Sociolinguistics: Dialect and Language

What is Sociolinguistics?
Is the field which studies the relationship between language and society, including cultural norms, expectations and context on the way language is used.

What is Language?
Language is a means of communication, it is used to communicate meaning, as it is also used to maintain and establish social relationships.

What do Sociolinguistics study?
Sociolinguistics study the following:

1- They study the relationship between language and society.
2- They are interested in explaining why we speak differently in different social contexts.
3- They examine the way people use language in different social contexts.

What is the primary task of Sociolinguistics? And what are the types of variations used?
Their primary task is to map linguistic variations on to social conditions.

Types of variations used are as follows:

1- Synchronic Variation: is a variation used at a single point of time.
2- Dialectic Variation: is a change in a language over time.
The existence of patterned variations makes it possible to identify ourselves and others as belonging to a certain group.
What are the aspects of language behavior from a social point of view?
1- The function of language in establishing social relationships.
2- The role played by language in conveying information about the speaker.
- What are the two factors which language variation is based on? 1- Geographic Factors.
2- Social Factors.

Autonomy: Independence.
Heteronomy: Dependence.

Varieties of language are often referred to as “dialects”

What is Clue-bearing role?
Clue-bearing role helps people in the use of language, as it formulates an opinion about us, not so much from what we say , but actually from how we say things.

Clue-bearing role is a social function of language.
- What is the definition of dialect? Is a kind of language which is distinguishable to a degree from other kinds of the same language, in vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation.

What is dialectal diversity?
Dialectal diversity develops when people are separated geographically (oceans, mountains) and socially (religion, politics, class)

What is dialect leveling?
Dialect leveling is a movement towards greater uniformity and less variation among dialects.

What is regional dialect?
Regional dialect is a dialect which spreads in one region and does not spread to other regions in language community. The language used has its character.

What is Idiolect?
Idiolect is the individual’s unique way of speaking; it contains idiosyntric characteristics of an individual’s speech.

What is the definition of accent?
Accent is the individual’s phonological pronunciation of language.

What do we mean by continuum?
Continuum is anything that goes through a gradual transition from one condition to another without any sudden changes.

In certain cases, when is dialect or language continuum applied?
It is applied when people stop speaking one dialect or language, and start speaking another.

What is mutual intelligibility?
If two speakers can understand each other, then they are speaking the same dialect of the same language. And if they don’t understand each other, then they are speaking different languages.

In what case do we choose social and political factors over linguistic factors?
At some places along the German Dutch border, the dialects spoken on both sides are extremely similar. If we chose to say that people on both sides of the border speak German and those on the other Dutch, our choice will be based on social and political factors over linguistic factors.

When did Sociolinguistic appear? And who founded Sociolinguistics?
Sociolinguistics appeared in the 1960’s and was pioneered by William Labov in the United States and United Kingdom.

What is standard language/English?
Standard language/English is used with/by the following:

1- In printing, such as newspapers.
2- To teach non-native speakers.
3- In news broadcasts.
4- It is used by educated people.
5- It is used in social conditions.

What is the definition of the word Taboo?
Taboo is a strong prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and forbidden based on moral judgment and religious beliefs. In language, taboo is associated with things which are not said and in particular with words and expressions which are not used. Why is Arabic not a dialect?
Because Arabic is not used as a native spoken variety of a group of people. And Arabic language is diglossic, which means there are two levels of the language:

1- High (classical, standard, written and formal)
2- Low (Informal, vernacular and spoken)

What is the definition of sociolect?
Sociolect is the variety of language used by a particular social class.

What is social stratification?
It is the social differentiation in terms of power, wealth and status.

The more heterogeneous a society the more heterogeneous is its language.

Western type social-class stratification is not universal.

In India, unlike western societies, traditional society is stratified into different castes, different castes speak different varieties of language.

Because of the rigid separation between different castes, castes dialects tend to be relatively clear-cut. Thus, castes dialects are easier to study and describe over social class dialect.

Since all language varieties are subject to variation and change, it turned out that “pure” homogeneous dialect is a myth, which paved the way for urban dialectology which then became “Sociolinguistics”

What is the definition of ethnicity?
Having an identity with a particular racial, national or cultural group.

What is the definition of pidgin?
Is a language created, usually naturally out of mixture of others languages as a means of communication between speakers of different tongue.

What is the definition of creole?
Creole is when a pidgin comes to be adopted by a community as its native tongue, and children learn it as first language.

How is it possible to identify members of a community?
By language or variety of language they speak.

When does code-switching occur?
Code-switching occurs when there are groups of bilinguals who speak the same two languages.

What is the definition of register?
Register is a specialized variety of language. When we speak we automatically locate ourselves on a specific stylistic level.

What is the definition of slang?
Slang is a vocabulary which is at the extremely informal end of the continuum.

Slang also means colloquial.

What is the meaning of diglossia?
Diglossia is a situation where in a given society, there are two closely-related languages, one of high prestige which is used by the government and formal texts, and one of low prestige which is used usually the spoken vernacular tongue.

What is the definition of style?
Style refers to different ways of speaking a language, a speaker may use a different way of speech according to the situation he is in.

Styles are considered “situation dialects”

In other language communities, style shifting must take place according to the situation.

A shift is style may occur in the following:

1- From formal situations to informal situations.
2- From informal situations to formal situations.