This paper focuses on the roles and functions that English based vernaculars play in contemporary society and reviews literature pertinent to that topic. Areas considered include (1) societal behavior toward language, (2) language as a group marker, and (3) the contextual parameters of language use. In the discussion of societal behavior toward…

Both teachers and learners assume that to know a language, an individual need only learn its vocabulary and grammar. The correct use of common collocations, formulas, and idioms is the skill that makes language fluent, natural, and comprehensible. These formulaically constructed phrases that are not assembled by rule but recalled from memory are…