ABSTRACT
Preparation for linguistically sensitive practice requires that practitioners become aware of some of the common myths about language and its use.
The increasing popularity and prevalence of English is sometimes taken as evidence of its technical superiority over other languages, but there is little evidence to support this view. While English certainly has a larger vocabulary than many languages, much of this is due to the ease with which it has incorporated loan words from other languages. Sociolinguists generally agree that there is little basis for assuming that some languages are intrinsically better than others at performing the communicative functions required in particular societies (Crystal 1987).
