Bilinguals vs. Monolinguals

[Richard Hudson]

In message Thu, 7 Mar 1996 09:09:20 -0800,
  Thomas E Payne <tpayne at OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>  writes:

> ... we
> linguists usually pride ourselves on not passing judgement on one speech
> variety over another. Is the speech of monolinguals necessarily "better"?
> If so, how so? This is a serious question. I too have the sense that we
> "ought" to study the speech of monolinguals. It seems intuitively to be
> "purer", closer to what a grammar claims to describe if it is called "A
> Grammar of X".


dh: Isn't this an example of passing judgement? Can we assume that there's
some pure form of each language `out there', to which some speakers
approximate more closely than others? That's not what my `intuitions' tell
me.

> But are we really justified in this intuition?

dh: I don't think so.
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Prof Richard Hudson                           Tel: +44 171 387 7050 ext 3152
                                             E-mail: r.hudson at ling.ucl.ac.uk
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