Language change theorists Flashcards
Crystal
All living languages change. Languages have no existence apart from the people who use them
Marsh
Grammatical conventions we use when chatting are not always suitable for talking, and particularly writing, in the wider world
Ritchie
Almost all judgements about someone’s language have no linguistic justification and reflect only the prejudice of the judger
Hitchings
(debates on language) become heated because they involve people’s attitudes to - among other things - class, race, money and politics
Aitchison
Language change is not a disease, any more than adolescence, or autumn are illnesses
Humphrys
(text messages) pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary
Green
It is language as much as is standard English, as much as is jargon, as much as is technicality.
Burridge
A linguistic weed today can be a valued garden contributer tomorrow. Weeds are centered around human value judgements.
Maxwell
Language is primarily a tool for communication
Johns
The english language is an incredibly rich inheritance. Yet it is being squandered by so many young people of all races and backgrounds
Truss
The english language as we know it is hereby doomed, and we might as well all go off and kill ourselves
Rosen
Grammar is not a matter of being correct or not. Pretending that there is only one correct way to describe language is confusing and untrue
Trudgill
All languages are potentially equal…all dialects are linguistically equal. Standard English is not linguistically superior
Robert Lane Greene
Don’t let your love for good English mean disdain for people who don’t use it exactly as you do. Changes to a language are natural, not simply degrading.
Heffer
If someone’s English is poor we tend to consider them uneducated or unconvincing; which may bar them from getting a job or in some other way advancing in life
