An introduction into sociolinguistics

It appeared in the 1930, it’s the combination of sociology and linguistic to study the social aspect of
language. Peter Trudgill defined “is that part if linguistics which is concerned with language as a
social and cultural phenomenon”

What is Sociolinguistics?

Sociolinguistics is the study of a language in relation to society; it’s a part of the study of language.
Scientists found that there is a contrast between Sociolinguistic and Sociology of Language...

Sociolinguistic: its main focus is “society on language”.

Sociology of Language: its main focus is “languages effects on society”.

Micro/ Macro– Sociolinguistics

*Micro-sociolinguistics: its focused in dialect and register variation. It’s phonological differences
between dialects and discourse variation between male and female speakers.

*Macro-sociolinguistics: looks at the behaviours of entire speech communities, exploring issues such
us why immigrant communities retain their native language in social contexts but no in others, or how
social identity can affect language choice.

Language Four Criteria

1/Mutual Intelligibility: a situation in which two or more speakers of a language (or of closely related
languages) can understand each other. E.g. native speakers in English vary in their use of the
language, their various languages are similar enough in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar to
permit mutual intangibility.

2/Historicity: the development of a language form the mother language by having its own
phonological and morphological functions which is differs from the same source.

3/Standardisation: is the most determinant factor in the distinction between a language and dialect.
The Standard language that is used in official and prestigious situation, e.g. education, government and
mass media (for those who hold powerful positions in society)

4/Autonomy: such as Standard English can be set to be autonomous and independent. Speakers of such
language use it as referent language (they listen to it on T.V, radio, read and write in it).

Language Types

I. Dialect refers to social variety of language, distinguished in pronunciation, grammar, and lexis
from the Standard language variety.

Regional Dialect: its variety of language spoken in particular region, it’s studied by geographers who
used to draw lines or isogloss1 on maps.

Social Dialect: a variety of speech associated with a particular social class within a society, it’s
differing from Standard variety and associated with working class and low-status group. It seems as an
obstacle to social success.
1
Isogloss: is a line on a map that separates places where a particular feature of a language is different.
* (Common use with all society members and it may have ‘public prestige’) the range of dialect
depends on the inter-group communication in turn conditioned by social attitude.

II. Accent is a certain form of a language spoken by a subgroup of speakers of that language
which is defined by phonological features.

* Everyone has an accent, just everyone speaks a dialect. It’s not a question of “having” or “not
having” an accent or dialect, it’s a question of which accent or dialect you speak with.

- A clear illustration the accent known as R.P.

- R.P is a non-localized accent.

- It occurs only with Standard English.

- It shows no dialectal variation.

- It has a high social prestige in the English speaking world.

- It’s not necessary to speak R.P to speak Standard English.

III. Register is a variety of a language used for particular purposes in society. We can classified it
according to three dimensions:
1. Field of Discourse: the domain of language use.
2. The Mode of Discourse: the spoken or the written language.
3. The Style of Discourse: formal or informal language.

IV. Idiolect Sapir said “an idiolect is largely a reflection of one’s personality” each individual has
a stock of favourites experiences which he uses it then others.

Standard English (StE): is the form of the English language widely accepted as the usual correct form
(written and spoken form) StE codified grammar and vocabulary; it has much more status and prestige
than any other English dialect.

* It’s important to realise that Standard English is in no way intrinsically superior to any other variety
of English: in particular, it is not more ‘logical’, it is a conveniences learned by speakers everywhere,
misunderstanding and communicative difficulty generally.

Standard Arabic: Arabic language has been replaced by numerous indigenous as result of French
colonisation and what emerging the symbol of Arab identity.

The Standard French was imposed by the French coloniser; once independence was achieved the three
nations introduced language reforms promoting Arab authenticity. But the French language and
culture is still effected our society whereas the reform of the Arabic language reform proceeded
gradually.

Bilingualism the use of the second language L1 and L2, by an individual speaker or speech
community.

Wainreich (1953) defines is as “the practise of a using alternately two languages”.

Haugen (1954) explains it as “being someone who knows two languages”.

Widdouson (1987) he defines language use as “the manifestations of one’s knowledge of the language
system, in order to achieve some kind of communicative purposes”.

* Active Ability: the ability to use both languages equally well, in that case, we call it balanced
bilingualism.

* Passive Ability: the understanding of both languages but speaking only one correctly and not
reading, no writing in either language. In that case, it’s called unbalanced.

N.B: We conclude that there is no ideal perfect and true or pure bilingualism.

Code Switching

Def: is a mixing words or phrases from two tongues together during the course of speech or writing.

Who ‘code switchers’? It is widely used in multilingual and multicultural communities.

Types of C.S it occurs within or at the end or beginning of sentences.

1) Inter-sentential Switching: it occurs unconsciously, and fills in unknown or unavailable terms

in one language. Also known as ‘Code-Mixing’.
2) Intra-sententional Switching: the shift is done in the middle of a sentence with no
interruptions or pauses transferring from one language to another (Conscious switch).

What has been said about C.S “Possible applications of code switching in educational contexts in
bilingual community” He finds its function is to bring an authenticity to conversation and to help the
reader better deduce the ideas being communicated. (Sert, 2006)

Factors that influence C.S

- No similar words in English. - Did not know the English word.

- To fill the gap in speaking. - Easier to speak on own language.

- To avoid misunderstanding. - To add emphasis.

So is it a Good or a Bad thing? It is provides the continuity in speech. The C.S can be seen as a
supporting element in communication of information and in social interaction as a mean for
transference of meaning.

Diglossia

Ferguson’s original formulation: Ferguson originally summarized diglossia (1959: 435) as follows:

DIGLOSSIA is a relatively (1) stable language situation in which, in addition to the primary
dialects of the language (which may include a standard or regional standards), there is (2) a very
divergent, highly codified (often grammatically more complex) superposed variety, the vehicle of a
large and (3) respected body of written literature, either of an earlier period or in another speech
community, (4) which is learned largely by formal education and is used (5) for most written and
formal spoken purposes but (6) is not used by any section of the community for ordinary conversation.
In all these societies there’re two distinctive varieties:

One variety is used only in formal and public occasions, while the other is used by everybody under
normal everyday circumstances.

So Diglossia is a term coined by Ferguson and initially it was used in connection with a society that
recognised two or more languages, for ultra-societal that communication i.e. the use of several quote
within a symbol society and there’s a functional separation between them as way of summery
Ferguson’s definition is. He called the superposed variety the high (H), and the regional variety the
low (L).

Marçais Definition: The judgement of Marçais’s paper “La Diglossie Arab” (1930) and his definition
are based on its own observation and research in North Africa. This paper was followed by another in
(1931) entitled “La Langue Arab Dans L’Afrique Du Nord”, in which he describes in three different
sections, Arabic diglossia as it obtained at the time, in the three North Africa Countries: Algeria,
Morocco and Tunisia, where especially in Algeria classical Arabic “was in a serious regression”
Marçais under fore was limited to written functions. “The Arabic Language appears...under 2
perceptively different aspects:

(1) A literary language so-called written Arabic...or regular, or literal, or classical. The only one that
had always and everywhere been written in the past, and the only one in which still today are written
literary or scientific works, newspaper articles, judicial act, private letter. In a word everything that’s
written, but which exactly as it has perhaps never been spoken anywhere and which in any case is not
spoken now anywhere, spoken idioms, patois.

(2) None of which has never been written...but which everywhere when but it perhaps are the only
language of conversation in all popular and cultured circles.”

Two points emerged, one there’re two relatives but distinct forms of Arabic. Two each varieties fulfils
special functions. Marçais links this specialization of function exclusively with writing versus speech.
In other words, Ferguson wrote the definition in (1959) describing the language situation in
Switzerland and Haiti, from both definitions we draw one common aspect that: Diglossia is composed
of two forms which are genetically related to fulfil different functions i.e. one is for the written, and
the other for the spoken purposes.

Ferguson definition differs from Marçais in the sense that the former defines diglossia as a language
situation in which two varieties, the first variety is called the high variety which is highly codified and
used for written purposes and for formal speech purposes as well. However, the later which is called
the low variety is mainly used in ordinary conversation.

+ Diglossia - Diglossia

Everyone is community knows both H and An unstable, transitional situation

+ Bilingualism L, which are functionally differentiated. in which everyone is a
(Haiti) community knows both H and L,
but are shifting to H. (German-
 speaking Belgium)
Speakers of H rule over speakers of L A completely egalitarian speech
- Bilingualism (Colonial Paraguay) community, where there is no
language variation. (Humanity
before the Towel of Babel)