Nine Ideas about Language

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Nine Ideas about Language

• By Harvey Daniels

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1. Children learn their native language swiftly,
efficiently, and largely without instruction

• Brain is prewired for language, according to some
  linguists.
• Children will learn the language they hear around
  them.
• Silly mistakes (I goed to the store) are not
  mistakes they are hypothesis testing, which is
  how children learn language.

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2. Language operates by rules

• Apart from onomatopoetic words, the assignment of
  meanings to certain combinations of sounds is
  arbitrary.
• In English, we use only about 40 phonemes (basic
  units of sound) of the hundreds available.
• Syntax and grammar are also arbitrary
• Since language is so arbitrary, there is no such
  thing as a natural language.

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3. Three major components to all languages

• Sound system (phonology)
• Vocabulary
• System of Grammar 2 types
• System of rules we use to arrange words into
  meaningful English sentences.
• Whole system of rules which makes up a
  language. Everything you know about a language.

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4. Everyone speaks a dialect.

• Boston Hahvahd Squah bubblers
• Canada aboot
• Texas yawl
• Dialects come from isolation and separationnot
  always geographical.
• Travel and mass media keep our dialects close.

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5. Speakers of all languages employ a range of
styles and a set of sub-dialects or jargons.

• Our speech patterns vary greatly during the
  course of a day.
• Learning the rules of when to speak formally,
  informally, or in between is an important part of
  language acquisition.
• Its a late stage of acquisition. Since children
  learn by experimenting, they have to experience
  social situations before learning the social
  rules of language.

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Five Levels of Formality posited by Martin Joos

• Intimate
• Casual
• Consultative
• Formal
• Frozen

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Whats the most common use of language?
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6. Language change is normal.

• Lexical we need new words with new technology
  and social developments.
• Phonological slower and harder to notice, but
  we had a major vowel shift just several hundred
  years ago.
• Grammar also slow to change, and teachers
  bemoan the change. Still, can anyone tell me the
  difference between shall and will?

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7. Languages are intimately related to the
societies and individuals who use them.

• People who live in Alaska have many different
  words for different types of snow.
• Does language determine thought?

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8. Value judgments about different languages or
dialects are a matter of taste.

• Prejudice against certain dialects is prejudice
  against the people who use them. It is social
  discrimination.

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9. Writing is derivative of speech.

• People have been speaking for at least half a
  million years writing came around about 5,000
  years ago.
• Only 5 of the worlds languages have developed
  indigenous writing systems.
• Writing rules can change just as oral rules do.
  What is wrong with a split infinitive?