ENG510 Midterm Solved Papers by Maha Malik

1: diachronic variation:

Diachronic linguistics is one of the two main temporal dimensions of language study identified by a Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. Diachronic variation deals with language change over time. Principal concerns of diachronic linguistics include: to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages.

The term diachronic consists of ‘dia’ that means ‘throughout’; and ‘chron’ that means ‘time’. Diachronic linguistics is the study of language through different periods in history. It maps the shifts and fractures and mutations of languages over the centuries. In gross outline, it is similar to evolutionary biology, which maps the shifts and transformations of rocks. For example, tracing the development of English from the Old English period to the twentieth century is a diachronic study.

2: Languages condition in USA (imp)

Over 500 languages are spoken by the U.S. population. The most commonly used language is English (specifically, American English), which is the de facto national language of the United States. Since the 1965 Immigration Act, Spanish is the second most common language in the country. The state government of Louisiana offers services and documents in French, as does New Mexico in Spanish. There are many languages indigenous to North America or to U.S. states or holdings in the Pacific region. Hawaiian, although having few native speakers, is an official language along with English of the state of Hawaii. Alaska recognizes English and twenty native languages as official.

American Community Survey 2016 of 5+ years shows following statistics:

• English only – 237.8 million
• Spanish– 40.5 million
• Chinese – 3.4 million
• Tagalog – 1.7 million
• Vietnamese – 1.5 million

English is the primary language used for, legislation, regulations, executive orders, treaties, federal court rulings, and all other official pronouncements.

3: Relationship b/w language & society (5 marks) (imp)

Language and social interaction have a reciprocal relationship. Language shapes social interactions and social interactions shape language. Anthropological linguistics looks at: Language in specific culture and how it is affected. Sociolinguistics is the study of the connection between language and society and the way people use language in different social situations. When we say language is a social-cultural-geographical phenomenon, what does it mean? We also need to think about how does society affect language? It is in society that man acquires and uses language. Kinds of problems in this relationship include communities which develop a standard language, and the reactions of minority adds to this (as in Belgium, India, Pakistan or Wales); people have to be educated to linguistic level where they can cope with the demands of a variety of social situations. Communication exists between nations or groups using a different language. Problems are caused by linguistic change in response to social factors. The problems are caused or solved by bilingualism or multilingualism. Scope of sociolinguistics includes the interaction of language and various sociologically definable variables such as social class, specific social situation, status and roles of speakers etc

4: why the idea of speech community rejected:

For purely theoretical purposes, some linguists have hypothesized the existence of an ‘ideal’ speech community. This is actually what Chomsky (1965) proposes as ‘completely homogeneous speechcommunity’. However, such a speech community is a theoretical construct employed for a narrow purpose. Mostly our speech communities, whatever they are, exist in a ‘real’ world. Consequently, we need an alternative view of speech community i.e. to study language in society rather than necessitated by abstract linguistic theorizing. Using linguistic characteristics alone to determine what is or is not a speech community has proved so far to be quite impossible. Why? Because people do not necessarily feel any such direct relationship between linguistic characteristics A, B, C, and so on, and speech community X. What we can be sure of is that speakers do use linguistic characteristics to achieve group identity with, and group differentiation from, other speakers, but they use other characteristics. The examples are: social, cultural, political and ethnic. Social categories of age, sex, ethnicity, social class, and situation can be clearly marked on the basis of speech, and that such categorization is fundamental to social organization. Perhaps the concept of ‘speech community’ is less useful than it might be. The question is should we return to the concept of ‘group’ as any set of individuals united for a common end? Should we stick to the concept of ‘speech communities’ or ‘groups’ or ‘communities of practice’? Each choice has its own consequences.

5: bilinguality:

It must take into consideration the definition of bilinguality that is, it should assess a psychological state and therefore account for its specificity. According to another differentiation bilinguality is ‘psychomeasurement’, whereas bilingualism is the logical state of the individual who has access to more than one linguistic code. There are reasons to believe that the bilingual is more than the sum of two monolinguals and that his behaviour displays some unique characteristics.

6: 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(1974) asserts, “most members of our society have some kind of idea, intuitive or otherwise, of what social class is,” and both specialists and laypeople agree. Social class is often defined in an ad hoc way which is very ironic because it is a very important variable in sociolinguistic studies. Despite the lack of a consensus of definition of social class, it is a significant term in Sociolinguistics.

Social class is a measure of status which is often based on occupation, income and wealth, but also can be measured in terms of aspirations and mobility