Variation

Language is inherently variable; this applies whether we are talking about
a speaker’s first, second or third language. Yet linguistics in the twentieth
century tended to focus on the invariant and variation was considered to be
a marginal issue. However, focus has increasingly been shifting to variation
in linguistic studies. For instance, in a 2010 article in New Scientist, Kenneally
says that Evans and Levinson (2009) “believe that languages do not share a
common set of rules . . . their sheer variety is a defining feature of human
communications . . . Language diversity is the ‘crucial fact for understanding
the place of language in human cognition.’” Whether or not one agrees that
all languages share a set of rules (Editors’ note, e.g. Universal Grammar; see
Chapters 1, 2, this volume), it is increasingly accepted that variation is an
important aspect of language.