Factors Reinforcing the Bar in the Present Day

Abstract

If the lexical bar were no more than an historical detail, resident in the language over centuries but maintained by forces no longer operating, its contemporary effect would be a trivial one. Its implications for education and society would be slight and its marks on the English language would be rapidly disappearing. Linguistic evolution would have homogenized even the most distant vocabularies of English. Yet this has not been the case for some sociocultural group vocabularies, as studies reported in later chapters show. There are clear contemporary factors, operating in the language and among its users, that combine to maintain and reinforce the bar and its effects.