Short Essay Questions
Short Essay Questions
Short Essay Questions
General Instructions
Write the essay item below with a precise answer of no less than one page and no more than
three pages. The essay must have Cover page. All answers must be typed with a #12 font,
double-spaced, and contain one inch margins.
As speakers of a language, we vary our speech depending upon whom we are speaking to.
Try this simple experiment. Find a person that you are close to--spouse, child, or significant
other--and in your next conversation speak in complete and grammatical sentences. You
should observe a reaction of some sort in a short period of time. Keep up this behavior for a
little while.
After you finish, tell your subject what you were doing and ask him/her to explain the
reaction that he/she had.
Write up the results of your study and include the following:
How long did you speak the way that you did?
Describe the setting you were in when you did the study ( for example, at the dinner
table).
What was your subject's reaction?
What explanation did your subject give for his/her reaction?
Is your subject's explanation adequate?
Why do you think that your subject reacted the way he/she did?
What have you learned about the way that you normally speak to people that you are
close to?
Address each of the statements and questions below about standard and non-standard
dialects.
List the six people with whom you communicate most frequently. Designate yourself "A" and
draw lines from A to the other six people. Now draw lines between those of the six who
communicate frequently with each other.
What are some of the independent variables used by sociolinguistics? Explain why the same
independent variables are not of equal importance in all societies.
What are some of the consistebt patterns of variation that have been found? For example,
what is the relationship between the prestige variant of a variable and socio-economic class?
What are some of the grammatical differences between the language of men and
women that have been revealed in linguistic research?
In your own words briefly describe two of the possible explanations for these
grammatical differences.
In your opinion, is one of them more plausible than the other? Why?