THEME 2 SOCIOLINGUISTICS III L2

Theme 4

Language and Dialect

Whats the difference between Language and Dialect?

A language should be the larger linguistic family that can contain several dialects and can be considered the standard form of the language.


A dialect should be: A way of speaking a language that is used only in a particular area or by a particular group and characterized by systemic features, such as phonology, lexicon, or grammar, that distinguishes it from other varieties of the same language.

Whats the difference between Accent and Dialect?

Accent a way of pronouncing words that shows what country, region, or social class you come from

Dialect - a way of speaking a language that is used only in a particular area or by a particular group


Misconceptions about Dialect

Dialect is NOT synonymous with substandard.

Dialect is NOT synonymous with accent

Standard Language

The variety or form of a particular language that is usually considered by speakers of the language to be the "correct" "educated" or "proper".

It has a "standard " vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar.

It is usually the language of education, media, government and business.

In some cases the standard form is given official or quasi legal status by government institutions that define and promote the proper norms of use. E.g Acadmie franaise

Standard English is the form used by educated users but because English does not have a governing body there are no set rules or vocabulary

Standard Language

The term dialect in popular usage often carries a connotation of substandard. (not as good as the standard language)

The term itself is equally applicable to all varieties of a languageincluding the dialect that might become the standard.

Every Dialect is Equal !!!!

Language or dialect?

Linguists usually approach dialects as neutral terms, seeing them as regionally or socially distinct varieties of a language that are mutually intelligible with other varieties.

However, there are a lot of situations that show language versus dialect isnt clear

Chinese - Norwegian/Swedish

Croatian and Serbian - Arabic



Mutual Intelligibility Term used to determine whether two dialects are varieties of the same language o not. How? Speakers of two or more different languages or dialects can converse with each other and understand each others meanings

Speakers may experience difficulty in deciding whether what they speak should be called a language or just a dialect of some language.

Such indecision is not surprising, exactly how do you decide what is a language and what is a dialect of a language?


Asymmetries in intelligibility

One group can understand another group but not the other way around.

Danish speakers can understand Swedish, but Swedish speakers cannot understand Danish speakers.

Portuguese speakers from Brazil can understand Spanish, but Spanish speakers cannot fully understand Brazilian Portuguese speakers.


Similarly nonlinguistic criteria such as political, historical, or geographic differences may play a role. For example:

Mandarin Chinese speakers and Cantonese Chinese speakers are NOT AT ALL understandable to each other, however they are considered dialects of the same language.

Why not two different languages?

It might politically divide China to admit the difference.


Serbian and Croatian referred as two separate languages are mutually intelligible languages. A speaker of Serbian could hold a conversation with a Croatian speaker and vice versa.

Why do you think they insist in speaking two different languages?


The two peoples want to remain politically separatethey dont want to admit a shared language.

Swedish and Norwegian are also mutually intelligiblebut considered two distinct languages.

The same is true for Czech and Slovak.


Linguistic and Nonlinguistic Factors and the Dialect vs. Language Issue

1. Linguistic Factor (Mutual Intelligibility & a Dialect Continuum)

If language differences cause only minimal problems in communication, there is a tendency to call the variants dialects of a single language: such is the case with British, Australian, American English and the English of India--all dialects of English.


Dialect Continuum

The degree of geographical separation reflects the degree of linguistic difference between the dialects.


2. Cultural Factors

The second criterion is Cultural, and takes into account the opinion of the speakers:

Do the speakers themselves think of their form of language as a variety of a more standard form of speech?

Is there a neutral or standardized form of the language that speakers look to as the norm?

The degree of geographical separation reflects the

degree of linguistic difference between the dialects.


3. Political Factors status of languages

Do the political authorities in a country consider two language forms to be separate languages or dialects of a single language?

Different, non-mutually intelligible language forms may be called dialects simply because they are spoken within a single political entity and it is necessary for the rulers of that entity to consider them as dialects of one language.


On the other hand, language forms that are quite mutually intelligible can be considered separate languages also for purely political reasons. Such is the case with Serbian and Croatian in the former Yugoslavia.

Linguistically, these two language forms are more similar than the English spoken in Texas and New York; linguists, in fact, usually call them both by the name Serbo-Croatian.



One attempt to solve this issue was proposed by Bell (Bell, 1976) who listed seven criteria that may be useful in discussing different kinds of languages.

According to Bell, these criteria (standardization, vitality, historicity, autonomy, reduction, mixture, and de facto norms) may be used to distinguish certain languages from others.


The criteria also make it possible to speak of some languages as being more developed in certain ways than others, thus addressing a key issue in the languagedialect distinction, since speakers usually feel that languages are generally better than dialects in some sense.



1. Standardization

Refers to the process by which a language has been codified in some way.

It usually involves the development of such things as grammars, spelling books, and dictionaries, and possibly a literature.

More than just linguistic - includes economic, social, political reasons


2. Vitality

the second of Bells seven criteria, refers to the existence of a living community of speakers.

This criterion can be used to distinguish languages that are alive from those that are dead.

Living versus dead languages


3. Historicity

Refers to the fact that a particular group of people finds a sense of identity through using a particular language: it belongs to them.

Social, political, religious, or ethnic ties may also be important for the group, but the bond provided by a common language may prove to be the strongest tie of all.


4. Autonomy

An interesting concept because it is really one of feeling. A language must be felt by its speakers to be different from other languages.

Very subjective criterion. Ukrainians say their language is quite different from Russian and deplored its Russification when they were part of the Soviet Union.


Some speakers of African American Vernacular English maintain that their language is not a variety of English but is a separate language in its own right and refer to it as Ebonics.

In contrast, speakers of Cantonese and Mandarin deny that they speak different languages: they maintain that Cantonese and Mandarin are not autonomous languages but are just two dialects of Chinese.


5. Reduction

Refers to the fact that a particular variety may be regarded as a sub-variety rather than as an independent entity.

Speakers of Cockney will almost certainly say that they speak a variety of English, admit that they are not representative speakers of English, and recognize the existence of other varieties with equivalent subordinate status.


Sometimes the reduction is in the kinds of opportunities afforded to users of the variety.

e.g. there may be a reduction of resources; that is, the variety may lack a writing system. Or there may be considerable restrictions in use; e.g., pidgin languages are very much reduced in the functions they serve in society in contrast to standardized languages.


6. Mixture

Refers to feelings speakers have about the purity of the variety they speak.

This criterion appears to be more important to speakers of some languages than of others, e.g., more important to speakers of French and German than to speakers of English.


It partly explains why speakers of pidgins and creoles have difficulty in classifying what they speak as full languages: these varieties are, in certain respects, quite obviously mixed, and the people who speak them often feel that the varieties are neither one thing nor another, but rather are debased, deficient, degenerate, or marginal varieties of some other standard language.


7. De facto norms

Refers to the feeling that many speakers have that there are both good speakers and poor speakers and that the good speakers represent the norms of proper usage.

Sometimes this means focusing on one particular sub-variety as representing the best usage, e.g., Parisian French or the Florentine variety of Italian.


Standards must not only be established (by the first criterion), they must also be observed.

When all the speakers of a language feel that it is badly spoken or badly written almost everywhere, that language may have considerable difficulty in surviving; in fact, such a feeling is often associated with a language that is dying.


If we apply Bells criteria to the different varieties of speech we observe in the world, we will see that not every variety we may want to call a language has the same status as every other variety.


A regional dialect refers to the language variety used in a geographical region. When people are separated from each other geographically, dialectal diversity develops.

Whereas regional dialects are geographically based, social dialects originate among social groups and are related to a variety of factors.

Social dialect could be further distinguished by gender, age, ethnic group, religion, and class.

Regional & social dialects

In a society, speech variation may happen due to different ethnic backgrounds.

Ethnic varieties are used by ethnic groups and regarded as social dialects. They often cut across regional differences.

Regional & social dialects

Isoglosses show the boundary of different dialects (a line drawn on a map between two different realizations of a single linguistic variable)

Isoglosses normally do not intersect, but they sometimes do, thus meaning variations can travel across dialect borders.

The importance of Isoglosses is that they show the dialect variations.

Isogloss

These realizations are often the result of a historical process, such that on one side of the line the process has occurred (+), and on the other it has not occurred (-).

+ _

Isogloss

b

b a

a Here are two isoglosses, showing two imaginary processes which we shall call a and b

Isogloss

Isogloss

b

b a

a

+a +b

+a -b

-a -b

-a +b

They split the area into 4 different language varieties.

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THEME 2 SOCIOLINGUISTICS III L2