Language in Social Contexts

Sociolinguistics

• The sub-discipline of linguistics which investigates social aspects of language

• It aims to look at language in social contexts

• It tries to examine how and why people use language as they interact with other members of their society

Sociolinguistics

• Sociolinguistics also examines variety in language and has shown that language is not merely used to communicate ideas but also to communicate our opinions of others and ourselves(e.g.. even the simplest utterance Hello can reveal that the speaker wishes to be friendly, and that

he/she is probably British, as Americans prefer to say Hi.

Language

• Language is not simply a means of communicating information.

• It is a very important means of establishing and maintaining relationships with other people.

• Probably, the most important thing about the conversation between two people is not the words they are using, but the fact that they are talking.

Fundamental Concepts in Sociolinguistics

• Despite the fact that there are a number of ways of approaching the study of language in social context, there are nevertheless certain terms and concepts that are common to most of them.

Speech Community• All sociolinguistic studies concern language in social

context, treating speakers as members of social groups.

• The group isolated for study is called the speech community.

• Depending on the study, the speech community may have as few members as a family or as many members as China.

• The important characteristic is that the members of the speech community must, in some reasonable way, interact linguistically with other members of the community ; they may share closely related language varieties, they may share attitudes towards linguistic norms, or they may be part of a single political entity.

Speech variety or Language variety

• The term speech variety or language variety refers to any distinguishable form of speech used by a speaker or group of speakers.

• The distinguishing characteristics of a speech variety may be lexical, phonological, morphological, or syntactic; usually they are a combination of these.

• There are speech varieties of 3 types:

a. social speech varieties (social dialects or sociolects)

b. regional speech varieties (regional dialects)

c. functional speech varieties (registers)

Dialects

• Everyone knows that dialects exist, but not everyone knows what dialects are.

• Most people assume that dialect is a negative word, a pejorative description of some language form different from and worse than, their own language.

• A language is composed of what its users say and write. Since each individual’s speech is both unique (idiolectic) and shared with other speakers of the same language, it is inevitable that no one,pure form of a language can exist. Rather many forms exist. These forms are dialects.

Dialects (contd.)

• Two important points about the nature of dialects are :

a. everybody speaks a dialect - or rather many dialects, shifting from one to another without even being consciously aware of doing so. There is no ‘pure’ nondialectic form of any language, and there never has been.

b. social judgment is not the same as linguistic judgment. Linguistically speaking, no dialect is better or worse than any other; all dialects are linguistically equal. Many people have confused the social (prescriptive) and the linguistic (descriptive) levels of judgment.

Dialectology

• The term dialectology is used to refer to the study of regional dialects.

• Modern dialectology began in Europe about a century ago as a result of the interest of historical linguists in observing the spread of sound change.

• The work of dialectologists are often represented in the form of a dialect atlas.

• A dialect atlas contains numerous maps that exhibit regional variation in a language.

Dialect Map

• The boundaries between dialects (and subdialects) are represented on dialect maps.

• They are represented by means of lines called isoglosses.

• Isoglosses are drawn with respect to one feature (usually phonological or lexical).

• The lines are meant to indicate that with respect to the feature or features in question, people on one side share one variant while those on the other side share a different one)(e.g.. air -ayor - ayak ) curtains -blinds)

Occupational Dialects

• Occupational dialects cut across all other types of dialects.

• The lexicon that comes with a particular job will be pretty much the same from region to region, regardless of any other linguistic factors like ethnic background, age or gender.

• All participants in a particular occupation will have much in common linguistically as far as the job is concerned .

• Regional pronunciation may shape the way the sounds come out, but the lexicon will be the same throughout the profession.

Occupational Dialect (contd.)

• When occupational dialect is designed to convey specialized information in a rapid and condensed form from one member of the occupation to another, it is called jargon.

• Jargon is a loan word from French. It first appeared in print in the thirteenth century with the meaning ‘unintelligible language’.

• It is now used in English to denote ‘obscure,specialized language’ or vocabulary peculiar to some field.

Cant

• In some cases, a profession’s jargon may be intentionally obscure, designed to keep non-professionals from understanding. This intentional obscurity is called cant or argot.

• The term cant appeared in English in the early sixteenth century and originally referred to the singing style of beggars.

• It is assumed to have arisen (probably in medieval France) as a verb describing the chanting of mendicant (begging) monks.

• It later came to be used in an overlapping sense with both jargon and argot.

Argot

• The term argot was borrowed from French.

• It first appeared in print in the early seventeenth century when it was used as the label for the secret language of beggars and street merchants.

• As the original argot developed, it came to include some words borrowed from Romany, the language of the Gypsies.

• Later still, it became the secret language of the French underworld.

Sublanguage

• The confusion and ambiguity associated with these terms in popular usage is responsible for the coinage of the new term sublanguage to denote occupational sociolect.

• Sublanguages, are essential to their users. They provide a necessary specialized lexicon by means of which members of a group can communicate efficiently.

• They are highly structures speech varieties with precise communicative functions.

• An important aspect of sublanguages is that their appropriate use is based on an assumption of shared knowledge among the interactants.

Sublanguages (contd.)

• As particular fields make an increasing impact on the majority society, their sublanguages may also supply the standard language with new lexical items or with new senses of existing forms.

• The computer for example, has recently enriched Standard English with a number of lexical items.

• Among these are boot,byte,bit,software,crash and program.

• Condominium, a term previously limited to legal and political discourse and meaning ‘a type of co-ownership’, has recently entered standard English with a somewhat different meaning (in addition to those it previously had): a single unit in a collectively owned multi-unit complex of apartments or townhouses.

Slang

• Slang is a label that is frequently used to denote certain informal usages of nearly anyone in the speech community.

• The term was first attested in English in the mid-eighteenth century, used in reference to ‘special vocabulary used by any set of persons of a low or disreputable character; language of a low and vulgar type.

• In the twentieth century, it is often applied to aspects of the language of adolescents e.g.. neato, super, cool, groovy.

Registers

• The varying speech behaviors adopted in response to social contexts are called registers.

• (If written , such behaviors are called styles)

• Every speaker has a repertory of several registers, and most speakers learn, as they acquire language from infancy on, what value society places on each of these registers.

• The value attached to any given register will vary from one social group to another: what group favors, another may regard with distaste.

Registers (contd.)

• Acknowledging this general pattern of constant, unconscious adaptability to speech situations, we may describe a common classification system for five registers.

• The classification is based on the experiential awareness all speakers have, in varying degrees, of the appropriateness of this or that linguistic behavior in this or that setting.

• Broadly speaking, the repertory of sociolinguistic registers ranges from formal to intimate.(i.e. from the most ceremonious social context calling for the most ceremonial speech to the least guarded and closest context)

Registers (contd.)

1. Frozen (the most ceremonial register is the oratorical. In writing , it belongs to important public documents

such as the Constitution. It is the most conservative style, favoring languages patterns ‘forzen’ by centuries of precedent. It never uses slang,fad words or buzz words. In speech , it is the mode of public address on very ceremonial and rutualized occasions.)

2. Deliberative (not quite so formal is the deliberative rregister. In writing, this style is usually called

‘formal’ Professional publications use this style. In speech, the deliberative register is used in public addresses that are not quite so time-honoured in their ceremonial aspectse.g. sermons,).

3. Consultative (in the middle, between frozen and intimate, is the consultative level. Most business

letters, newspaper and magazime articles are written in this style. Spoken consultation typically involves an exchange of dialogue rather than a speech, but it is the sort of exchange thakes place during business meetings.

4. Casual (the casual level appears in some written material, but usually as flavoring in an otherwise

consultative style. Mostly, this is a spoken register carried on in an informal situation, between speakers of equivalent or equal rank.

5. Intimate (most informal of all is the intimate register. This rarely shows up in print. Intimacy adds

to the casual level a closeness of acquaintance between the speakers.)

Language and Sex

• Language use may vary depending on the sex of the user

• There may be differences in language use associated with the sex of the speaker or the person spoken to

• There may be differences in language use associated with the sex of the person spoken about

Researchers in sociolinguistics have identified twoways in which language is differentiated according to the sex of the speaker:

1. sex - exclusive differentiation2. sex - preferential differentiation

Sex - Exclusive Differentiation• Sex-exclusive differentiation refers to the radically

different speech varieties men and women possess in a particular society

• In some societies, a woman or man may not normally be allowed to speak the variety of the other sex. It is in this sense that the varieties are sex-exclusive

Sex--Preferential Differentiation

• Sex preferential differentiation is much more common in the languages of the world than is sex exclusivity

• This phenomenon is reflected in the relative frequency with which men and women use the same lexical items or other linguistic features

Politics and Language

• In countries with substantial populations speaking different languages, there may be a need for more than one standard language

• Such countries often have designated official languages, which are recognized by the government for regional and national use

English• On a global scale, English has increasingly

become the chief international language of communication

• The more English is used for communication between persons who use it as a second language, the less their own languages are used

• It is to avoid the loss of their indigenous languages that many governments take action either by limiting the use of foreign languages (such as English)

Multilingualism• There is a great deal of variation in nations

of the world with regard to language situations

• At one extreme are countries such as Iceland and Portugal in which almost everybody speaks the same language

• Then, there are countries in which there is one dominant language spoken by a good-sized majority of the nation, but in which there are notable linguistic minorities

Sociolinguistics• Sociolinguistics then, is that part of

linguistics which is concerned with language as a social and cultural phenomenon

• It investigates the field of language and society and has close connections with the social sciences, especially social psychology, anthropology, human geography, and sociology

Conclusion

... it is clear that

the causes on which

linguistic facts depend

must be social in nature ...

Antione Meillet