Meeting IV
Linguistic Varieties and
Multilingual Nation
Siti Mukminatun
Key terms
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Repertoire
Vernacular
Standard
Lingua Franca
Pidgin
Creole
Example I
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Kalala is 16 years old. He lives in Bukavu, an
African city in eastern Zaire with a population of
about 220,000. It is a multicultural, multilingual city
with more people coming and going for work and
business reasons than people who live there
permanently. Over forty groups speaking different
languages can be found in the city. Kalala, like
many of his friends, is unemployed. He spends his
days roaming the streets, stopping off periodically
at regular meeting places in the market-place, in
the park, or at a friend’s place. During a normal day
he uses at least three different varieties or codes,
and sometimes more.
Example II
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Mr. Patel is a spice merchant who lives in Bombay. When
he gets up he talks to his wife and children in Kathiawari,
their dialect of Gujerati. Every morning he goes to the
local market where he uses Marathi to buy his
vegetables. At the railway station he buys his ticket into
Bombay city using Hindustani, the working person’s
lingua franca. He reads his Gujerati newspaper on the
train, and when he gets to work he uses enough English
to enjoy an English cricket commentary on the radio, but
he would find an English film difficult to follow. However,
since the spice business is flourishing, his children go to
an English-medium school, so he expects them to be
more proficient in English than he is.
Vernacular language
1.
2.
3.
refers to a language which has not
been standardized and which does
not have official status;
refers to the way it is acquiredusually the first languages learned by
people in multilingual communities;
used for relatively narrow range of
informal functions
vernacular language
4. the most colloquial variety in a
person’s linguistic repertoire
5. the variety used for communication in
the home and with close friends
6. the language of solidarity between
people from the same ethnic group
An influential 1951 Unesco
report
Vernacular language
• The first language of a group socially
or politically dominated by a group
with a different language
e.g. ‘Spain’ in USA in which English
dominates, but not in Spain itself
(Spain as an official language)
* A language which is not an official
language in a particular context.
The extension of vernacular
language definitions
1.
2.
in a monolingual community: the
most informal and colloquial variety
of a language which may also have a
standardized variety
A language used for everyday
interaction, without implying that it is
appropriate only in informal domains
Standard languages
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1.
2.
more difficult to define rather than
vernacular language
used in many different ways by
linguists
one which is written,
which has undergone some degree
of regularizations or codifications
(e.g. in a grammar and a dictionary)
Standard languages
3. It is recognized as a prestigious
variety or code by a community
4. It is used for H functions alongside
the diversity of L varieties
5. Standard varieties are codified
varieties.
Standard languages
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Standard English emerged naturally in the 15th century from a variety
of regional English dialects
It was because this variety was used by the Court and the influential
merchants of London.
The area where the largest proportion of the English population lived
in a neat triangle containing London: the Court was based and the
two universities, Oxford and Cambridge, an important agricultural
and business are, the hub of international trade and exports to
Calais, the centre of political, social and intellectual life in England.
Standard varieties are codified varieties.
It has served as a useful variety for communication.
Local varieties of English has developed in Malaysia, Singapore,
India, and many African countries.
The degree of variation has not been great.
codification
1.
2.
3.
achieved through grammars and
dictionaries
part of the development of every
standard variety
accelerated in the case of English by
the introduction of printing by
William Caxton, 1476
Three essential criteria of
standard language
1.
2.
3.
Influential or prestigious variety;
Codified and stabilized;
Served H functions (court, literature,
administration
Standard Language
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Standard language is a particular dialect
which has gained its special position as a
result of social, economic, and political
influences.
A standard dialect has no particular
linguistic merits, whether in vocabulary,
grammar, or pronunciation
It is simply the dialect of those who are
politically powerful and socially prestigious.
Lingua Francas
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A language serving as a regular means of
communication between different linguistic groups
in a multilingual speech community
A language used for communication between
people whose first languages differ
e.g.
1. academics and experts meet at international
conferences or when politicians arrange
summit meetings; English, French, or
Spanish is often used as a lingua franca.
2. see example 3, p. 86-87 Holmes
Example III
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In the 1960s, a Catholic nun, Sister Dominic, was sent to
Rome for a meeting between nuns from different countries.
She spoke no Italian but she had been managing pretty well
with her French and English until she lost her purse on
evening. She simply was not able to explain to the local police
officer how she had lost her purse. A priest overheard her
struggles and came to her rescue. They proceeded to explain
their linguistic repertoires trying to find a language they
shared. He came from Brazil and spoke Portuguese and
Spanish, but he had been living in Rome for some time, and
so he was by then familiar with the local variety of Italian.
Finally, they found a language in which they could
communicate- Latin. At that time Latin was still the language
of church services and both learned Latin to university level.
Lingua Francas
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In some countries the most useful and widely used
lingua franca is an official language or the national
language.
e.g.
1. Swahili in Tanzania
2. Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea
3. Russian among a hundred different vernaculars
In multilingual communities, lingua franca may
eventually displace the vernaculars.
Often develop initially as trade languages
e.g. ‘Hausa’ in west Africa, ‘Swahili’ in East Africathe becomes national language of Tanzania. Tok
Pisin has a similar experience like Swahili.
Lingua Franca
UNESCO
• A language used habitually by people whose
mother tongue are different in order to facilitate
communication between them.
• A variety of other terms
1. a trade language (Hausa in west africa & Swahili
–EA)
2. a contact language (Greek Koine in The ancient
world)
3. an international language (English throughout
the world)
4. an auxiliary language
Pidgin
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A language which has no native speakers.
develop as a means of communication between
people who do not have a common language
arise when two groups with different languages are
communicating in a situation where there is also a
third dominant language
used almost exclusively for referential rather than
affective functions
used for specific functions like buying, selling, or
animal hides, rather than to signal social
distinctions or expressed politeness
pidgin
1.
2.
3.
4.
has no native speakers.
As a means of communication between people
who do not have a common language.
Both contribute to the sounds, vocabulary, the
grammatical features, and some additional
features
The prestigious language contribute much on
vocabulary and the vernacular languages on the
grammar of the developing pidgin
Pidgin
5. simplified structure and a small
vocabulary compared with fully
develop languages
6. short life and disappear if the function
disappears
Three identifying
characteristics of pidgin
1.
2.
3.
It is used in restricted domains and
functions
It has a simplified structure
compared to the source languages
Low prestige and attracts negative
attitudes-especially from outsiders
Creole
1.
2.
3.
A pidgin which has acquired native
speakers
They are learned by children as their
first language and used in a wide
range of domains.
They become more structurally
regular.
Functions
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Pidgin can become lingua franca.
Once a Creole has developed it can be
used for all the functions of language,
politics, education, administration.
attitudes
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Outsiders’ attitudes to Creole are often
as negative as their attitude to pidgin
This is not always the case for those
who speak them.
Origin and endings
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found in every continent
Most are based on one of seven
European languages; English, French,
Spanish, Portuguese, German, Dutch,
and Italia
The debate toward the
origin of pidgin
1.
2.
All pidgins and creoles have a common origin.
Each pidgin arises and develops independently.
They account for the similarities by pointing two types
of constraints;
1.
Pidgins arise in different contexts but for the
same kinds of basic functions.
2.
These functions are expressed through structural
processes which seem universal to all situations
of language development-such as simplification
and reduction of redundant features
The origin of Creole
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1.
2.
There are a variety of answers
depending on the social context.
In the societies with rigid divisions, a
Creole remains as a stable L variety
alongside an officially sanctioned H
variety.
Where the social barriers are more
fluid, the Creole may develop
towards the standard language
(decreolisation)
3. used side by side with standard
variety → standard variety → a
continuum of varieties between the
standard and creole
4. may be adopted as an official
language
e.g. Tok Pisin (PNG)
Indonesian from Pidgin Malay