2014-04-15
Sources
" Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of
language, pp. 24-25, 28-33, 38-43.
" Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, Nina Hyams.
Introduction to linguistics
2003. An introduction to language.
 Chapter 10: Language in society
" http://aboutworldlanguages.com/pidgin-
Lecture 9: Sociolinguistics 2
languages
" http://www.forvo.com/ (listening to words of
various languages of the world, including pidgins
and creoles)
Language varieties Language varieties
" A language may vary depending on:
" Last time: accents, dialects  spoken by a
 a particular purpose for which is is used or
particular social group.
 a particular social setting in which the speakers
" Language variety used by an individual
find themselves.
speaker  idiolect.
" You may speak differently when talking to a
 the linguistic system of an individual speaker:
friend than when you re talking at a job
one's personal dialect.
interview.
 Each speaker uses different syntactic structures,
" Such  situation dialects are called styles or
vocabulary and/or pronunciation.
registers.
 Situational dialects  Situational dialects
" Slang  a variant of carelessly used colloquial
" Style (register)  formal, informal, casual, etc.
language.
" Speakers may alternate between styles in
 Usually very informal.
order to achieve a particular effect, e.g.:
 Has a distinct function of reinforcing group
 Going to a job interview, addressing a secretary:
identity or to mark its speaker as unconventional.
Excuse me, is the manager in his office? I have an
" Jargon  an occupational variety of lg;
appointment.
 Every profession develops their own special terms
 Speaking to a friend about a friend: Yo, is that lazy
that refer to their activity, e.g.:
dog still in bed? I gotta see him about something.
 IT specialists, the police, chat-room users, etc.
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Languages in contact Languages in contact
" A situation in which speakers of two (or more) " Diglossia  a situation in which two different
languages live close to each other. language varieties co-occur in a single speech
community, each with a distinct range of
" The languages start influencing each other:
social function.
 Words are borrowed.
" Both languages (or dialects) are standardised
 There may be phonological or grammatical
changes. to some degree, and are felt to be alternatives
by native-speakers.
 People may become bilingual.
 Mixed forms of language (pidgins and creoles) " They are called high (H) and low (L) varieties,
may appear.
corresponding to a difference in formality.
Diglossia Terms
" The high variety is taught in school, tends to be " Monolingual  a person who speaks only one
used in church, on radio programmes, and in
language.
serious literature, etc.  it has greater prestige.
" Bilingual  a person who can speak two
" The low variety  used in family conversation and
languages.
other informal settings.
" Multilingual - a person who can speak more
" Diglossic situations:
than one language.
 Greek.
" Polyglot - a person who can speak and write
 Arabic (H: classical, L: colloquial).
several languages with a high level of
 Standard German (H) vs Swiss German (L),
proficiency.
 Haiti (H: French, L: Creole).
Bilingualism Bilingualism
" B. may refer to individual speakers or groups
" The ability to speak 2 languages.
of speakers.
 Over 70% of the Earth s population are bilingual or
multilingual. " It is not the same as diglossia:
 B. does not involve the whole speech community
 Multi- or bilingualism has probably been the norm
for most people for the last few millenia.  Neither of the languages the bilingual can speak
can be regarded as a high or low variety.
 Children raised bilingually tend to be more
 If a group of people living in Italy can speak
expressive, more original and better
perfect Russian, it is bilingualism, not diglossia.
communicators than monolingual ones.
 Diglossia often reflects social stratification.
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Bilingualism Code switching
" A bilingual may change back and forth
" There are different degrees of bilingualism:
between two languages in a single
 A speaker may be equally fluent in both
conversation.
languages (though many linguists say this is hard
to achieve). " This is called code-switching (code = language
or a variety of lg).
" It shows that the grammars and vocabularies
 Or a speaker may be more comfortable in one lg.
of the two languages work simultaneously.
This lg is called a dominant one.
 It does not mean that the bilingual s languages are
broken.
Pidgin Pidgin: characteristics
" When people speaking different languages " Limited vocabulary.
(mutually unintelligible ones) want to
" Simple grammatical rules.
communicate, they may use elements from
" A small set of speech sounds.
both of their languages in a mixed manner.
" Spoken by a small part of the community.
 They use words from both languages,
" Used for specific purposess, such as trade or
 mix morphology and syntax,
religion.
 use the simplest sounds from both languages.
" Becuse their functions are limited, pidgin
" Such a language created by people with no
languages usually do not last long: rarely more
language in common is called pidgin.
than several decades.
Some pidgin languages Creole
" Patois (Jamaican and English) " Once a pidgin is learned as the first language
by the children of pidgin-speaking parents, a
" Basque-Icelandic pidgin (Basque, Germanic
pidgin becomes a creole.
and Romance)
" A creole language  a stable natural language
" Béarlachas (Gaelic Irish and
developed from the mixing of parent
English)
languages.
" Nigerian (English and Nigeria Krio)
 Creoles differs from pidgins in that creoles have
been acquired by children as their mother tongue.
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Creole: an example
" Tok Pisin - a creole language based
on English, spoken throughout Papua New
Guinea.
 It is an official lg of Papua New Guinea.
" A sample sentence:
 Bimeby hed bilongyu I-arrait gain
 By-and-by head belong-you he-alright again
 'Your head will soon get well again.'
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