Have you come across folk linguistics? The term itself isn’t necessarily well known, but the concept will be familiar.\u00a0 Folk linguistics is\u00a0examining\u00a0ideas\u00a0that laymen have\u00a0about language. These emerge in descriptions: Southerners speak with “a drawl,” Manhattanites are “rapid-fire,” and\u00a0Texans go droppin’ final Gs.<\/p>\n
In folk linguistics, regional accents and local variations are often judged as incorrect, sloppy, or uneducated. Valleyspeak, a pattern from the San Fernando Valley, is often labeled and mocked as “Valley Girl.” Likewise the persistent American notion that Canadians pronounce “about” to rhyme with “boot,” or laughter at accents associated with Boston or Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
Recently, linguists have taken an interest in researching the terms that ordinary people use when talking about features of language. Do amateurs pay attention to the same features that linguists do? How specific and consistent are their descriptions? Do they use equivalent concepts and terms?<\/p>\n
This research began with the study of dialects, but has\u00a0lately\u00a0widened to general language awareness. I like this new linguistic approach, which looks more user-centered than the traditional, academic one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Have you come across folk linguistics? The term itself isn’t necessarily well known, but the concept will be familiar.\u00a0 Folk linguistics is\u00a0examining\u00a0ideas\u00a0that laymen have\u00a0about language. These emerge in descriptions: Southerners speak with “a drawl,” Manhattanites are “rapid-fire,” and\u00a0Texans go droppin’ final Gs. In folk linguistics, regional accents and local variations are often judged as incorrect, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-english-en","7":"category-wordoftheweek-en","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2576"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2577,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2576\/revisions\/2577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yksityinenkielitoimisto.fi\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}