Angel Doughty

Language and Language development

March 2, 2016
Week 3 Questions

9. Intonation influences the meaning and register of a word. Could you give an example
of how precise Chinese syllable stress is key in communicating? (p. 194)
The example that McWhorter uses is one word da that have three very different
meanings. Intonation and inflection of this word could make the difference in a business
meeting of telling someone their product makes them feel nostalgic when they think of
it, versus telling them that it makes them feel like a shitty little monkey. If the intonation
of this word alone is not correct, billions of dollars are potentially lost.
10. McWhorter argues in Ch. 5 that tone is not a necessary feature of the human
language. It is a cognitively parsable, but ultimately accidental, permutation of a
languages original material, which can result only from a language, which began
without it. (p. 197) Why is this linguistic argument important? Explain.
I find it curious that McWhorter argues that tone is not necessary. In the example
above, tone is everything. It may have begun as accidental, but it has become an
integral part of what language looks like today. Without tone, which is often taught like
McWhorter says from the cradle, the modern languages that we know today would not
be the same. If you begin to argue along this vein based on the unpredictable evolution
of languages, we may have ended up with three different meanings in modern times.
11. Discuss the authors point of view on Sign Language (p. 214).
The sign languages that McWhorter speaks of are relatively new. Nicaraguan
sign language has been spoken for less than 50 years, American Sign language less
than 150. McWhorter states, Sign languages are real languages just like spoken
ones, with grammar, complexity and nuance. (214) What sign languages show is that
people will find a way to communicate. Communication is a key part of human
interaction, and humans will find a way.
12. Spoken language is an ever-changing system, the very nature of which is to be
always in a process of transformation into a new language. Can we justify the double
negative is grammatically acceptable in the English language today? Who is Falstaff?

After reading McWhorter I learned that many languages still use a double
negative in conventional grammar. Falstaff is a Shakespeare character that uses double
negatives to lend weight to his statements. Shakespeare is considered one of the best
writers of all time. If he used double negatives, then why cant we use them today? Only
300 years have passed and now double negatives are considered ignorant and
uneducated. If most modern languages use double negatives, then what change was
necessary to separate English from all other languages? Modern convention has
changed such that we can no longer justify double negatives. That ship has sailed, and
it is time to see what organic changes will occur in the times to come.