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SOCIOLINGUISTICS

the study of language in its social contexts and the study of social life
through linguistics (Coupland and Jaworski 1997:1)

the relationship between language and society (Trudgill 2000: 21)

the correlation of dependent linguistic variables with independent
social variables (Chambers 2003: ix)
However, the many different ways that society can impinge on
language make the field of reference extremely broad. Studies of the
various ways in which social structure and linguistic structure come
together include personal, stylistic, social, sociocultural and sociologi-
cal aspects. Depending on the purposes of the research, the different
orientations of sociolinguistic research have traditionally been sub-
sumed by one of two umbrella terms: sociolinguistics and the sociol-
ogy of language. A further division could also be made between
qualitative (ethnography of communication, discourse analysis, etc.)
and quantitative (language variation and change) approaches.
Sociolinguistics tends to put emphasis on language in social context,
whereas the sociology of language emphasises the social interpretation of language.
Variation analysis is embedded in sociolinguistics,
the area of linguistics which takes as a starting point the rules of
grammar and then studies the points at which these rulesmake contact
with society. But then the question becomes: How and to what extent?
Methods of analyses, and focus on linguistics or sociology, are what
differentiate the strands of sociolinguistics. From this perspective,
variation analysis is inherently linguistic, analytic and quantitative
General Topics of Sociolinguistic
What Factors Enter into Language Variation?
It's clear that there are many systematic dierences
between different languages. (English and Japanese,
for example).
By systematic" we mean describable by rules. But
what is not as obvious is that languages also contain
many levels of internal variation, related to such
variables as age, region, socioeconomic status,
group identication, and others.
These various dimensions of variation are systematic
in the same way as the variation between different
languages is.
Language Variation
Any variety of a language characterized by systematic
dierences in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary
from other varieties of the same language is called a
dialect.
Everyone speaks a dialect { in fact, many dialects at
different levels. The people who speak a certain dialect
are called a speech community.
Some of the larger dialectal divisions in the English
speaking world:
British English vs. American English vs. Australian
English (along with others). Northern American
English, Southern American English, etc.
Brit/American: lay by/rest area, petrol/gasoline,
lorry/truck, minerals/soft drinks
Dialect
A dialect spoken by one individual is called an idiolect.
Everyone has small dierences between the way they
talk and the way even their family and best friends
talk, creating a \minimal dialect".
Idiolect:





An accent is a certain form of a language spoken
by a subgroup of speakers of that language which is
defined by phonological features.
Everyone has an accent, just as everyone speaks
a dialect. It's not a question of having" or not
having" an accent or dialect, it's a question of which
accent or dialect you speak with.
Note that you can speak the same dialect as
someone else while using a different accent (though
frequently the two vary together). Thus people from
Boston and Brooklyn use about the same dialect,
but their accents are radically different.
Accent
One of the language variation is Slang. Slang only uses in particular occasion and
particular group. Sometime only the particular group who knows or understand about
language variation which they will use slang if there is the same understanding about the
word they use. Slang be specific communicating in particular special group.
Slang
slang is the style or register of language that consists of terms that can substitute for
standard terms of the same conceptual meaning but have stronger emotive impact than the
standard terms, in order to express an attitude of self-assertion toward conventional order
and moral authority and often an affinity with or membership in occupational, ethnic, or
other social groups, and which ranges in acceptability from sexual and scatological crudity
to audacious wittiness (cf. Chapman 1987).
Slang Term Meaning Slang Term Meaning
buzz feeling of pleasure
or excitement (e.g.,
after drinking some
alcohol)
mazeh gorgeous guy
cas [koeZ] all right mazehette gorgeous girl
fake-bake tanning salon pot marijuana
gork nerd sucky awful

happa. half-Asian person T.E.A great!
homeboy very close male
friend
to have missile
lock
to concentrate
Some examples of American English slang.
Mario Pei (1966) notes the following characteristics of slang:
a. it is non-standard vocabulary characterized by extreme informality;
b. its currency is not limited to a region;
c. it is composed of coinages or arbitrarily changed words, clipped forms,
extravagant forced, or facetious (= amusing) figures of speech, verbal novelties;
d. it is short-lived and therefore subject to decline into use;
e. generally, slang is only intelligible to those people associated with the group
or groups who use it.

For example, slang is very common among adolescent and college students, in the
army, among gang members, etc.
In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular
social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting an English speaker may be more
likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a
velar nasal instead of an alveolar nasal (e.g. "walking", not "walkin'"), choose more formal
words (e.g. father vs. dad, child vs. kid, etc.), and refrain from using the word ain't, than when
speaking in an informal setting.
As with other types of language variation, there tends to be a spectrum of registers rather than a
discrete set of obviously distinct varieties there is a countless number of registers that could be
identified, with no clear boundaries. Discourse categorisation is a complex problem, and even in
the general definition of "register" given above (language variation defined by use not user),
there are cases where other kinds of language variation, such as regional or age dialect, overlap.
As a result of this complexity, there is far from consensus about the meanings of terms like
"register", "field" or "tenor"; different writers' definitions of these terms are often in direct
contradiction of each other. Additional terms such as diatype, genre, text types, style, acrolect,
mesolect and basilect among many others may be used to cover the same or similar ground.
Some prefer to restrict the domain of the term "register" to a specific vocabulary (Wardhaugh,
1986) (which one might commonly call jargon), while others argue against the use of the term
altogether. These various approaches with their own "register" or set of terms and meanings fall
under disciplines such as sociolinguistics, stylistics, pragmatics or systemic functional grammar.
Register
Pidgins
-
a new language which develops in situations where the speakers of
different languages need to communicate but dont share acommon
language


Pidgin has the following seven qualities:

(a) No native speakers no ones native language. Yet spoken
by millions as means of communication
(b) A product of multilingual 3 languages one is dominant-
The dominant language superior (economical or social
factor)- Two languages involved a power struggle
for dominance)
(c) Combined effort of speakers (different language)
contribute to a new variety phonology,morphology and
syntax


(d) The dominant group more vocabulary (lexifier superstrate)
while the lessdominant languages grammar (substrate)
(e) Reduced grammatical structure, limited vocabularyand a narrow
range of functions- does not have inflections to mark plural /tenses-
does not contain any affixes
(f) Main function trading
(g) Not used as a means of group identification
What is Creole?

When children start learning a pidgin as their first language, it becomes the
mother tongueof a community = creole
Like a pidgin, a creole is a distinct language vocabulary taken from another
language, thelexifier but has own unique grammar rules
Most creoles employed by descendants of African slaves in America and
the Caribbean
Have fulfilled functions more elaboratedusage (for education, parliament,
governmentdocuments)
Status lifted as national language / officiallanguage

For example:
1. Tok Pisin PNG official language / lingua franca
2. Bahasa Indonesia developed from Malay pidgin
Creole
Speech community is a concept in sociolinguistics that describes a more or less discrete
group of people who use language in a unique and mutually accepted way among
themselves.
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.
For example, your book Language Files gives you an example of speech from an older man
with many well known characteristics of
Speech Community
Bilingualism
Bilingualism is a sociolinguistic phenomenon that has received much scholarly attention, not only
because of its importance in communications but also because of political and demographic
considerations that have led many sociologists to brand some languages as major and others as
minor in multiliguistic settings. This classification forces African languages into subordinate
positions on the grounds that only a few of them have been codified, and fewer still are used in
instruction; hence the superiority of European languages in Cameroon, where the term
bilingualism immediately brings to mind a mastery of English and French. In this wise, handling
the topic bilingualism becomes a difficult task to the African mind as it has to grapple with the
decision whether or not to consider local tongues in the study.

On the other hand, the definition of the term has also been a subject of much debate.
The dimension of this debate is clearly shown by two definitions which could best be
considered as being polarised: while Bloomfield defines bilingualism as a native
like control of two languages, Diebold gives a minimal definition when he uses the
term incipient bilingualism to mean the initial stages of contact between two
languages. These two definitions imply that we are forced, in studying bilingualislm,
to consider it as something entirely relative because the point at which the leaner of a
second language becomes bilingual is either arbitrary or difficult to determine.
*deletion in syllable-initial contexts prohibited (mi-ROR)
It goes without saying, however, that sociolinguists are interested in all languages. In
addition, speakers of a particular speech community are always made up of many
groups; with the speech of the members of each group reflecting their age, place of
origin, professional interests, and educational background, among others. This renders
it difficult for one speaker to internalise all the variants; thus the difficulty in
determining how perfect language use by a speaker is. It is on the basis of these two
considerations that in its attempt to discuss the notion of bilingualism, this paper will
include both local and foreign languages; and consider bilingualism as the alternate
use of two languages (Websters New Collegiate Dictionary). Given the complexity of
the Cameroonian context, a bilingual in this paper will refer to
(1) a speaker of a national language plus an official language,
(2) a speaker of two official languages, and
(3) a speaker of two national languages.
Furthermore, the paper will, among others, attempt to examine bilingualism
mannerisms and attitudes towards it.
Though bilingualism may be classified according to the pairing up of the languages spoken,
Weinreich (1963) discussed three types bilingualism in terms of the ways in which it was thought
that the concepts of a language were encoded in the individuals brain (Romaine, 1995). The New
Encyclopaedia Britannica, however, identifies two main types, which have adopted here. These
are:
a) Coordinate Bilingualism: In this type, the person learns the languages in separate
environments, and words of the two languages are kept separate with each word having its own
specific meaning. An instance of this is seen in a Cameroonian child learning English at school.
This may also be referred to as subtractive bilingualism.
b) Compound Bilingualism: Here, the person learns the two languages in the same context where
they are used concurrently, so that there is a fused representation of the languages in the brain.
This is the case when a child is brought up by bilingual parents, or those from two different
linguistic backgrounds. This is additive in nature.
TYPES OF BILINGUALISLM:
Multilingualism is the act of using polyglotism, or using multiple
languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers.
Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's
population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by
the needs of globalization and cultural openness. Owing to the ease of
access to information facilitated by the Internet, individuals' exposure to
multiple languages is becoming increasingly frequent thereby promoting a
need to acquire additional languages.
Multilingualism
One group of academics[who?] argues for the maximal definition which means speakers are as
proficient in one language as they are in others and have as much knowledge of and control
over one language as they have of the others. Another group[who?] of academics argues for
the minimal definition, based on use. Tourists who successfully communicate phrases and
ideas while not fluent in a language may be seen as bilingual according to this group.
However, problems may arise with these definitions as they do not specify how much
knowledge of a language is required for a person to be classified as bilingual. As a result, since
most speakers do not achieve the maximal ideal, language learners may come to be seen as
deficient and by extension, language teaching may come to be seen as a failure.
Language planning is a deliberate effort to influence the function, structure, or acquisition of
languages or language variety within a speech community. It is often associated with government
planning, but is also used by a variety of non-governmental organizations, such as grass-roots
organizations and even individuals. The goals of language planning differ depending on the nation
or organization, but generally include making planning decisions and possibly changes for the
benefit of communication. Planning or improving effective communication can also lead to other
social changes such as language shift or assimilation, thereby providing another motivation to
plan the structure, function and acquisition of languages.
Language engineering involves the creation of natural language processing systems whose cost
and outputs are measurable and predictable as well as establishment of language regulators, such
as formal or informal agencies, committees, societies or academies as language regulators to
design or develop new structures to meet contemporary needs. It is a distinct field contrasted to
natural language processing and computational linguistics. A recent trend of language engineering
is the use of Semantic Web technologies for the creation, archival, processing, and retrieval of
machine processable language data.
Language planning
Status planning
Status planning is the allocation or reallocation of a language or variety to
functional domains within a society, thus affecting the status, or standing, of
a language.
Types of language planning

Language planning has been divided into three types:
Corpus planning
Corpus planning refers to the prescriptive intervention in the forms of a language,
whereby planning decisions are made to engineer changes in the structure of the
language. Corpus planning activities often arise as the result of beliefs about the
adequacy of the form of a language to serve desired functions. Unlike status planning,
which is primarily undertaken by administrators and politicians, corpus planning
generally involves planners with greater linguistic expertise. There are three
traditionally recognized types of corpus planning: graphization, standardization, and
modernization.
Acquisition planning
Acquisition planning is a type of language planning in which a national, state or local
government system aims to influence aspects of language, such as language status, distribution
and literacy through education. Acquisition planning can also be used by non-governmental
organizations, but it is more commonly associated with government planning.
Frequently, acquisition planning is integrated into a larger language planning process in which
the statuses of languages are evaluated, corpuses are revised and the changes are finally
introduced to society on a national, state or local level through education systems, ranging from
primary schools to universities. This process of change can entail a variety of modifications,
such as an alteration in student textbook formatting, a change in methods of teaching an official
language or the development of a bilingual language program, only to name a few. For example,
if a government decides to raise the status level of a certain language or change its level of
prestige, it can establish a law that requires teachers to teach only in this language or that
textbooks are written using only this languages script. This, in turn, would support the elevation
of the languages status or could increase its prestige. In this way, acquisition planning is often
used to promote language revitalization, which can change a languages status or reverse a
language shift, or to promote linguistic purism. In a case where a government revises a corpus,
new dictionaries and educational materials will need to be revised in schools in order to
maintain effective language acquisition.

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