Page 185 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Unit 13: Branches in Linguistics: Socio-Linguistics

Notes

The scope of socio-linguistics, therefore, is the interaction of language and various
sociologically definable variables such as social class, specific social situation, status and
roles of speakers/hearers, etc.

13.2 Language Variation

Language with its different varieties is the subject matter of socio-linguistics. Socio-linguistics studies
the varied linguistic realizations of socio-cultural meanings which in a sense are both familiar and
unfamiliar and the occurrence of everyday social interactions which are nevertheless relative to
particular cultures, societies, social groups, speech communities, languages, dialects, varieties, styles.
That is why language variation generally forms a part of socio-linguistic study.
Language can vary, not only from one individual to the next, but also from one sub-section of speech-
community (family, village, town, region) to another. People of different age, sex, social classes,
occupations, or cultural groups in the same community will show variations in their speech. Thus
language varies in geographical and social space. Variability in a social dimension is called sociolectical.
According to socio-linguists, a language is code. There exist varieties within the code. And the factors
that cause language variation can be summarized in the following manner:
— nature of participants, their relationship (socio-economic, sexual, occupational, etc.)
— number of participants (two face-to-face, one addressing a large audience, etc.)
— roles of participants (teacher/student priest/parishoner/father/son/husband/wife, etc.)
— function of speech event (persuasion, request for information ritual, verbal, etc.)
— nature of medium (speech, writing, scripted speech, speech reinforced by gesture, etc.)
— genere of discourse (scientific, experiment, sport, art, religion, etc.)
— physical setting (noisy/quiet,/public/private/family/formal gathering, familiar/unfamiliar,
appropriate for speech (e.g. sitting-room) (inappropriate.)
— regional or geographical setting, etc.
The major varieties that exist within the code are the following:
DIALECTS
REGISTERS
CODE IDIOLECTS
DIOGLOSSIA
PIDGIN/S
CREOLE/S
13.2.1 Code

‘A code’ is ‘an arbitrary, pre-arranged set of signals’. A language is merely one special variety of
code. The total organization of various linguistic components in a language is the code of that language.
It is an abstract system which happens to be accepted arbitrarily in the community which uses it.
13.2.2 Dialect and Sociolect

A regional, temporal or social variety within a single language is a dialect; it differs in pronunciation,
grammar and vocabulary from the standard language, which is in itself a socially favoured dialect.
So a dialect is a variation of language sufficiently different to be considered a separate entity within
a language but not different enough to be classed as a separate language. Sometimes it is difficult to
decide whether a variant constitutes a dialectal sub-division or a different language, since it may be
blurred by political boundaries, e.g. between Dutch and some Low German dialects. Regional dialects

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 179