Beliefs About Language

In this chapter we explore a theme that will recur throughout this book: that much of our linguistic behaviour reflects beliefs that we hold about language and about the people who use those languages. Language is a social phenomenon, and the way we use it is shaped by the community in which we live, acquired as part of our socialisation as children (or acculturation as adults). Because we associate languages (and the way that languages are used) with different social groups and the characteristics and values ascribed to those groups, either by themselves or by others, the beliefs that we hold about people come to be attached to the beliefs that we hold about language.