SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE VARIATIONS

ISSN 2349-5189 Infobase Indexed Factor - 2.4 LangLit An International Peer-Reviewed Open Access Journal SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE VARIATIONS DR. SARITA JAIN Lecturer in English G.D. Government College for Women, Alwar. ABSTRACT It is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society, particularly how language operates within and creates social structures. Studies in sociolinguistic explore the commonplace observations that everyone does not speak a language in the same way, that we alter our speech to accommodate our audience and that we recognize members and non-members of our communities via speech. Many sociolinguists have disagreed arguing that a sociolinguistics is scarcely worthwhile and that meaningful insight into language can be gained only if such matters as use and variation are included as part of the data which must be explained in a comprehensive theory of language; such a theory of language must have something to say about the uses of language. Sociolinguistics is a developing branch of linguistics and sociology which examines the individual and social variation of language (Spolsky,2010). It is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society, particularly how language operates within and creates social structures. Sociolinguists differ from sociology of language in that the focus of sociolinguistics is the effect of the society on the language, while the sociology of language focuses on language‟s effect on the society (Bell, 1976) Studies in sociolinguistic explore the commonplace observations that everyone does not speak a language in the same way, that we alter our speech to accommodate our audience and that we recognize members and non-members of our communities via speech. Just as regional variation of language can give a lot of information about the place the speaker is from, social variation tells about the roles performed by a given speaker within one community. (Spolsky,2010) SOCIOLINGUISTICS: DEFINING THE CONCEPT There are numerous definitions of sociolinguistics. However, each of these definitions does not fail to acknowledge that sociolinguistics has to do with language use and a society‟s response to it. Let us examine some of them. 1. The study of the link between language and society, of language variation and of attitudes about language (Spolsky 2010) Vol. 2 Issue 3 114 February, 2016 Website: www.langlit.org Contact No.: +91-9890290602  ISSN 2349-5189 Infobase Indexed Factor - 2.4 LangLit An International Peer-Reviewed Open Access Journal 2. A branch of anthropological linguistics that examines how language and culture are related and how language is used in different social contexts (Bell 1976). 3. A study of the relationship between language and social factors such as class, age, gender and ethnicity (Hudson 1996) 4. The study of stylistic and social variations of language (Wordhaugh 2010) 5. Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society including cultural norms, expectations and context on the way language is used. (Trudgill 2000) In all these definitions it is clear that sociolinguistics is a discipline that makes a link between sociology and linguistics. It is a branch of sociology and as a concept it is concerned with how language use is a determinant of a given society‟s linguistic requirements. Every society has its linguistic codes that are acceptable for interaction (Meyerhoff,2006) Sociolinguistics shows how groups in a given society are separated by certain social variables like ethnicity, religion, status, gender, age and level of education and how adherence to these variables is used to categorize individuals in social classes (Hudson, 1996) The social study of language is a modern linguistic paradigm because it was the modern linguist who first acknowledged and accepted that language by its nature is totally a social phenomena (Bell, 1976) All the above definitions demonstrate that sociolinguistics is related to language use and a societies response to it. The social aspects of language were in the modern sense first studied by Indian and Japanese linguists in the 1930‟s and also by Louis Gauchat in Switzerland in the early 1900s but none received much attention in the west until much later. The study of the social motivation of language change, on the other hand, has its foundation in the wave model of the late, 19th century. Sustained interest in sociolinguistics emerged in the 1960s, in part as a reaction to „autonomous‟ Chomskian linguistics. In place of the latter‟s idealized speaker / hearer, for whom social influences are idiosyncratic or irrelevant, the „hyphenated‟ field of sociolinguistics sought to explore and theories the language use of social beings Capturing the interdisciplinary nature of the enterprise a distinction is often made between micro- sociolinguistics and macro-sociolinguistics (Coulmas,1997, Spolsky,1998) Micro sociolinguistics refers to research with a linguistic slant, often focusing on dialect and stylistic/register variation. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods have been employed to explore such linguistic phenomena as phonological differences between dialects or discourse variations between male and female speakers Coulmas (1997 : V) refers to micro-sociolinguistics as social dimensions of language. In contrast, macro-sociolinguistics (or Colulmas‟s linguistic dimensions of society) looks at the behaviors of entire speech communities, exploring issues such as why immigrant communities retain their native languages in some social contexts but not in others, or how social identity can affect language choice. With the coming together of (micro) sociolinguistics in a narrow sense and macro sociology of language, we have tools and questions of particular interest to second language (L2) practitioners. Sociolinguistics takes as its primary task to map linguistic variation on to social conditions. This mapping helps understand not just synchronic variation. (Variation at a single point of time) but also diachronic variation ( variation over time) or language change. The close Vol. 2 Issue 3 115 February, 2016 Website: www.langlit.org Contact No.: +91-9890290602  ISSN 2349-5189 Infobase Indexed Factor - 2.4 LangLit An International Peer-Reviewed Open Access Journal intertwining of linguistic and social facts is crucial to a sociolinguistic approach. Even before small children can speak clearly, they develop a distinct style of address to be used when speaking to anyone or anything smaller. As they grow, they add more and more variations to their speech, and these come to be associated with recognizable styles. As early as the age of five, children asked to play roles try to imitate the styles of speech of many different people. These small variations in language that everyone acquires in normal up bringing can be used to identify us, or the person we are talking to, or the subject we are talking about. There is no single-style or single-variety speaker; no speech community that does not have a choice of varieties; and more fewer monolinguals than English speaker might imagine. The existence of patterned variations in language makes it possible to identify ourselves and others as belonging to certain groups. The social prestige or sting associated with these variations makes language a source of social and political power only by including both linguistic and social factors in our analysis can this complex but rule-governed behavior be accounted for. Some of the factors investigated by sociolinguistics that can affect the way people speak are listed below : Social Class: The position of the speaker in the society is often measured by the level of education, parental background profession and their effect on syntax and lexis used by the speaker. (Trudgill,2000). An important factor influencing the way of formulating sentences is, according to many sociolinguists, the social class of the speaker. Thus, there has been a division of social classes suggested in order to make the description accurate. Two main groups of language users, mainly those performing non-manual work and those with more years of education are the „middle class‟, while those who perform some kind of manual work are ‟ working class‟ (ibid). The additional terms „lower‟ and „upper‟ are frequently used in order to subdivide the social classes (ibid). Therefore differences between upper middle classes can be compared with lower working classes (ibid). Social context : The register of the language used depending on changing situations formal language in formal meetings and in formal usage in informal meetings (Spolsky,2010) It is notable that people are acutely aware of the differences in speech patterns that mark their social class and are often able to adjust their style to the interlocutor (Spolsky,2010) It is especially true for the members of the middle class who seem eager to use forms associated with upper class; however, in such efforts, the forms characteristic of upper class are often overused by the middle class members (Gardiner,2008) The above mentioned process of adopting own speech to reduce social distance is called „convergence‟ (Gardiner,2008). Sometimes, when a person wants to emphasie the social distance, she/he makes use of the process called „divergence‟ purposefully using idiosyncratic forms (Gardiner) Geographical Origins: Slight differences in pronunciation between speakers indicate the geographical region they come from (Trudgill,2000). Sociolinguistics investigates the way in which language changes, depending on the region it is used in. To describe a variety of language that differs in grammar, lexis and pronunciation from others, the term „dialect‟ is used (Hudson 1996). Moreover, each member of community has a unique way of speaking due to the life experience, education, age and aspiration. An individual personal variation of languages use is called on idiolect (Trudgill,2000). Vol. 2 Issue 3 116 February, 2016 Website: www.langlit.org Contact No.: +91-9890290602  ISSN 2349-5189 Infobase Indexed Factor - 2.4 LangLit An International Peer-Reviewed Open Access Journal Ethnicity: There are differences between the use of a given language by its native speakers and other ethnic groups (Bell,1976). There are numerous factors influencing idiolect, some of which have been presented above, yet two more need to be clarified, namely jargon and slang (Hudson,1996). Jargons specify technical vocabulary related with a particular field of interest or topic. For example, words such as convergence, dialect and social class are a sociolinguistic jargon. Whereas, slang is a type of language used most frequently by people from outside of high-status groups characterized by the use of unusual words and phrases instead of conventional forms (Spolsky,2010). For example, a sociolinguist might determine through study of social attitudes, that a particular vernacular would not be considered appropriate language use in a business or professional setting, she/he might also study the grammar, phonetics, vocabulary and other aspects of this sociolect (Hudson,1996). Nationality: This is visible in the case of the English language. British English differs from American English, or Canadian English, Nigerian English differs from Ghanaian English. The study of language variation is concerned with social constraints determining language in its contextual environment (Hudson,1996) Code-switching is the term given to the use of different varieties of language in different social situations. Gender: Patterns of language use of men are different from those of women in term of quantity of speech and the intonation patterns (Trudgill,2000). Age: The age of the speaker influences the use of vocabulary and grammar complexity (Bell, 1976). Studies in sociolinguistics explore the commonplace observations that everyone does not speak a language in the same way, that we alter our speech to accommodate our audience, and that we recognize members and non-members to our communities via speech. Sociolinguistic studies have looked at speech communities based on social categories such as age, class, ethnicity, gender, geography, profession and sexual identity. To be sure, such categories are fluid they exist only in context and rather than standing independent of speech are generally produced through it. In short, these categories exist largely as a matter of social perception. We will discover time and again that there is a considerable internal variation and that speakers make constant use of the many different possibilities offered to them. No one speaks the same way all the time and people constantly exploit the nuances of the languages they speak for a wide variety of purposes. The consequence is a kind of paradox; while many linguists would like to view any language as a homogeneous entity and each speaker of that language as controlling only a single style, so that they can make the strongest possible theoretical generalizations in actual fact that language will exhibit considerable internal variation, and single style-speakers will not be found (or) if found, will appear to be quite „abnormal‟ in that respect, if in no other. Recognition of variation implies that we must recognize that a language is not just some kind of abstract object of study. It is also something that people use. Can we really set aside, at any point in our study of language, this fact of use? It is not surprising therefore that a recurring issue in linguistics in recent years has been the possible value of a linguistics that deliberately Vol. 2 Issue 3 117 February, 2016 Website: www.langlit.org Contact No.: +91-9890290602  ISSN 2349-5189 Infobase Indexed Factor - 2.4 LangLit An International Peer-Reviewed Open Access Journal separates itself from any concern with the use, and the users of language. Following Chomsky‟s example, many linguists have argued that we should not study a language in use, or even how the language is learned without first acquiring an adequate knowledge of what language itself is. In this view, linguistic investigations should focus on developing this latter knowledge. The linguist‟s task should be to write grammars that will help us develop our understanding of language, what it is how it is learnable and what it tells us about the human mind. This kind of linguistics is sometimes referred to as theoretical linguistics and it has claimed a privileged position for itself within the overall discipline of linguistics. Investigations of language use have little to offer us in such a view. Many sociolinguists have disagreed arguing that a sociolinguistics is scarcely worthwhile and that meaningful insight into language can be gained only if such matters as use and variation are included as part of the data which must be explained in a comprehensive theory of language; such a theory of language must have something to say about the uses of language. REFERENCES 1. Bloomfield, Leonard. 1993. Language, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. 2. Bollinger, Dwight, 1968, Aspects of language. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovan o vich, Inc. 3. Bickerton, D., 1997, “Pidginization and Creolization: Language Acquisition and Language Universals,” in Valdman, A., ed., Pidgin and Creole Linguistics, USA: Indiana U.P. (pp 49-69). 4. Bell, R.T., 1976, Sociolinguistics: Goals, Approaches, and Problems, London: Batsford. 5. Coulthard, M., 1977, An Introduction to Discourse Analysis, London: Longman. 6. Delgado de Carvalho, C.M., 1962, “The Geography of Languages,” in Wagner, P.L., & Mikesell, M.W., Readings in Cultural Geography, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (pp 75-93). 7. Gardiner, A., 2008, English Language, London: Pearson Education Ltd. 8. Halliday, M.A.K., 1973, Explorations in the Functions of language, London: Edward Arnold. 9. Hartmann, R.R.K, 1972, Language and Linguistics, London: Applied Science Publisher Ltd. 10. Hudson, R.A., 1996, Sociolinguistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 11. Leech, Geoffrey. 1981, Semantics: The Study of Meaning. London: Penguin Books. 12. Meyerhoff, M., 2006, Introducing Sociolinguistics, England: Routledge. 13. Spolsky, B., 2010, Sociolinguistics, Oxford: Oxford University press. 14. Trudgill, P., 2000, Sociolinguistics: An introduction to Language and Society, England: Penguin Books. 15. Van Dijk, T.A., 2009, Society and Discourse: How context Controls Text and Talk, Cambridge: Cambridge University press. 16. Wardhaugh, R., 2010, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, New York: Basil Blackwell Inc. Vol. 2 Issue 3 118 February, 2016 Website: www.langlit.org Contact No.: +91-9890290602