Socio Linguistics: definition and scope
I
Sociolinguistics 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 society's effect on language.
It differs from sociology of language, which focuses on the effect of language on society. Sociolinguistics
overlaps considerably with pragmatics. It is historically closely related to linguistic anthropology, and the
distinction between the two fields has been questioned.
It also studies how language varieties differ between groups separated by certain social variables (e.g.,
ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of education, age, etc.) and how creation and adherence to these
rules is used to categorize individuals in social or socioeconomic classes. As the usage of a language
varies from place to place, language usage also varies among social classes, and it is these sociolects that
sociolinguistics studies.
II
Language is one of the most powerful emblems of social behavior. In the normal transfer of information
through language, we use language to send vital social messages about who we are, where we come
from, and who we associate with. It is often shocking to realize how extensively we may judge a person's
background, character, and intentions based simply upon the person's language, dialect, or, in some
instances, even the choice of a single word.
Given the social role of language, it stands to reason that one strand of language study should
concentrate on the role of language in society.
Sociolinguistics has become an increasingly important and popular field of study, as certain cultures
around the world expand their communication base and intergroup and interpersonal relations take on
escalating significance.
The basic notion underlying sociolinguistics is quite simple: Language use symbolically represents
fundamental dimensions of social behavior and human interaction. The notion is simple, but the ways in
which language reflects behavior can often be complex and subtle. Furthermore, the relationship
between language and society affects a wide range of encounters--from broadly based international
relations to narrowly defined interpersonal relationships.
For example, sociolinguists might investigate language attitudes among large populations on a national
level, such as those exhibited in the US with respect to the English-only amendment--the legislative
proposal to make English the 'official' language of the US. Similarly, we might study the status of French
and English in Canada or the status of national and vernacular languages in the developing nations of
the world as symbols of fundamental social relations among cultures and nationalities. In considering
language as a social institution, sociolinguists often use sociological techniques involving data from
questionnaires and summary statistical data, along with information from direct observation.
A slightly different concern with language and society focuses more closely on the effect of particular
kinds of social situations on language structure. For example, language contact studies focus on the
origin and the linguistic composition of pidgin and creole languages. These special language varieties
arise when speakers from mutually unintelligible language groups need a common language for
communication. Throughout the world, there are many sociohistorical situations that have resulted in
these specialized language situations--in the Caribbean, Africa, South America, Asia, and the Pacific
Islands. In examining language contact situations, it is also possible to examine not only the details of a
particular language but also the social and linguistic details that show how bilingual speakers use each
language and switch between them.
Another approach to language and society focuses on the situations and uses of language as an activity
in its own right. The study of language in its social context tells us quite a bit about how we organize our
social relationships within a particular community. Addressing a person as 'Mrs.', 'Ms.', or by a first
name is not really about simple vocabulary choice but about the relationship and social position of the
speaker and addressee. Similarly, the use of sentence alternatives such as Pass the salt, Would you mind
passing the salt, or I think this food could use a little salt is not a matter of simple sentence structure;
the choice involves cultural values and norms of politeness, deference, and status
In approaching language as a social activity, it is possible to focus on discovering the specific patterns or
social rules for conducting conversation and discourse. We may, for example, describe the rules for
opening and closing a conversation, how to take conversational turns, or how to tell a story or joke.
It is also possible to examine how people manage their language in relation to their cultural backgrounds
and their goals of interaction. Sociolinguists might investigate questions such as how mixed-gender
conversations differ from single-gender conversations, how differential power relations manifest
themselves in language forms, how caregivers let children know the ways in which language should be
used, or how language change occurs and spreads to communities. To answer these questions related to
language as social activity, sociolinguists often use ethnographic methods. That is, they attempt to gain
an understanding of the values and viewpoints of a community in order to explain the behaviors and
attitudes of its members.
III
The branch of sociolinguistics focuses on language as a social phenomenon. If we take a closer look at
the use of language within society, we find that, characteristically, speakers can be distinguished from
each other and distinguish themselves from other speakers by their different use of language. Thus,
while two speakers may use the same language they usually do not show the same linguistic behaviour.
Instead, linguistic variation – stylistically, regionally, and socially – is a typical feature of language use in
society. That is, based on their individual communicative competence, speakers can vary their language
systematically (1) with respect to the communicative demands of the speech situation, (2) depending on
where they come from regionally, and (3) based on their social background which is determined by
socioeconomic status, age or ethnicity.
Structural and Functional approach
Two trends have characterized the development of sociolinguistics over the past several decades. First,
the rise of particular specializations within this field has coincided with the emergence of more broadly
based social and political issues. Thus, the focus on themes such as language and nationalism, language
and ethnicity, and language and gender has corresponded with the rise of related issues in society at
large. This is structural approach. Second is functional approach in which specialists who examine the
role of language and society have become more and more interested in applying the results of their
studies to social, educational, and political problems. Sociolinguistics thus offers a unique opportunity
to bring together theory, description, and application in the study of language.
Speech Community
Speech community is a concept in sociolinguistics that describes a distinct group of people who use
language in a unique and mutually accepted way among themselves. This is sometimes referred to as a
Sprechbund.
To be considered part of a speech community, one must have a communicative competence. That is, the
speaker has the ability to use language in a way that is appropriate in the given situation. It is possible
for a speaker to be communicatively competent in more than one language.
Speech communities can be members of a profession with a specialized jargon, distinct social groups like
high school students or hip hop fans, or even tight-knit groups like families and friends. Members of
speech communities will often develop slang or jargon to serve the group's special purposes and
priorities.
Community of Practice allows for sociolinguistics to examine the relationship between socialization,
competence, and identity. Since identity is a very complex structure, studying language socialization is a
means to examine the micro-interactional level of practical activity (everyday activities). The learning of
a language is greatly influenced by family but it is supported by the larger local surroundings, such as
school, sports teams, or religion. Speech communities may exist within a larger community of practice.
speech situation – speech event – speech
act
Speech Situation
A speech situation is the social context of interaction. It is determined by different situational factors –
the elements of a speech situation. These include:
(1) The participants and their social relations define their social roles in the communicative situation,
(2) The location or physical setting of communication (e.g. school, at home, in a shop),
(3) The purpose of the communication,
(4) The topic: what is being talked about?,
(5) The mode or channel of linguistic expression: spoken or written language.
Together these factors make up the speech situation. Based on the aspects of the speech situation, the
participants consciously or subconsciously choose a language variety which they deem appropriate for a
certain speech situation
Speech Events
All social activities, in which language plays an important role, can be referred to as speech
events. However, this does not reduce the term to spoken conversation because it also includes the
wide range of written communication.
Whatever type of conversation we are looking at, we will find that it is always underlying a
certain structure and that people follow certain (culturally specific) "rules" and rituals. In a conversation,
the interlocutors (the people talking to each other) generally face each other and do not speak
simultaneously. Most people start their conversations greeting one another, then continue in a turntaking way of speaking (without interrupting each other too often). At the end of the conversation,
people have, at the best, finished what they wanted to say and say goodbye to each other in an
appropriate way.
Speech Acts
A speech act in linguistics and the philosophy of language is something expressed by an
individual that not only presents information, but perform an action as well.[1] For example, the phrase
"I would like the mashed potatoes, could you please pass them to me?" is considered a speech act as it
expresses the speaker's desire to acquire the mashed potatoes, as well as presenting a request that
someone pass the potatoes to them. According to Kent Bach, "almost any speech act is really the
performance of several acts at once, distinguished by different aspects of the speaker's intention: there
is the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, such as requesting or promising, and how one
is trying to affect one's audience". Speech acts serve their function once they are said or
communicated. These are commonly taken to include acts such as apologizing, promising, ordering,
answering, requesting, complaining, warning, inviting, refusing, and congratulating.
Language Planning
Language planning is a body of ideas, laws and regulations (language policy), change rules, beliefs, and
practices intended to achieve a planned change (or to stop change from happening) in the language use
in one or more communities. To put it differently, language planning involves deliberate, although not
always overt, future oriented change in systems of language code and/or speaking in a societal context.
The language planning that one hears most about is that undertaken by government and it is intended
to solve complex social problems, but there is a great deal of language planning that occurs in other
societal contexts at more modest levels for other purposes.
In the simplest sense, language planning is an attempt by someone to modify the linguistic behaviour of
some community for some reason. The reasons are complex, ranging from the trivial notion that one
doesn't like the way a group talks, to the sophisticated idea that a community can be assisted in
preserving its culture by preserving its language. The actors are many, though at the macro level some
element of government is usually involved. The language modifications are also complex, ranging from a
desire to 'modernise' a language so that it can deal with the vast technological changes that are
occurring, to a desire to 'standardise' a language, often with the underlying political motivation—to
achieve 'unification', so that it can be understood by various sub-groups within a population who may
speak different varieties of that language.
Bilingualism and Multilingualism
Bilingualism is generally defined as the state of knowing two languages. This term is now commonly
extended to include multilingualism, the state of knowing three or more languages. Bilingualism has
long been of interest to psychologists because it raises interesting questions about the nature of
linguistic knowledge and the nature of learning. In addition, because language is intimately tied to
culture and one’s sense of group identification, bilingual people may have a more complex and
multifaceted sense of self and group identity than monolinguals.
Knowing a language requires, at a minimum, knowledge of vocabulary (words, how they are
pronounced, and the concepts to which they refer) and grammar (the rules for combining words into
well-formed sentences). Conventionally, knowing a language also means understanding how to read and
write it and how to use it (for example, when to use formal or informal language, proper forms of
address, and so forth). This last type of knowledge is often called "communicative competence."
Knowledge of one’s native language usually involves all these components. However, knowledge of a
second or third language may be limited: for example, a bilingual person may be better at reading and
writing in the second language than at listening and speaking, know only a specific vocabulary (such as
that related to work), speak with a heavy accent, or produce ungrammatical sentences.
Types of Bilingualism
Bilingualism is considered to be coordinate, compound, or subordinate. In coordinate bilingualism, a
person has parallel but separate systems for each language. This type of bilingualism is most common
among people who grew up in two-language households and acquired both languages from infancy. In
compound bilingualism, the person does not completely separate the two languages. Typically, the
person has a unified concept for physical objects or abstract ideas that is expressed by two different
words. Subordinate bilingualism arises when the second language is learned after childhood and
sometimes in formal settings: in this case, the person is clearly less proficient in the second language
than in the first. Also relevant to this discussion is the notion of language dominance. A bilingual
person’s native language is usually the dominant one, but there are exceptions. For example, immigrant
children who speak their native language at home may be more eloquent and literate in the ambient
language, their second language.
Another common distinction is between simultaneous bilingualism, in which two languages are acquired
at the same time in early childhood, and sequential bilingualism, in which the second language is
learned later in life. Simultaneous bilingual people, sometimes called "early bilinguals," are typically fully
proficient in both languages. However, it is also typical for one language to become more dominant than
the other, based on the amount of use. Sequential, or late, bilinguals are likely to exhibit characteristics
of nonnative speakers (such as foreign accents or errors in sentence construction), which has led to the
idea that the age of language acquisition has an effect on the ability to learn language. The critical
period hypothesis proposes that there is a critical developmental period for the acquisition of language,
after which native proficiency may never be achieved.
Diglossia
A diglossic situation exists in a society when it has two distinct language codes which show clear
functional separation; that is, one language code is employed in one set of circumstances and the other
in an entirely different set. Ferguson has defined diglossia as follows:
diglossia is a relatively stable language situation in which, in addition to the
primary dialects of the language (which may include a standard or regional standards),
there is a very divergent, highly codified (often grammatically more complex)
superposed variety, the vehicle of a large and respected body of written literature,
either of an earlier period or in another speech community, which is learned largely
by formal education and is used for most written and formal spoken purposes but
is not used by any sector of the community for ordinary conversation.
In the same article he identifies four language situations which show the major characteristics of
the diglossic phenomenon: Arabic, Swiss German, Haitian (French and Creole), and Greek. In each
situation there is a ‘high’ variety (H) of language and a ‘low’ variety (L). Each variety has its own
specialized functions, and each is viewed differently by those who are aware of both.
A key defining characteristic of diglossia is that the two varieties are kept quite apart in their
functions. One is used in one set of circumstances and the other in an entirely different set. For
example, the H varieties may be used for delivering sermons and formal lectures, especially in a
parliament or legislative body, for giving political speeches, for broadcasting the news on radio and
television, and for writing poetry, fine literature, and editorials in newspapers. In contrast, the L varieties
may be used in giving instructions to workers in low prestige occupations or to household servants, in
conversation with familiars, in ‘soap operas’ and popular programs on the radio, in captions on political
cartoons in newspapers, and in ‘folk literature.’ On occasion, a person may lecture in an H variety but
answer questions about its contents or explain parts of it in an L variety so as to ensure understanding.
You do not use an H variety in circumstances calling for an L variety, e.g., for addressing a
servant; nor do you usually use an L variety when an H is called for, e.g., for writing a ‘serious’ work of
literature. You may indeed do the latter, but it may be a risky endeavor; it is the kind of thing that
Chaucer did for the English of his day, and it requires a certain willingness, on the part of both the writer
and others, to break away from a diglossic situation by extending the L variety into functions normally
associated only with the H. For about three centuries after the Norman Conquest of 1066, English and
Norman French coexisted in England in a diglossic situation with Norman French the H variety
and English the L. However, gradually the L variety assumed more and more functions associated with
the H so that by Chaucer’s time it had become possible to use the L variety for a major literary work.
The H variety is the prestigious, powerful variety; the L variety lacks prestige and power. In fact,
there may be so little prestige attached to the L variety that people may even deny that they know it
although they may be observed to use it far more frequently than the H variety. Associated with this
prestige valuation for the H variety, there is likely to be a strong feeling that the prestige is deserved
because the H variety is more beautiful, logical, and expressive than the L variety. That is why it is
deemed appropriate for literary use, for religious purposes, and so on. There may also be considerable
and widespread resistance to translating certain books into the L variety, e.g., the Qur’an into one or
other colloquial varieties of Arabic or the Bible into Haitian Creole or Demotic Greek. (We should note
that even today many speakers of English resist the Bible in any form other than the King James
version.)