Humanities Homework Help

Please complete questions 6, 7, and 8 on page 451 in File 10.6 (copied and pasted below).

6. Consider the following:

• At the turn of the century, the form ain’t was prestigious among many upper middle class English speakers in southern England. Today, however, its use is considered nonstandard or at best appropriate only for casual conversation.
• In the United States, “dropped r’s” (not pronouncing the ‘r’) in words like car, father and bark are perceived as features of nonstandard speech. In Britain, however, “dropped r’s” are characteristic of Received Pronunciation (a.k.a “the Queen’s English”) and are thus considered part of the prestige dialect.

What do these examples tell us about standard and nonstandard features? Are they defined on linguistic grounds or social grounds? Explain your answer.

7. In your opinion, what is the the purpose of having a standard dialect in every language?

8. How might evaluations we make about language and dialects as “good” or “bad” preserve and perpetuate social stereotypes and biases?
(In other words, when people label certain dialects as “good” or “bad,” how might that preserve and perpetuate social stereotypes and biases?)

The reading is the pages before the questions on page 451, use the information being used in that chapter accordingly to answer the questions being asked. Attatched will be a PDF of the reading.