Talk:Idiolect

message: What if somebody speaks several languages? Are they different idiolects or are they one idiolect? -- Error
:I'd guess several, but I think multilingualism and code-switching generally could complicate matters a lot. 惑乱 分からん 14:37, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Multi-lingual?

message: To my knowledge, Che Guevara's use of "Che" is not an idiolect, but rather Argentine slang.  Or was there more to it? --Bletch 19:17, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Che Guevara 

message: I have revised the section Idiolect and language to bring it closer to the understanding of the relationship between idiolect and language in linguistics. This is not my primary area of expertise, though, so attention from other linguists or students of linguistics is welcome. I've also tried to remove some of the more technical jargon, but if the article is still too technical, say so. Cnilep (talk) 21:11, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revision - July 2009 

message: I think it's odd that neither Wikipedia for Idiolect nor Eye Dialect comment on the other. Is this needed? ButterSoda (talk) 03:21, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not obvious to me why you think the two pages need to comment on one another. The concepts are not closely related. Idiolect is (a theoretical model of) an individual's language ability, especially the ability to speak or sign, or an individual's pattern of language output. Eye dialect is a literary technique for representing non-standard dialects via non-standard spelling. Cnilep (talk) 04:35, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: To me it's obvious that ButterSoda is referring to a possible confusion of /aɪˈdaɪəlɛkt/ and /ˈɪdiəlɛkt/. Fridek (talk) 19:21, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguation with "Eye Dialect" near intro? 

message: This is a suggested edit to help this article as per the following:
* Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style, " Plain English works best; avoid ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording."  
* Wikipedia:Writing_better_articles#Opening_paragraph, "The opening paragraph summarizes the most important points of the article..."  
* Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Technical_language, "Avoid excessive wikilinking (linking within Wikipedia) as a substitute for parenthetic explanations such as the one in this sentence.   Do not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader when more common alternatives will do."  
The first couple sentences are too wordy, such as "as manifested by the patterns of", so that text was tightened as copyediting. 
The entire second sentence referring to language production moves away from the fundamental concept of an idiolect as a concept of observable phenomena... it moves in an oblique direction towards uncertain and debatable "underlying" language processes.  This line is off track for a lead-paragraph-summary of a simple concept.  This concept is not addressed more in-depth in the article, so while it might be suitable to discuss, it is not suitable for the lead paragraph.  It would be more fundamental to the term "idiolect", for example, to introduce that the meaning of it refers to a spectrum of meaning: as a self-contained totality of an individual's language or as a differential relative to the person's dialect.  Or that it's usefulness as a term is itself questionable.  These ideas could then be expanded in the article.
Per the reference to Variety_(linguistics).  As per above, this is wikilinking as a substitute for a specialized definition which a general audience member would not be familiar with.  It's too easy for a general audience to confuse this term with standard english.  Furthermore, as a lead paragraph which summarizes a topic, the concept of "variety" should be expanded in the main article but it is not.  I kept "variety" in article, but it could arguably be put back into the lead paragraph.
Finally, describing "linguists disagree.." or "mathematicians disagree..." is often a misrepresentation.  Scratch any concept and surely one will eventually find disagreement.  But is it disagreement or more like different perspectives, as in Variety_(linguistics)#Idiolect:
* Scholars "disagree" on the definition of idiolect.  OR
* For scholars who view language from the perspective of linguistic competence, essentially the knowledge of language and grammar that exists in the mind of an individual language user, the idiolect is a way of referring to this specific knowledge. For scholars who regard language as a shared social practice, idiolect is more like a dialect with a speech community of one individual
The article still needs some work, for sure.  I hope these changes can be seen not as an absolute final, but rather as a step in a good direction toward some stylistic and content ideas for balancing the first paragraph with the rest of the text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CoolHandLouis (talk • contribs) 18:44, 11 March 2014‎
:(, you may want to check out Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. In a nutshell: if another editor reverts your additions, do not re-add them until discussion on the talk page reaches some consensus. The text you added at 18:32 on 11 March was the exact same text that I removed at 5:43. Oh, and please sign your talk page comments by typing ~~~~.)
:To the substance: I agree with the main point suggested, that the article needs work and the descriptions should be made more easily understandable. This is, after all, an encyclopedia for general readers, not a text for students of linguistics. That said, the changes suggested some things that, I think, are inconsistent with general consensus or state of the art in linguistics. For example, the prose suggested that an individual as "a dialect" and (separately?) "an idiolect". That is simply not correct. (It also said that dialects are either regional or class-based, ignoring sociolinguistic studies of age, gender, ethnicity, or other variables, but that's a bit beyond the scope of this discussion.)
:The article is at present incomplete. A better way forward may be to seek out treatments of idiolect in tertiary sources such as text books and to summarize those facts in the body of the article. Then the lead section could be written to summarize the information in the article's sections. It is important for a good article to be readable, certainly, but also factually accurate, broad in coverage, and verifiable in all specifics. Cnilep (talk) 23:46, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  First Paragraph Issues