Word On The Street: Debunking The Myth Of A Pure Standard EnglishThough there is a contingent of linguists who fight the fact, our language is always changing -- not only through slang, but sound, syntax, and words' meanings as well. Debunking the myth of "pure" standard English, tackling controversial positions, and eschewing politically correct arguments, linguist John McWhorter considers speech patterns and regional accents to demonstrate just how the changes do occur. Wielding reason and humor, McWhorter ultimately explains why we must embrace these changes, ultimately revealing our American English in all its variety, expressiveness, and power. |
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... modern linguistics. The reasons that linguists scoff at theskyisfalling columns like “Word Court,” do not see dialects as secondclass language, and reject the idea that people walk around committing errors in fluent speech all stem from ...
... modern linguistics. The reasons that linguists scoff at theskyisfalling columns like “Word Court,” do not see dialects as secondclass language, and reject the idea that people walk around committing errors in fluent speech all stem from ...
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... modern literature professors, historians, philosophers, and anthropologists, modern linguists talk almost exclusively to each other. Thus when aspects of language applicable to daily life are presented to the public, it is usually by ...
... modern literature professors, historians, philosophers, and anthropologists, modern linguists talk almost exclusively to each other. Thus when aspects of language applicable to daily life are presented to the public, it is usually by ...
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... modern linguistics, that human speech is always systematic, whether casual or formal. However, dinner party guests, cafe lunch dates, and pals in living room bull sessions are rarely convinced by this characterization, confidently ...
... modern linguistics, that human speech is always systematic, whether casual or formal. However, dinner party guests, cafe lunch dates, and pals in living room bull sessions are rarely convinced by this characterization, confidently ...
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... modern meaning, replacing hlāf Even the sound system is vastly different from ours. We no longer have words like hlāfin which h precedes /, and in Old English, there was no such thing as a word beginning with v. The line above some of ...
... modern meaning, replacing hlāf Even the sound system is vastly different from ours. We no longer have words like hlāfin which h precedes /, and in Old English, there was no such thing as a word beginning with v. The line above some of ...
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... Modern English. Chinese people today would find Ancient Chinese as baffling to the ear as we would find Old English. A Navajo would need a crossmillennial translator to converse with a Navajo from A.D. 1000; a modern Samoan would be ...
... Modern English. Chinese people today would find Ancient Chinese as baffling to the ear as we would find Old English. A Navajo would need a crossmillennial translator to converse with a Navajo from A.D. 1000; a modern Samoan would be ...
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Word On The Street: Debunking The Myth Of A Pure Standard English John Mcwhorter Limited preview - 2000 |
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actually African Americans AfricanAmerican children AfricanAmerican students Afrocentric ain’t American English audience basic bidialectal bilingual Black and standard black children Black English black speech black students bridging advocates bridging approach classroom codeswitching complex Creole languages Creolist culture developed dialect of English dialect readers endings English dialects English speakers example expression fact French genderneutral German grammar Gullah habitual Haitian immersion issue Jamaican patois John Rickford language change language mixture Latin Level linguists means Media Lengua modern nonstandard dialects noun Oakland controversy Old English patterns person pidgin play prepositions problem pronoun Quechua reading Rickford Romance languages rules Saramaccan seen sense sentence structures separate language Shakespeare Shirley simply singular slang slaves sound system Spanish speak speech variety Sranan standard dialect standard English sure Swiss German teachers teaching tense things translation verb vowel walk West African languages words writing