Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 155 views

    Language, Dialects, and Varieties

    Uploaded by

    Mina Shiny
    1) Languages exhibit diversity across geographical regions, social groups, and registers. This diversity can be studied along dimensions of region, socioeconomic factors, and formality. 2) The field of dialectology has shifted from a focus on rural varieties to also include analysis of urban dialects and their relationship to social and linguistic variables. 3) Whether a language variety is considered a distinct language or dialect depends more on political and social criteria than linguistic factors alone, such as mutual intelligibility. Autonomy and heteronomy are particularly important in making this distinction.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Language, Dialects, and Varieties

    Uploaded by

    Mina Shiny
    155 views5 pages
    1) Languages exhibit diversity across geographical regions, social groups, and registers. This diversity can be studied along dimensions of region, socioeconomic factors, and formality. 2) The field of dialectology has shifted from a focus on rural varieties to also include analysis of urban dialects and their relationship to social and linguistic variables. 3) Whether a language variety is considered a distinct language or dialect depends more on political and social criteria than linguistic factors alone, such as mutual intelligibility. Autonomy and heteronomy are particularly important in making this distinction.

    Original Description:

    summary

    Original Title

    LANGUAGE, DIALECTS, AND VARIETIES

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    1) Languages exhibit diversity across geographical regions, social groups, and registers. This diversity can be studied along dimensions of region, socioeconomic factors, and formality. 2) The field of dialectology has shifted from a focus on rural varieties to also include analysis of urban dialects and their relationship to social and linguistic variables. 3) Whether a language variety is considered a distinct language or dialect depends more on political and social criteria than linguistic factors alone, such as mutual intelligibility. Autonomy and heteronomy are particularly important in making this distinction.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    155 views5 pages

    Language, Dialects, and Varieties

    Uploaded by

    Mina Shiny
    1) Languages exhibit diversity across geographical regions, social groups, and registers. This diversity can be studied along dimensions of region, socioeconomic factors, and formality. 2) The field of dialectology has shifted from a focus on rural varieties to also include analysis of urban dialects and their relationship to social and linguistic variables. 3) Whether a language variety is considered a distinct language or dialect depends more on political and social criteria than linguistic factors alone, such as mutual intelligibility. Autonomy and heteronomy are particularly important in making this distinction.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 5

    LINGUISTICS 309 Lecture #2

    LANGUAGE, DIALECTS, AND VARIETIES

    No language is as monolithic as some descriptive grammars suggest.

    Whenever we have sufficient data from a language, we find diversity in all areas of the
    grammar.

    These diversities can be studied along three dimension:

    1. GEOGRAPHICAL ! REGIONAL VARIETIES

    2. SOCIAL ! SOCIOLECTS:

    a. socio-economic status
    b. gender
    c. ethnic group
    d. age
    e. occupation
    f. education
    g. others

    3. FUNCTIONAL ! REGISTERS:

    a. formal
    b. casual
    c. technical
    d. intimate
    e. others

    DIALECTOLOGY:

    Before, its objectives were the collecting and analyzing of data from geographically
    distributed varieties (mainly rural varieties) of a language.

    More recently: the focus has shifted to the analysis of urban varieties of language as they
    relate to social and linguistic factors.

    “LANGUAGE” or “DIALECT” ??

    "
    These terms do not represent clear-cut concepts.

    Traditionally, dialect is defined as follows:

    1
    a. It is a specific form of a given language spoken in a certain geographic
    area.

    b. It differs substantially from the standard of that language (pronunciation,


    grammatical construction, idiomatic usage of words, etc.).

    c. It is not sufficiently distinct to be regarded as a different language.

    Problem: It has often been said that language is a collection of mutually intelligible
    dialects.

    ‘mutually intelligible’ ! this is a linguistic criterion.

    It is less important, than political and social criteria !

    "

    autonomy
    the two most important criteria!
    heteronomy

    AUTONOMY: Independent, standardized variety

    HETERONOMY: Different (non-standardized) varieties

    For example:

    Dutch
    Distinct languages: AUTONOMY!
    German

    But: the dialects spoken on either side of the frontier are very similar; defining whether
    German or Dutch is spoken depends on political rather than linguistic criteria. (p. 31)

    Further examples:
    Norwegian, Swedish, Danish
    Thai, Lao
    Serbian, Croatian
    Chinese
    (pp.30-32)

    Mordvin
    Skolt Saami
    etc.

    2
    ISOGLOSSES: Lines on dialect maps showing the boundaries between two regions
    which differ with respect to some linguistic feature (such as a lexical item,
    pronunciation etc.)

    GEOGRAPHICAL DIALECT CONTINUA

    Dialects on the outer edges of the geographical area may not be mutually intelligible, but they
    will be linked by a chain of mutual intelligibility.

    At no point is there a complete break (with regard to mutual intelligibility); but the cumulative
    effect will be such that the greater the geographical separation, the greater the difficulty in
    comprehending.

    e.g. Italian - French


    Paris ----------> Italian border
    more and more ‘Italian like’

    Rome ----------> French border


    more and more ‘French like’

    European dialect continua:


    Scandinavian
    West Germanic
    North Slavic
    South Slavic
    West Romance

    ‘LANGUAGE’ -- superordinate term: it can be used without reference to dialects.

    ‘DIALECT’ -- subordinate term: it is meaningless unless it belongs to a language.

    X is a dialect of Y (language)
    Y has the dialects X and Z

    But Y is never a language of dialect X.

    EVERY DIALECT IS A LANGUAGE, BUT NOT EVERY LANGUAGE IS A DIALECT

    ___________________

    3
    SPEECH COMMUNITY: the locus of all sociolinguistic investigations (town, nation, club etc.).

    Its members share a particular language (or variety of a language) and the norms (=rules) for the
    appropriate use of their language in social context.

    ‘NORM’ :
    • idealized rather than actual observed behaviour

    • selection and acceptance: social criteria, associated with “power”

    SPEECH COMMUNITIES ARE INDEPENDENT SYSTEMS on the basis of attitudes


    toward the language

    R. Bell Sociolinguistics (1976) lists seven criteria (discussed in our text on


    pp. 33-39):

    1. STANDARDIZATION: The codification and acceptance of a formal set of norms


    defining “correct usage”

    CODIFICATION:
    • developing grammars (prescriptive!)
    • developing dictionaries
    etc.

    ELABORATION:
    • Use of the codified language (in administration, education,
    literature, etc.)

    THE IDEAL GOALS OF A STANDARD LANGUAGE:


    CODIFICATION ! minimal variation in form
    ELABORATION ! maximal variation in function

    Neither codification nor elaboration is self-evident. The community has to agree on the
    SELECTION of norms:
    e.g. of several dialects -- which one should be the standard?

    Stronger resistance ! greater language distance in the speech community.


    There are four aspects of standardization:

    a. selection of norm
    b. codification of form
    c. elaboration of function
    d. acceptance by the speech community

    4
    Examples:

    English
    French
    Norwegian
    Finnish
    (pp. 35-36)

    Standardization is not a property of any language: not all languages have a standard variety.

    STANDARD VARIETY: A characteristic societal treatment of language, given sufficient social


    diversity and need for elaboration.

    2. VITALITY
    3. HISTORICITY
    4. AUTONOMY
    5. REDUCTION
    6. MIXTURE
    7. DE FACTO NORMS

    Study pp. 37-39

    ALL LANGUAGE VARIETIES ARE EQUAL AS LANGUAGES (= linguistic judgement)


    BUT NOT ALL LANGUAGE VARIETIES ARE EQUAL LANGUAGES (= social judgement).

    Examples: /r/ in New York (pp. 164-166)


    /a¨/ vs. /\¨/, /aˆ/ vs. /\ˆ / in Martha’s Vineyard (pp. 197-199)

    Study the following concepts:

    ‘vernacular’
    ‘koiné’
    ‘patois’
    (pp. 40-41, 43-44)

    You might also like