ENG510 Midterm Short Notes

Cause of language variation IMP

1. Nature of participants, their relationship (socio-economic, sexual, occupational, etc.)
2. Number of participants (face-to-face or one addressing a large audience, etc.)
3. Role of participants (teacher/student /priest/ father/son/ husband/ wife, etc.)
4. Function of speech event (persuasion, request for information ritual, verbal, etc.)
5. Nature of medium (speech, writing, scripted speech, speech reinforced by gesture, etc.)

link between dialect and idiolect An idiolect is the distinctive speech of an individual, a linguistic pattern regarded as unique among speakers of a person's language or dialect. But it is even more granular, more narrow than just all the speakers of a particular dialect. social dialect In sociolinguistics, social dialect is a variety of speech associated with a particular social class or occupational group within a society. Also known as sociolect, group idiolect, and class dialect. A speaker may be more similar in language to people from the same social group in a different area than to people from a different social group in the same area. Hierarchical social structure such as we find in Britain, where social class takes precedence over geography as a determinant of speech, there is far more geographical variation among people in the lower social classes than there is amongst those at the `top' of the social heap.

Dialect · Jargon · Accent · Register

A dialect varies from other dialects of the same language simultaneously on at least three levels of organization: pronunciation, grammar or syntax and vocabulary The special words or expressions used by a profession or group that are difficult for others to understand. The type of language that is used in a particular context and is not be well understood outside that context Accent is a distinctive way of pronouncing a language, especially one associated with a particular country, area, or social class. An accent consists of a way of pronouncing a variety. Register shows what you are doing. It is used to describe changing how a person speaks based on the situation.

Example: A Northern American might say, ―hello.‖ A Southern American might say, ―howdy.‖ Example: a posteriori from later meaning An argument derived from subsequent event. Accents typically differ in quality of the voice, pronunciation and distinction of vowels and consonants Example: Such as pronouncing words ending in -ing "walking" as "walkin"

relationship between language dialect and identity (5 marks) relationship between language dialect and identity (5 marks) We each have a sense of who we are and equally, of who we want to be. We choose, from situation to situation, and even from second to second, how to express ourselves. So, it is a continuous process. Usually it is unintentional, triggered by a place, subject of conversation, company etc. But these choices are not random, they are guided by our sense of belonging, and are shaped by our identity. This leads to certain question. For example, a Yorkshire-man telling someone to "wait while five o'clock", using "while" for standard "until‖. He declares his own local credentials and puts the other at their ease unless, that is, the other is an outsider, in which case they are either accidentally baffled or intentionally excluded. This matter of inclusion or exclusion - movement towards someone or erection of a barrier against them - is at the heart of our maintaining differences in speech. REGIONAL DIALECTS A regional dialect is a distinct form of a language spoken in a particular geographical area. If the form of speech transmitted from a parent to a child is a distinct regional dialect, that dialect is said to be the child's vernacular. Define term lect: In sociolinguistics, a variety is also called a lect. It is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, registers, styles or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety. Linguists speak of both standard and non-standard varieties. The term variety is advantageous in the sense that it helps to avoid the use of the term language, which has its own issues such as the divisions or differences as a ‗standard language‘, and the term ‗dialect‘ used for non-standard varieties being thought of as less prestigious or "correct" than the standard lang. " Lect" avoids the problem in ambiguous cases of deciding whether two varieties are distinct langs or dialects of a single lang. Variation at the level of the lexicon such as slang and argot, is often considered in relation to particular styles or levels of formality (also called registers). Application of sociolinguistic: A sociolinguist might determine through the study of social attitudes that particular vernacular would not be considered appropriate language use in a business or professional setting. Sociolinguists might also study grammar, phonetics, vocabulary, and other aspects of a sociolect, much as dialectologists would study the same for a regional dialect. Linguistics and sociolinguistics.... Diff between linguistics and sociolinguisctics. Linguistic is the study of language includes psycholinguistics, historical linguistics, morphology, syntax, semantic etc. Sociolinguistics is the study of variation of language in use. We use different words in grammatical forms depending or context. Linguistics differs from sociolinguistics in taking account only of the structure of language, to the segregation of the social contexts in which it is learned and used. The task of linguists is to work out 'the rules of language X', after which sociolinguists may enter the scene and study any points at which these rules make contact with a society. This view is typical of the whole 'structural' school of linguists which has dominated 20th linguistics including transformational and generative linguistics There r 2 particularly good reasons for accepting this view:

1. We cannot take the notion `language X' for granted, since this in itself is a social notion so far

as it is defined in terms of a group of people who speak X.

2. Speech has a social function.

Work of labov on sociolinguistics William Labov (1927) has been a prominent voice in American linguistics since the early 1960s. He pioneered an approach to investigating the relationship between language and society. He developed a field known as ―variationist sociolinguistics‖. A central doctrine of this field is that variation is inherent to linguistic structure. The way a language is spoken (and written) differs across individuals as well as across situations encountered by the same individual. Labov asserted that such differences are not only normal but also necessary to a language‘s functioning. This view challenges much of the traditionally dominant thinking and practice in linguistic theory, from Ferdinand de Saussure to Noam Chomsky. Mainstream theorists do not deny the existence of variation, rather they tend to downplay its relevance and treat it as a superficial phenomenon obscuring a fundamental uniformity that characterizes language. Labov‘s research demonstrates that linguistic variation is pervasive and highly structured. It reveals regular patterns of co-occurrence between language forms, such as the pronunciation of a particular vowel, and social categories, such as socioeconomic classes. His approach is distinguished from others within sociolinguistics by its reliance on quantitative methods. social class: Social class is a central concept in sociolinguistic research, one of the small number of social variables by which speech communities are stratified. Trudgill asserts, ―most members of our society have some kind of idea, intuitive or otherwise, of what social class is,‖. Social class is often defined in an ad hoc way which is very ironic because it is a very impo variable in sociolinguistic studies. Components of social class Two central components of social class are:

1. The objective, economic measures of property ownership and the power and control it confers

on its possessor

2. The subjective measures of prestige, reputation, and status

Contact language (3): Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. Sometimes unrelated languages that are typical of creole language formation come in contact. There are some constraints on the outcomes of language contact other than the principle of localisation. A constraint relates to the aspect of space. Another constraint is concerned with speaker‘s attitudes. Another constraint is of social factors. Yet another is social rigidity in which an innovation is being introduced. So, language contact occurs in a variety of phenomena, including language convergence, borrowing and relexification. The most common products are pidgins, creoles, codeswitching, and mixed languages. So, language contact is not as free as it seems to be. Is language free or structured Before the 1960s, the general feeling in Western linguistics was that some of the variation observed in language was ―free‖ and ―unconstrained‖. There are some constraints on the outcomes of language contact other than the principle of localisation. A constraint relates to the aspect of space. Another constraint is concerned with speaker‘s attitudes. Another constraint is of social factors. Yet another is social rigidity in which an innovation is being introduced. So, language contact occurs in a variety of phenomena, including language convergence, borrowing and relexification. The most common products are pidgins, creoles, codeswitching, and mixed languages. So, language contact is not as free as it seems to be. Rigidity of the Social Matrix Even larger aspects of the social and cultural context may act as a constraint on whether features transfer from speaker to speaker. Some time ago, Gumperz and Wilson (1971) documented the rather unusual linguistic situation in Kupwar, India. In Kupwar, three languages – Hindi, Marathi and Kannada have been spoken for centuries. Remarkably, given how often people in Kupwar might have to switch between the languages in day-today life, the languages have remained distinct codes. That is, it is still always clear when someone is speaking Marathi, when they are speaking Hindi and when they are speaking Kannada. People in Kupwar haven‘t borrowed lexical items back and forth between the languages, even though (as we have repeatedly noted) vocabulary is usually easily transferred. And yet, the Hindi, Marathi and Kannada of Kupwar look appreciably different from the standard varieties of each of the languages. This is because there have been some subtle changes to the syntax of the three languages which appear, over the centuries, to have brought them closer in line with each other. spatial diffusion and gravity of language contact and change The gravity model predicts that the larger the city/town, the sooner an innovation is likely to show up there,i.e., the ‗gravitational force‘ is provided by the weight of numbers of people. The gravity model was originally used to describe the diffusion of non-linguistic innovations. Sociologists and economists had observed that innovations, such as the adoption of new brands of cars or the use of new types of seed among farmers, often moved irregularly across physical space. They found that they jumped from cities with the largest populations, gradually moved to smaller cities and towns, and finally took hold in the smaller towns or villages. note on language and dialects of Pakistan Pakistan is an union of heterogeneous groups with widely different linguistic characteristics. A large number of languages are spoken, for instance, official languages: Urdu and English. Urdu is the official language, though it is not the first language of the majority of the population. Apart from Urdu and English, which is limited to a small proportion of thepopulation no language is commonly understood. The national language Urdu has a number of handicaps. The regional languages - Punjabi, Baluchi, Sindhi and Pashto, though rich in literaturerely heavily on oral tradition and moreover, lack a unitary system of speech form. Apart from Urdu and English, which is limited to a small proportion of the population no language is commonly understood. The national language Urdu is not indigenous and suffers from a number of handicaps. To complicate the situation even more, all speakers within a language community do not use a single form. Thus, within languages, there exist styles and dialects with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility. In Pakistani context, these ling diff are a divisive force; and have a great sociolinguistic significance. However, the same or closely similar written text is a source of unity in this diversity. The tension bw Urdu and local lang on 1 level, and Urdu and Eng on the other level has given rise to a hierarchy. No less than 24 langs and a considerably great number of dialects, that is not less than 70, are spoken in this region What are the official langs in pakistan? (3) Urdu and English are the official lang of Pakistan.

Write any three effects to change the language.(3)

1. Grammar may be on a road to extinction in the brave new world of emoticons, texts, tweets, and short
2. Internet chat-rooms and social networking sites are encouraging children to write syntactically incorrect sentences.
3. From the introduction of new words to new meanings for old words to changes in the way we communicate, social media is making its presence felt.
4. Acronyms, abbreviations, and neologisms have grown up around technologically mediated communication to help us be understood. Here are some examples of acronyms such as:

LOL = laughing out loud TGIF=Thank God it‘s Friday, BRB= Be right Back Language death (5 marks) Language death is a linguistic term for the end or extinction of a language. Also called language extinction. At the moment, linguists believe, around 6,000 languages are spoken. Michael Krauss has predicted that by the end of this century 90 per cent will be extinct. The According to Crystal, a language dies every two weeks. For example, in Australia out of the 260 aboriginal languages originally spoken, 100 are already extinct only around twenty are being passed on to children.

Types of language death

1. A more radical type of lang extinction is sudden death which can be caused by various factors such as scattering of an entire community of speakers or due to natural disasters. In 1998 an arthquake off the coast of Papua New Guinea killed and displaced thousands of speakers of Arup, Malol
2. Today, the most common cause of language death is not population death, but language shift. This happens when speakers of a lang do not pass it on to their children. Instead, they acquire a different language from the parents. Gradually, the language of the entire community ‗shifts‘. Unlike the extinction of an animal species, the people don‘t die, only their language does.
3. Fishman asserts that a typical case of lang shift can happen over three generations. If speakers of language X are the grandparents and speakers of Yare the parents who have a passive knowledge of X but are fluent