Linguistic theories distinguish between human faculty for language, for any language, and the realization of that capacity through the use of particular language in particular situations. There exists a fundamental contradiction between the linguist's endorsement of the human faculty for language that inevitably emerges equally in all of us and the popular belief of the different worth of varying ways of speaking. Regrettably, this latter belief is as unfortunate as it is real. While linguists have to contend with the political realities of labeling speech as languages and dialects, as standard languages or jargons, as mixed or not, there is no room in their theory for degrees of adequacy for the human language faculty. It is a matter of dogma in linguistics that human beings have the same potentials for expression and that capacity for language matures fully in each individual (with the exception of individuals who have been raised in inhumane conditions) and it finds its realization – its expression -- in an individuals' proficiency of use of some variety of language. There is no contradiction between this dogma, with its implication that varieties of language are adequate for the purposes of expression to which they have been put, and the obvious fact that individuals a) conform to social norms that also embrace language expression and b) strive for better expression to suit particular purposes of expression. What then should these norms be and what is better expression?
In this note, I will attempt some partial answers. My main point will be that individuals will accomplish adequate communication quite happily through participation in communicative interaction that is meaningful to them. I base this point on my fundamental belief that learners as any other communicating individuals manage their speaking so as to note and adjust inadequacies, relative to the interactive situation they find themselves in.[Copyright of Hong Kong Teachers' Centre Journal is
