Date: Thu, 20 Nov 1997 14:04:59 -0600 From: "Salikoko S. Mufwene" Subject: Re: vernacular Dennis Preston writes: > >These are some very important issues. I would add to the style and status >senses of vernacular the other 'acquisition' one, namely, the >sociolinguistic 'commonplace' that your vernacular is your 'first learned' >and hence 'strongest' variety. > There are also many instances where a speaker's vernacular is not their first language or mother tongue, but a variety acquired much later--especially those cases in which a speaker's first language has fallen in attrition. This is actually one of the problems with our sublimation of the native speaker's authority in linguistics. Not all native speakers are adequate judges of well-formedness/acceptability of utterances, nor adequate sources of data, although in the majority of cases non-native speakers just do not do any better, except where they are the norm-setters. I agree with your other comments. Sali. ******************************************************* Salikoko S. Mufwene s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu University of Chicago 773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924 Department of Linguistics 1010 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html *******************************************************