1. Bridging the gap Richard Hudson Giessen 2008

2. Norms in linguistics • Closely tied to group membership • Requires a great deal of inefficient detail: • irregular verbs • fine phonetic detail • stylistic homonyms • distinct languages in multilingual communities • Conflicts with communication across group boundaries

3. Norms in education • Education goes beyond ‘natural’ learning. • It extends a child’s natural repertoire. • 5,000 words at age 5, • growing @ 1K per year, so • projected to 18,000 at 18 • but education produces 50,000 at age 18 • Linguists are highly educated, so no linguist speaks a ‘natural’ language!

4. Norms in culture • Culture distinguishes many different communities • a ‘multidimensional social space’ • Each one may have its own linguistic markers • BUT: communities must communicate • Community markers make communication harder.

5. The problem • Communities are important, and so are their markers: • pronunciation details • entire languages • But these markers prevent communication.

6. The solution Education in: • tolerance • expanded repertoire • communication strategies