You and your native language

General discussion about learning languages
Speakeasy
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Re: You and your native language

Postby Speakeasy » Sun Apr 29, 2018 7:16 pm

Cainntear wrote: ... Again, I was not suggesting that "there're" is incorrect, I was responding to your claim that "there's" is incorrect. I provided data that you did not even acknowledge which supports my assertion that most native speakers use "there's" for both singular and plural. Please do not accuse me of evading discussion.
Data? You, yourself, described your numbers as “reduction ad absurdum, not data”; so, which is it? The point is that you have not yet provided reference to a recognized grammar of the English language supporting your position. Instead, you’ve been side-stepping the issue, that's evasion. Your views may be popular, but that doesn't make them right.

BTW, your silence on the accussations of insults, racism, and elitism is quite telling. On second thought, I withdraw this comment, these are known, widely-held, indisputable "facts."
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Cainntear
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Re: You and your native language

Postby Cainntear » Sun Apr 29, 2018 7:40 pm

Speakeasy wrote:
Cainntear wrote: ... Again, I was not suggesting that "there're" is incorrect, I was responding to your claim that "there's" is incorrect. I provided data that you did not even acknowledge which supports my assertion that most native speakers use "there's" for both singular and plural. Please do not accuse me of evading discussion.
Data? You, yourself, described your numbers as “reduction ad absurdum, not data”; so, which is it?

Here's the data:
Cainntear wrote:It's not an error. If you check the British National Corpus there are 16796 hits for "there 's" and only 87 for "there 're" in the spoken subcorpus. The Corpus of Contemporary American English has similar proportions -- 129729 hits for "there 's" and 278 for "there 're". It is highly unlikely that people speak almost exclusively about the existence of singular items, so the only sensible explanation is that people do indeed commonly use there's with a plural complement.


The point is that have not yet provided reference to a recognized grammar of the English language supporting your position.

And I'm not going to, because I don't have any modern reference grammars to hand that discuss it. Will a blog post from a major education publisher help? Cambridge say it "may be considered incorrect" in certain circumstances, but then so are many natural native patterns. Then there's this post on language log.

BTW, your silence on the accussations of insults, racism, and elitism is quite telling.
Odd... I distinctly remember you thanking me for clarifying that I had never accused you of racism or elitism.
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Speakeasy
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Re: You and your native language

Postby Speakeasy » Sun Apr 29, 2018 9:23 pm

Cainntear wrote: ... I asserted that those beliefs lead to repression and suppression, which is taken pretty much as fact by most of current academia.
Cainntear wrote: ... It's not about beliefs, it's about outcomes. If something demonstrably leads to the marginalisation of certain groups of people in the workplace or the education system, it really doesn't matter what people's intentions are -- the bomb still explodes.
Apparently, my exposition of “prescritophobia” was insufficiently clear. What I find most irksome is the absolutist position adopted by the hard-line, extremist wing of the descriptivist theorists. The "base position" of the absolutists suggests a belief system grounded in thoughts of persecution, threat, and conspiracy.

The mere support of such an insignificant matter as “there’re” in the plural is taken as irrefutable evidence of either complacency in face of, or actual complicity with, a complete body of thought which may, but which just as easily may not, lead to undesirable outcomes. There is the assumption that the process is ineluctable. No other outcome is even remotely possible. Intelligent human beings are assumed to be incapable of recognizing the correct use of “there’re” in the plural without being simultaneously and irrecoverably complicit in unjustifiable discriminatory practices. This outcome is offered as a known, widely-held, indisputable “fact”, a matter which is not open to discussion. Debating this, or any other, absolutist “fact” (a matter which I refuse to be dragged into) is a belligerent act which justifies a vigorous counter-offensive.

In my view, the absolutist, hard-line, extremist wing of the descriptivist theorists view the world in astonishingly stark terms, they are incapable of the slightest nuance. They are the maximalist’s maximalists. Like many others holding extreme political, ideological, or religious views, they believe that they possess the "One and only Truth" and that anyone who does not share their views is evil personified. Everyone is a combatant and the only choice open to the individual is on "which side" of this epic struggle he will take his "final stand."

This fourth iteration of the “there’re in the plural” bun-fight was, apparently, avoidable. In the end, only two buns were tossed, the same ones as in the last three derailings. Cainntear, you may wish to continue espousing your absolutist position. I’m going to spread a measure of salted butter on my bun and I'm going to eat it. That is, I’m done throwing it at you ... this time around.
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renaissancemedici
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Re: You and your native language

Postby renaissancemedici » Mon Apr 30, 2018 9:51 am

I don't ever mind a bit off topic discussion on a thread myself, but may I gently remind everyone the original question and ask to return to it? :)

Since I never really answered it myself, here we go:

As I said I really like etymology, but not only that. I like Greek in general and it's a bit complicated for a native speaker what with all the years the language has existed continuously until now. You've got several different eras and within those eras different kinds of language (colloquial, scholarly, separate regions etc.). It's a body of texts that is huge, connected to several non language issues as well (that goes for all languages), connected with the educational system in this country, language reforms, politics, blah blah blah. It's a huge mountain to climb. People call it dead and it freaks me out :lol: Some are super patriotic about it, others are dismissive in so many ways. Anyway, I do love studying it, although since school I have been quite negligent. But it's here and I have made a conscious effort to go deeper in the language. I don't count it as being a separate language I learn, because I already have a great deal of knowledge. But it's not enough, not by a long shot.
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Cainntear
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Re: You and your native language

Postby Cainntear » Sat May 05, 2018 3:31 pm

renaissancemedici wrote:I don't know if this has been asked before...

We keep studying and dreaming about several languages. But what about our own language?

Do you study it? If so, how do you go about it?

Do you study its past forms and texts?

Clearly it's a lifelong thing, going deeper in your own language (and with it, culture), but are you organized about it, or does it happen randomly and in the course of years?

I did formal study of English as part of my language degree with the Open University. The course was designed not simply to teach about English, but also to introduce core linguistics concepts through examples in English compared with other languages. (It was an absolutely excellent course.)

As an English teacher, I'm always looking out for gaps in my knowledge of English that will help me teach the language better. That means checking grammar guides and even looking at corpora (as above) to find out what the patterns genuinely are -- I like to draw attention to "street English" and compare with "exam English", because I find students get really confused when what they're taught doesn't match what they're hearing outside the classroom. If I can tell them "you'll hear this, but this is what you'll have to do in the exam", the confusion is gone.

In terms of my own use of English, when I was at school I was kind of socially isolated because of my overly "posh" way of speaking, led by being told some ways of speaking were "right" and others were "wrong", and also from reading books that were very "proper" in their use of English. I've spent a fair amount of time as an adult trying to retrain myself to use colloquial language and speak less like a book.
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Bilingual_monoglot
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Re: You and your native language

Postby Bilingual_monoglot » Fri Jun 08, 2018 4:15 am

renaissancemedici wrote:I don't know if this has been asked before...

We keep studying and dreaming about several languages. But what about our own language?

Do you study it? If so, how do you go about it?

Do you study its past forms and texts?

Clearly it's a lifelong thing, going deeper in your own language (and with it, culture), but are you organized about it, or does it happen randomly and in the course of years?


Weirdly enough, I am learning my native language, the same I am with my second languages (looking at you Chines, Malay and French). My native language is Tamil. However, since I live in Singapore, I mostly use English due to various reasons I won't get into. As a result, my Tamil suffers heavily from language attrition, not helped by the fact that the polyglot community is primarily anglophone and I don't think any polyglots actually have learned or know any Tamil (If you do speak Tamil or are learning/want to learn Tamil, correct me). Hence, even though it is a home language and a thought in my school as a second first language, I approach my Tamil as another language that I just so happen to start at an A2 level. I go about it by getting more content like most of you would at more intermediate/advanced levels. Unfortunately, i don't have the time to look into older forms of Tamil even though I would like to. I must first improve my abilities in more modern forms of the language.
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Querneus
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Re: You and your native language

Postby Querneus » Sat Jun 09, 2018 8:02 pm

renaissancemedici wrote:I don't know if this has been asked before...

We keep studying and dreaming about several languages. But what about our own language?

Do you study it? If so, how do you go about it?

Do you study its past forms and texts?

Clearly it's a lifelong thing, going deeper in your own language (and with it, culture), but are you organized about it, or does it happen randomly and in the course of years?

A short time after I discovered the existence of linguistics, I did deliberately study Spanish grammar on my own, mostly by reading reference materials for English-speaking learners and looking up tons of words in the RAE's Diccionario panhispánico de dudas, as well as reading discussions on many specific words on WordReference's forums... I occasionally read /ɹɛd/ papers and books written by linguists too, particularly anything I could get my hands on regarding Salvadoran Spanish (my dialect).

Some time after I also got interested in learning about older stages of Spanish and how it became what it is. I even learned some Latin to be able to appreciate the linguistic literature on the grammar of Classical/Late/Early Medieval Latin.

I don't study any of these things anymore though. Curiously not out of lack of access (as it often happens), but because I find them boring now. (I still study Latin, but now for other reasons, and then mostly just Classical Latin.)
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