Myth one

The meanings of words should not be allowed to vary or change ~ Peter Trudgill

Summary

Languages change all the time. We don’t really understand why, but it is a universal characteristic of human languages. There are languages that do not change, like Latin, which nobody speaks. Languages change their pronunciation through time, as do grammatical structures. But perhaps the most obvious way in which languages change is in the usage and meaning of words. Some people think it is unfortunate that languages change the meanings of their words and that we should do everything to stop it, because change can be dangerous and confusing. 

 

Comments

This chapter is very useful and interesting, because it discusses the different meaning of words and also discusses how words developed over time. However, I don't agree with this language myth.  I think the meanings of words should be allowed to vary or change. Languages are constantly evolving, so we need to keep it alive by changing it up a little.

 

 

Myth two

Some language are just not good enough ~Ray Harlow

Summary

There are very wide differences in the use to which languages are put. Most languages are the first language of some community and serve the everyday functions of that community perfectly well. A few languages have a more restricted range of uses, for instance, Latin. Now its use is even more restricted and it is really only now used by a few people to read the literature originally written in that language. The differences in the range of roles that languages play frequently lead some people to believe that some languages which do not fulfil a wide range of functions are in fact incapable of doing so. In the view of some people, some languages are just not good enough, are inherently inferior and could not be used in these ways. This sort of opinion can be seen particularly strikingly in societies where a minority language is spoken alongside a major language.

Comments

I wouldn't say that some languages aren't good enough, but just old and not too important, like Latin. You don't use Latin in everyday life. I do understand that some old languages are very important for the history and that some people still use it, whether it is for research or work. I also think that some languages are more important than other, for instance, English is spoken worldwide. 

 

Myth three

The Media are Ruining English ~ Jean Aitchison

Summary

The morbid concern for the health of the English language is not new. In every decade, language 'defenders' pop up like sentries before old castles. They behave as if they alone are preventing the language from crumbling into dust. The delusion that our language is sick is a recurring one. What changes are the culprits of this supposed linguistic side? These vary. Parents, teacher, the press, have all been blamed. But in recents years, the media -- television, radio, newspapers -- have been widely criticised as linguistic criminals. 

Comments

I do not disagree nor do I agree with this myth. Do I think that the media can be blamed for ruining the English language? No, but do I think it could have a (small) effect on the English language? Yes. Language is constantly evolving and the media is adapting to this. 

 

Myth five

English Spelling is Kattastroffik ~Edward Carney

Summary

If you know how an English word is pronounced and you roughly know what it means, you ought to be able to write it down without much trouble. If you find that you can't do that, then the writing system may well seem to be at fault.  However, 'catastrophic' is a severe word. Before rushing to condemn the whole system, you ought to see what English spelling sets out to do and the extent to which it is consistent in doing it. In looking at spelling, we need to keep sounds and letters separate. Often when people talk about spelling they do not differentiate between letters and sounds. You use “vowel letters” and “consonant letters” when you want to talk about letters. The myth that there are 'five vowels' in English refers to the vowel letters <a, e, i, o, u > of the roman alphabet. Depending on your accent, you will find about twenty vowels in English. This chapter also refers to the fact that some words are homographs. These words are spelt the same, but pronounced differently. If this occurred the other way around, there called homophones. When both words are spelt and pronounced the same, but the words differ in meaning, they are called homonyms.

Comments

This chapter sums up the rules and exceptions for the English language very clear and easy. I don't necessarily agree with the myth, but I do think this chapter is useful and informative.  

 

Myth eight

Children can’t speak or write properly any more ~James Milroy

Summary

For centuries now there have been recurrent complaints about the state of the English language. These complaints always seem to assume that the language is in decline and that this decline is associated with moral decline. Certain sections of society are normally held responsible for this decline, and one form that the complaint tradition can take is to associate linguistic decline with the use of language by the younger generation. It is said that the young people are liable to misuse the language or not learn it properly, therefore, everything possible must be done to arrest this decline.

 It is typically claimed that the schools are failing in their duty to teach children how to use English properly, both in speaking and writing. They believe that this is due to the modern teaching methods, which are said to be too permissive. Although it is of course important that educational standards in schools should be carefully maintained, there is in reality nothing to suggest that today's youngsters are less competent at speaking and writing among children. Their ability to speak the language is just as good, and their ability to read and write, almost certainly, a great deal better on average. 
 

Comments

(English) language is constantly evolving. We speak different from how we did many years ago. I do think that some young people ruin the English language by slang, but that is a part of everyday life now. So the change of language has their dis- and advantages. 

Myth ten

Some language have no grammar ~Winifred Bauer

Summary

What is grammar? For linguist, the 'grammar' of a language is the set of rules which the speakers of the language follow when they speak. It encompasses rules about the possible forms of words, rules about the way bits of words can be put together, rules about the way words are put together to make longer units and rules about the way meanings are encoded by speakers. For some non-linguists, 'grammar' refers only to the second and third of these types of rules. even on that narrower definition, it is easy to demonstrate that all languages have grammar. 

Comments

I do think languages have grammar, because it would be difficult to learn a language without grammar. However, I also think that some languages have weird grammar. Grammar that doesn't feel or sound right. Especially if you compare the grammar of a language to a different one. 

 

Myth eleven

Italian is beautiful, German is ugly ~Howard Giles and Nancy Niedzielski 

 

Summary 

Certain languages are more aesthetically pleasing than others. Its a commonly held view that some languages are more beautiful than others. For example, French is romantic, Italian is elegant, whereas German and Arabic are harsh and unpleasant-sounding. Dialects that are spoken in urban areas are considered more pleasant than those in rural areas. Why do we have such well-defined views of language beauty and ugliness? Two competing views exist. The first has been called the 'inherent value hypothesis'. and the second 'social connotations hypothesis'. 

 

Comments 

I don't 100% agree with this myth, because it's an opinion, not a fact. However, I do think that people have personal preferences. I, myself, find Italian of French much more attractive than German, even though I don't understand what they are saying. The language has pleasant sounds and I think a lot of people can agree with this. This doesn't mean that German is an ugly language, but it doesn't sound all that pleasant. 

 

Myth thirteen

Black Children are Verbally Deprived ~Walt Wolfram

 Summary 

Black American children are not verbally deprived despite their low test scoresand the bad grammar many seem to 
have. In the 1800s whites thought it was biological: because the brains of blackpeople were too small and their lips too 
big to speak English properly. In the 1900s whites thought it was sociological: bad parenting in black ghettos. Black 
parents do not talk to their children much or something. If whites were right about any of this then black children who 
grow up in white, middle-class neighbourhoods would not 'sound white'. Black children do score lower on reading tests and so on. It is not just black children who score lower on those tests - so do whitechildren in the South and white working-class  children everywhere.

 

Comments 

I don't think that black children are verbally deprived. They speak a different variety of English, but this doesn’t mean that these children are verbally deprived. I think the black culture is a highly verbal culture that values the development of verbal skills. 

 

Myth fourteen

Double Negative are Illogical ~Jenney Cheshire

Summary 

If you ask people why they object to double negatives, they usually point to logic, where is a long tradition of assuming that two people refer to mathematics, where 'minus two minus minus two equals zero,' with the two minuses effectively turning the first part of the equation into 'minus two plus two'. Double negation is found in the majority of the world’s languages, it’s not uncommon. People use double negative frequently to express themselves, politicians do it too, in order to make bad things sound a little less bad.

 

I don't agree with this myth, double negatives are logical. I also think that the theory behind it makes quite sense. However, I can understand why people object to double negatives. 

 

Myth fifteen 

TV Makes People Sound the Same ~J. K.Chambers

 

Summary

Why and how languages change isn’t really known, but a lot of people know exactly why the changes take place. It’s because of TV. Sociolinguists see some evidence for the mass playing a role in the spread of vocabulary items. When they look deeper at the language change, sound and grammatical changes, the media have no significant effect at all. The media can make words more popular than others, but can’t change grammar or sound. White and black people from the same city sound different and they all watch TV. It is more likely that we pick up things from travelers, salesmen, neighbours and work-mates from distant places, they speak to you and maybe unconsciously you borrow some features from their speech and they do it with yours.

 

Comments 

In my opinion, the media does influence language. Does this makes us all sound the same? No, but we learn certain words or phrases used in tv programmes. And when you incorporate those words or phrases in your daily speech, you make them your own. This makes us keep our own identity and prevents us from sounding the same. 

 

Myth eighteen

Some Languages are Spoken More Quickly than Others ~Peter Roach

 

Summary 

We all make judgements about how quickly someone is speaking, but it is not all easy to work out what we base these judgements on. Speakers of some languages seem to rattle away at high speed like machine-guns, while other languages sound rather slow and plodding. However, impressionistic judgements about such things are often unreliable. Can we establish scientifically that there really are characteristics differences in speaking speed? There are. it seems to me, three possibilities. (1) some languages are spoken more rapidly, and some more slowly, than others as a natural result of the way their sounds are produced. (2) we get the impression that some languages are spoken more quickly than others because of some sort of illusion. (3) in some societies it is socially acceptable or approved to speak rapidly, and in others slow speaking is referred. 

 

Comments 

I think this depends on the person and/or the situation. I, for instance, speak way faster than other people. I don't do this all the time, but mostly when I'm angry or very excited. I had a few people tell me to speak slower and to calm down. I wasn't aware of this before. I also agree with the first possibility.

 

 

 

Source

Bauer, L., Trudgill, P., (1998). Language myths. London: Penguin Books.