LANGUAGE VARIETIES

Topics covered
1. The Standard Language
2. Accent and Dialect
3. Regional Dialects
4. Pidgin and Creole

Sociolinguistics: Sociolinguistics is the branch of Linguistics which deals with the study of
language used in society and in sociocultural context. In addition, it is the study of the linguistic
indicators of culture and power (Schmitt, 2011). It describes language varieties between different
ethnic, religious, status, and gender groups; and explains how educational level, age etc., may
influence the language differences, and categorizes individuals in social or socioeconomic
classes.
Specific language or specific form of language used by a particular community is called
language variety. Each language exists in a number of varieties and is in one sense the sum of
those varieties. Hudson defines a variety of language as ‘a set of linguistic items with similar
distribution,’ a definition that allows us to say that all of the following are varieties:
Canadian English, London English, the English of football commentaries, and so on. 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, accents, registers, styles or other sociolinguistic
variation, as well as the standard variety itself.
In study of language variation, we’ll study the following topics: Standard language, nonstandard
language, dialect, register, pidgin, creole, lingua franca, diglossia and Style.
Effects of language varieties
1. Borrowing of vocabulary,
2. Adoption of other language features (Romanian was influenced by the Slavic languages
spoken by neighboring tribes in the centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire not only in
vocabulary but also in phonology and morphology).
3. Language shift.
4. Creation of new languages (creole, pidgin).
5. Linguistic hegemony.
Factors/Causes of language variation
Different factors affect how a language is spoken within a country. They can be regional
(geographical), ethnic (national and racial), and social (class, age, gender, socioeconomic status
and education). All these factors are interconnected. They are reflected in every language
variety’s pronunciation, vocabulary, grammatical constructions and syntax.
Language variations are 3 types:
1. languages vary from one place to another, Geographical variation,
2. from one social group to another Social variation,
3. from one situation to another, Contextual variation.
Factors of language variation: Social variation of language:
Language and society are strongly connected to each other and both of them affect the other one
equally. People living in the same region but with different social class, education etc. speak
language differently. Differences in way of speaking, implicitly or explicitly, work as indications
of membership in different social groups or speech communities. A speech community is a group
of people who share a set of norms and expectations regarding the use of language.
1. Recognition of standard and non-standard language:
It refers to a mode of usage of most educated speakers of a language and established as the
prestigious form of that language. This term is also used for that variety of a language which is
considered to be the norm. To give a language, name of a standard language, planning and
policies are made by the elite class and government officials. These planning and policies depend
upon ideology. This process of standardization is historical and remains in progress all the time.
Standard language strictly follows the grammar and pronunciation rules of the language
concerned. It is the variety of used by educated users, e.g. those in the professions, the media,
and so on. It is the variety defined in dictionaries, grammars, and usage guides. It is regarded as
more correct and socially acceptable than other varieties. It enjoys greater prestige than dialects
and non-standard varieties. It is used in important functions in the society– in the government,
the parliament, courts, bureaucracy, education, literature, trade, and industry.
The term nonstandard was originally used by linguists to refer to language varieties that had
previously been labeled with terms such as vulgar. Nonstandard English differs from Standard
English at the level of grammar (it does not follow the grammar or pronunciation rules of
standard language).
2. Education and Occupation:
Time spent in schools and educational institutes change the way we speak. Similarly, the
occupation of a person also influences his/her way of speaking. Though we have individual
differences in speech or personal dialects (idiolects). But generally we tend to speak as our
colleagues or class fellows speak. Sometimes people tend to refine their pronunciation to pose
themselves more educated.
3. The speaker's socio-economic status
The social variable of socio-economic status was found to influence the realization of, for
example, the (-ing) variable at the end of present progressive verb-forms. In his 1974- Norwich-
study, Peter Trudgill investigated the occurrence of either [-ing] or [-in‘] with a number of
speakers. Dividing the group of speakers into social classes, he found out that the higher the
socio-economic status of the speaker (and the more formal the style), the more probable the
occurrence of the standard variant [-ing]. In casual style, the least formal speech style, the
speakers who were related to the lowest class did use the non-standard variant [- in‘] in virtually
one hundred percent of the cases.
Trudgill's procedure was designed to find evidence for how speakers' social status and the degree
of formality in their speech relate to the use of the (-ing) variable. Before starting to conduct this
investigation, Trudgill had to divide his selection of speakers into groups which were to
represent five different social classes. According to their occupation, income, education, place of
residence and their father's occupation he assigned the participants either to the middle class, the
lower middle class, the upper working class, the middle working class or to the lower working-
class.
The question often raised in this context is, if it is appropriate to stratify society in this way,
reducing various social factors to a single scale and assuming that the resulting concept of socio-
economic status is universally valid. It is obviously difficult to define groups of people on the
basis of their social background in general.
William Labov who established social stratification in his New York study argued that different
social factors are relevant to different linguistic variables. Scientists agree that the criteria taken
into consideration to provide representative stratification of society must be chosen with regard
to the variable under investigation.
The second complex of Trudgill's study was the aspect of speech style. As he was looking for
evidence for the relation between formality in speech and the use of the (-ing) variable, he had to
elicit different degrees of formality.
The participants used the most formal style while reading prepared wordlists paying most
attention to their pronunciation.
The most casual speech was produced in natural conversation, talking to, for example, family
members or friends.
The two intermediate speech styles were produced while reading out a reading-passage
respectively while talking to the interviewer. This style stratification, too is one of the methods
developed by William Labov.
 Vocabulary as a social marker
 Grammar as a social marker:
 Gender
 Age
 Power
  Religion: Particular language choices can come to be associated with particular religions,
which is why Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian are three separate standardizations of what
is basically the same language, and what’s more the same (originally regional) dialect of
it. In Northern Ireland during the Troubles, it’s said that militant groups on both sides
sorted out Catholic from Protestant Irish by their pronunciation of the name of the letter
H: haitch vs. aitch. Beyond that, the meaning of vocabulary can shift when new religion
is introduced, especially in very basic things: the word god originally applied in English
to various pagan gods (and still can, in the right context), but is now normally applied to
the One God of the Abrahamic religions (and capitalized). Likewise, bless originally
meant ‘offer as a blood sacrifice’. But the vast majority of religious words in English
from anoint to vigil are borrowed words, sometimes surprisingly so: cross is originally
from Latin crux, but its particular shape shows that it was brought in by Irish-speaking
missionaries, or possibly via Old Norse rather than directly. There was a native name for
the Cross, namely rood (related to rod) but this has now been lost except as a deliberate
archaism.
Ethnicity: An ethnic group is a group of people who are identified by a number of factors, being
cultural, racial, economic, political, linguistic, religious…and may be more or less. Among these
factors, we have language which is a primary characteristic that separates groups of humans from
others. Language is always an important part of cultural identity and group affiliation. Trudgill
(1995:41) notes that: Language may be an important or even essential concomitant of ethnic
group membership. This is a social fact, though, and it is important to be clear about what sort of
processes may be involved. In some cases, for example, and particularly where language rather
than varieties of a language are involved, linguistic characteristics may be the most important
defining criteria for ethnic-group membership. For example the differences that can be found in
the English of black and white speakers in the USA. Speakers choose consciously their own
dialect in order to display their belonging and membership. The majority of black speakers tend
to use the AAVE African American Vernacular English to exhibit their ethnic identity. In a
similar way, Irish speakers in Belfast prefer to interact in their own English vernacular to
differentiate themselves from others.
Geographical variation:
Dialect: A dialect is a regional or social variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation,
grammar, and/or vocabulary. The term dialect is often used to characterize a way of speaking
that differs from the standard variety of the language. Nonetheless, as David Crystal explains
below, "Everyone speaks a dialect." The scientific study of dialects is known as dialectology,
commonly regarded as a subfield of sociolinguistics. Dialect comes from the Greek, "speech.
“Dialect, a variety of a language that signals where a person comes from. The notion is usually
interpreted geographically (regional dialect), but it also has some application in relation to a
person’s social background (class dialect) or occupation (occupational dialect).
Latin, over time, evolved into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Catalan, Romanian, and so
on. These daughter languages of Latin can effectively be called “linguistic dialects” .Edward
(2009) define dialect as a variety of a language that differs from others along three dimensions:
vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation (accent) because they are forms of the same language.
Dialect is of the following types: Regional dialect, Social dialect, Individual dialect.
Regiolect : The most widespread type of dialectal differentiation is regional, or geographic. As a
rule, the speech of one locality differs at least slightly from that of any other place. Differences
between neighboring local dialects are usually small, but, in traveling farther in the same
direction, differences accumulate. Every dialectal feature has its own boundary line, called an
isogloss (or sometimes heterogloss). A regional dialect, also known as a regiolect or topolect, is
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.
In the USA, regional dialects include Appalachian, New Jersey and Southern English, and in
Britain, Cockney, Liverpool English and 'Geordie' (Newcastle English).
Sociolect:
Another important axis of differentiation is that of social strata. In many localities, dialectal
differences are connected with social classes, educational levels, or both. More-highly educated
speakers and, often, those belonging to a higher social class tend to use more features belonging
to the standard language, whereas the original dialect of the region is better preserved in the
speech of the lower and less-educated classes. A social dialect or sociolect is spoken by the
people of a specific society. It can have its own distinctive accent, vocabulary, grammar and so
on. For example, among older European-American speakers in Charleston, South Carolina, the
absence of r in words such as bear and court is associated with aristocratic, high-status groups
(McDavid 1948) whereas in New York City the same pattern of r-lessness is associated with
working-class, low-status groups (Labov1966).
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. Although the unique circumstances of every
life result in each of us having an individual way of speaking, a personal dialect or idiolect, we
generally tend to sound like others with whom we share similar educational background and/or
occupations. For example: people who went to college speak different than those who didn’t.
Accent: Every speaker has an accent or a way of pronunciation which is influenced by his/her
region, social class and gender. An accent may identify the locality in which its speakers reside.
(Geographical or regional accent). It can indicate the socio-economic status of its speakers, their
ethnicity or social class.
Situational variation:
Register
A register is a conventional way of using language that is appropriate in a specific context, which
may be identified as situational (e.g. in church), occupational (e.g. a lawyer’s language) or
topical (talking about a specific topic e.g. linguistics, psychology, literature). Every native
speaker is normally in command of several different language styles, called registers, which are
varied according the formality of the occasion, and the medium used (speech, writing, or sign).
The concept of linguistic register has been described by Trudgill as follows: “Linguistic varieties
that are linked to occupations, professions or topics have been termed registers. The register of
law, for example, is different from the register of medicine, which in turn is different from the
language of engineering and so on. Registers are usually characterized solely by vocabulary
differences; either by the use of particular words, or by the use of words in a particular sense.” A
register is simply a rather special case of a particular kind of language being produced by the
special social situation. A given register often distinguishes itself from other registers by having
a number of distinctive words as well as situation. For example, love in tennis, duck in cricket.
Jargon:
One of the defining features of a register is the use of jargon, which is special technical
vocabulary (e.g. plaintiff, suffix) associated with a specific area of work or interest. Jargon is a
type of language that is used in a particular context and may not be well understood outside of
that area of interest. The context is usually a particular occupation that is a certain trade,
profession or academic field. Basically this is a language used by the people who work in a
particular area or who have a common interest. The jargon helps professionals talk about their
subject matter easily, and maintain relationship with each other. Additionally, it helps exclude
‘out siders’ e.g. when doctors discuss patient’s condition in front of him without letting him
know, they use their jargon or subject specific terminology.
Slang:
Slang: A kind of language consisting of words and phrases that are regarded as very informal are
more common in speech than writings and are typically restricted to a particular context or group
of people. These are words or expressions which are informal and not a standard language. The
abuses in any language are considered to be slang. Another way of using slang is the use of taboo
words which are socially prohibited but teens use them. Often, vernacular language is mixed
with slang by some people. But slang is totally a different phenomenon. Vernacular is basically a
native language or native dialect of a specific population (mostly Africans’ language is called
vernacular in which double negation is involved) distinguished from a national or standard
language. Slang describes the words or phrases that are used instead of normal language among
youngsters.
Pidgin language:
Pidgins are “on -the-spot” languages that develop when people with no common language come
into contact with each other. Nobody speaks a pidgin as their first language. Usually a pidgin
language is a blend of the vocabulary of one major language with the grammar of one or more
other languages. The major languages are usually the languages of the former major colonial
powers, such as English, French, and Portuguese. For example, the establishment of plantation
economies in the Caribbean, with large groups of slaves from different language backgrounds
who came from West Africa, gave rise to a number of pidgins based on English, French,
Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese. However, there are also pidgins spoken in parts of Africa, South
America, and Southeast Asia that are based on languages other than those of the colonial powers.
A good example of a non-European pidgin is the Chinook Jargon that was once used by
American Indians and European traders in the Pacific Northwest. The term pidgin has nothing to
do with birds. The word, first attested in print in 1850, is thought to be the Chinese
mispronunciation of the English word business. There are other theories about the origin of the
term.
Status of Pidgin:
Because of their limited function, pidgin languages usually do not last very long, rarely more
than several decades. They disappear when the reason for communication diminishes, as
communities either move apart, one community learns the language of the other, or both
communities learn a common language (usually the official language of the country). For
instance, Pidgin Russian spoken in Manchuria disappeared when Russian settlers left China after
world War II. The same is true of Pidgin French which disappeared from Vietnam after the
French left the country. However, this is not always the case. Chinese Pidgin English(Chinglish),
developed in the 17th century in Canton (Guandong), China, and survived for almost three
centuries. Its use spread from master-servant relationships to those between English and Chinese
traders and bureaucrats. It continued in use until about the end of the 19th century, when the
Chinese started to switch in Standard English.
Reasons of pidgin:
1. Trade:
Pidgin is created where two (or more) communities with languages incomprehensible to each
other start trade and business. Here, the need to communicate with members of other community
arise, resulting in a PIDGIN- mixture of two different languages of both trading communities.
2. General Communication:
Pidgin may be created especially for the purpose of communicating with some other group, and
not used by any community for communication among themselves. e.g. There are a large number
of pidgins spread all over the world- where migrants have developed pidgin varieties based on
national languages for example in Germany.
Characteristics of Pidgin:
1. Each pidgin is specially constructed to suit the needs of its users. i.e. The terminology and
constructions developed are according to the kind of contact among the communities. e.g. if the
contact is restricted to the dealing of cattle only, then only linguistic items to do with this are
needed and there will be no way of talking about vegetables, emotions.
2. It should be as simple to learn as possible (especially for those who benefit least from learning
it). That is why vocabulary is generally based on the vocabulary of dominant group. e.g. in
colonial situation, vocabulary is based on colonial power. That is the reason a very large number
of pidgins spread round the globe, are based on English, French, Portuguese and Dutch.
3. Syntax and Phonology is based on sub servant languages. It makes the pidgin easier for other
communities to learn, than the dominant language in its ordinary form.
[Link] lack Morphology. Differences of tense, number case etc are marked by the addition
ofseparate words. An example from Tok Pisin- an English based Pidgin spoken in Papua New
Guinea. Bai em I no lukim mi----He will not see me.
5. Grammar Pidgins usually have smaller vocabularies, a simpler structure, and more limited
functions than natural languages. Some typical features include of pidgin languages are as
follows: Subject-Verb-Object word order Absence of grammatical markers for gender, number,
case, tense, aspect, mood, etc. Tenses are expressed lexically, i.e., by using temporal adverbs
such as tomorrow, yesterday, etc. Grammatical relations are usually expressed through simple
juxtaposition.
Use of reduplication to represent plurals and superlatives, e.g., Hawai’ian Pidgin wiki-wiki ‘very
quick’.
6. Exists for several years – rarely more than a century - Remains if the need exists For example
In Vietnam: Pidgin French disappeared – French left; used for trading– disappear when trading
between the group members comes to an end.
Process of pidginization & creolization:
The development of a pidgin, which a simplified form of speech that is usually a mixture of two
or more languages, is called the pidginization. This is usually a temporary stage in language
learning. The creation of a pidgin usually requires: Prolonged, regular contact between the
different language communities. A need to communicate between them. An absence of a
widespread, accessible interlanguage. Also, Keith Whinnom suggests that pidgins need three
languages to form, with one (the superstrate) being clearly dominant over the others. It is often
posited that pidgins become Creole languages when a generation whose parents speak pidgin to
each other teach it to their children as their first language. Creoles can then replace the existing
mix of languages to become the native language of a community (such as Krio in SierraLeone
and Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea). However, not all pidgins become creole languages; a
pidgin may die out before this phase would occur.
Creole:
In linguistics, a creole is a type of natural language that developed historically from a pidgin and
came into existence at a fairly precise point in time. English creoles are spoken by some of the
people in Jamaica, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, and parts of Georgia and South Carolina.
The term creole comes from the French creole, from Spanish criollo ‘person native to a locality’.
The word was coined in the 16th century and applied to people born in the colonies, to
distinguish them from European-born immigrants. In the Portuguese-speaking world, the term
referred specifically to people of mixed European and non-European ancestry. Bahamian Creole,
English Creole spoken in The Bahamas, Kristang language, spoken in Malaysia and Singapore,
Sri Lankan Portuguese Creole, spoken in Sri Lanka.
Characteristics of creole:
1. Pidgins adopted as the native language.
2. Nativization is when pidgin passed onto new generations and became a mother tongue which
is acquired by children.
3. Often classified as English/French/Spanish… based
.4. Expansion of morphology and syntax.
5. Expansion of phonology.
6. Expansion of the lexicon.
Pidgin vs creole:
Pidgins and creoles are both the result of what happens when you blend two or more languages,
but they’re not the same.
1) Pidgin is a linguistic communication that comprised of components of two or more other
languages and is used for communication among people. It can also be called business language.
It is not a first language. Whereas, creole is a language that was at first a pidgin but has
“transformed” and become a first language.
2) Structural difference: Creole languages have the “Subject Verb Object” word order whereas
Pidgin can have any possible order. Also, reduplication is a common and general process in
Creole languages but it’s very not very often found in Pidgins.
3) One important difference between Pidgins and Creoles is that pidgins do not have first
language speakers while creoles do. However, this is not easy to make out because there are
more and more extended pidgins beginning to acquire native speakers. Extended pidgins refer to
when a pidgin becomes a creole. The cultural “side” of a pidgin usually defines this. This means
that more pidgins are becoming first languages.
4) Another difference is that creoles may originate through abnormal transmissions but as
children acquire them, they must, therefore, comply with the ‘blueprint’ of language that can also
be referred to as how the language is going to constructed and formed. Blueprint here is
comparable to how we relate to a blueprint of a house. However, for pidgins, as they are a result
of a second language, although they have to be learnable by adults, they do not have to be
acceptable by children. This means that pidgins do not have to comply with the ‘blueprint’ of
language. Pidgins before they become accomplished languages in a community, are always
second languages and usually after teenage.