Language Myths chapter 2, 'Some Languages are Just Not Good Enough'
This myth is about language and its range of use. It is discussing whether or not a language is “good enough” to have an international role. It points out that there are several subjective reasons to say that some languages are not good enough. For instance the dislike of people of that particular country, or because they think the language is ugly, rude or barbaric. More serious is the reason that a language is not good enough because you can’t discuss nuclear physics.

I think that if you speak a minority language that you have to treasure that within your community, but that you have to be open-minded that it will not have a big international role. English for instance has expanded its vocabulary in a variety of ways over the centuries so as to meet the new demands. Because it adapted and is not too hard to learn, it has become although not spoken by most people as a first language (Mandarin is) the leading language. Because it is the most secondly spoken language.

The myth states that there are two interwoven misunderstandings about this complaint. First, they call it the ‘dirty fingernails’ fallacy, meaning that journalist are sloppy language users. Second, the garbage heap’ fallacy. Meaning, although not true that journalism is junk writing.  In fact the media are the linguistic mirrors of the society and reflect on the current language and extend it. They are the observers who pick up early on new forms, as a language is always changing,  and spread them to a wider audience.

I agree with the author on this point of view and he uses a really nice metaphor that says it all: “a language, like a thermostat, regulates itself constantly.” (Aitchison, 1998)

Language Myths chapter 5, 'English Spelling is Kattastroffik'
This myth is about the difficulties you can have with the English spelling of words if you don’t have the knowledge about the consistent systems and patterns. To understand the English spelling rules you first have to keep the sounds and the letters separate. If we only look at sounds we will find a very constant pattern. This is the same with some words which are made up of several recognizable building blocks like:  un+reason+able+ness. (four blocks) English spelling often tries to give each of these building blocks a constant spelling. This also occurs with borrowed words to draw attention to the shared meaning and resembles its origin. If we take all this knowledge into account we will see that within these patterns the English spelling of the basic units is constant. But as in every language there are exceptions.

Without saying that the English spelling is easy, I have learnt the about the sounds and the vowel letters and consonant letters and if you understand this system it is a great help for you pronunciation as for your spelling. So: “Is the English Spelling Kattastrofik?” I don’t think so. You just have to learn the rules as with every language. If you understand the rules, you will understand/see the patterns and these will help you in correct spelling and pronunciation.

Language Myths chapter 8, 'Children Can’t Speak or Write Properly Any More'
This articles is about whether or not the language skills are declining. And if so, comparing to what standards, what period etc. The author is very critical on this point and states: ’what has happened is that the modern world requires a much higher level of functional literacy from a greater proportion of the population than the past.’ I agree with the author in this matter. Not just for the language skills, but also in general,  higher standards are expected nowadays. You cannot just compare the 21th century with the 17th century.  Everything has to be put in right prospective. Otherwise you would be comparing apples and oranges. 
However, living in the 21th century with the worldwide web, mobile phones and ‘what’s app language’, ( Just the use of a few letters instead of whole sentences) and everything has to be done quick and fast, I do think we have to pay extra attention to proper use of English, grammar and spelling included. (Milroy, 1998)

http://dramaresource.com/adverb-game/

Language Myths chapter 10, 'Some Language Have No Grammar'
In this Myth Winifred Bauer states that a languages without any grammar is a contradiction in terms.

But what is a language? It is a system of signs and sounds that enables people to communicate based on a set of rules. By using these rules we ae able to understand each other.

In this myth Winifred demonstrates that it is not possible to have a language without grammar by considering what Spelitzian (made up language) would be like if that should be true.

• Firstly there would not be any difference between nouns, verbs, or other words.
• Secondly, if there are no rules of place of the word in a sentence, how can we understand the meaning of the sentence?
• As a result of this statement it would be a language in which you can’t make mistakes, but couldn’t make any sense!?!?
• So it is fair to say that if Spelitzian has to have rules and it can be considered as grammar.

So the only conclusion we can draw up from this is that if we communicate in a language in which we can understand each other, there are grammar rules! (Bauer, 1998)

Language Myths chapter 11, 'Italian is Beautiful, German is Ugly'
This Myth  is about the sounds of different languages and dialects and accents. Which do we like best and why and which ones do we dislike.

According to the myth there are two competing views to take into account:

• Inherent value hypothesis à as the term implies, there are people that claim that some languages (and accents of them) are inherently more attractive than others and is biologically wired into us. For instance the Italian language sounds elegant, sophisticated and lively, French is considered to be romantic, cultured and sonorous.
• Social connotations hypothesis say we favour a view proposing that the pleasantness of a language variety is a time-honoured social convention. (Niedzielski, 1998)
  
  

The conclusion, according to this myth is, that a view about  the beauty and ugliness of languages and dialects are built on cultural norms, pressures and social connotations. I share their point of view in this matter.

Language Myth 13, 'Black Children are Verbally Deprival'

I consider the title of this myth as untruth as African-American and African societies have given the world some very powerful speakers like among others, Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama (America), Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu in South Africa. So it is ironic to find young African-American children described in the educational literature as ‘verbally deprived’.

The basis for the languages differences is historically, socially and linguistically very natural and understandable. According to this myth the speech of a socially subordinate group will always be interpreted as inadequate by comparison with the socially dominant group. 

Moreover, there is indisputable evidence from listener identification judgements that speakers will be identified with the language of their socialized community, not their racial classification. (Wolfram, 1998)

Having this said, I agree on the fact that language differences are highly influenced by social
communities/environments and not by race or anatomical issues. Nowadays I even hear ‘white’ boys talk with an African, a Surinamese or other accent.  That should give you something to think about.

Language Myth 14, 'Double Negatives are Illogical'

In 1986 listeners had been invited to nominate the three points of grammatical usage they most disliked. Double negatives was one of them and seemed to cause a great deal of suffering. Among others the wrote that: “it made their blood boil”, “gave a pain to their ears”.

The reason usually given is logic, referring to mathematics. But if we really want to apply the principles of mathematics to language, we must also consider utterance where there are not two but three negatives. However, this sounds sensible, it isn’t, because we don’t know which negatives are cancel out.

Most languages of the world follow the same pattern and can therefore be considered as a natural pattern for language. Only the RP English have fallen out of favour. (Jenny Cheshire, 1998)

Cheshire concludes, after giving all kinds of explanations, that double negatives are, very definitely, not illogical and I do agree on that. From what I have learned up till now is that the English are very critical on their language in grammar and pronunciation. Even if English is spoken by a foreigner. I don’t listen to language in that way. I rather listen to the message they willing to get across.

Language Myth 15, 'TV Makes People Sound the Same'
This article starts of by saying that from the beginning of recorded history, people have been replacing perfectly serviceable norms in their speech with new ones – in other words: language change is as inevitable as the tides.

People say it is because of the television and mass media, but research learns us that media have no significant effect at all.

J.K. Chambers gives us three reasons to conclude otherwise.

1. The lexical changes based on the media are akin to affectations. They apparently take them as prototypes for other changes in language.
2. If the mass media can popularize words and expressions, the reasoning goes, then presumably they can also spread other kinds of linguistic changes, but there is no evidence for that.
3. Uptalk or high rising terminals- an innovation of the present generation combining high mobility -More people meet face to face across greater distances makes the language to change.(Chambers, 1998)

 
This article changed my point of view as I thought that television would have a big influence. The evidence given in this article and the research of Todd and Aitchison showing that a child of deaf parents but provided with speech through TV kept speechless were very convincing to do so.

Language Myth 18, 'Some Languages are Spoken More Quickly than Others'
This final article within this assignment gives us insight of the judgements we make about how slow or quickly someone is speaking.

Peter Roach tries the scientifically approach by saying that there are three possibilities.

1. Speed or slow talking comes from a natural result of the way their sounds are produced.
2. By the impression of some sort of illusion
3. Preference

But to make a comparing the speed of languages is very difficult, because of long and short words and sounds. The research of Osser and Peng also reveals no real differences between different languages in terms of sounds per second. Concluding the following: that it depends on style of speech, some languages sound stress-timed and others sound syllable-timed. (Roach, 1998)

I think that the outcome, looking at the evidence, is really bizarre as I was convinced that the speed of speaking the different languages would differ! This article gave me much insight and changed my point of view on this matter.