2.1.1
Varieties of Language
The term VARIETY OF LANGUAGE can be used to refer to
different manifestations of it, just the same way as one might take ‘music’ as
a general phenomenon and then distinguish different ‘varieties of music’. What make
one variety o language different from another are linguistic items that it includes,
so we may define a variety of language as a set of linguistic items with
similar social distribution.
Thus a variety can be much smaller than a ‘language’
or even than a ‘dialect’. The defining characteristic of each variety is the
relevant relation to society-in other words, by whom and when the items concerned
are used.
2.1.2 Speech Communities
The term speech community is widely used by
sociolinguistic to refer to community based on language, but linguistic
community is also used with the same meaning. If speech communities can be delimited,
they than can be studied, and it may be possible to find interesting
differences between communities which correlate with differences in their
language.
2.2 Languages
2.2.1
Language and Dialect
A variety called a language contains more items than
one called a dialect. This the sense in which we may refer to English as a
language, containing the sum total of all the terms in all its dialects, with ‘Standard
English’ as one dialect among many others (Yorkshire English, Indian English,
etc).
The other contrast between ‘language’ and ‘dialect’
is question of prestige, a language having prestige which a dialect lacks.
The
others example of Dialects:
Said:
I want to take a bath
Bugis
Makassar ( Erokka’ je’ne)
Bugis
Languages Bugis Pinrang
( meloka’
dio)
Bugis Enrekang
( Meloaaa’
mingio)
Bugis Soppeng ( Maelo’ka cemme)
2.2.2
Standard Language
Standard languages are the result of a direct and
deliberate intervention by society. This invention, called ‘standardization’
produce a standard language where before there were just ‘dialects’.
The
notion ‘standard language’ is somewhat imprecise, but a typical standard
language will have passed through the following process (Haugen 1966; for a
somewhat different list, see Garvin & Mathiot 1956).
1.
Selection. Somehow or other a particular variety must have
been selected as the one to be developed into a standard language. It may be an
existing variety, such as the one used in an important political or commercial
center, but it could be an amalgam of various varieties.
2.
Codification. Some agency such as an academy must have written
dictionaries and grammar books to fix the variety, so that everyone agrees on
what is correct.
3.
Elaboration of
foundation. it must be possible
to use the selected variety in all the functions associated with central
government and with writing, for example in parliament and law courts, in
bureaucratic, various forms of literature.
4.
Acceptance. The variety has to be accepted by the relevant
population as the variety of the community. Usually, in fact, as the national
language. the standard language serves as a strong unifying force for the state
as a symbol of its independence of other states (assuming that its standard is
unique and not shared with others) and as a marker of its difference from other
states.
2.2.3
The Delimitation of Languages
In principle this distinction is an absolute one:
either a variety is a standard language, or it is not. (It is clear, however,
that some languages are more standard than others, for instance, standard
French has been more rigidly codified than Standard English).
For Example: in comparison with variety a chosen variety may be large,
yet compared with another it may be small. The variety containing all items
used in Britain Looks large compared with the variety consist of all the items
used in any of the English Speaking countries.
This is a widely criterion, but it cannot be taken
seriously because there are such serious problems in its applications.
1. Even popular usage.
2. Mutual intelligibility is matter of degree, ranging
from total intelligibility down to the total intelligibility.
3. Varieties may be arranged.
4. Mutual intelligibility is not really a relation
between varieties, but between people since it are they, and not the varieties,
that understand one another.
In conclusion, mutual
intelligibility does not work as a criterion delimiting languages ‘size’ sense.
There is no other criterion which is worth considering as an alternative, so we
must conclude (with Matthews 1979) that there
is no real distinction to be drawn between ‘language’ and ‘dialect’. (except
with reference to prestige, where it would be better to use the term ’standard
language’ or just ‘standard’, rather than just ‘language’).
2.2.4
The Family Tree Model
A
convenient way of representing the relationship among varieties is in terms of
the family tree model, which was
developed in the nineteenth century as an aid in the historical study of
languages (for an excellent discussion, Bynon 1977:63). This model allows one
show how closely number varieties spoken at present are related to another.
That is how far each has diverged from others as a result of historical
changes.
For
instance, one might take English, Germany, Welsh, French, and Hindi as in
figure 2.1; one can show that English is most closely to Hindi. (For a fuller
picture of the relations among these and many others ‘indo-European’ languages.
Chinese has been added to show that is not related at all to other languages.
 |
English German Welsh French Hindi Chinese
2.3 Dialects
When there are systematic differences in the way
different groups speak a language, we say that each group speaks a dialect of
that language. Dialects are mutually intelligible from of language that
differs in systematic ways. Every speaker, whether rich or poor, regardless of
religion or racial origin, speaks at least one dialect, just as each individual
speaks an idiolect. A dialect is not an inferior or degraded form of language,
and logically could not be so because a language is a collection of dialects.
2.3.1
Regional Dialect and Isoglosses
Dialect diversity develops when people are separated
geographically and socially. The changes that occur in the language spoken in
one area or group do not necessarily spread to another. Within a single group of
speakers who are in regular contact with one another, the changes spread and
are acquired by children.
2.3.2
Diffusion and the Wave Theory
The
wave theory explains why isoglosses intersect by postulating different
geographical foci for spread of different items. The isogloss between two items
like farm with and without the /r/ shows where the influence of one item stops
and the other takes over; on the assumption between two items like farm with and without the /r/ shows
where the influence of one item stops and the other takes over; on the
assumption isogloss marks the furthest points which the influences of the new
item is no reason why innovations leading to any two different isoglosses
should have started in the same place or for that matter in the same period. So
there is no particular reason why their isoglosses should not intersect.
2.3.3
Social Dialects
There are two main sources of extra complexity. Firstly,
geographical mobility. People move from one place to another, taking their
dialects with them even they if modify them in the course of time to fit their
new surroundings. The second source of complexity is the fact that geography is
only one of the relevant factors, others being social class. Dialectologist,
therefore, speak of Social, Dialects, or Sociolects to refer non-regional
differences.
All
I have done in this section is to introduce the terms ‘social dialects’ and ‘accent’,
pointing out that there are linguistic differences between speakers which are due
not only to geography but also to others social factors. The problems with
delimiting regional dialects can also no doubt be paralleled for social
dialects, and indeed.
2.3.4
Types of Linguistic Item
In that pronunciation is less liable to
standardization. Given the special connection between standardization and
writing, and the fact that standardization needs not extent to pronunciation. It
would not be surprising if this were so, though it may not be.
For Example: despite the manifest influence of the United States on
Britain, its influence on Britain English is restricted almost entirely to
vocabulary and appears to have had no at all on the pronunciation of even the
most susceptible groups, such as teenagers (Radio, disc-jockey, and pop singers
are complex and interesting exceptions).
The
pronunciation and other items play different roles in the individual’s acts of
identify to which we referred above. For instance, it could be that we use
pronunciation in order to identify our origins (or to imply that we originated
from some group, whether we really did or not – compare British people who
acquire an RP accent late in life with the black middle class Detroit youths
who for some reason acquired a lower class accent early in life). In contrast,
we might use morphology, syntax, and vocabulary in order to identify our current
status in society.
2.4 Registers
2.4.1
Registers and Dialects
The term REGISTER is widely used in
sociolinguistics to refer to ‘varieties accord to use’, in contrast with
dialects, defined as ‘varieties according to user’. We can interpret register
differences in terms of the model of acts of identify in much the same way as
for dialect differences.
In conclusion, we have now developed a model
language which is radically different from the one based on the nation
‘variety’. In the latter, any given text may reasonably be expected to
represent just one variety. And for any given variety it is possible to write a
grammar, a description covering all types of linguistics item found in text
which represents that variety.
We
may call this the variety-based model, in contrast with the item based model
which developed so far in this book. In the latter model, each linguistics
items are associated with a social description which says who uses it, and
when. The social descriptions of different items need not, and do not, all
refer to the same factors, so within a single sentence some items. May reflect
the speaker’s region of origin, others his social class, others to relation the
addressee, others the formality of the occasion, and so on.
2.4.2
Convention and Necessity
The distinction between conventional and necessary
social restriction is also interesting social restrictions is also interesting
in view of the strength of feeling which the former arouse. There is a very
powerful a convention which says that convention which says that certain words,
such as shit, ought never to be used, and many people know these words but observe
the convention to the extent that from birth to death they never say them (not
even to report that their children have said them) a truly amazing fact, seen
objectively.
2.4.3
Diglossia
It is a relatively stable language situation in
which, in addition to the primary dialects of the language (which may include a
standard or regional standards ), there is a very divergent, highly codified
(often grammatically more complex) superposed variety, the vehicle of a large
and respected body written literature, either of an earlier period or in
another speech community, which is learned largely by formal education and in
used for most written and formal spoken purposes but is not used by any sector
of the community for ordinary conversation.
For Example: in Arabic-speaking
diglossic community, the language used at home is a local version of Arabic (There
may be very differences between one dialect of Arabic and another, to the
mutual incomprehensible) with little variation between the educated and the
least educated speakers.
2.5 Mixture of Varieties
2.5.1
Code-switching
In this section, we shall use the term ‘variety’ to
refer to the kind of thing which is traditionally referred to as a language,
dialect, or register. However there are yet more reasons for not taking the
notion seriously as a part of sociolinguistics theory, since so called
varieties may be hopelessly mixed up together in the same stretch speech. The
most obvious and widespread example of this is what is called-code-switching,
in which a single speaker uses different varieties at different things.
2.5.2 Borrowing
In contrast with code-switching, this does not in
fact involve any change of variety when such an item is used in English sentence.
It is common for items to be assimilated in some
degree to the items already in the borrowing variety, with foreign sounds being
replaced by native sounds and so on.
For instance: The word restaurant
lost its uvular r when it was borrowed French into English, so that it would occur
with a uvular r in an English sentence only as an example of code switching. On
the other hand, assimilation need not be total, and in restaurant many English
speaker still have a nasal vowel at the end, which would not have been there
had the word not been borrowed from French.
2.5.3
Pidgins
The other language or languages contribute
marginally to the lexicon and grammar. A language cobbled together in such a
way is known as Pidgins. Although pidgins are in some sense rudimentary, they
are not devoid of rules.
It may be helpful to bring together some
characteristics of pidgins which distinguish them from other types of variety
and variety-mixture.
1.
A pidgin based
on variety x is not just an example of ‘bad’ x.
2.
A pidgin is not
simply the result of heavy borrowing from one variety into another.
3.
A pidgin, unlike
ordinary languages, has no native speakers, which is a consequence of the fact
that it is used only for communication between members of different
communities, where no ordinary variety is available as a link.
2.5.4 Creoles
The study of pidgins and creoles has contributed a
great deal to our understanding of the nature of human language and the
genetically determined constrains on grammars.
From a special point of view, creoles are of more
interest than pidgins for three reasons:
Firstly,
there are more speakers of creoles than of pidgins, one estimates being between
10-17 million speakers of creoles compared with between 6-12 million regularly
using pidgins.
Secondly,
most creoles languages are spoken by the descendents of African slaves and are
f great interest, both two their speakers and to others. As one of the main
sources information on their origins, and as a symbol of their identity.
Thirdly,
there are minority groups, such as West Indian immigrants in Britain, Whose
members speak some Form of Creoles.
References:
·
Labov, W. (2001). Principles of Linguistic
Changes: Social Factors. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
·
Hudson. Richard A (2011). Sociolinguistics: Varieties of Language,
21-79. Cambridge University Press.
·
Fromkin. Victoria, Rodman. Robert &
Hymas, Nina (2007). An Introduction to
Language: Language and Society, 409-436. University of California & North California State University.
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