A historical review of theories of persuasion and its relationship to such areas as argument and propaganda indicates a number of inherent weaknesses in the definitions and taxonomies which have been proposed. Definitions and classifications have been sometimes circular in nature, have reflected the special interests of their authors, have been…

This paper discusses difficulties in defining Standard American English, and the question of whether there is a need to define it. Several theories on why such a dialect should be defined are described. These are: the "propriety" theory, the "psychological" theory, the "power and prestige" theory, and the "better tool" theory, the "psychological"…

This paper discusses the problem of language standardization in education. The areas to which standardization may refer - phonology, spelling, punctuation, grammar and lexicon - are discussed, and problems associated with efforts to standardize them in schools are pointed out. The position taken is that a decision to promote language standards…