SOCIOLINGUISTICS

ASSIGNMENT
“Language Contacts”

Compiled By:
Jemario Mestika (090705028)

Faculty of Letters
English Department
North Sumatra University
2011
Language Contacts

Language Contacts is a sociolinguistic circumstance where two or more languages,

elements of different languages, or varieties within language, used simultaneously or
mixed one over others. Form of language contacts have been also described to
result from spontaneous acts of the speakers.

Forms of language contacts have been described for example, as situations when a
fluent bilingual switches from a language to anothers, mixes different language in
one conversation, or borrow lexical items from a foreign language into their lexicon.
Reason of language contact can be divided into two, namely direct and distance.
Direct contact happen because the speakers of languages meet in person, mostly
through travelling activities (tourism programs in the present time) or exploration
(colonization in the past). Distance contacts n the other hand, refer to contacts that
happen through the mass media (papers, magazines, cellular technologies, TV,
internet).

Sociolinguistis proposed different views when identifying, naming, and classifying the
phenomenon and the people involved in language contact.

Monolinguals are communities whose members used one language as a means of

communication.

Bilinguals are people who are not monolinguals but speak two languages everyday.

Multilingual are people who can use two languages.

Types of bilingual people:

Partial bilinguals: people who have abilities of using several languages in which one
(or some) of the languages is not fully acquired, or it not used as common as the
others.

1. Total bilinguals: people who have an ability of using more than one language
equally.
2. Compound bilinguals: people who learn second (foreign) language after they have
a perfect command in the first.

3. Co-ordinate bilinguals: people who learn two different languages in different

situation

4. Additive bilingualism: situation when some languages used by the bilinguals are
seen to be in complementary to each other. In this type, both language are used,
honored, and maintained to the same level.

5. Subtractive bilingualism: situation when language being used is seen to endanger

the status of the other.

Code-choosing (SPEAKING)

In 1964, dell Hathaway Hymes, one of the most noted world sociolinguistics, suggest
eight factors that bilingual, multilingual, or monolingual people may consider when
choosing a code. The factors were formulated into an acronym, namely SPEAKING,
which stand for Setting and Scene, Participants, Ends, Art sequence, Key,
Instrumentalities, Norm of interaction, and Genre.

1. Setting and scene are the places, occasions, or natural situations that can
influence the people in choosing the code. People may consider choosing a formal
language when talking in office than when talking in a picnic place.

2. Participants are the people involved in communication found in setting. A good

public speaker for example, wants to know about his (her) audience before
performing a speech

3. Ends are the goals or purposes that a speaker wishes to reach.

4. Act sequence refers to the order of a speech, a narrative, a conversation, or a

talking. The sequence in speaking is then considered to be also an important factor
to consider.

5. Key is referred to the manner, spirit, and feeling of the message wished to be
captured within the conversation. It also referred to the spirit captured in the voice or
manner of a speaker. The spirit or the feeling may be sincere, modest, or low.
6. Instrumentalities are referred to the register and forms of the speech. The form
might be under consideration are whether it will be delivered in a more formal way or
casual friendly one.

7. Norm of interaction is the contextual custom in using the code, including for
example allowance for an interruption, using gestures freely, addressing an
audience, eye contacts, distance, asking questions about belief, etc.

8. Genre is referred to the type of the utterances whether it is in the form of a poem,
a proverb, a prayer, a lecture, etc.

Code-Switching

There is a situation where speakers deliberately change a code being used,

namely by Code-Switching.

Code switching has become a common term for alternative use of two or more
language, or varieties of language, or even speech styles (Dell H Hymes, 1875).

Code switching is the use of more than one language by communicants in the
execution of a speech act (Pietro, 1977).

The most obvious factor why bilingual use code-switching are quoting someone,
making and emphasizing group identity or solidarity, including or excluding
someone from a conversation, raising status, and showing language expertise.

Code switching can be classified in accordance with two different classification

we name here grammatical an contextual classification.

1. Grammatical classification

a. Tag code switching, happens when a bilingual inserts shirt

expressions (tag) from different language at the end of his/her utterances,
for example: its okay, no problem, ya nggak?

b. Inter-sentential code-switching, happens when there is a complete

sentence in a foreign language uttered between two sentences in a base
language, for example: ini lagu lama, tahun 60an. Its oldies but goodies,
they say. Tapi, masih enak kok didengerin.
 c. Intra-sentential code-switching is found when a word, a phase, or a
clause, of foreign language is found within the sentence in a base
language, for example: The hotel, il est grand, is really huge and
unbelievably majestic.

2. Contextual classification

a. Situational code-switching happens when there is a change in the

situation that causes the bilingual switches from one code to the other.

b. Metaphorical code-switching happens when there is a change in the

perception, or the purpose, or the topic if the conversation.

On the contrary, in a spoken language a more careful attention shows that

there is at least adjustment to the sound (pronunciation) and to the supra
segmental features of the language involved. Only in a written text a bilingual
may seem to be completely ‘switching’ from one code to another.

Code-Mixing

The concept of code-mixing is used to refer to a more general form of

language contact that may include cases of code-switching and the other form
of contact which emphasizes the lexical items.

In code-mixing, pieces of one language are used while a speaker is basically

using another language (John Gumperz, 1977).

Conversational code-mixing involves the deliberate mixing of two languages

without an associated topic or situation change (Plaff, 1977)

In multilingual countries such as India, Singapore, Malaysia, the bilingual

commonly mix their first language with English. Thus, Malay people mix
English with Malay, Indian mix English with Hindi, and Chinese mix Mandarin
with English.

Word-Borrowing

A bilingual often borrow lexical items (words) from another language and uses
it in his/her utterance. Unlike switching or mixing codes, borrowing foreign
words does not require a high degree if fluency in a different language. A
word can be a partial or passive bilingual who may never really use another
language from which they borrow the words.

Borrowing English words have been a global phenomenon. For this the study
of word-borrowing has produced classifications based on different points of
view, such as on the reasons, the language sources, the relation between
thee languages involved, the frequency of the use of the words, the number of
their users, and how the foreign words are adapted by the bilingual borrowers.

According to the relation between the languages involved, word-borrowings

are classified into three, namely cultural, intimate, and dialect borrowings.

1. Cultural borrowings refer to words that are borrowed from a different

language uncommonly used in speech-community. All English words
borrowed by Indonesian bilinguals belong to this type. Bamboo and
ketchup from Malay, vodka, tsar, and tundra from Russian have been
borrowed into English as cultural-borrowing type, because Malay and
Russian are not languages commonly used by English speaking
communities.

2. Intimate borrowings refer to words that are borrowed from a different

language that is also spoken widely in community, for example: a Balinese
who says, “ipidan meli sepeda motor?” (When did you buy the motor
cycle) is borrowing the Indonesian “sepeda motor” into Balinese utterance;
hence the word is an intimate one.

3. Dialect borrowings refer to words that are borrowed from a different

dialect of the same language. When the English apartment, fall (season),
 soccer are borrowed from American English into British variety the words
are of dialect borrowings.

According to the frequency of the use of the words and the number of their
users, there are two types of borrowing. They are:

1. Speech borrowings are foreign words used by relatively a few people. If

an Indonesian borrow the English words talk, see, home, there are three
words are of speech borrowings because they are never borrowed by
other Indonesian people; other people are assumed to still normally use
the Indonesian berbicara, melihat, and rumah. However, if those three
words are used widely by most speakers, then they belong to the
language borrowings.

2. Language borrowings are foreign words tjat are widely used bymajority
of people that the borrowers might think the words are not of foreign
language anymore. Dosa (sin), puasa (fasting), bangsa (nation), bumi
(earth) which were borrowed from Sanskrit. Bakmi (meat ball and noddle),
tahu (tofu), toko (shop) and becak (pedicap) from Chinese dialect, are all
hardly ever realized anymore as borrowing words.

According to whether the foreign words are adapted or not (yet) by borrowers,
there are two types of borrowing. They are:

1. Spontaneous borrowings are foreign words that receive no adaption at

all or they nay receive but it the adaptation is not apparently noticeable in
the base language.

2. Incorporated borrowings are words that are borrowed and receive

affixes, sounds, or spelling adjustment in the base language. The English
happy is borrowed to be pronounce /hepi/ and spelled hepi, juice become
jus, paragraph become paragraf, sex become seks, etc. The word hot for
example is given Indonesian prefixes to be ter-hot, funky to be se-funky,
date to be ngedate, request to be direquest. Some of these incorporated
borrowings are of language borrowings type because they have been
widely used.
 Loanwords

Loanwords refer to most borrowing words described earlier (funky, hot, date,
request). According to the level of necessity in borrowing words, loanwords
are distinguished further into two types, namely necessary and unnecessary
loanwords.

1. Necessary loanwords, also named importations are words borrowed

from foreign language by bilinguals into their utterance because they find
there is no exact word in their own language. Jihad and Jilbab (Arabic),
tsunami, karaoke (Japanese) was borrowed because there was no single
word in the language that could express the meaning appropriately.

2. Unnecessary loanwords also named substitution are the words from a

foreign language that are borrowed although there are actually
corresponding words in the receiver language that may be used to
substitute them. The words hot, request, and date that are borrowed into
Indonesians may actually use panas, meminta, or kencan to refer to the
meanings expressed by the English items.

Loanblends

Loanblends are formed through combining the word of foreign language and a word
of the base language. Compared to loanwords, this type of word-borrowing is rather
rare. The classic example is gumbaum that blends the English gum and German
baum. The Italian cocacolonizzare “coca-cola” and colonizzare “colonize”, Japanese
kapuseru “soft capsule” and wakusu “auto wax” can be classified as a loandblend of
English word.

Loanshift

Loanshift also populary known as loantranslation refer to words which are formed by
borrowing only the meanings found in the words of the foreign resources. In the past,
Indonesian lexicon used to have the Dutch as one of the source-languages for this
type of borrowing. In the present time, the English words has replaced the Dutch for
the Indonesian loanshift resource. The English words hardware and software for
example, have been borrowed into Indonesian to be perangkat keras and perangkat
lunak, e-mail borrowed to be pos elektronik, mobile phone (hand phone) to be
telepon genggam, scapegoat to be kambing hitam, etc.