Dialects vary in how proper or good they are - some dialects are better than others.

Question

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Question restatement: The prompt claims that dialects vary in how proper or good they are, and that some dialects are better than others. Options: TRUE or FALSE.
Option 1: TRUE
- This statement asserts a hierarchy of dialects, implying some are inherently superior. In linguistic understanding, there is no objective metric that makes one dialect universally better or more correct than another; all dialects are systematic varieties with their own rules and norms.
- Belief in superiority often stems from social prejudice, prestige, or power dynamics rather than from linguistic facts. It risks stigmatizing speakers and ignoring the communicative effectiveness of any given dialect within its community.
- Therefore, treating dialects as inherently better or worse is a biased stance and not aligned with descriptive linguistics, which studies how language is actually used across communities.
Option 2: FALSE
- This option denies a value judgment about dialects, aligning with a more accurate sociolinguistic position that all dialects are equally valid forms of language.
- It emphasizes that differences among dialects reflect diverse histories, cultures, and social contexts, not absolute measures of quality or correctness.
- Recognizing dialectal diversity avoids unfair judgments and supports linguistic equity, illustrating why there is no objective basis to rank dialects by being "better" or "worse."
- In short, the claim that some dialects are inherently superior is not supported by mainstream linguistics; the absence of a universal standard to judge dialects reinforces the validity of FALSE as the appropriate stance.

LIN 001Y A01-A12 SQ 2025 Language Variation & Change HW

Dialects vary in how proper or good they are - some dialects are better than others.

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LIN 001Y A01-A12 SQ 2025 Language Variation & Change HW

Dialects vary in how proper or good they are - some dialects are better than others.

View Explanation

Log in for full answers

Similar Questions

True or false: There is no way to linguistically determine which dialect is "better" or "worse".

In the United States today, “r-lessness” in words like car, father, and park are considered features of non-standard speech. In Britain, however, “r-lessness” is characteristic of Received Pronunciation, the standard prestige dialect. This illustrates that:

idiolect is a term for a single person’s way of speaking

Which of the following is NOT an example of style-shifting?

Which of the following is *NOT* an example of an extralinguistic factor that can define a speech community and the linguistic variation used by groups of speakers?

Sociolinguistics is the study of the systematic relationship between language variation and social structures that exist within and across speech communities.

At a job interview for a prestigious law firm, the applicant — a native speaker of the r-less New York dialect — decides to speak Standard American English. Her reasons for this could be said to be due to [ Select ] jargon hypercorrection slang covert prestige dialect leveling overt prestige .

More Practical Tools for Students Powered by AI Study Helper

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