All spoken languages are equal in terms of linguistic potential.
Grammaticality and communicative effectiveness are distinct
and independent issues.
Written language and spoken language are historically,
structurally and functionally fundamentally different creatures.
Variation is intrinsic to all spoken language at every level, and
much of that variation serves an emblematic purpose.This small collection of facts is where most linguists would come together.
The irony is that where linguists settle down to an uneasy truce, non-
linguists take up the battle cry. The least disputed issues around language
structure and function, the ones linguists argue about least, are those
which are most often challenged by non-linguists, and with the greatest
vehemence and emotion.
Here I am concerned primarily with common beliefs and attitudes
toward variation in American English (AE), and from there, I hope to
demonstrate how such attitudes influence personal and institutionalized
policy and practice, with very real severe consequences. This distinction
between individual and institutionalized effects is quite purposeful, and
the reason for that is laid out in The Everyday Language of White Racism
(Hill 2008), Jane Hill’s excellent and very detailed look at these topics
from her viewpoint as an anthropological linguist:
Critical theorists do not deny that individual beliefs figure in racism.
But we prefer to emphasize its collective, cultural dimensions, and to
avoid singling out individuals and trying to decide whether they are
racists or not. Furthermore, critical theorists insist that ordinary
people who do not share White supremacist beliefs can still talk and
behave in ways that advance the projects of White racism.
(Hill 2008: 7)All spoken language changes
All language changes over time, in all linguistic subsystems: sounds
(phonetics, phonology); the structure of words (morphology, lexicon), the
way sentences are put together (syntax), and meaning (semantics). Only
moribund, dead languages (languages that have no native speakers) are