Lesson 3: Modern Myths Concerning Languages

What to Expect?
At the end of the lesson, the students can:
1. examine the myths regarding languages;
2. elucidate the nine ideas about language; and,
3. apply correct concepts about language.

Pre-discussion
Give a brief reaction to this line, "Some dialects are, well… stupid, demonstrating that
a person is uneducated.”
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Lesson Outline
It may be an excellent place to provide information about languages, in general, to set
some essential matters straight. Every human being speaks a language but what people
think about languages, particularly those – about which they know little or nothing – is quite
another matter. Consider the following statements. Which ones do you think are true?
1. Almost everywhere in the world, everyone is monolingual or
monodialectal, just as in America.
2. Spelling in English is phonetic and governed by precise rules.
3. Most writing systems in the world are based on some alphabet.
4. If you want to learn Spanish, do not take a class in school. It is better to
go, say, to Mexico for a month or two.
5. Some languages are naturally more challenging to learn than others.
6. Some languages are naturally more “primitive” than others.
7. Language itself is not ambiguous; it is people's misinterpreting things that
cause problems.
8. The use of language somehow reflects one’s intelligence.
9. People who are fluent in another language may not have complete
mastery of their native language.
 10. Learning a foreign language is a particular skill that some of us have and
others do not.
11. As our grade school teachers taught us if you want to get it right, go to the
dictionary! People who use double negatives ("I do need no anthropology
classes") are not thinking logically.
12. It is easier to learn Chinese if you come from a Chinese family than from a
European family.
On the other hand, the following are the nine (9) ideas about language, as Daniels
(1994) pointed out.
Children learn their native language swiftly, efficiently, and mainly without instruction.
Language is a species-specific trait of human beings. Unless they are severely retarded or
wholly deprived of exposure to speech, all children will acquire their oral language as
naturally as they learn to walk. Many linguists even assert that the human brain is prewired
for language. Some have also postulated that the underlying linguistic features common to all
languages are present in the brain at birth.
This latter theory comes from the discovery that all languages have specific
procedures in common: ways of making statements, questions, and commands; ways of
referring to past time; the ability to negate, and so on. Despite the underlying similarities of all
languages, it is crucial to remember that children will acquire the language they hear around
them—whether that is Ukrainian, Swahili, Cantonese, or Appalachian American English.
Language operates by rules. When a child begins learning his native language, he
acquires a vast system of mostly subconscious rules. It allows him to make meaningful and
increasingly complex utterances. These rules include sounds, words, the arrangement of
strings of words, and aspects of the social act of speaking. Children who grow up speaking
different languages will acquire generally different sets of rules. This fact reminds us that
human language is, in an important sense, arbitrary.
All languages have three major components: a sound system, a vocabulary, and a
system of grammar. The sound system of a language—its phonology—is the inventory of
vocal noises and combinations of noises that it employs. Children learn the selected sounds
of their language in the same way they learn the other elements: by listening, hypothesizing,
testing, and listening again.
Vocabulary, or lexicon, of a language, is the individual's storehouse of words. One of
the young child's most conspicuous efforts is aimed at expanding his lexical inventory.
Hence, the whole system of rules that make up a language (the rules for the arrangement
and appropriate marking of elements in a sentence) all of the lexical, phonological, and
syntactic patterns a language uses.
Everyone speaks a dialect. Among linguists, the term dialect designates a variety of a
particular language that has a specific set of lexical, phonological, and grammatical rules that
distinguish it from other dialects.
Speakers of all languages employ a range of styles and set subdialects or jargon.
Learning the sociolinguistic rules that tell us what sort of speech is appropriate in different
social situations is a part of language acquisition as learning how to produce the sound. We
talk differently to acquaintances than to strangers, differently to our bosses than to our
subordinates, differently to children than to adults. We speak in one way on the racquetball
court and in the courtroom; we perhaps talk differently to flight attendants than to stewards.
The ability to adjust our language forms to the social context is something that we acquire as
children, along with sounds, words, and syntax.
Language change is normal. These terms like hashtag, peoplekind, and sproglet
serve obvious needs, responding to specific societal changes that virtually require them.
However, language also changes in many ways that do not seem so logical or necessary.
Language is intimately related to societies and to the individuals who use them. Every
human language has been shaped by and changes to meet the needs of its speakers. In this
limited sense, all human languages can be said to be equal and perfect. All human
languages and the concept systems which they embody are efficient in their native speech
communities. The languages of the world also vary in some important ways. People
sometimes falsely assume that specific tongues are inherently superior to others. However, it
is marvelous that these differences exist.
Value judgments about different languages or dialects are matters of taste. One of the
things we seem to acquire right along with our native tongue is a set of attitudes about the
value of other people's language. Let us think for a moment about any of the world's major
languages. We will find that we usually have some idea—usually a prejudice or stereotype—
about it. French is the sweet music of love. German is harsh, martial, overbearing. The
language of Spain is exotic/ romantic.
Writing is derivative of speech. Writing systems are always based upon systems of
oral language, which of necessity develop first. People have been talking for at least a half
million years, but the earliest known writing system appeared fewer than 5,000 years ago.
Wherever there are human beings, we will always find language, but not necessarily writing.
Suppose language is indeed a biologically programmed trait of the species. In that case,
writing does not seem to be part of the standard equipment. Although the English writing
system is essentially phonemic—an attempt to represent language sounds in graphic form—
it is notoriously irregular and confusing.

Summary
Perspectives and beliefs about language must be theoretically and research-based.
Myths concerning language are just overgeneralization of people, which deviates them from
the factual views of language. The factual ideas on language have begun to form a coherent
picture of how language works, thanks to the work of the descriptive and historical linguists.
Additionally, most anthropologists and linguists would say that these statements are
suspect, if not outright wrong. Let us briefly consider a few of these misconceptions
concerning languages in more detail because they appear to be widespread, even among
those who are otherwise well educated and knowledgeable. These misconceptions we can
refer to as myths, in the sense of being unfounded, fictitious, and false beliefs or ideas.

Assessment/Enrichment

1. In your own experience, enumerate at least three (3) misconceptions, myths, fallacies
about language. How should you be able to correct them? (20 points).
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References

Daniels, H. A. (1994). Nine ideas about language. Language. Macmillan Education UK.
[Link]

Jourdan, C., & Tuite, K. (Eds.). (2006). Language, culture, and society: key topics in linguistic
anthropology (Vol. 23). Cambridge University Press.
[Link]
Salzmann, Z., Stanlaw, J., & Adachi, N. (2014). Language, culture, and society: An
introduction to linguistic anthropology. Westview Press.
[Link]
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Stanlaw, J., Adachi, N. & Salzmann, Z. (2017). Language, culture, and society: An
introduction to linguistic anthropology. New York: Routledge. [Link]
[Link]/s/language%20culture%20society