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Article: Linguist defends students against poor-English claims
- Article from:
- The Press
- Article date:
- December 6, 1996
CopyrightCopyright 1996 The Press. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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A university linguist has questioned views of correspondents to
``The Press'' that standards of English have declined.
Kon Kuiper, associate professor of linguistics at the University
of Canterbury, is co-author of ``An Introduction to English
Language'', a text book used by first-year students at several New
Zealand universities. The book is an introduction to the structure
of English, but does not prescribe how English should be used.
Dr Kuiper said language was changing, as everything was, but this
did not mean it was getting worse.
``The critics of language have one thing in common. They are
mostly from the older generation. They don't like things that are
different,'' Dr Kuiper said.
He ...