaphor in language change?
 The language should affort this 3 statements: better communication, better understanding and better outcomes.

16.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>

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

As the Neogrammarians proposed , when a sound changes, words which have the same features will change simultaneously. However, lexical diffusion tells an opposite theory,  a sound change gradually from speaker to speaker, not at the same time , it takes a long process of change.

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

Social norm-enforcement is the restraint of dialects, and effort to create a standard language within the variability in a language. 'Childish' errors in language occur because children instinctively understand the rules too well, and have to be taught the irregularities. Slips of the tongue are errors involving the uttering , or hearing , or writing , or reading of a word and which entail an involuntary parody of the word, assuming the word is known. This kind of slip is an ordinary occurrence but is structurally related to the paraphasias found in pathological conditions. <http://www.answers.com/topic/slips-of-the-tongue>

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