Language Variation

Language varies depending on culture, the way it is used pragmatically and social roles. In a language, the way people say something differs the way it is said in other language. For instance: in Spanish people use the word “vomitar” and that is the only way to say it while in English there is many other ways to say that word such as throw up, vomit, puke and other informal words.

Cultural differences have given a big change in the way a language is used. People is constantly migrating from a place to another one, this situation brings a lot of changes in languages. In the United States there is an always new people from different countries migrating there, these people bring their culture, their language, their story and that makes variation in English.

Also social role of children and adults makes an impact on language. The context in which individuals involve such as: school, jobs and technology enriches languages. New words appear through social media as well as gestures, nonverbal signs. People start using new words until it becomes “popular”, other people start using the same words.

A problem that language variation brought is cultural patterns and organizational of schools. According to Pearson in his article “Culture and Language”, ethnicity brings a big variation in language, for instance: in United States there is big difference in the way white and black people speak English. In the past due to the way black people used English such different accent, different structure, different words it caused many problems in society. In 1970 and 1980 people who did not use Standard English were considered verbally deficient.

“Cultural differences, cultural mismatch, between the way children learn at home or among their peers and the ways they are expected to learn at school” (Diaz, Weed 1995).This is an hypothesis which predicts that children tend to succeed when the family values, background and priorities match with the school. In this case children who use Standard English at home tended to succeed in school while children using nonstandard English had more difficulties.

On the other hand, language changes and variation through culture brings great benefits to an idiom. “Culture contributes to general knowledge, behaviors and attitudes about other people for a great communication and relations with other individuals” (Paige, Jorstad.1981). Knowing about the roots of some words helps to enrich the knowledge about background, history and present. An example of some new words are: catfish, hashtag, gamification, Yooper. Understanding the meaning of new words helps to interact with other individuals effectively.

It’s a fact that people tend to simplify language by using abbreviations. This is part of the word we live in. every day new words come up and people get used to it. The way some people write is very different from the past because they tend to simplify many words. One

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