Language expresses our identity and reflects who we are, and who we want to be. Every time we speak, we give listeners information about ourselves and where we're from. When we travel around the United States we often hear people ask: Oh, are you from New York/Chicago/Texas? Their guesses might be based on our phonology(also called accent)or on our choice of particular vocabulary.
Interestingly, many of us consider our way of speaking to be neutral(无倾向性的). It's hard for us to hear features of our own speech that might be obvious to people who speak other dialects(方言). Language experts use the term dialect to mean" a variety shared by a group of speakers". Bus drivers, teachers, your neighbors, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and you(whether you know it or not)speak a dialect, too.
And why? The answer depends on who you are and where you live. We all recognize that some language sounds pleasant or correct or cool to us-and some sounds" uneducated" or just plain bad.
Learning what we feel about language is important to society for a number of reasons. Often, children who speak non-standard dialects may be inaccurately classified as" not knowing much English "or even" having a speech defect(缺陷)", with terrible consequences for them. Or people who regularly mix words or phrases from more than one language within sentences are thought to be unable to speak the languages very well. (But usually the opposite is true.)
Studying language helps us learn about the remarkable resources of the human brain. It also helps us examine a form of social stereotyping we may not have been aware existed.
A. There are also many other reasons.
B. Or at least, where are you from?
C. It helps us learn more about social organization.
D. Clearly, they know everything about us.
E. With so many dialects, which one is the best?
F. By this definition, everyone speaks a dialect.
G. But one person's thumbs down is another's thumbs up.
