What is more common in language uniformity or variability?

Variability. Uniformity is an ideal. Human Language is continuously changing. As says Milroy “there is no such thing as perfectly stable human language”. Milroy says “…uniform states of language are idealizations and that variables states are normal”.

What kinds of variability exist?

Social variation, levels.- social accent, class

Geographical. A group of people living in the same natural are share the same language

Contextual.- scientific, literary

Tenor: formality or informality

Mode: written, spoken

Different registers like motheress language

Style.- depending on what each person chooses.

How do we decide if a particular group of speakers belong to a particular dialect or language?

Because they can understand each other and can establish a communication.

Saussure emphasized the importance of synchronic descriptions of languages rather than diachronic. He and its disciples (structuralists) focused on language at different periods as finite entities. Is this reasonable?

This idea is not realistic because languages are in constant change so we cannot study language as something static because is always in action.

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?

It cannot be abnormal because change is the natural state of languages. The point is that during some periods of time we did not know anything of a language just because there is nothing written, there is no evidence of it.

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?

It is common to hear about non-professional attitudes to any language because for instance, in Valencia, may people dislike catalan accent compare with our valencian accent or, another example, for Spanish, could be that we, I mean, ‘educated people’ can’t stand murcian accent, ‘so incorrect’ and ‘badly pronounced’.

Why does Milroy use “scare quotes” around non-standard and errors?

He disagrees with the concept of errors.

Are non-standard dialects “incorrect, irregular, ungrammatical and deviant.”?

No, non-standard dialects are the non-normative forms of a language and that is the reason why many people believe they are not right, they are not correct but anyway, they are more regular than the ‘right form’.

Which of these systems is more irregular? Why?

Myself Myself

Yourself Yourself

Himself Hisself

Herself Herself

Ourselves Ourselves

Themselves Theirselves

The first column is more irregular and also is the normative form. It is like that because it has been changing but the second column has more regular forms that are not considered now ‘corrects’.

“…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?

I think that it is just because it is near in time the invention of recording the voice so it has to be studied just by written means.

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?

Norms are social in the sense that they are agreed on socially, so depend on consensus among speakers within the community concerned. The norm is formed by the observation of the majority usage among these persons.

The Past tense + just/already is frequently observed in American, Irish and Scottish English but it is not correct in the other varieties.

What is the difference between descriptive and prescriptive grammars?

Descriptive grammar is the grammar used by speakers and writers, it has to coincide as closely as possible with the consensus norms of the community concerned. It is observing a norm for descriptive purposes.

Prescriptive grammar refers to the structure of a language that certain people think is should be used. It is a way of enforcing a norm prescriptively.

Weinreich, Labov and Herzog’s (1968) empirical foundations of language change:

Constraints: what changes are possible and what are not. All of us tend to follow the norms of our community in solidarity with the rest of members.

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). Some people decide to change the way of speaking to look like being in a higher social class that is overt prestige and other people prefer to keep belonging to a group, that is a covert attitude.

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. Because in some determined place and time fashion is the rule that governs, I mean, the prestige English accent for instance nowadays is English accent and it is used in New York for people who want upperly mobile.

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. The less prestigious languages tend to take some characteristics from the one ‘better’.

Solidarity constraint is when speakers conform to the norms of the community he is living in. It is usually a way to show how proud we are to be in a determined community.

So, both terms are opposites, one look at the external language to change his/her own to make it ‘better’ and the other tends to see inside and keep the norms as they are as a sign of identity.

Sound change: 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 but not in England. So, as it is the prestigious norm in England it is happen the same in New York in order to be more prestigious. Long ā change to ō in southern dialects of British English but it is not happening in Scotland for instance.

Actuation: Why did /k/ palatalize before certain front vowels? PrsE: cheese, German Käse English/Norse doublets shirt/skirt?

Milroy says that 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 thinks that social conditions must be favorable, it 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 not a living thing. It is people who change languages.

What is the difference between internal and external histories of a language?

Internal history is when we focuses in changes within the language and external history is when we study the influences (by borrowings for example) of other external languages.

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

Because Neogrammarians proposed the hipothesis of the regularity of sound change and opposed to them linguistics today talk about lexical diffusion where a sound change affects only a few words at first and then gradually spreads to other words.

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 can be causes of innovation, can cause changes but social norm-enforcement makes difficult changes been produced.