Introduction.
entails the study of language, and its structure, one branch oflinguistics is dialectology. Dialectology is the scientific study oflinguistic dialect based on geographical locations and features thatarise from it (Haugen,1966).This paper delves deep into nine ideas about language that break themyths about language in our society.
Thispaper is based on the book “Nine Ideas about language.”(Daniels,1994).Since the topic is based on the effects of the environment peoplelive in, the paper will follow a cause and effect approach tohandling the data concerning the topic.
Method.
Thepaper will be an exploratory research that focusses on the causaleffect of dialects in societies in different regions and of variedbackgrounds, their origin, and dynamic nature. The main source ofdata in the paper is previous articles and books that offer studiesfrom which we can deduce a pattern.
Findings.
Daniels,(1994)mainly argues that any problem we have with dialects are notlinguistic in nature but rather social judgements. He further addsthat people actively know of their prejudice towards people’s witha dialect different from theirs. Quinnan,(1997)corroborates this by pointing out the bias against minorities ininstitutions of higher learning. To prove this as bias and not fact,Daniels lists nine distinct characteristics about language.
Firston the list is, children pick up their native tongues withoutinstruction. They do this efficiently and swiftly. They acquire it bylistening to those around them. Parents are not responsible for thislearning process as previously assumed they mainly correctgrammatical errors. Second, languages are run by rules. They stresson words, their arrangement and sounds (Robinson,1996).Close to this is the third idea. Languages have three maincomponents, vocabulary, grammar and a system of sound. Fourth, everyperson communicates in a certain dialect. They are mainlygeographical based. From the fourth idea springs up the fifth, allspeakers engage in a variety of jargons or subdialects. With allthese varieties, it is no surprise that the sixth idea is thatchanges in language are normal. Seventh, languages are suited to theindividuals and society which employ them. Eighth, conclusions aboutdifferent languages are a matter of taste, at the end of the day alllanguages are equal and serve the same purpose. Finally, writing isderived from speech. Many societies talk, but not all of them write.
Conclusions.
Insecuritycombined with intolerance happen over and over again throughouthistory, they arise from political and social tensions and not fromany variations in a particular language. These dialects will never“die" provided societies converse through it. These languagemodifications are not only inevitable but healthy. A change inenvironment leads to a varied form of speech and style, these changesare ordinary and expected this is because languages are ruleadministrated, methodical, and rational in nature. Tolerance and anopen mind are all that is needed to solve any discrepancies thatarise in linguistics. All these discrepancies are not factual butrather biases and should be treated as such.
References
Daniels,H. A. (1994). Nine Ideas about Language. In V. P. Clark, P. A.Eschholz, & A. F. Rosa (Eds.), Language(pp. 17–34). Macmillan Education UK. Retrieved fromhttp://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-13421-2_2
Haugen,E. (1966). Dialect, Language, Nation1. AmericanAnthropologist,68(4),922–935. http://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1966.68.4.02a00040
Quinnan,T. W. (1997). AdultStudents “at-risk”: Culture Bias in Higher Education.Greenwood Publishing Group.
Robinson,P. (1996). Learning Simple and Complex Second Language Rules UnderImplicit, Incidental, Rule-Search, and Instructed Conditions. Studiesin Second Language Acquisition,18(01),27–67. http://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263100014674