Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Interaction Through Language
Interaction Through Language
Interaction Through Language
Vol. X X X V I , N o . 1, 1984
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Bustamante
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Delhi: Andr Bcteille
Harare: Chen Chimutengwende
Hong Kong: Peter Chen
London:
Cyril S. Smith
INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL
SCIENCE JOURNAL
s,
INTERACTION THROUGH
LANGUAGE
99
Thomas Luckmann
Language in society
Yunus D . Desheriev
21
41
Dorothy E . Smith
59
Cases
Nelson E . Cabrai
77
Robert L . Cooper
87
Rainer Enrique H a m e l
Wolfdietrich Hrtung
113
129
Applications
Jean-E. Humblet
143
Mary-Louise Kearney
157
Lachman M . Khubchandani
169
Books received
189
191
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W e wish to express our gratitude to Professor
Richard Grathoff of the University of Bielefeld, Federal Republic of G e r m a n y , Secretary-Treasurer of the Research C o m m i t t e e
for Sociolinguistics of the International Sociological Association from 1974 to 1982, for his
advice and assistance in putting together the
present issue.
P. L.
Language in society
Thomas Luckmann
social fact. But the recent rapid accumulation
of detailed knowledge about language, in
anthropology, sociology, psychology and
Looking at the remarkable achievements in
' m o d e r n ' linguistics, is not primarily attrithe study of language during the last years and
butable to the theoretical soundness of this
decades, and noting that a simple (or, perhaps general point but to the painstaking exploonly seemingly simple) insight c a m e to be ration of its far-flung implications. It is due to
widely acknowledged during the earliest
years of concentrated research into the social
phases of this development, one is strongly
construction, social transmission, social functempted to conclude that the connection
tions and social change of language.
between these two facts
In any case, the genmight not have been
eral point today seems
Thomas Luckmann is President of the
purely coincidental. Is
so obviousnot to say
International Sociological Associthere, perhaps, a causal
trivialthat it is diffiation's Research Committee for Sorelation?
cult to credit it with
ciolinguistics and Professor of Socihaving produced such
T h e point that lanology at the University of Konstanz,
P . O . B . 5560, D-7750, Konstanz 1,
considerable effects even
guage is a communicatFederal Republic of Germany. H e
in an indirect w a y . In
ive and thus a social
is the author of The Sociology of
the present climate of
phenomenon
was,
of Language (1975) and Life-world
scholarly opinion it takes
course, not n e w . M o r e and Social Realities (1983) as well
as several other authoritative contria distinct effort to reover, even if it had been
butions to the sociology of language
call the following minor
n e w , it does not seem
in German and English.
but interesting historical
likely that a single infact: the notion that
sight,
although u n language is social, aldoubtedly shedding an
though of ancient origin,
unexpected light upon
only recently gained ground against other
the nature of language, would have been in
itself capable of producing such a sudden and partly even olderideas about the
surge in the study of language. T h e advances essential nature of language. N o w a d a y s w e
in the various disciplines which, in contradis- tend to forget that thinking about language
tinction to the traditional limitation of the was long dominated by biological theories that
were first specifically creationist and theoseveral philologies to language as it was
logical, then specifically idealist, subjectivist
embodied in literary texts, took up the sysand philosophical, and later specifically m a tematic investigation of 'living' language, of
terialist and reductionist.
language in use, might indeed have been
predicated on the notion that language is a
T h e insight into the social character of
Thomas huckmann
WBP-
Hl
Language in society
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), the Swiss linguist, who published his only book at 21 years of
age. His wide influence was based on his teaching in
Paris and Geneva and on the collection of his lectures, published by his disciples in 1916 as Cours de
Keystone.
linguistique
Vergleichimg mit jenem der griechischen, persischen und germanischen Sprache ( O n the
System of Conjugation in Sanskrit, compared
to that in Greek, Persian and Germanic), to
wit, 1816. T h e fascination with etymological
reconstruction and the impressive successes of
the comparative method overshadowed any
consideration of the basic social function of
language and its structural consequences. It
was a long time before anyone even suspected
that key elements of the structure of language
m a y derive from its use, from social interaction. With the Y o u n g Grammarians of the
following generation the model of physical
science prevailed in their confident search for
immutable laws of language. A n d despite the
growth of significantly different ideas o n the
nature of language in the second half of the
gnrale.
Photo
Acschimann.
Thomas huckmann
Language in society
'Sociality refers to the regulation of whatever in a species has the function of communicative behaviour by
means of a code": Liverpool football supporters displaying ownership of a section of a grandstand and
transmitting the group image. Ray Green.
10
Thomas Luckmann
Language in society
11
in hunting species?); it undeniably does not
appear until late in the evolution of life-forms.
W h e n flexible ('individualized') sociality,
full reciprocity, high abstraction and advanced
intentionality have evolved, their systematic
combination allows for the development of
the most complex and most highly differentiated form of social communication. W h a t ever the conditions for the separate developm e n t of these faculties and, m o r e specifically,
whatever the conditions for their systematic
combinationfull consensus on these questions has not been reachedit seems obvious
that they obtained in hominid evolution,
although their combination in a fully fledged
system of social communication m a y be limited to homo.
Another m o o t question is
whether the development of such a system
presupposed, or was co-ordinated with, a shift
to vocal expression. T h e evolutionary advantages of vocal language must undoubtedly
have been considerable.7
With the mention of language w e step
over a threshold in the development of social
communication. It divides 'natural' systems of
social communication from 'historical' ones. It
is a threshold of considerable importance
although, in a metaphorical sense, history
itself m a y be said to have emerged from
nature while, at the same time, having remained part of it. Putting it differently, systems of social communication are products of
natural selection, and languagesbeing the
main elements of h u m a n social c o m m u n i cationare therefore unquestionably the result of evolutionary processes. But languages
are very peculiar systems of social c o m m u n i cation and they are products of evolution in
a less direct w a y than social communication
in other species.
T o be sure, language cannot be understood except as having evolved from some
prior and m o r e primitive system of social
communication.
A n d the
functions
of
language m a y be considered analogous to the
functions of social communication in other
species, at least in a formal and abstract
sense. Yet languages cannot be understood
adequately only in simple analogy to older
12
forms. W h e n it comes to language, there is a
qualitative change in the method of production, transmission and use of the system
of social communication. In other words,
language is an evolutionary emergent. T h e
elementary presuppositions for the production, transmission and use of the linguistic
codeincluding a cognitive 'depth-structure'
that must presumably be present in the h u m a n
organism if any of these processes are to work
properlycontinue to be genetically transmitted, as part of the h u m a n biogram. 8 But the
linguistic codes themselves are the result of
social interaction. M o r e precisely, they are
the cumulative historical result of communicative acts; the transmission of the code consists
of intentional communicative acts, too, and so
does the ordinary everyday use of the code.
Before taking a closer look at this n e w
level of social communication it should be
noted that languages as historical linguistic
codes did not entirely replace the phylogenetically older elements of social communication.
Thus a situation of unprecedented complexity
arose. Language became the main and most
important system of social communication
and was substituted for what m a y have been
its primitive predecessor as the main code.
But elements of the phylogenetically older
components of social communication, most
importantly those linked to gesture, posture
and facial expression, continued to coexist
with language. They filled partially independent communicative functions and were ordinarily used by instinct. But a certain measure
of conscious control and intentional use also
became possible. In face-to-face c o m m u n i cation the use of language recombined with
the partly instinctive, partly intentional e m ployment of other means of social c o m m u n i cation. Moreover, the development of abstract codes based on other than the vocal
modality became possible in analogy to the
development of a linguistic code. A n d all
this does not even take into account the additional historical complexity and richness of
h u m a n systems of social communication
which obtained after the introduction of
notational systems and of writing.
Thomas huckmann
Language in society
13
'Highly individualized social interaction is characterized by full reciprocity and thus allows for effective
intersubjective mirroring." Henri Cartier-Brcsson/Ma gnum.
14
communicative acts over the long course ofgenerations. Language thus 'originates' phylogenetically as well as ontogenetically, in the
evolution of mankind and in the life-history of
every h u m a n being, in a particular form of
social interaction: in acts of social c o m m u n i cation. In general terms this defines the
relation between language and society.
People ordinarily do .not communicate in
order to establish a communicative code.
They d o not talk a m o n g themselves in order
to maintain language. People communicate in
order to do something, with one another,
against each other and, o n occasion, by
themselves. In communicative acts people
prepare to cope with the diverse problems of
everyday life in society. A n d they often also in
fact cope with them in communicative acts.
Evidently communication is not all there is to
it and there are m a n y kinds of social interaction that are not communicativeunless, in a
severe bout of pansemioticism, one unduly
extends the meaning of that term. It m a y be
said with justice, however, that communicative
acts define reality inasmuch as they define
ways by which to act upon it. T o a certain
extent these ways are predefined in language;
and language is the repository of past c o m m u nicative acts in which people coped with
problems of everyday life. Languages are the
core of social stocks of knowledge. They are
not only ways of looking at reality but also
ways of dealing with reality and thus, even if
indirectly, ways of making reality.
Language and society stand in a dialectical relationship to one another. Language is
the product of an initially pre- and protolinguistic sequence of h u m a n coping with life
and the world in social communication. Life
and the world m a y be thought of as predetermined by 'nature' as well as by a set of m o r e
or less 'natural' social relations, a primitive
social structure. Coping with reality in c o m municative acts, people begin to construct a
coherent world and at the same time to build
up a language 'unintentionally'. W h e n a
language develops as the core of social c o m munication and gains a certain autonomy as a
system of signs, as a comprehensive inventory
Thomas huckmann
Language in society
15
Overcoming unequal access to language: the experimental melograph, a machine to re-educate deaf
children. B y visualizing sound, it enables speakers to control the pitch of their voices, CNET: Centre de Traitement
de l'Oue et de la Parole Fougres, France
others. Thereby they contributed to the maintenance or to the change, whether slow or
swift, of the external stratification and inner
structure of a particular language. A particular language determined the linguistic core of
communicative acts, under conditions of use
which were codetermined partly by m o r e or
less obligatory rules for the use of the various
m e a n s of social communication (rules for the
most part e m b e d d e d in the external stratification of language), partly by n o n - c o m m u n i cative rules of social interaction. A n d particular communicative acts had specifiable direct
or indirect consequences for the social structure as well as an aggregated long-term effect
u p o n the structure of language itself.
Looking at the relation between society
and language in a slightly different perspective, w e see that both an individual's access to
the m e a n s of communication as well as his
actual use of t h e m is socially determined. In
the first place it is the child's and the young
person's initial chance of access to the repertoire of the m e a n s of social communication
which is predetermined by a historical social
16
structure. T h e chances of access are socially
distributed. T h e distribution derives from the
prevailing system of social stratification
which, depending o n time and place, m a y be
an archaic kinship system, a traditional caste
or feudal society or any of the m o d e r n class
societies. Socializationwhich is by definition
a communicative processthus represents the
biographical dimension of social inequality. In
addition to the unequal distribution of goods,
the structure of inequality consists of an
uneven distribution of the social stock of
knowledge, and in particular of the means of
social communication. There m a y merely be
moderately decreased chances of access or
there m a y be outright barriers, economic
discrimination or legal or religious prohibition.11
In the second' place, the social structure
regulates in different ways and by various
procedures the actual employment of the
m e a n s of communication in concrete social
interaction. A s was indicated earlier, the elements of social communication consist both
of the internally structured and externally
stratified language, and of the less systematically and intricately structured (and generally
less strongly conventionalized) mimetic,
gestural, postural, etc., expressive forms.
Furthermore, there are composite m e a n s of
social communication which m a y be called
communicative genres. These are obligatory selections and combinations of the
linguistic and non-linguistic elements of
social communication which serve specific
communicative functions in socially defined
typical situations, by socially defined typical producers, for socially defined typical
addressees. T h e use of communicative genres
is thus clearly also determined by social
structural conditions.12
T h e terms 'social conditions', 'social circumstances' and similar expressions have
been used so far in an encompassing sense to
refer to a variety of social facts. These facts
have in c o m m o n that they are characterized
by a certain degree of intersubjective constraint. Whereas this would customarily also
include everything connected with social c o m -
Thomas huckmann
Language in society
17
Notes
1. For a pleasantly and reliably
old-fashioned account of the
development of modern
linguistics in the nineteenth
century see Holger Pedersen,
The Discovery of Language:
Linguistic Science in the 19th
Century, Bloomington, Indiana,
Indiana University Press, 1962
(Indiana University Studies in
the History and Theory of
Linguistics); originally
Cambridge, Massachusetts,
Harvard University Press, 1931;
translated from Danish by John
Webster Spargo (original title
Sprogvidenskaben i det nittende
aarhundrede: metoder og
resultater, Copenhagen,
Gyldendalske Boghandel, 1924).
O n Jones see also Hans
Aarsleff, The Study of Language
in England, 1780-1860,
Princeton, N e w Jersey,
18
Thomas
Luckmann
19
Language in society
Bibliography
A A R S L E F F , H . The Study of
Language in England,
1760-1860. Princeton, N e w
Jersey, Princeton University
Press, 1967.
B A L L Y , C . Linguistique gnrale
et linguistique franaise. 2nd ed.,
D U R K H E I M , E . ; M A U S S , M . De
Bern, 1944. (1st ed. 1932.)
quelques formes primitives de
classification. Contribution
B A U M A N , R . ; SHERZER, J.
l'tude de reprsentations
(eds.). Explorations on the
collectives. Anne sociologique,
Ethnography of Speaking.
Vol. 6, 1901/2.
London, Cambridge University
Press, 1974.
B O P P , F . ber das Conjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache in
Vergleichung mit jenen der
griechischen, persischen und
germanischen Sprache.
Frankfurt, 1816. (Revised
English translation. Analytical
Comparison of the Sanskrit,
Greek, Latin and Teutonic
Languages, 1820.)
C O M T E , A . Cours de
E M B R E E , L . E . Life-World and
vergleichende Sprachstudium in
Beziehung auf die
verschiedenen Epochen der
Sprachentwicklung. In:
Abhandlungen der historischphilologischen Klasse der
kniglich preufiischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften aus den
Jahren 1820-21. Berlin, 1822.
. ber die Verschiedenheit
des menschlichen Sprachbaues
und ihren Einflu auf die
geistige Entwicklung des
Menschengeschlechts. Berlin,
1836.
. ber den
Nationalcharakter der Sprachen
(fragment). Zeitschrift fr
Vlkerpsychologie und
Sprachwissenschaft, Vol. 13,
1882.
J A C O B S O N , R . Main Trends in
the Science of Language.
London. George Allen
& Unwin, 1973.
D O R O S Z E W S K I , W . Quelques
L U C K M A N N , T. The
J A N E T , P . ; D U M A N S , G . (eds.).
20
P E D E R S E N , H . The Discovery of
Language: Linguistic Science in
the 19th Century. Bloomington,
Indiana, Indiana University
Press, 1962.
Thomas huckmann
S A U S S U R E , F . de: Cours de
linguistique gnrale. 5th ed
Paris, 1955. (1st ed. 1916.)
W U N D T , W . Vlkerpsychologie:
Eine Untersuchung der
Entwicklungsgeschichte von
Sprache, Mythos und Sitte.
Leipzig, Engelmann, 1904.
if-;;A;'a3!HK :
Social progress
and sociolinguistics
Yunus D . Desheriev
22
Yunus D. Desheriev
23
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A contribution to the debate on whether language is innate or socially produced: frontispiece and title page
of a book by D r Itard on Victor, a 'wild boy' found in the Aveyron forest in France in 1799. D . R.
note that all the major trends in the developm e n t of m o d e r n sociolinguistics in the United
States of A m e r i c a and Western E u r o p e have
been surveyed in greater or lesser detail by
R . T . Bell [75]. A s w e chart the course of
Soviet sociolinguistics, w e shall inevitably
touch o n the general theoretical conception of
the subject e x p o u n d e d in our studies.
Historical background
T h e study of language from the social (or
sociological) point of view (which, broadly,
m e a n s the interrelations between language
and society) goes back at least to the French
sociological school of the end of the nine-
24
Yunus D. Desheriev
25
Daughters of reindeer raisers at a school 100 kilometres from Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula
in eastern Siberia reading English and Russian editions of Moscow newspapers, L. Garkavy/APN.
It m a y b e helpful to describe s o m e of
these w o r k s in m o r e detail in order to d e m onstrate the m a n y angles and aspects of the
theoretical and practical research conducted
by Soviet linguists during that period. W e
could take, for example, N . F . Yakovlev's
study ' A Mathematical F o r m u l a for the C o n struction of Alphabets' [73] which gives the
first theoretical demonstration of the sociallinguistic nature of the p h o n e m e . T h e author
notes that scholars h a d not, until then, explained the linguistic essence of the p h o n e m e ,
that is to say its 'social basis, seeing it as a
26
psychological phenomenon, a manifestation
of the individual consciousness of each separate speaker'. H e further points out that
'phonemes are distinguished and understood
by speakers, and that in language, viewed as a
grammatical system produced by society,
these sounds perform a grammatical function'
(p. 46). Yakovlev's general theoretical conclusion is that 'a practical system of writing
should render all the phonemes of a given
languageand nothing else' (p. 48). Other
interesting works are those of B . M . Grande
(Towards a Classification of the N e w Alphabet from the Point of View of Unification')
A . A . Reformatski ('Linguistics and Polygraphy') and V . A . Artemov ('Technographical Analysis of the Combined Letters of the
N e w Alphabet'). Similar problems exercised
American and other Western linguists, w h o ,
considerably later (in the 1950s and 1970s),
became interested in the sociolinguistic aspect
of th problems of giving a written form to
languages of certain peoples of Asia and
Africa, and encouraging their development.
For a variety of reasons, Soviet linguists paid
less attention to sociolinguistic studies in the
1940s and in the first half of the 1950s,
although such studies did not altogether
cease, as the following works show: R . A .
Budagov, The Development of French Political Terminology in the Eighteenth Century
(1940); F . P . Filin, The Vocabulary of the
Russian Literary Language in Ancient Kiev
(1949); and the collection Questions on the
Theory and History of Language (1952). This
book contains a variety of articles which
examine such problems as the interaction of
ancient written languages, recently alphabetized languages, and languages without written
form, from a sociolinguistic point of view.
Even in studies of specific problems, some
general conclusions were drawn on the basis
of propositions that originated in social-linguistic theory: for example, the division into
periods of the development of bilingualism
(Desheriev, 1953).
This all goes to show that it would be
wrong to suppose that sociolinguistics first
emerged in the United States in the first half
Yunus D. Desheriev
27
28
appear, nor function, nor develop outside society. Nevertheless, it is unwise to exaggerate
the role of various social factors in the life of a
language. It must be borne in mind that the
nature of language permits it to be studied
and used in various ways in the interests of
society. A n y natural language m a y be studied
in its various aspects as a particular scheme or
structure that has developed in the course of
time, that functions according to its o w n
internal laws in s o m e social unit or other, and
that develops in response to the development
of its native speakers. Thus the social aspect,
that lies at the basis of sociolinguistics, is the
most complex of all in the study of language.
This aspect is organically linked with the
internal, structural aspect. They are interrelated and complementary. In the history of
language science, underestimation of the internal laws of the functioning and development of language has led to oversimplification
of the problems, while ignorance of the social
essence of language has led to various distortions.
A s is well k n o w n , the ever-increasing
specialization of knowledge has effected an
increase in the social and professional differentiation of language. T h e need has thus
been felt for yet another aspect of language
studythat of the formalization of language.
Language, in fact, represents a 'natural'
means of formalizing a social p h e n o m e n o n .
T h e formalization of language, with the aim
of creating artificial languages to mediate in
the system ' m a n - m a c h i n e - m a n ' [84], represents a deliberate social intervention in the
structure and functioning of language. T h e
formalization of language, taken in the broad
sense of deliberate changes in linguistic
structure, is actually effected by society, by
people. T h e formalization of language is,
to s o m e extent, a 'technification' of language
a working-out of ways of using its structure and structural elements in the solution of
technical problems, such as in cybernetics,
machine translation and the automation
of certain linguistic operations. N o n e of
this entails a change in the social nature of
language, its structures and main functions.
Yunus D. Desheriev
29
the founders of certain trends in structuralism that attempted to eliminate the " h u m a n
factor', the social essence, from analysis of
language. T h e y 'overlooked' the principal
reference-point in the precise analysis of
language, even w h e n it is considered as 'a
structure of pure relationships'.
It is clear from the above that it would be
w r o n g to assert that, in its definitions of the
methodological and theoretical bases of sociolinguistics, Soviet linguistics exaggerates the
importance of social factors in the functioning, development and interactions of
languages (the error of N . Y . M a r r in
Novoe uchenie o yazyke ( N e w Teaching o n
L a n g u a g e ) , nor does Soviet linguistics underestimate these factors, as structural linguistics
did. There are n o scientific grounds for a
return to such untenable, inaccurate notions
as those expressed in New Teaching on
Language and in structural linguistics. O n the
basis of the fundamental methodological and
theoretical propositions w e have discussed,
w e define sociolinguistics as a scientific disci-
pline w h o s e purpose and place are not confined to the range of linguistic disciplines, but
which is an interdisciplinary subject arising at
the junction of other disciplines.
Soviet sociolinguistics offers a variety of
definitions of the object of sociolinguistics.
According to o n e of these, sociolinguistics is
the study of general laws, and especially of
socially conditioned laws governing the functioning, development and interaction of
languages. In other words, the sociolinguistic
aspect of the study of languages embraces the
whole range of problems connected with the
characterization of all linguistic p h e n o m e n a
conditioned b y the development of society,
and with societal influence o n the interaction
of languages as a w h o l e , and o n the interaction of linguistic elements in the functioning of each individual language [77, p . 7].
While basically accepting this definition,
A . D . Shveitser considers it necessary to
supplement it with the statement that "the
field of sociolinguistic research includes both
study of the influence of social factors o n the
30
Yunus D . Desheriev
Although they deal with one and the same
object, the social and structural aspects of
linguistics approach the material in different
ways, defining different problems and using
different methods to solve them. Even such
concepts as the model or the typology of
language that is selected vary from one branch of
linguistics to another. N o n e the less, these two
sectors of language science form an organic
whole. . . .
This organic unity of the two parts of
language science is burst asunder by the
attempt to define the limits of sociolinguistics
and the sociology of language. Such attempts
also result in a narrowing of the field of
sociolinguistics, and the sociology of language
loses part of its ability to investigate the inner
world of its object of studythe functional
and conceptual reflection of the external
world (i.e. social factors, social life) in the
inner world of language (in its inner structure). A t the same time, a strict delimitation
of the field of sociolinguistics and the sociology of language does cause serious
problems, and this can lead to duplication and
m a n y other misunderstandings. This is w h y
w e consider it unhelpful to delimit and oppose
sociolinguistics and the sociology of language.
Soviet sociolinguistics pays particular attention to the elaboration of a general theory
of sociolinguistic research (Desheriev, 1977;
Nikol'skii, 1976; Stepanov, 1979; Shvetser,
1976), and of theoretical and practical problems in the development of the social functions of languages [10, 12, 13, 15]; to
bilingualism and polylingualism [41, 4 4 , 6];
to the interaction and mutual enrichment of
languages [8]; and to linguistic contacts
(Il'yashchenko, 1970); while general sociolinguistic theory is considered in Stepanov
[59], S F D L Y a (1977) and Zhuravlev [18].
T h e problem of the development of the
social functions of languages, which is of great
scientific, practical and general sociological
significance, was discussed by Soviet linguists
for thefirsttime as early as 1958. This is an
important national problem for every country.
Linguistics throughout the world is therefore
concerning itself m o r e and m o r e with the
31
Vv'.
A\
TEWJ1V1CH
TBILISI
OPhLhh
rcDA'u'
wuDnn
I SE VAIT
. KAMO
T MUUn
800 M
Yunus D. Desheriev
32
33
34
The Formation and Development of Bilingualism in Non-Russian Schools, 1981; The Development of National Languages through Their
Functioning in the Sphere of Higher Education, M o s c o w , 1982). T h e development of
education in the languages of the peoples of
the U S S R has already been discussed in
Unesco publications. T h e most distinctive
feature of the Soviet educational system is the
widespread use of bilingualism and multilingualism. Theoretical and practical work as
well asfieldresearch is being conducted in this
area of sociolinguistics. Soviet scholars are
studying the sociolinguistic problems of other
countries: V . N . Yartseva [74]; The Sociolinguistic Problems of Developing Countries
[60]; The Language Situation in the Countries
of Asia and Africa [71]; Language Policy in
Afro-Asian Countries [70]; M . M . G u k h m a n
[9]; M . V . Sofronov [57]; S. V . Neverov [38].
O u r country has resolved complex sociallinguistic problems connected with the development of the social, natural and technical
sciences in the languages of the union republics. O n e such problem is the development of
terminology. All the union republics, autonom o u s republics and autonomous regions have
state terminology commissions and committees, which have contributed a great deal in
the ongoing task of devising terminological
systems for various branches of science. This
work involves the participation of linguists,
sociolinguists and specialists in the relevant
branches of science and technology. M o r e
than eighty terminological dictionaries have
been compiled in the Kirghiz language, which
acquired a written form only in 1924; and the
ancient Georgian language has more than
100 bilingual and monolingual dictionaries for
the various branches of science. M u c h attention is being paid to theoretical and practical
questions of terminology (Kulebakin, 1968;
Kandelaki [23]; Akulenko [4]).
Soviet sociolinguists are also studying
Russian as the national language of the
Russian people, as a c o m m o n language of the
Soviet nationalities and as one of the most
highly developed international languages,
one of the official languages of the United
Yunus D. Desheriev
T h e organization of
sociolinguistic research
in the U S S R
Because of the multinational, multilingual
character of the Soviet state, and given the
immense amount of work involved in developing and teaching the national languages, great
importance is attached to the organization of
sociolinguistic research, as well as to scientific
and administrative measures.
In the linguistic research institutes of the
A c a d e m y of Sciences of the U S S R and Academies of Sciences of the Union Republics
there are special departments, sections and
groups that deal with sociolinguistic problems.
Since 1968 there has been a Department of
Sociolinguistics in the A c a d e m y of Sciences of
the U S S R , and it contributes a great deal to
theoretical and applied sociolinguistic research, also organizing all-union and regional
conferences, symposia and meetings to discuss
sociolinguistic questions. This department
also trains sociolinguists. There are other
departments that deal with sociolinguistic
problems, for example the Institute of Russian
Language of the A c a d e m y of Sciences of
the U S S R carries out valuable research in a
number of areas, having a department that
deals with such problems as the Russian
language as a c o m m o n language of the Soviet
peoples, the Russian language and Soviet
society, the functioning of Russian in the union
republics, Russian as a m e d i u m of mass communication, and sociolinguistic study of the
lexical and semantic system.
The Institute of Oriental Studies of the
A c a d e m y of Sciences of the U S S R also
contains a Department of Social Linguistics,
35
A message on birch bark in Yukaghir, one of the Palaeo-Asiatic languages spoken in the extreme northeast of Siberia which contain features reminiscent of many American Indian languages. The message reads
'Everybody finds a wife, only I a m condemned to think of him w h o already belongs to another and must
console myself knowing that he has not yet completely forgotten m e . ' From Kramer, ber Yukaghirische
Briefe, 1896, p . 2 1 0 . Muse de l'Homme. Pans.
36
Yunus D. Desheriev
in
Social Factors o n L a n g u a g e
countries.
Development'
this w o r k
with
sociolinguists of other
and 'Diachronie Sociolinguistics'. Other sociolinguistic research projects are in the plan-
Note
The titles referred to in the text above have, in principle, been given in English translation.
Unfortunately, not all the references are to be found in the list below and it was impossible to
consult the author on the numerous
brackets identify references listed; others are usually identified by year of publication only.Ed.
References*
1. M A R X , K . ; ENGELS, F. The
K O S T O M A R O V , V . G . Yazyk
i kul'tura [Language and
Culture]. M o s c o w , 1973.
8. Vzaimodestvie i
vzaimoobogashchenie
yazykov narodov SSSR [The
Interaction and Mutual
Enrichment of the
Languages of the Peoples of
the U S S R ] . M o s c o w , 1969.
9. G U K H M A N , M . M . Ot
Yazyka nemetskoi
naradnosti k nemetskomu
natsional'nomu yazyku
[From the Language of
German People to the
German National
Language]. Parts 1 and 2 ;
Moscow, 1959.
10. D A R B E E V A , A . A . Razvitie
obshchestvennykh funktsi
mongol'skikh yazykov v
sovetskuyu pokhu [The
Development of the Social
Functions of the Mongolian
Languages in the Soviet
Era]. M o s c o w , 1969.
11. D O M A S H N E V , A . I. Sametki
7. V I N O G R A D O V , V . V . Velikii
russkii yazyk [The Great
Russian Language].
M o s c o w , 1945.
po povodu
sotsiolingvisticheskol
kontseptsii u . Labova
[Comments on W . Labov's
Concept of Sociolinguistics].
V. Ya., N o . 6, 1982.
12. DESHERIEV, Y . D .
Zakonomernosti razvitiya i
vzaimodestviya yazykov v
sovetskom obshchestve [The
Laws of Development and
Interaction of Languages in
Soviet Society]. M o s c o w ,
1966.
13. DESHERIEV, Y . D .
Zakonomernosti razvitiya
literaturnykh yazykov
narodov SSSR v sovetskuyu
pokhu. Razvitie
obshchestvennykh funktsii
literaturnykh yazykov [Laws
of Development of the
Written Languages of the
Peoples of the U S S R in the
Soviet Era. Development of
the Social Functions of
Written Languages].
Moscow, 1969-76, 4 vols.
14. D O M A S H N E V , A . I.
Sovremenny nemetskil
yazyk v ego natsional'nykh
variantakh [National
Variants of the Modern
37
G e r m a n Language].
Leningrad, 1983.
15. D E S H E R I E V , Y . D . Razvitie
obshchestvennykh funktsii
literaturnykh yazykov
narodov SSSR v sovetskuyu
pokhu [The Development
of the Social Functions of
the Written Languages of
the Peoples of the U S S R in
the Soviet Era], M o s c o w ,
1976.
16. DESHERIEV, Y . D .
Sotsial'naya lingvistika. K
osnovam obshche teorii
[Social Linguistics. Towards
the Founding of a General
Theory]. M o s c o w , 1977.
17. ZHIRMUNSKII, V . M .
National'nyi yazyk i
sotsial'nye dialekty [National
Language and Social
Dialects]. Leningrad, 1936.
18. Z H U R A V L E V , V . K .
o d n o m tipe slovarya
mezhdunarodnykh
terminolementov [On O n e
Kind of Dictionary of
International Terminological
Components].
Filologicheskie nauki
[Philological Sciences],
N o . 2, 1967, p. 39.
24. K A R I N S K I I , N . M . Ocherki
yazyka russkikh krest'yan
[Essays o n the Language of
Russian Peasants]. M o s c o w ,
1936.
25. K O S T O M A R O V , V . G .
lingvistichesko
kharakteristike goroda
[Towards a Linguistic
Description of a City].
Izvestiya ped. in-ta im.
Gertsena [Journal of the
Hertzen Pedagogical
Institute] (Leningrad),
Vol. 1, 1928.
35. LARIN, B . A . O
lingvisticheskom izuchenii
goroda [On the Linguistic
Study of a City]. Russkay a
rech [Russian Speech]
(Leningrad), Vol. 3, 1928.
39. P R O T C H E N K O , I. F. Leksika
i slovoobrazovanie russkogo
yazyka sovetskoi pokhi.
Sotsiolingvisticheskil aspekt
[The Vocabulary and W o r d Building of the Russian
Yunus D . Desheriev
38
Nationalities]
(Moscow/Leningrad),
N o . 2, 1935.
49. Russki Yazyk.
Entsiklopediya [The Russian
Language. A n
Encyclopedia]. M o s c o w ,
1979.
50. Russki yazyk v
sovremennom mire [The
Russian Language in the
M o d e r n World]. M o s c o w ,
1974.
51. Russki yazyk i sovetskoe
obshchestvo. Leksika
sovremennogo russkogo
yazyka [Russian Language
and Soviet Society. T h e
Vocabulary of M o d e r n
Russian]. M o s c o w , 1968.
52. Russkiyazyk po dannym
massovogo obsledovaniya [A
Statistical Picture of the
Russian Language].
Moscow, 1974.
53. Russki yazykyazyk
mezhnatsional'nogo
obshcheniya i edineniya
narodov SSSR
[RussianCommon
Language of the
Nationalities that Unites the
Peoples of the U S S R ] . Kiev,
1976.
54. SELISHCHEV, A . M . Yazyk
revolyutsionno pokhi [The
Language of the Period of
Revolution]. M o s c o w , 1928.
55. SLYUSAREVA, N . A .
Frantsuzskayalingvisticheskaya shkola
aspektakh ponyatiya
yazykovo normy [Two
Aspects of the Concept of
the Linguistic Norm].
Sravnitel'nosopostavitel'noe
izuchenie sovremennykh
romanskikh yazykov
[Comparative Study of
Modern Romance
Languages]. M o s c o w , 1966.
59. STEPANOV, G . V .
Tipologiya yazykovykh
sostoyani i situatsi v
stranakh romansko rechi
[Typology of the State and
Situation of Languages in
the Romance-Language
Countries]. M o s c o w , 1976.
60. Sotsiolingvisticheskie
problemy
razvivayushchikhsya stran
[Sociolinguistic Problems in
Developing Countries].
M o s c o w , 1975.
61. Stanovlenie i razvitie
dvuyazychiya v nerusskikh
shkolakh [The Formation
and Development of
Bilingualism in Non-Russian
Schools]. Leningrad, 1981.
62. TRESKOVA, S. I.
Funktsionirovanie massovoi
kommunikatsii v usloviyakh
mnogoyazychno auditorii
KB ASSR
(sotsiolingvisticheski aspekt)
[The Functioning of Mass
Communication in the
Multilingual Community of
the Kabardino-Balkarian
Autonomous Soviet
Republic (the Sociolinguistic
Aspect)]. M o s c o w , A K D ,
1976.
Saussure o nevozmozhnosti
yazykovo politiki [F. de
Saussure on the
Impossibility of Language
Policy]. Yazykovedenie i
materializm [Linguistics and
Materialism], Part II.
Moscow/Leningrad, 1931.
69. Yazyk i obshchestvo
[Language and Society].
M o s c o w . 1968.
70. Yazykovaya politika v
Afroaziatskikh stranakh
39
[Language Policy in
Afro-Asian Countries].
M o s c o w , 1977.
71. Yazykovaya situatsiya v
stranakh Azii i Afriki [The
Language Situation in Asian
and African Countries].
M o s c o w , 1979.
76. B R I G H T , W . Sociolinguistics.
N e w York, 1966.
77. D E S H E R I E V , J. D . Social
Linguistics. Linguistics,
N o . 113, October 1978.
78. C O H E N , M . Matriaux pour
une sociologie du langage.
Paris, 1971.
79. FlSHMAN, J.
Sociolinguistics. Rowley,
1971.
73. Y A K O V L E V , N . F.
80. GROSSE, R . ; N E U B E R T , A .
Matematicheskaya formula
postroeniya alfavita [A
Mathematical Formula for
the Construction of
Alphabets]. Kul'tura i
pis'mennosf Vostoka
[Culture and Written
Language in the East],
M o s c o w , 1928.
74. Y A R T S E V A , V . N . Problema
svyazi yazyka i obshchestva
v sovremennom
zarubezhnom yazykoznanii
[The Problem of the
Relation between Language
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Linguistics Abroad]. Yazyk i
obshchestvo [Language and
Society]. Moscow, 1968.
G A R D I N , B . Introduction
la sociolinguistique.
Larousse, 1974.
EH
rwr0^
mrnmmmmsiF; &%mm
In recent decades, sociolinguists and sociol- analysts, text linguists and literary theorists.
ogists of language, i.e. linguists and other
T o the folklorists' collections of texts and
social scientists w h o study language in social societies' valuations of these texts, social
contexts, have begun to focus on oral and
anthropologists have added the contexts of
written texts and their forms and uses across oral poetry, oratory, and the use of proverbs
contexts. Macrosociolinguists w h o focus on
and riddles across cultures. There studies
language and literacy planning at national emphasize the different roles oral forms of
levels compare the spread of different types of
knowledge transmission play in societies of
writing systems and language uses across large different social organizations and cultural
groups and nations, and study planning, patterns and illustrate ways in which literate
implementation, co-ordiforms are incorporated
nation and evaluation of
into the communication
Shirley Brice Heath is Associate Prolanguage
programmes.
networks of societies that
fessor of Anthropology and LinguisMicrosociolinguists, o n
have formerly been pritics in the School of Education,
the other hand, focus on
marily oral. Social hisStanford University, Stanford, Califace-to-face interactions
torians have raised quesfornia 94305. She has published
widely on cross-cultural uses of
in small groups within
tions about the societal
oral and written language (Ways with
cultures, institutions and
consequences of the inWords: Language, Life, and Work
situations. Current sociotroduction and extension
in Communities and Classrooms)
linguists of both types
of literacy, often conand
language Policies (Telling
Tongues: Language Policy in Mexico,
have m o v e d far away
testing
time-honoured
Colony to Nation).
from the infamous statenotions about the benment
of
Bloomfield
eficial effects of literacy
(1933) that 'writing is
for both individuals and
not language, but merely
groups. Text linguists,
a
w a y of recording
discourse analysts and litlanguage by m e a n s of visible marks'. They
erary theorists have also spurred linguists to
have also profited immensely from the focus look again at connections between the writacross disciplines o n the forms and functions ten text and the reader's response, raising an
of oral and written communication. Socioissue central to linguistic and anthropological
linguists n o w find their interests linked with
study of language: to what extent d o spoken
others w h o also examine the relations beand written versions of the same information
tween written and oral uses and structures of differ in linguistic form, measures of approlanguage: anthropologists, especially folkpriateness and m e m o r y retention a m o n g relorists and social anthropologists, cognitive
ceivers of the information? Cognitive psypsychologists, social historians, discourse
chologists examine oral performances for
42
T h e teaching of literacy
Social scientists and teachers of literacy have,
until very recently, described literacy in
instrumental, additive and replacive terms:
literacy is a tool for knowledge acquisition
43
H u t for palavers over evening meals or o n ceremonial occasions in the Pool region north of Brazzaville,
Congo.
Jacques Richard/Atlas.
teaching of literacy has been based on breaking d o w n reading and writing skills into small,
discrete components for teaching purposes.
Stages and levels of skills considered necessary in the learning of reading and writing
dominated the thinking behind textbook and
primer construction and m u c h teaching
methodology. F r o m letter to word level to
sentence to primer, those w h o would be
literate were led through their training by
teachers and materials that asserted that
newcomers to literacy, children and adults
alike, had to m o v e through certain steps and
stages of skills to acquire literacy. T h e focus
was on the written word, producing it and
recognizing its power to represent meaning
symbolically; almost no attention was given to
the contexts of literacy or to the extension of
44
tions of literacyand consequently the contexts into which literacy might gowere
emphasized in m a n y literacy programmes in
developing nations from the early 1970s. T h e
focus shifted to the illiterate 'in a group
context in relation to a given environment,
and with a view to development' (Experimental World Literacy P r o g r a m m e , 1973). This
n e w w a y of looking at the illiterate brought an
integrative approach, linking reading, writing
and training in vocational skills for use in
industrialization and the modernization of
agriculture and other m o d e s of production.
T h e purposesto enhance the opportunities
for individual socio-economic mobility and to
contribute to national developmentremained the same, but the n e w emphasis w a s on
literacy retention as well as acquisition
( G o r m a n , 1977). T h e goal n o w was to enable
n e w literates to apply their knowledge within
their o w n environments and thus to slow the
rapidly increasing pace by which people were
leaving the rural areas to migrate to urban
centres.
A few scholars examined the retention of
literacy skills taught in specific programmes.
For example, R o y and Kapoor (1975) traced
630 students, rural and urban, male and
female, w h o had finished a basic literacy
programme in L u c k n o w , India, between 1958
and 1966, and examined the relationship
T h e period since the mid-1960s has seen
multiple re-examinations of processes and between literacy retention and twenty-five
products of the teaching of literacy. B y the independent variables by using multiple correlation techniques. They found that time
early 1970s, the developed nations, especially
elapsed since terminating studies and family
the United States and the United K i n g d o m ,
size were negatively correlated for all samconfessed that the functional use of the basic
ples, and the number of trips outside L u c k n o w
literacy skills of millions within their nations
and the farthest distance travelled showed the
was so minimal as to be insignificant. Indistrongest positive correlation with literacy
viduals in both nations w h o had completed
retention. In the rural areas, those w h o had
secondary education had not retained sufficient literacy skills to read and execute achieved sufficient literacy skills to write a
letter and read a newspaper and books were
basic daily tasks, nor could they produce
those w h o best retained their literacy, prewriting of coherent extended prose.
T h e previously unquestioned processes of sumably in part through the practice they
received in carrying out these tasks for themlearning to read and write in decontextualized
selves and others in their daily lives. Neither
situations c a m e under examination. 'Funcsex nor age was a differential factor in literacy
tional literacy' became the term used by
retention. In the urban samples, motivation to
Unesco to shift the teaching of literacy skills
m o v e ahead, to develop the self, and to
to a heavily contextualized focus. T h e func-
45
Transition to literacy: voting paper in Mexico on which the parties are identified by text as well as symbols.
Omar Marcus/Camera Press.
language a n d literacy planning, the i m portance of opportunities for oral use of the
k n o w l e d g e gained through literacy, a n d the
critical support of institutions b e y o n d the
family.
T h e issue of whether or not reading a n d
writing should initially b e taught in the
mother-tongue has b e e n m u c h debated since
the historic U n e s c o axiom in 1953 that the
best m e d i u m for teaching is the mothertongue of the pupil. Since that time language
planners a n d teachers of literacy in developing
nations have tried to co-ordinate efforts to
provide a writing system for languages that
have previously been unwritten, to standardize a form of the language to be used in
writing, a n d to prepare primers suitable for
local speech communities (Engle, 1975).
46
The writer as specialist: modern version of the public scribe. Josephine Powell, Rome.
Al
48
49
50
and the institutional and social networks for
which literacy served critical purposes. T h e
researchers also showed that the purposes,
effects and types of literacy a m o n g this group
were quite different from those previously
described for schooled populations, and their
research methods enabled them to separate
literacy effects from schooling effects.
A n ethnographic approach, first reco m m e n d e d by H y m e s (1964), termed ethnography of communication, has been used by
several sociolinguists to study oral and written
traditions in specific communities. A n ethnography of communication describes for the
specific group the boundaries of the physical
and social community in which c o m m u n i cation is possible, the limits and features
of communicative situations, the patterns of
choice of speakers, listeners, writers and
readers, and the values the choices a m o n g
styles, occasions and content of written and
spoken language carry within the speech
community. Heath (1983), in an examination
of the oral and written uses of language in two
working-class communities in the southeastern part of the United States, showed the
deep cultural differences between the two
communities in their oral and literate traditions. Basic differences existed between the
two groups in almost all aspects of their uses
of language, from early reading and writing
experiences of children to adults' ways of
viewing information given in written and oral
forms. In the black working-class community,
written materials were most often used to
support m e m o r y or confirm information
already established through oral channels.
Reading and writing were public social activities, the meanings of which were shared
and negotiated socially: one person read,
while others interpreted by contributing their
experiences to reach a consensual agreement
on meaning. In the white working-class c o m munity, reading was a private activity, and
only certain persons were designated to read
aloud and interpret for others the meaning of
the written words. Both communities read
only a few minutes a day, and most of this
reading focused on instrumental or con-
51
o n face-to-face responses is replaced by the
formalization of learning. Children and adults
in formal literacy programmes face decontextualized information in situations that
require composition-centred tasks, decontextualized repetition and often verbatim
memory.
For m a n y nations, a central concern,
once formal schooling and adult literacy
programmes promise reading and writing
skills, is indigenous literature. Particularly
since the 1960s, both developing nations and
minority groups within the United States and
European nations have wished to preserve
their traditional literary texts and to spread
current forms of their oral texts. Authors
from these groups are n o w publishing m a terials and are calling for the collection of
the living traditions of their groups in order
that future authors m a y k n o w and incorporate their o w n indigenous patterns of discourse in their writing. In two volumes of
African prose, Whiteley (1964), a language
planner, presented a selection of traditional
oral texts and written prose, consisting of not
only folk tales and legends, but also oratory
and conversations in which proverbs and
riddles played critical stylistic and substantive
roles in revealing the layers of meaning of the
speaker's words as well as the particular style
of oral performance of the speaker. In these
volumes, Whiteley outlined differences in
status of tellers and writers of stories, differences in forms of oral and written literature,
and variations in the kinds of skills required
for the performance or production of each.
Currently, numerous literacy programmes in
Africa are using oral history texts collected
from elders in the community as introductory
reading material. In addition, numerous
educated Africans are n o w urging that
African writers, such as A m o s Tutuola,
D . O . Fagunwa, C . O . D . Ekwensi and
C . Achebe, be included in literature and
history courses in secondary and tertiary
education, in order that the young m a y not
grow up totally diverted by an education
based upon European literary models. Perhaps more important is the increase in the
52
53
Henri Cartier-Bresson.
54
Cartoon strips on display in Xian, China. T h e y can be read on the spot against a small payment. Jean-Louis
Boissier.
Conclusions
T h e next decades are sure to see widely
increased research o n oral and literate habits
through the co-operative efforts of a variety
of social scientists. T h e specific contributions
of sociolinguists in the past two decades have
been m a r k e d primarily by an attempt to place
texts within their contexts and to examine
these across social groups, situation and
institutions. B y the mid-1970s, the familiar
55
H o w can you evaluate the effectiveness of a
literacy programme?
W h a t are the principal alternative instructional strategies in an adult literacy
programme?
W h a t are the desirable stages of a large-scale
literacy programme and what are the
principal problems?
W e have indicated that in certain places
around the world, s o m e if not all of these
questions have been at least partially answered, and in m a n y programmes and centres
of research, researchers n o w have a m u c h
better understanding of the kinds of information needed to answer these questions than
either teachers or researchers had twenty
years ago. H o w e v e r , before w e can have
satisfactory answers and sufficient information
for programme planning in m a n y locations
around the world, sociolinguists and other
social scientists must continue to pursue longterm work in diverse communities and situations. Moreover, social historians, cognitive
psychologists, and literary theorists must increase their consideration of language structures and uses in their studies of literacy and
the linkage of its features to oral traditions.
Sociolinguists must also continue to learn
from other social scientists as they search for
answers to such basic research questions as
h o w w e can distinguish between the antecedents and consequences of literacy for individuals and h o w surface grammatical features and story and retrieval processes of
h u m a n m e m o r y are linked. The primary mark
of any significant research development in
literacy thus has to c o m e from an increased
long-term co-operation between social scientists and a spread of research focus to n e w
sites across cultures.
56
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H Y M E S , D . H . 1964. Toward
Context of Cultural Revolution.
Ethnographies of
(Paper presented at the World
Communication. In: J. J.
Congress of Sociology,
Gumperz and D . H . Hymes
subsection 9, Mexico City, 1982.)
(eds.), The Ethnography of
Communication. Special number
G O O D Y , J. (ed.). 1968. Literacy
of American Anthropologist,
in Traditional Societies.
Vol. 66, N o . 6, Part 2 ,
Cambridge, Cambridge
pp. 1-34.
.University Press.
57
STOLZ, B . A . ; S H A N N O N , R. S.
W H I T E L E Y , W . H . (ed.). 1964.
S T U B B S , M . 1980.
Language and
Textually mediated
social organization*
Dorothy E . Smith
60
considerably with a n u m b e r of other fields,
notably with ethnomethodology, in which,
indeed, it has its origins. M y intention is not
to define another exclusive and competing
enclosure; it is rather to expand our capacity
to investigate a p h e n o m e n o n which is necessarily though generally invisibly present in
other areas of sociological investigation.
Moreover, there are overlaps with other
disciplines, as there must be in anyfieldof
sociology concerned with language. The vocabulary used here overlaps but does not
coincide with that used currently in other
areas of investigation, notably with the metaepistemological work of Foucault and with the
impressive and rapidly expanding structuralist, post-structuralist and hermeneutic explorations of literary texts represented by the
work of Barthes, Iser, Kristeva, Derrida and
others. I have avoided precise definitions here
precisely because the p h e n o m e n a of textuality
bid fair to break us out of our disciplinary
enclaves and w e cannot yet see what n e w
relations will crystallize in our terminologies.
S o m e elementary considerations
T h e simple properties of the documentary or
textually mediated forms of social organization involve their dependence upon, and
exploitation of, the documentary capacity to
crystallize and preserve a definite form of
words detached from their local historicity.1
T h e appearance of meaning as a text, that is,
in permanent material form, detaches m e a n ing from the lived processes of its transitory
construction, m a d e and remade at each m o ment of its course. In pre-literate or pre-print
societies, the concentration of meaning in a
form not subject to the essential temporality
of the lived social process was vested in ritual,
megalith and image. In our time, by contrast,
extra-temporal m o d e s of meaning are created
in written or printed form. 2 T h e vesting of
meaning in such permanent of semi-permanent forms has been routine and c o m m o n place, and has transformed our relation to
language, meaning and each other. Texts
speak in the absence of speakers; meaning is
Dorothy E. Smith
detached from local contexts of interpretation; the ' s a m e ' meaning (Olson, 1977) can
occur simultaneously in a multiplicity of
socially and temporally disjointed settings
(Benjamin, 1969). In the distinctive formation
of social organization mediated by texts, their
capacity to transcend the essentially transitory
character of social processes and to remain
uniform across separate and diverse local
settings is the key to their peculiar force
(though that transcendence is itself an accomplishment of transitory social processes).
The ethnomethodological
discovery
T h e discovery of the document as a significant
constituent of social relations must be credited to ethnomethodology. M u c h of Garfinkel's initial formulation insists that organizational records cannot be understood as
objective accounts which can be treated (by
social scientists) as independent of their organizational uses and the contexts of their production and interpretation. Rather, the sense
and rationality of such documentary practices
are and must be accomplished in local historical settings (Garfinkel, 1967). Ethnomethodology has insisted o n the view that sense,
rationality, facticity, etc., are essentially
products of, and accomplished in, local historical settings. This has opened the w a y to
the
investigation of reasoning, facticity,
rationality and sense-making not as processes
going o n in people's heads but as social
practices. These discoveries are grounded, I
believe, in the emergence of forms of social
organization not characteristic of the societies
of a hundred years ago. They are forms
that externalize social consciousness in social
practices, objectifying reasoning, knowledge, m e m o r y , decision-making, judgement,
evaluation, etc., as the properties of formal
organization or discourse rather than as
properties of individuals. T h e y are, of course,
accomplished by persons in everyday local
settings, w h o thereby enter into and participate in objectified forms constituting organizational and discursive relations beyond
61
Transcendence of local historical time by text: Sumerian administrative clay tablet circa 2040 B . C . ,
concerning the distribution of a barley ration to w o m e n and children prisoners-of-war working as slaves for
the king of U r . Muse du Louvre. Pans.
62
properties of formal organization or of discourse that cannot be attributed to individuals.
Let m e clarify the notion of objectified
social consciousness as a property of organization and its relation to documents with an
example. O n e set of textual materials I have
worked with consists of two accounts of the
same eventa confrontation between police
and people o n the street which took place
during the 1960s in the United States (Darrough, 1978; Eglin, 1979; Smith, 1982). O n e
version tells the story from the point of view
of a witness to the scene. It is limited to what
he could see from where he was and to the
time-frame of the events themselves as he
beheld them. T h e second version is a response
to thefirstissued by the office of the mayor
and containing the result of the police chief's
investigation of the affair. T h e second account
is put together entirely differently from the
first. It is an organizational account. T h e
events are viewed from no particular location. T h e tellers and their points of observation cannot be identified. Furthermore,
and particularly relevant here, the time-frame
is of a different order.
O n e paragraph of the witness's account
described a young m a n being searched rather
roughly by the police. T h e mayor's account
redescribes this same episode in a rather different w a y . It identifies the young m a n using
the organizational and legal category of 'juvenile''the young m a n was a juvenile'and
tells us that he was later charged with 'being
a minor in possession of alcoholic beverages'
and found guilty. T h e latter description lifts us
immediately out of the locally observed sequence of events and into organizational
time. T h e continuities of the course of action
involved in charging persons with an offence
and of their being found guilty represent an
extended organizational process. T h e work of
various professions is involvedpolice, court
officials, lawyers perhaps, social workers or
probation officers. Co-ordination is achieved
by inscription in a record which makes up 'the
record' for this young m a n , under which his
actions o n particular occasions can be inter-
Dorothy E. Smith
63
''Wit
'The documentary character of the ruling bureaucratic apparatus', n. Roger-vmiict.
64
Dorothy E. Smith
"
'
&&
~ -
'Passport' on stamped paper delivered by a secret society of Haitian sorcerers for the safe conduct of the
bearer b y d a y a n d night. From A . Mtravix, Le voudou hatien.
65
tions to the textually mediated discourse they
intend, the intertextuality of that discourse
and further locally historic usages (Latour and
W o o l g a r , 1979).
T h e m o v e m e n t between the local historical order and document time is also typical of
the public textual discourse of the mass
media. It is misleading to treat n e w s , for
example, as arising in a simple relation in
which information given o n o n e side is received b y the other. Rather different kinds
of n e w s have different uses and are e m b e d d e d
in (and structure) different kinds of discursive
relationsfor example, sports news enters
and is e m b e d d e d in conversation a m o n g m e n
in particular and as m u c h between strangers
or casual acquaintances as between friends.
T h e distinction between 'fan' and 'spectator'
at a football or ice-hockey match differentiates the participant in this textually m e diated discourse from s o m e o n e merely
going to watch the g a m e . Similarly, political
n e w s can be investigated as a constituent of
complex relations of textually mediated discourse a n d local historic processes (Chua,
1979; Smith, 1982).
Inscription
In exploring the objectified forms of social
consciousness as documentary practices, it is
important to recognize that there is not initially an event or object that is subsequently
given objective record. O f course there are
instances of that kind. B u t the most general
and m o r e significant process is that for which
Latour and Woolgar (1979) have used the
term 'inscription', namely, the production of
an event or objects in documentary form.
Their ethnography of a scientific laboratory
describes the appearance of experimental
results in computer print-outs. These documentary forms constitute the observables.
Lynch's (1983) analysis of 'perception' in the
context of scientific discourse demonstrates
that the mediation of the document is an
essential constituent of scientific 'perception'.
H e describes h o w the local actualities of
observation are geometricized in a series of
66
Dorothy E. Smith
67
'secretarial' rather than as executive of administrative w o r k . H e n c e , performance evaluations do not build up for secretaries' accounts
of their w o r k experience, which would establish a basis for advancement to executive
positions. Their records s h o w n o documented
experience in executive w o r k , which does
not fit with the systems of representations
ordering the internal labour market of the organization (Reimer, 1983). Through such
documentary practices organizational processes are co-ordinated without the direct
interpositions of a chain of c o m m a n d or similar directly communicative process. This is
the substance of bureaucracy or objective
organization, the formality of formal organization being an integral feature thereof.
T h e documentary practices constitutive
of the formality of formal organization are
not idiosyncratic but are e m b e d d e d in and
articulated with those of the extended social
relations of the ruling apparatus. T h e standardization of job descriptions or methods of
generating job descriptions across firms facilitates the functioning of extended labourmarket relations; it is indeed integral to their
organization. For example, documented (certified) skills constitute competence as a labour
market commodity. T h e y correspond to occupational categories formulated and warranted
by government agencies, such as departments
of labour. Categories such as mining engineer,
mechanical engineer and so forth specify determinate packages of skills. Such categories
have been used by formal organizations to
articulate their internal division of labour to
the external labour market. Increasingly n o w
this documentary function is passing from
government to m a n a g e m e n t consultants with
important accompanying changes in the documentary technologies of large-scale m a n a g e m e n t . T h e person-sized packages of occupational categories are being broken d o w n
into standardized dimensions of tasks which
are used to assemble job descriptions rendering jobs widely comparable. 7 This n e w standardization represents the interposition of a
professional managerial discourse originating in firms of managerial consultants as well
Dorothy E. Smith
68
Surnoms :.
,ff^'. -i. - _
Cbe*cu
Yea*
.QjfAmt/^, '
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visage.
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T w o literary celebrities appear as inscriptions: (above)firstpage of the military booklet issued to Valentin
Louis Georges E u g n e Marcel Proust o n 11 N o v e m b e r 1889 in Paris and (right) certification that E u g e n
Berthold Friedrich Brecht was born 'regularly' in Augsburg, dated 11 February 1898. Edimedia.
yr </ f * / /+/
69
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70
Dorothy E. Smith
Research
T h e foregoing discussion implies an approach
to documents or texts that situates them in
social relations. It thereby avoids presupposing the very practices of detachment fundamental to the documentary m o d e . Similarly, it
avoids accepting the conventions of documentary time, but rather recognizes documents as
constituents of a social course of action in
which they arefirstproduced and then bec o m e active in the ordering of subsequent
phases and the relations a m o n g them (remembering, of course, that the activity of a
document is a function of its reading). This
m e a n s , a m o n g other things, that hermeneutic practicesconcepts, categories, codes,
methods of interpretation, schemata and
the likemust b e understood as active
constituents of social relations and social
courses of action rather than merely as constituents or indices of that amorphous designate, 'culture'. Interpretative practices which
'activate' a text are viewed as properties of
social relations and not merely as the c o m petences of individuals (Smith, 1983). Thus
our interest in the interpretative m o m e n t
is not in the idiosyncrasy but in those
practices presupposed by the idiosyncrasy
which belong in a given discursive or
71
72
organizational setting and which individuals
enter w h e n actually reading. Further, recognizing document or text as a constituent of
social relations also m e a n s being interested in
the social organization of its production as a
prior phase in the social relation rather than
as the work of a particular author.
I wish to emphasize the linearity and
temporality of the concept of social relation.
A s I have c o m e to use it, it analyses contexts
of texts, speech or acts not as limited by a
time-bound framesetting, occasion, etc.
but as constituents of a sequential social
course of action through which various subjectivities are related. A given locally historic
instance is explored as a constituent. It is an
analysis that seeks to disclose the non-local
determinations of locally historic or lived
orderliness. In thefirstsection above, it was
pointed out that an important effect of the
document is to transcend local historical
time. Such possibilities as multiple simultaneous
occurrences of a text, or its repeated uses o n
a n u m b e r of occasions o n which it is treated
as the ' s a m e ' , are to be seen as organizing extra-local relations a m o n g the different settings.
T h e replicable or recurrent character, the
'patterning' of the social relations of the ruling
apparatus, depend upon this m o v e m e n t between the documentary and the locally historic.
T h e earlier discussion of inscription has
given s o m e idea of the research being done
into the conversion of the locally historic into
the documentary m o d e . T h e other central
focus of investigation into textual relations
and forms of action must be the reader-text
relation. Specialized methods of research are
needed here. Textual analyses must be a primary but not, of course, exclusive method of
investigation. T h e notion of a social relation
or extended social relations as sequential
and replicable courses of social action involving m o r e than one individual should not be
conceived as subject to examination as such.
Rather it offers an analytic procedure enabling local instances to be situated in terms
of their role in the m o v e m e n t of such a social
course of action. Thus the investigation of the
Dorothy E. Smith
text-reader relation must preserve the m o v e m e n t and sequence of the social relation.
Analytic strategies that begin in document
time, treating the text as an internally deter-*
mined structure of meaning, will not serve this
purpose, semiotic and structural analyses
being for this reason generally inappropriate.
A n d though very different, the ethnomethodological investigations of Morrison (1981)
into textual order suffer from the same
limitation. O n the other hand, Eglin's (1979)
study of h o w readers resolve contradictions
between two versions of a single episode,
while it does not situate readers' practices in a
specific relation, none the less explicates
m e m b e r s ' methods of reading a text as an
actual social practice. A n d M c H o u l ' s (1982)
ethnography of the reader's work in making
sense of a news item preserves the active
text-reader relation. Both the latter, h o w ever, isolate the text-reader relation as a unit
in itself so that they d o not situate the
m o m e n t of reading, in Eglin's case, in a
political discourse intersecting with the social
organization of a university course (his analysis is of students' written responses to reading
the two versions) and in M c H o u l ' s case in the
news-reader relation with its o w n distinctive
properties. T h e argument here is that the
text-reader relation must be explored as a
part of a sequence of social action which
includes interpretative practices. H e n c e textual analyses must reveal h o w the text as
petrified meaning structures the reader's interpretation and hence h o w its meaning m a y
be entered into succeeding phases of the
relation.
T h e text does not appear from nowhere.
Its detachment from the social relation which
it organizes is a product of the intervention of
the sociologist w h o wrenches it out of its local
context as a collocation of meaning directly
available for analysis in itself. This is the basic
presupposition of the above methods of analysis. T h e text, however, should rather be
understood as having been produced to intend
the interpretative practices and usages of the
succeeding phases of the relation. T h e textreader m o m e n t is contained as a potentiality
73
a m e m b e r of society and culture in performing
analytic w o r k . O n the contrary, the analyst
depends precisely o n such membership to
perform the analytical w o r k ; if the analyst
does not already c o m m a n d the interpretative
m e t h o d of the relational process being investigated it will have to b e learnt.
I d o not envisage the study of d o c u m e n tary or textually mediated social relations as a
distinct field, developing its o w n theories and
methods of research. Apart from the s o m e what specialized character of textual analyses,
the uncovering of this level of p h e n o m e n a
provides an approach to grasping the ubiquitous and generalizing relations of the ruling
apparatus. T h e intention is not to supersede
investigations of formal organization, of the
state, of mass media, or of other elements of
the ruling apparatus. Rather, it is to bring into
view a very significant dimension of those
practices structuring the daily relations that
organize and exercise p o w e r in contemporary,
advanced capitalist society. It is to identify an
aspect of the substantive ground of these
relations and hence to anchor research in the
actual ways in which they w o r k . Thus the
apparent modesty of the disclaimer conceals a
m o r e grandiose enterprise, that of transforming our understanding of the nature of
p o w e r w h e n power is vested in a documentary
process.
Notes
1. The conception of local
historicity is to be found in
Garfinkel et al. (1981). It
expresses the localized and
irreversible movement of the
social process as it is lived.
2. See m y discussion of
'document time' in Smith
(1974). It is a concept that
analyses the social
accomplishment of the fixity
of a text.
Dorothy E. Smith
74
References
A T K I N S O N , J. M . 1978.
as a Textual Accomplishment.
The Sociological Quarterly,
N o . 20, pp. 541-9.
C I C O U R E L , A . ; KITSUSE, J.
Reality Disjunctures on
Telegraph Avenue: A Study of
L A T O U R , B . ; W O O L G A R , S.
F O U C A U L T , 1972. The
Archaeology of Knowledge.
L o n d o n / N e w York, Pantheon.
F R A N K E L , R. M . ; B E C K M A N ,
Ethnomethodology. Englewood
Cliffs, N . J . , Prentice-Hall.
GARFINKEL, H . ; L Y N C H , M . ;
Paul.
M A N N H E I M , K . 1952. Essays in
W o r k of a Discovering Science
Construed with Materials from
the Optically Discovered Pulsar.
Philosophy of Social Science,
N o . 11, p p . 131-58.
M O R R I S O N , K . L . 1981. Some
Properties of 'Telling-order
Designs' in Didactive Inquiry.
Philosophy of Social Sciences,
N o . 11, pp. 245-62.
75
O L S O N , D . 1977. From
Construction of Documentary
Reality. Sociological Inquiry,
Vol. 44, N o . 4 , pp. 257-68.
R E I M E R , M . 1983. The
Nelson E . Cabrai
In W e s t Africa, Creole, derived from Portu- onial powers linked the fate of Creole to the
guese, is spoken in the Cape Verde Islands,
project for the union of the archipelago with
Guinea-Bissau and, to a lesser degree, in
Guinea-Bissau. T h e coup d'tat o n 15 N o Casamance, the southern province of Senegal vember 1980 put paid to this experiment,
which, until 1886, was linked to Bolama, the
unique in the annals of modern African
former capital of Guinea-Bissau.
politics. In fact, Guinea-Bissau and C a p e
T h e outlook for this tropical Portuguese
Verde were governed by the same political
idiom is a subject of very considerable current
party, the P A I G C (Parti Africain de l'Indinterest. O n the continent what is at issue is
pendance de la Guine et les les du C a p the future of a popular language spoken by
VertAfrican Party for the Independence of
minorities within ethnic
Guinea and the Cape
groups in states or reVerde Islands) founded
Nelson E . Cabrai, from Cape Verde,
gions. In Cape Verde,
by Amilcar Cabrai. 1 T h e
is currently a member of the Unesco
Creole
is
the
only
Cabrai brothers and their
Secretariat. H e has published nulanguage spoken by the
friends
in the P A I G C
merous articles and studies in Porentire population, and
had sought to promote
tuguese and French including an
anthropological essay. Le Moulin et le
yet the official language
the
use
of
Creole
Pilon (1980).
of the republic is Portuthrough the de jure esguese. T h e local authtablishment, in the light
orities
are
endeavof idiolectal features, of
ouring to bring about
a standardized written
acceptance of the idea
language
for
both
of
Creole
becoming
countries, which together
the
country's
official
had
a population of
language in the near fusome 900,000 people.
ture, but they are faced
The failure of their prowith the usual difficulties encountered in
ject for union is likely to be a serious blow to
promoting national languages w h e n it comes
any regional approach as regards the use of
to the question of the demands of diplomatic
Creole. Nevertheless, it must be recognized
relations and technological training needs. A n that despite the different social and geoadditional factor is the heterogeneous nature
graphical contexts in which each of the three
of C a p e Verde Creole, for it varies con- variants of Creole is evolving, their future
siderably from island to island.
m a y be linked, for they have c o m m o n lexical
roots and are all developing in the actual or
After the accession of Guinea-Bissau to
artificial insularity such as the Portuguese
independence in 1974 and of Cape Verde in
trading posts succeeded in imposing on the
1975, the authorities that succeeded the col-
Nelson E. Cabrai
78
Pedro Monteiro Cardoso, one of the pioneers of written Creole in the 1920s, D. R.
79
Teaching Portuguese in a village school of Monte Trigo, Santo Anto Island. Yves Giadu/Atias
Nelson E. Cabrai
80
limited, or even totally absent. Everything
points to the fact that, of the three, the
Casamance basilect is the least affected by
diglossia, since Portuguese has not been
spoken in the region since the second half of
the nineteenth century.
In Guinea-Bissau, the Creole spoken in
Bissau and Bolama (the former capital) differs considerably from that of other regions
which are very little urbanized. Quite obviously, the Creole spoken by the 'whitecollar' segment (the assimilados) is more
'Lusitanian' from all points of view than that
of the rural dwellers, w h o are, for the most
part, illiterate. T h e former presence of an
important Cape Verdean colony necessarily
had a significant influence on local speech in a
country where things are often changing with
the fluctuating m o o d of political psychology
and shifts in trends.
For a long time Creole was the only
concrete sign of the Portuguese cultural presence on the coast. This is still the situation in
Casamance, particularly in the town of Ziguinchor, where, because of a phenomenon
of transculturation, Creole still shows signs of
Portuguese influence. A s early as 1688 'Sieur
la Courbe' mentioned a certain jargon in use
in Senegal, which, although bearing only 'a
faint resemblance to Portuguese', was none
the less felt to be related to it and served as a
language of communication with the Europeans, like the lingua franca of the Mediterranean. 6 Creole was probably spoken in other
regions of Senegal and disappeared in m u c h
the same w a y as certain dialects, derived from
Portuguese, in the old trading posts in India.7
T h e Creole currently spoken in Cape
Verde cannot be considered to be a completely independent form, having regard
to the domination of Portuguese with which
it coexists.
Nevertheless, if indeed there is a continu u m , account must be taken of the influence
of the social structure on the development
of the language, reflecting both objective
situations and the psychological and social
values acquired by subgroups. T h e acrolectal Creole spoken in each of the nine
Phonetic
81
Lima's statements reflect a certain intolerance
at the emergence of a n e w 'Creole' society,
which w a s certainly to fuel the smouldering
differences between the colony and the h o m e
country.
After independence the n e w authorities
advocated the adoption of a Creole that
would one day b e c o m e an official language.
T h e Creole of the island of So Tiago w a s
chosen since, according to government experts, it w a s closest to that of Guinea-Bissau.
T h e split between the two countries put paid
to this experiment, leaving the problem of
the choice of a standard written language
unresolved. T h e promotion of Creole is
h a m p e r e d by the fact that an appreciably
different version of Creole is spoken in each
of the inhabited islands.
Eugenio Tavares, a C a p e Verdean
author, wrote in 1924 in the journal Manduco that 'the character of the C a p e Verdean
people is expressed with varying degrees of
picturesqueness depending o n the tonal
iption
So Nicolau Creole:
Cosa sabe ta cab depressa
Csa runh ca ta cab!
Ks sb t kba dprss
Ksa rn k t kba
Ks sb t kba dpress
Ks rue t kba
Fogo Creole:
Cusa sabe ta cab dipressa
Cusa fde c ta cab
So Tiago Creole:
Cussa sabi ta caba fachi
Cussa fdi c ta caba
Kssa sb ta kab fx
Kssa fd k ta kba
Portuguese version:
O b e m dura
Tanto pouco quanto perdura o
English version:
Sorrow is as enduring
A s happiness is fleeting
Nelson E. Cabrai
82
Santo Anto /
L
C - . S . Vicente
L/Sal
S. Nicolau
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
Boa Vista
S. Tiago
0 Maic
Brava o
Praia
Fogo
Cape Verde Islands and, opposite, continental West Africa where Portuguese Creole dialects are spoken.
83
MAURITANIA
Conclusion
Cape Verde clearly wishes to promote Creole
but, apart from the internal difficulties, it has
to c o m e to terms with the need for a language
in which to conduct its diplomatic and trade
relations. Given its vital links with Portuguese-speaking countries, it is likely that
Portuguese will continue to be the country's
Nelson E. Cabrai
84
Despite the variations and vicissitudes
they have experienced throughout history, the
three examples of Creole (Cape V e r d e , Casam a n c e and Guinea-Bissau) represent one
linguistic family, the outcome of the early
contacts between Europeans and Africans in
circumstances of which w e are all well aware.
Continental Creole probably c a m e from
C a p e V e r d e ; in any event, it w a s greatly
influenced from the outset by assimilated
blacks and mixed-race groups w h o had c o m e
from C a p e Verde to assist the Portuguese w h o
were in difficulty in the region.
T h e structure and conceptual basis of the
embryonic language of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries developed according to
Notes
1. Amilcar Cabrai. A Cape
Verdean guerrilla leader in the
Guinea-Bissau underground
movement, he was responsible
for the liberation of a part of
Guiean territory prior to the
fall of the Portuguese colonial
government and the accession to
independence by the former
African colonies. Cabrai was
assassinated at Conakry on
20 January 1973 in
circumstances that have never
been clarified.
2. According to the same
sources, the other languages
spoken are: Balanta, 24.4 per
cent; monolingual Balanta 14.2
per cent; Fula, 20.03 per cent;
monolingual Fula, 16.4 per cent;
85
Bibliography*
Cape Verde
A R A U J O , N . Study of Cape
Verdean Literature. Boston,
Boston College, 1966.
C A R D O S O , P . Folclore
caboverdeano. Oporto, Edices
Maranaus, 1933. (Texts in the
Crole of the different islands
with an explanation in
Portuguese.)
L O P E S D A S I L V A , B . O dialecto
. Convergencia lrica
portuguesa n u m poeta
caboverdeano na lingua crioula
do sculo X I X . In: E . Tavares,
Second Congress of
Communities of Portuguese
Culture. Vol. 2 , pp. 497-510.
. Algas e coris. Vila Nova Mozambique, 1967.
de Famalico, published by the
M A R T I N S , O . Caminhada.
author, 1928. (In Portuguese
Lisbon, 1962. (Partly in Creole.)
and Creole.)
. Moma
e saudade. Vila
Nova de Famalico, published
by the author, 1940. (Text in
Creole with explanation in
Portuguese.)
N U N E S , M . L . T h e Phonology of
D U A R T E , A . D . Cabo Verde,
contribuico para o estado do
dialecto falado no sen
arquiplago. Coimbra, 1958.
D U A R T E , M . Caboverdeanidade
e africanidade. Vrtice
(Coimbra), Vol. XII, N o . 134,
1954, pp. 639-44.
F R A G O S O , F . (alias K w a n e
K o n d a ) . Korda kaoberdi. Paris,
Creole Texts Paris, Solidarit
Capverdienne en France, 1974.
F R U S O N I , S. Textos crioulos
caboverdianos. In: Miscelnea
luso-africana, pp. 165-203.
Lisbon, JIU, 1975. (Presented
by Valhoff-Marius.)
LEITE D E V A S C A O N C E L O S , J.
A L K M I N , T . M . Le crole
portugais de Casamance dans le
contexte francophone.
(Forthcoming.)
C A B R A L , N . E . Le moulin et le
pilon: Les les du Cap-Vert.
Paris, ditions Harmattan, 1980.
. Reflexion autour du crole
ou croles parls dans l'archipel
du Cap-Vert. tudes croles,
Aupelf-Montreal, Bibliothque
Nationale du Qubec, 1980.
CHTAIGNIER,
R . L e crole
littrature capverdienne:
Vocation ocane et
enracinement africain.
L'Afrique littraire (Paris),
Nos. 54-55, 1980, pp. 65-8.
L O P E S D E L I M A , J.J. Ensaios
* The reader will realize that the word 'Creole' is written either as crioulo or creoulo, and that 'Cape
Verdean' is written either as caboverdeano or caboverdiano. W e have kept to the original spellings.
88
Robert L. Cooper
89
A framework for the description of language spread: the case of modern Hebrew
-,-
*
*
^
*
i
**" ****
""T*
',
'*
--. . ; * * \ v \ ^ \ v - C x \ \ \ X , , \*VC<i\v*
H e b r e w letters animated into h u m a n and animal forms in a manuscript liturgy for the Haggadah (Passover)
eve service. Horse with rider is an allusion to the Exodus. F r o m Spain, thirteenth century. Preussische
Staatsbibliothek.
Robert L. Cooper
90
resuscitation as a vernacular, a language of
everyday life.
T h e movement for the revival of H e b r e w
began in Palestine and in Eastern Europe in
the 1880s, under the influence of European
national movements, which viewed the
language of a people as inseparable from
its nationhood. A s Rabin (1973, p. 69) has
pointed out, however, the H e b r e w revival
m o v e m e n t differed from m a n y of the
language movements associated with European
nationalism. Whereas m a n y of the latter
attempted to extend the range of a vernacular's functions to include those of literacy, the
task of the Hebrew revival movement was to
extend the range of a written language
to include spoken functions. Whereas the
peoples mobilized by European national
movements could often be united by a
c o m m o n vernacular, the Jews were divided
by their vernaculars. But they could be unified through Hebrew.
A series of pogroms and repressive
measures in Russia following the assassination
of Czar Alexander II (1881) started a wave of
mass emigration of Jews, a small number of
w h o m came to Palestine, then part of the
Ottoman empire. M a n y of those w h o arrived
in those years were young intellectuals, influenced by European ideas of nationalism and
imbued with the desire for a life better than
and different from the one they had k n o w n in
Russia.
T h e young idealists w h o started coming
to Palestine in the 1880s welcomed the idea of
using H e b r e w as an all-purpose vernacular, an
ideafirstpromoted by Eliezer B e n Yehuda, a
young Russian Jew w h o arrived in 1881. A n
indefatigable promoter of the H e b r e w revival,
he was thefirstto speak H e b r e w at h o m e and
to raise his children in Hebrew!
Between 1881 and 1903, from twenty
to thirty thousand Jews arrived (Bachi,
1977, p . 79). They adopted B e n Yehuda's
idea of introducing H e b r e w as the language
of instruction in the schools of the
settlements they founded. A system of
H e b r e w schools was established, including
kindergartens (from 1898) and high schools
(from 1906).
p. 73),
According to
Rabin
(1973,
91
A framework for the description of language spread: the case of modern Hebrew
Il j ^ - ^ ?
H
j\
XX
i V?
K>
ttM
^'
Page from a three-volume H e b r e w Bible with the Massorah (commentaries) of an early fourteenth-century
G e r m a n type. T h e text of the Bible is in relatively large letters, that of the Massorah in smaller letters to
yield a Composite i m a g e Of H o l y W r i t . Bibliothque Nationale. Paris.
92
the same time, a growing sense of insecurity
among the Jews of Asia and Africa, combined
in some cases with messianic expectations, led
to a mass exodus from those continents.
During the three and a half years after the
establishment of the state of Israel, close to
700,000 Jews immigrated, more than doubling the Jewish population (Bachi, 1977,
p. 79). During the remainder of the 1950s,
to the end of 1960, almost 300,000 more Jews
arrived (Bachi, 1977, p . 79). Altogether, between 1948 and the end of 1978 more than
1,600,000 Jews came to Israel (Goldman,
1980, p . 47), about two and a half times the
number of Jewish inhabitants at the time of
independence. In 1950, the proportion of the
Jewish population in Israel that had been born
abroad was close to 75 per cent, since when it
has been declining. B y 1978 it was about 45
per cent (Goldman, 1980, p. 13).
Roben L. Cooper
Demographic characteristics
Studies of societal bilingualism have not
shown a universal set of demographic characteristics associated with persons w h o are quick
to adopt the spreading language. For example, a study of Amharic-Oromo bilingualism
in two Ethiopian provinces suggested that
among O r o m o s , younger persons were more
likely than older persons to know Amharic,
whereas among Amharas, older persons were
more likely than younger persons to k n o w
O r o m o (Cooper et al., 1977). Whereas there
was no relationship among the Amharas
between school attendance and knowledge of
O r o m o , the O r o m o s were more likely to
k n o w Amharic if they had gone to school.
Similarly, a study of lingua francas in K a m The spread of Hebrew
pala found that whereas knowledge of English
With the very brief description given above as
was related to school attendance, knowledge
background, w e can n o w discuss the spread of
of Swahili was not (Scotton, 1972).
Hebrew under each of the rubrics suggested
W h a t studies of societal bilingualism
by our summarizing question: Who adopts
suggest is that if demographic characteristics
what, when, where, how and why?
are related to language spread it is because
they reflect differences in the adopters' incenWho
tives and opportunities to learn the spreading
language. Thus younger Oromos were more
Who refers to the individual adopters themlikely to k n o w Amharic because they were
selves as well as to the communications netmore likely to have gone to school, where
work within which they interact. With respect
Amharic was the m e d i u m of primary-school
to individual adopters, w e want to k n o w the
instruction. Older Amharas were more likely
characteristics that distinguish adopters from
to k n o w O r o m o because greater length of
non-adopters and early adopters from late
adopters. This question is similar to one asked residence in Oromo-speaking communities
had given them a greater opportunity to learn.
by students of second-language acquisition
Similarly, whereas in Kampala Swahili can be
w h o want to k n o w what characteristics dis'picked up' via the ordinary routines of work,
tinguish good language learners from poor
market-place and neighbourhood, English
ones. Indeed, language spread and secondlanguage acquisition overlap asfieldsof in- must typically be learned through formal
quiry inasmuch as language learning can be study at school. Whereas it is hard for most to
do without knowledge of Swahili, more can
viewed as one type of adoption. However,
whereas those students of second-language manage without knowledge of English.
acquisition w h o are interested in the characW h a t can w e learn from the demographic
teristics of good language learners typically
variables that have been associated with
study individual differences in attitude,
adoption of Hebrew? W e can turn to analyses
aptitude, cognitive style, learning strategies
carried out by Bachi (1956, 1977), Hofman
A framework for the description of language spread: the case of modern Hebrew
and Fisherman (1971), and Schmelz and Bachi
(1974) of censuses or sample surveys carried
out in 1948, 1954, 1961, 1966 and 1972 by the
Central Bureau of Statistics. (At the time of
writing, the returns from the 1983 census have
not been tabulated.) Since 1948, the Central
Bureau of Statistics has asked respondents
what languages they speak every day and, if
they use m o r e than one, to indicate the
relative frequency with which these languages
are used. E a c h respondent is classified according to an 'index of H e b r e w speaking' whereby
100 m e a n s that H e b r e w is the only language
spoken, 75 that H e b r e w is the principal
language spoken, 25 that H e b r e w is spoken as
an additional language, and 0 that H e b r e w is
not used at all. T h e following generalizations
can be m a d e about the relationships between
demographic variables and the index of
H e b r e w speaking.
First, a m o n g immigrants age at arrival is
negatively related and length of residence in
Israel positively related to claimed usage of
H e b r e w . A s H o f m a n and Fisherman (1971)
point out, this not surprising finding indicates
that 'natural' causes were sufficient to explain
variation in these immigrants' use at this point
in the revival of H e b r e w .
Second, with respect to the immigrants,
country of origin, w e find that a m o n g those
w h o immigrated during the Mandatory period, relatively high indices of H e b r e w usage
were obtained for persons from Arabic-speaking countries and for persons from Eastern
Europe and lower than average indices for
persons from Austria, G e r m a n y , Hungary
and Turkey. A m o n g those w h o arrived after
1948, the index of H e b r e w speaking remained
high a m o n g Jews from Arabic-speaking
countries but the index for persons from
Eastern Europe declined. Schmelz and Bachi
(1974) suggest that the decline could probably
be explained by the collapse of organized
Jewish education in Eastern Europe during
and after the Second World W a r and by the
greater tendency for immigrants w h o c a m e to
Palestine before the Holocaust to have a
Zionist ideology. T h e high indices a m o n g
persons from Arabic-speaking countries they
93
94
immigrants w h o resisted the adoption of
H e b r e w and, on the other, from the m a n y
poorly educated or illiterate immigrants from
Africa and Asia w h o adopted H e b r e w with
alacrity.
Perhaps the chief reason for the link
between education and H e b r e w usage is the
connection between education and those occupations that require or tend to require a
working knowledge of H e b r e w . Thus m a n a gerial and clerical workers and those in liberal
professions, especially teachers, show c o m paratively high indices of H e b r e w use, whereas
workers in service occupations, traders and
salesmen, tailors and shoemakers, and unskilled workers show relatively low indices
of H e b r e w use (Schmelz and Bachi, 1974,
pp. 778-9). T h e influence of occupational
pressures upon the use of H e b r e w can be seen
from the 1961 census. A m o n g Jews w h o were
at least 14 years old, the index of H e b r e w
speaking w a s higher for labour-force participants than for those not in the labour force,
for those w h o worked at least thirty-five hours
a week than for those w h o worked fewer, and
for those w h o had worked more weeks in the
year than for those w h o had worked fewer
(Schmelz and Bachi, 1974, p . 778). Occupational pressures provide incentives to learn
H e b r e w , in order to obtain and retain a job,
as well as the opportunity to learn H e b r e w ,
through interactions with other workers,
customers, suppliers, and so forth. T h e importance of participation in the workforce
can also be seen from the difference between
male and female Hebrew-usage indices. Males
claim more usage of H e b r e w than females,
but this difference tends to disappear w h e n
participation in the workforce is taken into
account (Bachi, 1977, pp. 291-2).
While age, sex, education, occupation
and participation in the labour force are all
individually related to H e b r e w usage, they are
also related to each other. Thus younger
people are more likely to have more education, more educated people are more likely
to have a job that requires H e b r e w , males are
more likely than females to work outside the
h o m e , and so on. T o the extent that these
Robert L. Cooper
A framework for the description of language spread: the case of modern Hebrew
95
tributed very little to the explanation of variation in the other measures of adoption. Even
three years after arrival, the formal study of
H e b r e w in Israel was the most important
predictor both of claimed speaking ability and
of listening to the Hebrew-language news,
and it was the second-best predictor of reading a H e b r e w newspaper. Together, formal
study of H e b r e w in Israel and prior knowledge of H e b r e w accounted for most of the
explained variation of these three measures of
adoption.
Personal characteristics
Thus far, w e have considered the d e m o graphic characteristics of adopters, the data
supporting the notion that these characteristics are related to the adoption of H e b r e w
to the extent that they reflect the opportunity
and the incentive to learn the language. W h a t
96
about the personal characteristics that are
investigated by students of second-language
learning? With respect to the personal
characteristics of immigrants w h o have
learned H e b r e w well or w h o use it a great
dealcharacteristics from the domains of
attitude, aptitude, cognitive style, personality
and learning stylewe have virtually no
empirical studies designed to find out, though
there is at least one such study with respect to
the adoption of H e b r e w by Arab high-school
students in Tel-Aviv (Reves, 1983).
W e can perhaps learn something about
the relationship between individual differences in attitude and H e b r e w adoption on
the basis of Rosenbaum's data. O n e of her
predictor variables was an attitudinal measure,
'feels Israeli'. Respondents were asked to
indicate the extent to which they felt Israeli or
a national of their country of origin. In the
twelve multiple-regression analyses in which
this variable was entered (four criterion
measures for each of three points in time),
it contributed to the explanation of variation
in only one of them, reading a Hebrew
newspaper three years after arrival, and
there it was responsible for only 3 per cent
of explained variation. These results suggest
that attitudinal differences do not contribute
greatly to the explanation of variation in the
adoption of H e b r e w by modern immigrants.
Characteristics of interaction networks
In our summarizing question, who refers not
only to individual adopters but also to the
communications networks within which they
are found. There is as yet virtually no
research directed towards determining what
factors of communications networks promote
or retard language spread. However, it is
reasonable that the linguistic heterogeneity of
a network will promote the spread of a lingua
franca. Indeed, Brosnahan (1963) cites
linguistic heterogeneity as one of the four
conditions that promoted the spread of
Greek, Latin and Arabic in the empires
associated with those languages.
The influence of linguistic heterogeneity
can be seen in a survey of 190 adults in
Robert L. Cooper
Hebrew
97
98
the Ottoman period, then its spread created
pressure on others to learn it and prevented
the spread of its chief rival, Yiddish. T h e
potential of Yiddish as lingua franca was
probably undermined, in addition, by the fact
that where opposition existed to the use of
H e b r e w for secular purposes, it was found
a m o n g 'old-fashioned' ultra-orthodox persons
of Eastern European background. Almost all
of these spoke Yiddish and thus had no need
of a lingua franca with one another. If the
opponents to H e b r e w for secular purposes
had been linguistically heterogeneous, Yiddish would have been their probable choice of
lingua franca because Yiddish was spoken by
the greatest number of persons w h o did not
claim H e b r e w as principal language. A s it
was, the opponents to H e b r e w were linguistically homogeneous whereas those not opposed to H e b r e w were linguistically heterogeneous. So thefieldwas left clear for Hebrew.
Adoption
Rogers and Shoemaker (1971) propose five
stages of acceptance of an innovation: awareness (knowledge that the innovation exists),
interest (gaining knowledge about the innovation), evaluation (gaining a favourable or
unfavourable attitude towards the innovation), small-scale trial, and decision to adopt
or reject the innovation. There seems to be no
single set of stages widely accepted by researchers in the diffusion of innovation.
T h e following have been proposed for
language spread (Cooper, 1982):
1. Awareness. T h e speaker learns that the
language or language variety exists and
can (or must) be used for a particular
function.
2. Evaluation. T h e speaker forms a favourable or unfavourable attitude towards the
personal usefulness of the language for a
particular function. Evaluation here is not
equivalent to favourable or unfavourable
feelings towards speakers of the language.
English, for example, spread throughout
Ireland in spite of Irish antipathy towards
the English (Macnamara,-1973). Rather,
Robert L. Cooper
evaluation refers to speakers' opinions
that knowledge of the n e w language for a
given function will or will not help them in
attaining valued goals. If the language will
not help speakers to attain such goals, they
are unlikely to learn it or, having learned
it, to use it. 'It is worth remembering', as
Whiteley (1969, p . 13) pointed out, 'that
the desire to learn another's language
springs only very rarely from a disinterested wish to communicate with one's
fellow h u m a n s . '
3. Proficiency. T h e speaker is able to use the
language for a given function. T h e criterion of spread here is defined not in
terms of grammatical or phonetic accuracy,
nor in terms of richness of vocabulary, nor
in terms of fluency, but rather in terms of
the extent to which speakers can use the
language for a given purpose. Knowledge
implies the ability to use the language with
the right person at the right time and at the
right place, as defined by norms of c o m municative appropriateness.
4 . Usage. T h e speaker uses the language for a
given function.
Not all w h o become aware of a language for
a given purpose form positive evaluations of
its personal usefulness; not all w h o form
positive evaluations learn it; and not all w h o
learn it use it. For example, in the Ethiopian
survey cited earlier, a substantial proportion
of Amharic mother-tongue speakers m e n tioned English as a language they would like
to k n o w , although the opportunity for learning
it was small and the opportunity for using it
smaller still. T o cite another example, it is not
possible to d o without knowledge of written
French in France, but 'it is possible to have
only a few opportunities for its practice'
(Tabouret-Keller, 1968, p . 109).
Although awareness, evaluation, proficiency and usage have been proposed as
stages of adoption, with awarenessfirstand
usage last, in fact these behaviours m a y
overlap and reinforce one another. A s one's
proficiency improves one is freer to use the
language, but as one uses the language one's
proficiency improves. Positive evaluation m a y
J4 framework for the description of language spread: the case of modern Hebrew
99
100
A s part of the background for this study,
Bentolila described the residents' patterns of
bilingual usage. N o ordinary participant observer, the investigator was himself a m e m b e r
of the community. Thus not only was his
presence maximally unobtrusive, but his background knowledge of the community was
excellent. Bentolila reported widespread use
of Arabic within the community, particularly
a m o n g the elderly, whose fluency in H e b r e w
was poor, and a m o n g those males aged 13 to
21 w h o did not continue their studies beyond
elementary school. Bentolila attributed the
latters' use of Arabic to the value of covert
norms which convert a non-prestige vernacular into a symbol of within-group solidarity.
Bentolila checked the 1961 census returns
for this rural community and found that
aboi?+ three-quarters of the respondents indicated that H e b r e w was their primary daily
language, and this only five years after their
immigration to Israel. Bentolila was told by
an anthropologist w h o had worked in the
community between 1965 and 1969 that during this time general meetings of the c o m munity and part of the discussions of the
community's steering committee were held in
Arabic. A n d Bentolila pointed out that fifteen
years after the census the use of Arabic in the
community for everyday purposes was substantial. H e reports that he has reason to
believe that at the time of the census respondents wanted to present themselves as immigrants whose linguistic integration had ended
successfully. Whether or not H e b r e w was in
fact the villagers' principal language, there
was n o doubt that in the eyes of the villagers,
writes Bentolila, the reigning language was
H e b r e w , not only because it was widespread
in essential public contexts but also because it
was an inherent part of their deeply felt
religious and Zionist identity.
T h e village studied by Bentolila probably
represents an extreme example of divergence
between claimed and actual H e b r e w usage.
M o s t citizens live in towns and cities, not
villages; most communities are not as h o m ogeneous with respect to the inhabitants'
Robert L. Cooper
What
W h a t does the adopter adopt? This question
can be approached from two points of view:
form and function.
F o r m refers to the structure of the
language being adopted. T h e characteristics
of most concern to students of language
spread are perhaps (a) the extent to which the
spreading language is similar to languages
already k n o w n by the potential adopter and
(b) the extent to which the spreading language
is homogeneous.
With respect to structural similarity, it
seems safe to assume that, all things being
equal, potential adopters will adopt a
language more quickly if it is similar to those
they already k n o w . Thus one reason c o m monly offered for the rapid spread of Swahili
is that it advanced initially a m o n g speakers of
other Bantu languages. It is claimed not that
similarity is a pre-condition for language
spreadthe diffusion of H e b r e w a m o n g
speakers of eighty or ninety different
languages provides ample disconfirmation of
this claimbut that structural similarity facilitates adoption. W e have already seen that the
similarity between Arabic and H e b r e w has
been cited as one reason for the relatively
rapid adoption of H e b r e w by Jews from Asia
and Africa.
With respect to structural homogeneity,
w e find, on the one hand, relatively little
A framework for the description of language spread: the case of modern Hebrew
101
Bar-Am/Nfagn
102
it is, say, for English, although not so great as
for Arabic. Whereas knowledge of the informal vernacular can be 'picked u p ' by interactions in the everyday rounds of market place
and workplace, knowledge of the more formal
varieties depends primarily upon formal education. T h e importance of formal education in
the acquisition of formal varieties is due to
Hebrew's status as a renativized language. A s
Rabin (1975) has pointed out, its tradition as
a literary language is ancient and continuous,
whereas its tradition as a vernacular is discontinuous, having suffered an interruption of
1,700 years. During this very long period,
literacy in H e b r e w meant literacy in a classical
language. Vernacular literacy is something
n e w . T h e H e b r e w grammar which Israeli
children study in school, for example, is not
the grammar of the modern vernacular but
rather a normativized systematization of biblical H e b r e w carried out in the thirteenth
century (Rabin, 1983). Formal H e b r e w varieties, the immediate heirs of this ancient
literary tradition, exhibit substantial differences from everyday H e b r e w in vocabulary
and grammar. Thus the news one hears on the
radio, for example, is presented in a variety
somewhat remote from the variety heard in
everyday speech. T h e language of news items
in the press is similarly quite different from
the language of speech. That the language of
the news as presented on both the radio and
in the press should be harder for immigrants
to learn than the language of ordinary speech
can be inferred from the language usage data
presented by Rosenbaum (1983) in the survey
of immigrant absorption described above. T h e
increase in usage, from two months to three
years after arrival, was far greater for speech
than it was for newspaper reading or for radio
news listening. Consistent with these differences is the greater importance, cited above,
for formal study as a predictor of newspaper
reading and of news listening than of the use
of H e b r e w as a daily language.
O f course, immigrants can manage without reading H e b r e w and without listening to
the Hebrew-language news m u c h more readily than they can manage without speaking
Robert L. Cooper
A framework for the description of language spread: the case of modern Hebrew
103
Leonard Freed/Magnum,
104
Robert L. Cooper
When
A framework for the description of language spread: the case of modern Hebrew
in adoption was the ability to carry on a
simple conversation, and the criterion that
showed the slowest rate of increase w a s
listening to the radio news in H e b r e w and
reading a newspaper in H e b r e w . For all four
of R o s e n b a u m ' s criteria, the rate of advance
was greater between the first two points in
time that were sampled (two months and one
year) than between the last two points sampled (one year and three years), even though
the second period was m o r e than three times
as long as the first. These results are consistent with earlier census and sample-survey
data concerning the index of H e b r e w speaking, which rises m o r e sharply during the first
few years of residence than thereafter.
All in all, the data with respect to the
speed of H e b r e w adoption suggest that the
rate of adoption is a function of the age of
arrival and the type of adoption criterion
which is employed. Younger immigrants
adopt H e b r e w m o r e quickly than do older
immigrants. According to
Rosenbaum's
data, the speed of adoption is greatest for the
ability to conduct a simple conversation and
slowest for the use of mass media.
Where
T h e question of where the language is
adopted refers not to the location of the
adopter (answered by the question who ?) but
rather to the socially defined location of the
interactions through which the language
spreads. Thus location is defined here not in
terms of physical or geographical space but
rather in terms of social space.
Fishman's work o n language maintenance
and language shift has emphasized the societal
domain as a crucial locus for the study of
societal bilingualism. A domain, according to
Fishman, represents a constellation of social
situations which are constrained by the same
set of behavioural norms. Examples of d o mains are those hypothesized for the Puerto
Rican speech community of N e w York:
family, neighbourhood, religion, work and
school (Fishman et al., 1975).
W h a t domains are associated with the
105
106
the following rule: speak H e b r e w unless your
mother-tongue is English and you are speaking to another mother-tongue speaker of
English (a language which enjoys high status
in Israelsee Cooper and Fishman, 1977).
Although most of the shopkeepers k n e w
English, most native speakers of English
switched to H e b r e w to carry out their transactions. Between Jewish Israelis w h o do not
share the same mother-tongue, Hebrew is the
unrivalled lingua franca.
Immigrants' adoption of H e b r e w , then, is
greatest for public functions. In Hofman's and
Fisherman's (1971) survey of Romanian
immigrants, 70 per cent of those interviewed
reported that they used only or mainly H e brew at work. T h e use of Hebrew at h o m e ,
while substantial, was less frequent. Half the
parents w h o had been in Israel for at least
twenty years reported using only or mainly
H e b r e w with their children. A m o n g the
younger generation, all reported speaking
only or mainly Romanian with their grandparents and more than two-fifths reported
speaking only or mainly Romanian with
their parents. But whereas the older generation reported using Romanian or Yiddish
exclusively during evenings with friends, the
younger generation reported almost always
using H e b r e w .
How
H o w does the potential adopter come to hear
about, positively evaluate, learn and use the
spreading language? These questions refer to
the social mechanisms involved in adoption.
T h e classical model for the diffusion of
innovation emphasizes the channels of c o m munication along which information and persuasion flow. In this paradigm, A knows
about the innovation and B does not, and the
social relationship between A and B determines in part whether A will tell B about the
innovation and what the outcome of this
telling will be (Rogers, 1962, p p . 13-14).
While this model m a y be appropriate for
innovations which must be accepted consciously (e.g. hybrid corn, birth-control prac-
Robert L. Cooper
Hebrew
107
Ulpan school for the accelerated teaching of modern H e b r e w , here by acting out a play. Leonard Freed/Magnum.
108
spoken at a slower rate, and a weekly newspaper is produced in simplified H e b r e w .
Whereas organized efforts to promote the
spread of H e b r e w are n o w confined chiefly
to helping immigrants learn the language,
organized efforts in the early part of the
century were of a different character. There
were at least three types of activity. First,
there was an effort to modernize the language
and to standardize n e w terms. This is an
effort which continues today but which was
especially important w h e n the lack of vocabulary for everyday items and activities
was keenly felt. While w e cannot be sure, it is
reasonable that equipping H e b r e w to serve
as an all-purpose m e d i u m encouraged people
to use it.
Second, there were the efforts of teachers
to promote H e b r e w as a language of instruction, which culminated in the 'Language
W a r ' , which Rabin (1973, p . 75) has called
the 'first national struggle' of modern Jewish
Palestine. A German-Jewish foundation for
the advancement of Jews in technologically
underdeveloped countries, the Hilfsverein der
deutschen Juden, planned to set up a technical high school in Haifa. T h e foundation
operated a number of schools in Palestine, all
of which used H e b r e w as the m e d i u m of
instruction. N o n e the less, the Hilfsverein felt
obliged to promote G e r m a n as a language of
culture and its promotion of G e r m a n in the
curriculum of its schools aroused resentment.
W h e n the Hilfsverein announced in 1913 that
its n e w Technikum was to use not H e b r e w but
G e r m a n as the language of instruction, on
the grounds that H e b r e w was not sufficiently
developed for work in the sciences, resentment boiled over. T h e teachers left the
organization's schools and took their pupils
with them. T h e boycott prevented the implementation of the Hilfsverein's decision.
In Rabin's words (1973, p . 75):
Robert L. Cooper
Why
A framework for the description of language spread: the case of modern Hebrew
109
110
Robert L. Cooper
Jewish
ensured the
which
The
made
them
familiar
with
literary
question
can b e asked,
however,
of nationalist fervour.
References
A S M A H , H . O . 1982.
Language
B E N D E R , M . L.; C O O P E R ,
R. L.; F E R G U S O N , C. A . 1972.
Language in Ethiopia:
Implications of a Survey for
Sociolinguistic Theory and
Method. Language in Society,
Vol. 1, pp. 215-33.
B R O S N A H A N , L . F. 1963.
B E N T O L I L A , Y . 1983. Mivtaei
B A C H I , R . 1956. A Statistical
haivrit hameshameshet
bemoshav shel yotsei moroko
banegev: perek bephonologia
xevratit [The Sociophonology of
Hebrew as Spoken in a Rural
Settlement of Moroccan Jews in
the Negev]. xxx + 417 pp.
(Unpublished doctoral
dissertation submitted to the
Hebrew University of
Jerusalem.)
B L A N C , H . 1968. The Israeli
Some
of Mandingo: Military,
Commercial, and Colonial
Influence on a Linguistic
D a t u m . In: R . L . Cooper (ed.),
Language Spread: Studies in
Diffusion and Social Change,
pp. 184-97. Bloomington, Ind.,
Indiana University Press.
A framework for the description of language spread: the case of modern Hebrew
C O O P E R , R . L . 1976. The
G O L D M A N , M . (ed.). 1980.
Diffusion and Social Change,
Society in Israel, 1980: Statistical
pp. 158-183. Bloomington,
Highlights. Jerusalem, Central
Indiana University Press.
Bureau of Statistics,
M A Z R U I , A . ; Z I R I M U , P. 1978.
lxii + 254 p p .
Church, State, and Marketplace
in the Spread of Kiswahili:
G R E E N B E R G , J. H . 1965.
Comparative Educational
Urbanism, Migration, and
Implications. In: B . Spolsky and
Language. In H . Kuper (ed.).
R . L . Cooper (eds.), Case
Urbanization and Migration in
Studies in Bilingual Education,
West Africa, p p . 50-9, 189.
pp. 427-53. Rowley, Newbury
Berkeley, Calif., University of
House.
California Press.
H O F M A N , J.; FISHERMAN, H .
NIR,
C O H E N , A . D . 1978. Hanxalat
halashon baulpan haintensivi
[The Instruction of Hebrew in
the Intensive Ulpan in Israel].
Jerusalem, Henrietta Szold
Institute and Ministry of
Education and Culture. 13 pp.
(Research Report N o . 208.)
K A T Z , E . ; LEVIN, M . L . ;
C O O P E R , R . L.; STNGH B . N . ;
A B R A H A , G . 1977. Mother
L E W I S , E . G . 1972.
Questions in Censuses.
Sociological Inquiry, Vol. 36,
pp. 262-79,
F I S H M A N . J. A . ; C O O P E R ,
M A C N A M A R A , J. 1973.
R. L.; C O N R A D . A . W . , 1977.
R . L.; M A , R . 1975.
Bilingualism in the Barrio. 2nd
ed. Bloomington, Ind., Indiana
University Publications, xv +
696 pp. (Language Science
Monographs, Vol. 7.)
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R . ; B L U M - K U L K A , S.;
P A P E R , H . H . 1982. Language
M A H M U D , U . 1982. Language
112
Successful Language
Acquisition], xiii + 242 pp.
(Unpublished doctoral
dissertation submitted to the
Hebrew University of
Jerusalem.)
Robert L. Cooper
T A B O U R E T - K E L L E R , A . 1968.
Sociological Factors of
Language Maintenance and
SCHMELZ, U . O . ; BACHI R.
Language Shift: A
1974. Hebrew as Everyday
Methodological Approach
Language of the Jews in
Based on European and African
IsraelStatistical Appraisal. In: Examples. In: J. A . Fishman,
R O G E R S , E . M . 1962. Diffusion American Academy for Jewish
C . A . Ferguson and J. Das
Research, Salo Wittmayer Baron Gupta (eds.), Language
of Innovations. N e w York,
Jubilee Volume: On the
Free Press of Glencoe.
Problems of Developing
Occasion of His Eightieth
xiii + 367 pp.
Nations, pp. 107-18. N e w
Birthday. Vol. 2, pp. 745-85,
York, Wiley.
English section. N e w York,
ROGERS, E. M . ; SHOEMAKER,
Columbia University Press.
F. F. 1971. Communication of
W H I T E L E Y , W . 1969. Swahili:
Innovations: a Cross-Cultural
The Rise of a National
S C O T T O N , C . M . 1972. Choosing
Approach. 2nd ed. N e w York,
a Lingua Franca in an African Language. London, Methuen.
Free Press, xix + 476 pp.
Capital. Edmonton/Champaign, ix + 150 pp. (Studies in African
History, N o . 3.)
Linguistic Research. 211 pp.
R O S E N B A U M , Y . 1983. Hebrew
Adoption among N e w
Immigrants to Israel: The First
Three Years. International
Journal of the Sociology of
Language, Vol. 41, pp. 115-30.
ROSENBAUM, Y . ; NADEL, E.;
C O O P E R , R . L . ; FISHMAN, J. A .
Multilingualism in the
Northwest Amazon. American
Anthropologist, Vol. 69,
pp. 670-84.
W I G O D E R , G . 1972. Israel,
Introduction
114
115
ft
Aztec place-name representations: Coatepec ('Snake-mountain-place'), Quauhnaruac ('Near-the-woods'),
Itztlan ('Obsidian-place') and Tollantzinco ('In-the-small-place-of-the-cyperus'). From cmiex Mendoza, Cooper
Claik, London. l'J3f<.
116
teach reading and writing and to develop
Spanish as a mother-tongue. They are not in
any w a y useful for the learning of Spanish as a
second language. T h e main difference between this type of 'bilingual' school and the
ordinary primary school lies in the fact, very
important in itself, that all the teachers are
themselves bilingual Indians from the region
w h o use the vernacular language as a means
of instruction and communication.
A s the children start school with very
slight or n o knowledge of the national
language, a pre-school year of hispanization
was introduced in 1979 with a view to teaching pupils enough Spanish to enable them
to follow primary-school classes in that
language. H o w e v e r , this goal w a s not
attained because the method w a s not
adapted to sociolinguistic needs (Lopez,
1982a) and the pupils continued to enter the
primary schools with very little knowledge
of the national language.
There is a marked break between the
pre-school curriculum and that of the first
grade, owing to a radical change in goals and
methods which affects the entire primaryeducation system in the area.
O n e of the main problems, and one
which largely accounts for the poor scholastic
performance, lies in the conflict between
the official goal'literacyand the requisite
goalhispanization and the teaching of Otom i during thefirstyears. A s it is practically
impossible for O t o m i children to follow curricula designed for monolingual Spanishspeaking pupils, the teachers use the Indian
language as the language of instruction while
it is necessary to do so, and introduce curriculum content and Spanish in a disjointed
manner. In fact they have tried to combine
attempts to achieve literacy (the teaching of
reading and writing) creatively with hispanization (the teaching of Spanish as a
second language), in an endeavour to teach
Spanish through the written language. This
means that they try to achieve literacy in a
language which the pupils do not k n o w , a
practically unattainable goal that is in open
contradiction to all modern methods of teach-
117
.y i / i
"?'ufo :*tz?:i%i
tftmmwiifrWE**
' fWrimjM&iMi
T h e T e n C o m m a n d m e n t s : four pages from an early nineteenth-century catechism in Testerian picturewriting developed by a Spanish friar to be deciphered in any Indian language. It is a formulaic sequence
likely to have been learnt previously by oral repetition used by Catholic missionaries for instructional
purposes. R o w s of circles represent numbers marking off the end of each C o m m a n d m e n t . Princeton University
Library.
118
Hispanization
A s previously stated, hispanization is not
officially part of the primary school curricula,
though paradoxically it constitutes one of the
pillars of the entire language policy in respect
of the Indians. T h e teachers w h o try to meet
both goals are forced to reintroduce the
teaching of Spanish in an almost 'clandestine'
m a n n e r in spite of the curriculum. T h e need
to emphasize reading and writing and to
transmit the contents of the textbooks h a m pers the teaching of Spanish primarily as a
m e a n s of communication. Rather than encouraging verbalization in the target language as
m u c h as possible, with role-playing and the
acting-out of communicative situations, the
teachers introduce isolated Spanish words as
exercises in reading and writing. In this w a y ,
content is presented which is not only of n o
use for communication, but is also beyond the
cognitive capabilities of the pupils at this stage
of their development, as can be seen from the
example below, taken from a first-grade
natural sciences class at San Andrs.
Teacher: Oviparous animals . . . W h a t are they
called?
Pupils (in chorus): Oviparous!
Teacher: N o w let's see . . . W h a t did w e say
that animals hatched from eggs are called?
First pupil: O o . . .
Second pupil: O o . . .
Teacher: Oviparous!
Third pupil: . . . vi . . .
Fourth pupil: . . . vi . . .
Teacher: What?
Pupils (in chorus): Oviparous!
Teacher: N o w let's see,fivetimes . . .
Pupils (in chorus): Oviparous, oviparous, oviparous, oviparous, oviparous . . .
Teacher: W h a t are they called?
Pupils (in chorus): Oviparous!
Teacher: W h a t are oviparous animals? Those
which are hatched from eggs . . . those
which are hatched from eggs . . . W h a t
are animals hatched from eggs called?
Pupils: ???
O n e of the most worrisome phenomena is
undoubtedly poor verbalization by the pupils
in Spanish. Except for highly routine interactions connected with the organization of
activities in the classroom ('May I leave the
r o o m ? ' , 'Present!', etc.), pupils during their
first years at primary school do not use words
of any syntactic and semantic complexity in
Spanish.
The functional distribution of the two
languages can be presented in the following
way:11
OTOMI
Teachers
Introduction and development of content.
Explanationtranslation of n e w lexemes, expressions, sentences, grammatical problems and reading and writing in Spanish.
In part, organization of the class: introduction
and changing of activities, complex instructions, group dynamics (except for
stereotyped phrases).
Pupils
Replies to general questions.
T h e handling of phrases dealing with classr o o m activities (to a lesser extent, with
lesson content).
Practically all verbal communication a m o n g
pupils that is not supervised by the
teacher.
SPANISH
Teachers
Introduction and pronunciation of lexemes,
expressions, etc., as subject-matter for
the teaching process.
Repetition of explanations and instructions
given first in O t o m i , or which are subsequently repeated in O t o m i .
S o m e patterns of formal organization (going
over lists, etc.).
A series of stereotyped instructions.
Pupils
A m i n i m u m of verbalization in Spanish consisting almost entirely of repetitions or
119
has been used in the study to describe this use
of the Indian language.
In this sense it is possible to speak of a
p r o g r a m m e that in reality is a transitional one
( C u m m i n s , 1980), m o r e compatible with the
historical plan to bring the Indians into the
national society and language and in the final
analysis to destroy their ethnic roots (Stavenhagen, 1979) than with the 'bilingual-bicultural education' tag of the official p r o g r a m m e ,
which aims at a stable sociolinguistic relationship between the two languages.
Despite these mainly adverse factors, the
Indian teachers have, in m a n y cases, achieved
a creative syncretism which gives curricular
elements, methods and materials n e w functions in the context of Indian culture.12 This
p h e n o m e n o n m e a n s that the Indian schools
play a good teaching and socializing role, so
that they could b e c o m e m o r e successful if the
curricula themselves were reformulated.
Sociolinguistic features in
bilingual schools
120
the social scale because, unlike most of the
other Indians, they are paid a fixed salary.
This regular and relatively high income enables them to start up small businesses, to buy
land and thus increase their property. In this
w a y , their bonds with their ethnic group of
origin (their culture of orientation) are weakened, and they draw increasingly closer to
the state administration and groups holding
agrarian power (their culture of adjustment).
This fact objectively places them in a position
where their class interests conflict with their
ethnic loyalty (Baez-Jorge and Rivera B aideras, 1982).
Rural teachers in Indian areas are unlike
their urban counterparts in that they are the
only 'intellectuals' in their communities and,
on account of their training and good mastery
of Spanish, they have greater opportunities
of holding administrative and political posts;
they therefore hold posts as judges, municipal
chairmen, secretaries of co-operatives, etc.15
In fact, most of the teachers act as direct
agents of the historical assimilation project,
since their social position gives them a link to
the national society that allows them, in the
short term, greater advantages than the sociocultural defence of their ethnic group. 16
W e will n o w deal with a sociolinguistic
feature that has a direct influence o n the
educational process and explains, to a certain
degree, the w a y in which the languages are
used in the schools, the relationship between
hispanization and literacy and the actual
situation in regard to the transitional bilingual
education p r o g r a m m e : the point in question
is the teachers' o w n concept of the language
conflict between Spanish and O t o m i and their
attitudes towards the two languages.
T h e contradiction between the teachers
as O t o m i , living in the context of the beliefs
and experience of their people, and as recognized representatives of the national culture
accounts, at least in part, for three striking
p h e n o m e n a in their teaching work.
T h e first point that attracts the attention
is the high value placed o n Spanish as a
written and codified language; O t o m i , o n the
other hand, is viewed as a language lacking
121
Paris.
122
T h e preference for the standard language
can also be seen in the extracurricular activities of the teachers. In discharging their
functions as community leaders, they are
required to perform ceremonies and m a k e
formal speeches in which they try to use
formal and complex language. T h e use of a
turgid style conflicts, on such occasions, with
the need to communicate and this means that
the audience does not understand the formal
speech, the main function of which is to
reflect the social status of the teacher-leaders.
Thirdly, it was noticed that the teachers
had an ambivalent attitude towards Otomi as
a product of the generalized system of values
and beliefs. O n the one hand, they go along to
a certain extent with the arguments of the
supporters of Indian culture emphasizing the
value of the O t o m i culture and language.
O n the other hand, their civilizing mission,
closely linked to Spanish, forces them to
combat the Indian language in the areas
under their control, that is, the schools and
the political and administrative apparatus.
Undoubtedly, the treatment of Otomi as
a subsidiary language has a decisive cultural
effect on the socialization of the school:
the teachers succeed in transmitting to the
students the notion that the languages in
conflict are of unequal value, reaffirming the
school's role as a hispanized institution and
thus supporting the main trend towards the
displacement of the Indian language.
Apart from the specific curricula, the
opinions of the teachers concerning the
conflict between the two languages are also
worth considering since they largely determine
the possibilities of hispanization in the schools
and the development of the mother-tongue.
Final remarks
W h a t conclusions can be drawn from this
situation?
B y any reckoning the situation is a c o m plex one that rules out any facile solution or
simplistic recommendation. It is not enough
to point out that the bilingual school is part
of its socio-cultural contextthat m u c h is self-
123
^M
:
t t
ATO;
?8J-
*'.'*-
'^ ^ X ? C ^
v W V " '-tfCxi
Nk"*,*
124
for
will have to
be
to
the
in
subjects
(mathematics,
teaching of Spanish
as a
language
the
determined
which
social
the
according
other
sciences
and
natural
the
Otomi
Mexican
as
society in
all
its
in
socio-economic,
gard to preserving or revitalizing the indigenous language and culture24 will not b e solved
[Translated from
Spanish]
Notes
1. A n y bilingual education
programme runs up against the
old but persistent belief that
education in a minority mothertongue is detrimental to learning
the official national language
and thus slows d o w n the
learning of reading and writing
and other academic skills. For
that reason, the argument goes,
balanced bilingual education is
harmful for children belonging
to minority groups and hampers
theirrisein the society. This
argument is one of the powerful
weapons which have been used
against bilingual education by its
most conservative opponents
(Cummins, 1980; Tucker, 1977).
GRECSO (1982).
7. It must be realized that the
distribution of attitudes varied
from one area to another. There
were Indian areas where the
indigenous language and culture
were highly rated and where
various aspects of resistance had
developed m u c h more than in
the Mezquital valley.
Furthermore, the factors that
indicate resistance are m u c h
more difficult to pin d o w n , since
they are masked by the
assignment of n e w functions to
elements in the dominant
culture and rarely take the form
of open resistance. It should not
be forgotten, moreover, that
scientific research tends to be. in
one w a y or another, part of the
dominant trend itself (see
studies in G R E C S O , 1982).
8. In regard to methods of data
collection and analysis, the main
approach was of an
ethnographic and pragmatic
nature and concentrated on
verbal communication and a
series of interviews with
teachers (Lopez 1982, >;
H a m e l , 1983).
9. T h e use of the same
textbooks throughout the
republic is justified according to
teachers and educational
authorities under Article 3 of
the Constitution which
125
126
127
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SECRETARA D E EDUCACIN
Caracterizacin socioeconmica
y poltica de las communidades
del Municipio del Cardonal,
Valle del Mezquital? In: H .
. 1981i>. Asimilacin o
Muoz et al., El contexto
igualdad lingstica en el Valle
sociolingstico de la educacin
del Mezquital? In: H . M u o z et
al., El contexto sociolingstico indgena en el Valle del
Mezquital?, pp. 1-56. Mexico
de la educacin indgena en el
City, C I E S A S . (Mimeo.)
Valle del Mezquital?,
pp. 146-84. Mexico City,
. 1981Z>. Pratiques
CIESAS. (Mimeo.)
discursives et modes
M U O Z , H . , et al. 1980.
Castellanizacin y conflicto
lingstico. Boletn de
antropologa americana (Mexico
City), N o . 2 , pp. 129-46.
N A H M A D , S. 1982. Indoamrica
y educacin: etnocidio o
etnodesarrollo? In: A . P .
Scanlon and J. Lezama Morfin
(eds.), Mxico pluricultural,
pp. 21^4. Mexico City,
SEP-Porra.
S C A N L O N , A . P. 1982. El papel
de la antropologa en el
desarrollo de educacin
indgena, bilinge bicultural en
Mexico. In: A . P . Scanlon and
J. Lezama Morfin (eds.),
Mxico pluricultural,
pp. 323-48. Mexico City,
SEP-Porra.
symboliques de la domination
sociale dans une situation de
conflit linguistique: le cas de
Otomis de la Valle de
Mezquital. Paris, D E A . ( M S . )
STA VENHAGEN, R . 1979.
Mxico: minoras tnicas y
poltica cultural. Nexos, N o . 19,
July, pp. 13-23.
S W A I N , M . ; L A P K I N , S. 1982.
S o m e aspects of linguistic
variation in one-language societies
Wolfdietrich Hrtung
The problem
Wolfdietrich Hrtung
130
divergent 'ways of speaking' which are determined by reasons m o r e deeply rooted than a
simple preference for one style or another. A
certain proportion of such divergencies can be
characterized as idiosyncrasies or as being
bound u p with certain psychic states. Individuals have their characteristic articulatory
bases, and w h e n they are excited their ways of
speaking differ from the ones they use in a
neutral state. For the organization of c o m municative processes such peculiarities are of
great importance. In this article, however, w e
are m o r e interested in divergencies that are
m o r e or less clearly linked with factors characterizing a speaker as a m e m b e r of a particular
social group, or to typical properties of
situations. If there really are such linksand
sociolinguistics has provided sufficient evidence for their existence in the last fifteen
yearsthen two basic questions have to be
asked:
W h a t is the role of divergent speech peculiarities in constituting a situation and for the
social self-identification of the speakers?
W h a t is expressed by such differences,
and what can be gathered from them?
A r e these simply differences at the level of
linguistic signs, e.g. the choice between a
standard pronunciation and a regional
pronunciation or the choice between a poetic expression and everyday language,
or is something m u c h m o r e complex
hidden behind such differences? If the
latter is the case, it becomes important to
k n o w h o w far speakers are bound to use
these ways of expression, whether they
can 'evade' them, and what range of the
ways of expression existing in a society
is accessible to them. A n d from that
follows a deeper social significance:
linguistic variants and 'peculiarities' are
not just indicators of social characteristics but rather part of the social nature
of the individual; they b e c o m e social
characteristics themselves. Being bound
to linguistic peculiarities can be part
of being bound to social structures; the
continuation of the one link can have its
effect on the continuation of the other.
Linguistic concepts
T h e forming of linguistic concepts is not
restricted to the level of texts or of ways of
speaking. Rather, it relates the latter to a
m o r e general level, to the competence behind
the actual behaviour of the speaker, or to the
languages that can be seen as representing
certain properties of such competence. In case
of divergent language use in a society it would
be possible to assume that it corresponds to
different kinds of competence distributed
G r a m m a r entering the fortress of the other sciences, illustration from Reisch's Margareta philosophica,
1504.
Caboue/Edimages.
132
a m o n g the m e m b e r s of this society or even
side by side within one and the same individual. These different kinds of competence
could then be represented as parts of the
comprehensive and relatively abstract concept
of a specific language ( G e r m a n , English,
etc.). T h e exact and consistent definition of
such concepts is, however, of considerable
difficulty, which has had its effect o n discussions a m o n g linguists for decades. There
is relative agreement o n the idea that
languages consist of something like subsystems or varieties, or manifest themselves to
us in the form of varieties, whereas the
concept of, say, 'the G e r m a n language' has a
m o r e abstract content anddepending on the
view takeneither refers to the totality of all
existing varieties or to an average of certain
features. W h a t constitutes a variety is the fact
that it is characterized by a sufficient number
of linguistic features and is thus suited to fulfil
certain communicative functions (understandably enough, this vague definition provides a starting-point for divergent views). A s
regards functional conditions, a distinction is
usually m a d e between regional, social and
situative varieties, which can be referred to
regional dialects, sociolects and languages for
special purposes. A s a matter of course, such
varieties d o not differ in all their elements;
they overlap in various ways.
A fundamental problem concerning this
set of concepts is that, to a large extent, it
disregards the actual heterogeneity and also
the relative significance of the individual
varieties. This is m o r e adequately met by a
different concept, which was developed in
dialectology and owes a lot to the work of
Soviet linguists: one and the same language
appears in several 'forms of existence', e.g. as
standard, as colloquial language(s) and as
dialects. T h e forms of existence are, as it
were, primary or fundamental means of c o m munication in certain social domains. T h e
special difficulty pertaining to this concept is
to relate the multitude of differentiations in
language use to the system of the basic forms
of existence, or to differentiate these forms in
such a w a y that they can correspond to this
Wolfdietrich Hrtung
134
communication. It is, above all, a special w a y ,
peculiar to h u m a n beings, of organizing c o m munity. This is realizedin unity, not in
isolationthrough adapting what exists in the
individual mind to collective consciousness,
through the actual transfer of information,
and through establishing social contact. F r o m
this it follows that the d e m a n d for intersubject
coincidence of the m e a n s of communication
does not so m u c h aim at the content behind
them but at an approximately similar control
of the various procedures of organizing c o m munity b y m e a n s of communication. This
provides, as it were, a functional frame to
language variation and its social significance:
not every difference in the communicative
experience is of the same relevance.
With this view of communication as a
background w e can easily envisage a basic
polarity between tendencies of specification
and even individualization, on the one hand,
and trends towards unification on the other,
which provides a framework for the development and the functioning of variation. Specification results from developing c o m m u n i cative d e m a n d s , from the division of labour
and other activities, from emerging 'favourable'
ways of communicating in a specific situation, which include principles for the formation of texts as well as specific inventories of
symbols. Unification is rooted in the function
of communication to organize community, in
the resulting integrative and identifying function of the 'same ways of speaking', which are
instrumental in effecting the coherence of
groups and communities of different kinds
and complexity, from vocational groups to
ethnic groups or to communities linked by
history, culture, etc. A s a consequence, the
uniformity of the means of communication is
given m u c h closer attention than would b e
necessary for mere mutual understanding.
Variants in language use can have two
basic sources: they can either result from
(external) conditions of communicating or
from general properties of the speakers.
T h e conditions of communicating, if
viewed under the aspect of producing variants, fall under two distinct divisions:
Wolfdietrich Hrtung
Research results
Particularly in the last decade in sociolinguistics, which has rapidly established its position
as a n e w and promising linguistic discipline,
numerous questions arising from the concepts
outlined above have been examined o n an
empirical basis. T h e crucial methodological
point in these investigations was to relate
features w e find in texts to the non-linguistic
or non-textual environment of these texts.
In this environment two domains must be distinguished: the speakers and the situation.
T h e latter can be subdivided again into the
situation of the act of communication
proper and into a wider, m o r e complex situ-
135
136
different significance. Despite its rapid development in the 1970s, sociolinguistics (or
linguistics in general with a social orientation)
is, in m a n y respects, still at its very beginnings.
W e have, in the last few years, conducted
a n u m b e r of studies on linguistic variation in
a field that can be characterized by the
linguistic terms standard on the one hand and
colloquial language or dialects on the other.4
Speakers were examined in various situations,
in occupational ones as well as in family
situations, that were to a greater or lesser
extent institutionalized. These situations were
very genuine and not created for the sake
of an experiment. T h e speakers c a m e from
different social strata, they had different
regional backgrounds, and they also differed
in education, age and other characteristics. In
all cases tape-recordings were produced which
were processed with the help of methods
c o m m o n l y applied in sociolinguistics.
In certain respects, the results of these
studies m a y not c o m e as a surprise. S o m e
correspond to intuitive experience, others
roughly correspond to the results of similar
investigations. W e have used some differentiated methods and approaches to confirm
and, of course, s o m e differentiation and
specification of previous results as well. T w o
examples of such specification are principally relevant in this context.
Usually one starts from the assumption
that speakers have a c o m m a n d of several
varieties of a language (similar to the possible
c o m m a n d of several languages) and that, in
their communicative behaviour, they shift
between the varieties at their c o m m a n d so as
to speak in one w a y or another in accordance
with the situation and their competence. In
doing this, however, the speakers actually
m o v e over a relatively widefield.It is hard to
draw exact limits for this kind of shifting.
With regard to variety, the texts very often
appear homogeneous. Nevertheless, there do
seem to be certain regularities. Speakers
arewith regard to varietycharacterized by
something like preferred or 'normal' ways of
speaking. These depend o n their c o m m u n i -
Wolfdietrich Hrtung
cative practice and history (which can be correlated to data about occupation, education,
background, etc.). In addition, speakers have
a certain capacity for diverging from this
normal w a y of speaking, in several directions.
T h e range of this capacity again correlates
with various features characterizing the individual. Actual behaviour is determined to a
large extent by situative factors, which show a
certain hierarchy, the dominance of s o m e
factors over others. It is also possible to say
something about the extent to which individual linguistic features are involved. There
are features of a particularly signalling character, which are the first to be avoided or to
be used. T h e basis of orientation for this is a
certain knowledge of linguistic norms, which
is often linked with divergent evaluations.
A second important result was the following: it is often assumed that linguistic
processes in this field lead to progressive
assimilation, so that a unified language at a
relatively high level will emerge, whereas
regional varieties die out. O u r studies, h o w ever, provided n o evidence that these are
continuous processes. Despite all assimilation
and despite the changes in the traditional
forms of dialects there remains a genuine
need for variety in ways of speaking and to
preserve regional peculiarities. This need
bears upon differences between spoken and
written communication, and consequently between official and non-official communicative
situations as well. It is in any case alive and
shapes a wide range of everyday c o m m u n i cation.
It is at this point that a number of
practical and socially relevant consequences
arise. A s long as there are differences in
access to the standard, and the standard is the
language form with the highest c o m m u n i cative potential or at least with the highest
prestige, a society must give thought to those
differences and to reducing their effects if it
feels bound to the principle of equal opportunity for all. A t the beginning of this line
of thought there should be a deeper c o m prehension of the historical dimension of
language variation.
137
T h e physiognomy of eloquence: Mirabeau (mobile features, great resonance, the complete orator),
Robespierre (set features, head wide at the top, narrow at base, a thinker not an orator). Gladstone (a
born orator). F r o m A . Wicart: L'orateur, ditions V o x . Paris 1935. D . R
138
Wolfdietrich Hrtung
139
'Language guarantees a certain kind of community.' Dialogue in a church in Guanajuato, Mexico. Bernard
G . Silberstcin/Camera Press.
140
poor ones on the other. T h e former realized
or approximated the standard, the latter
represented regional varieties and their hybrids in the speech of simple ('uneducated')
speakers. T h e school as the institution primarily concerned with implementing language
education n o w had the chief task of imparting
to the mass of the speakers something of the
sophistication, the elaborateness and the richness of standard ways of speaking, even if it
was generally merely as m u c h as was d e e m e d
'appropriate' to social status.
Such binary systems of evaluation
emerged in m a n y societies under m o r e or
less comparable conditions. They are a w a y
of coping ideologically with the problem of
conflicting interests of social strata in the
linguistic variation characterizing a given society. Naturally such evaluation systems also
shape the language consciousness of the m a jority of speakers, mediated through school
and public opinion. A n d they become part of
the picture that m a n y linguists have of their
object, which between them m a y differ widely
as to the kind of values and their distribution
but is the same in principle. Right into the
twentieth century and even u p to the present
day the standard has remained somewhat
alien or at least less familiar to a considerable
proportion of speakers. Access to c o m m a n d
of the standard was and is not gained easily. It
depends, a m o n g other factors, on the social
position of the speakers, on their regional
background and on the characteristics of their
dominant activities.
U n d e r these conditions the question
arises whether it could not be left to every
speaker to decide h o w he or she speaks,
particularly sinceand this was also clearly
shown by our studiesthe original gap between standard and non-standard varieties has
considerably diminished lately; or one could
ask whether it would not be sensible to raise
the m o r e widely spread colloquial language to
the status of standard. Such questions do not,
of course, contribute to a solution of any
problems; at best they transfer them to
another level. In trying to find an orientation
for the approach to reducing existing differ-
Wolfdietrich Hrtung
141
Conclusions
For the reasons mentioned above, public
efforts in a one-language society taking
account of the variation of this language
should pursue the following aims:
T h e standard, which has developed historically andbeing the result of the efforts
of m a n y generations to solve c o m m u n i cative tasks of a social character
cannot simply be abandoned, should be
stabilized and spread. This involves, in
particular, codification, usage according
to the n o r m and the promotion of
teaching standard language c o m m u n i cation.
It must be taken into consideration that the
historical development of the standard
was carried by constellations of social
forces which differ m o r e or less markedly
from the constellations of today. This,
above all, had its effect on the conceptualization of values, so that there ensues
the long-term task of neutralizing traditional values and establishing n e w
ones.
A t the same time it must not be forgotten that
specific means of coping with c o m m u n i cative situations have not only developed
within the standard and that the standard, at least in its current stage, does
not exhaust total communicative potential. Consequently, non-standard varieties retain a certain value for personal
integration with social environments.
142
Wolfdietrich Hrtung
Notes
1. Recently, language conflicts
resulting from language contact
have also been given increasing
attention at international
conferences; cf. the two
symposia (1979 and 1982) held
by the Research Centre on
Multilingualism at Brussels
University ( U F S A L ) , or the
numerous conferences and
research projects on language
problems of immigrant workers.
2. Strictly speaking, the
G e r m a n Democratic Republic is
References
F E R G U S O N , C. A . 1971.
Zeitschrift fr
Literaturwissenschaft und
Linguistik (Gttingen), N o . 47,
pp. 119-45.
H E R R M A N N - W I N T E R , R.
1979.
G E S S I N G E R , J. 1982. Vorschlge
H R T U N G , W . ; SCHNFELD,
MATTHEIER, K . J.
zu einer sozialgeschichtlichen
Fundierung von
Sprachgeschichtsforschung.
1980.
Jean-E. Humblet
144
Franois I found it necessary to proclaim the
Edict of Villers-Cotterets in 1539 in order to
impose French as the sole language of official
deeds and writs in place of Latin and the
langue d'oc, or old Provenal. T h e decline of
Latin as the lingua franca of scholars and
diplomats set in very rapidly from the
eighteenth century onwards parallel to the
progressive spread of French.
Peter the Great and Catherine II saw to
it that French became the language spoken by
the ruling classes of their empire, which
'despised' Russian; 'even the instructions to
foreigners, to the diplomats of Imperial
Russia, were written in French'. It was
agreed that French 'opened the door on to
the whole world'. 1
French became the predominant language
of international relations and negotiations,
used currently in the drafting of treaties,
even if reservations were voiced in this
regard, particularly on the part of Great
Britain. For example, the Treaty of Paris of
10 February 1763 contains the following
clause: 'It has been agreed and decided that
the F R E N C H L A N G U A G E , used in all copies of
Jean-E. Humblet
of the League of Nations' Rules of Procedure.
In D e c e m b e r 1920, the League of
Nations became the forum of a debate on
the recognition of internada lingvomore
commonly k n o w n as Esperantoas an official
language, in addition to French and English.
It is instructive to note the French delegates'
radical opposition to this proposal, which
went hand in hand with the absolute ban
placed by the French Minister of Education
on the teaching of Esperanto, in whatsoever
form, in French schools.
The French position was supported in
particular by the President of the Assembly,
Louis H y m a n s , the Belgian Minister for
Foreign Affairs, whereas one Walloonspeaking Belgian delegate, Pierre Lafontaine,
proposed on the contrary that Esperanto
should be accepted as an official language.
Clearly, it was a conflict between m e n with
a broader vision of the future and those w h o
saw it only in terms of a particular language.
The position of the French delegation
and of those w h o supported it was based on
fear of a rival to the French language. A m a n
like Henri-Marie Lafontaine, on the other
hand, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (1913),
the inventor with Paul Otlet of the universal
decimal classification system in 1895, an advocate of a system of international organizations, also a socialist senator and as such
perhaps aware of the value of a tool of
communication that was not restricted to
the privileged few, was more alert to the
language obstacles in the w a y of communication resulting from the world situation
and the gradual emergence of nations outside
Europe. 3 Finally, the
only
concession
m a d e to Esperanto was its recognition as a
language that might be used by the International Telegraph Union. 4
The next stage was bound up with the
Second World W a r and the spread of English
as the language of science, telecommunications and aviation, and above all as the
principal language of the Western victors
of the war. Throughout this period m u c h
thought was devoted to the possibility of
promoting 'Basic English' as an international
145
146
language, proving that the promotion of
French in the 1920s had been a mistake.
Concurrently, the globalization of problems, the development of worldwide intergovernmental organizations and the accession
of dozens of n e w states to independence
posed the problem in entirely novel terms.
This led the United Nations in 1946 to recognize not only French and English as'' official languages, as in the League of Nations,
but also, from the outset, Spanish and
Russian, and a little later Chinese and Arabic.
A s for European intergovernmental organizations, it was doubtless because the Council
of Europe was founded in 1949 that it
has English and French only as its official
languages.
The status of the languages of the European Communities marked a striking n e w
departure. True, the Treaty of Paris of
18 April 1951 setting up the European Coal
and Steel Community ( E C S C ) was drawn up
in a single version only, in French. French is
admittedly the official language not only of
France but also of Luxembourg, as well as
being one of Belgium's official languages; in
1951, it w a s the main language spoken in
Belgium in the coal and steel industries, since
at that time there was no steel industry in
Flanders and three-quarters of all coal-mining
was still in the hands of the Walloons.
Nevertheless, the Federal Republic of Germ a n y was too important in terms of its coal
and steel industries for G e r m a n not to be
recognized as an official language. B y contrast, in 1951 Italy and the Netherlands were
relatively minor partners in the E C S C .
It was probably therefore a mistake for
the European Coal and Steel Community to
adopt all the official languages of its m e m b e r
states, i.e. not only French and G e r m a n but
also Italian and Dutch, which are official
languages of no other international intergovernmental organization, with the exceptionin the case of Dutchof Benelux,
which in any case was superseded by the
coming into being of the European C o m munities.
There was however one argument that
Jean-E. Humblet
147
^4%ejr#f^
While considerable progress has been m a d e with machine translation since its beginnings in the 1950s it is
still not possible to dispense entirely with h u m a n intervention. Automatic translator with instruction to
break glass in case of breakdown to release the multilingual translator, imagined by L a m o u c h e (1983).
Lamouche/La Recherche.
148
Jean-E. Humblet
Problems of multilingualism
and artificial languages
T h e introduction of n e w official languages in
the organizations of the United Nations
familya well-known case being that of
G e r m a n and Arabic in the International
Labour Organisationand
the transition
from four to seven languages, and perhaps
shortly to nine, in the case of the European
Communities, have sharply highlighted the
problem of multilingualism. In 1979, for
example, M r Coppieters, a Flemish nationalist and m e m b e r of the European Parliament,
tabled a proposal that led to the drafting of
the Patterson Report. 8 Subsequently, a proposal by M r von Habsbourg gave rise to the
Niborg Report, 9 while in its report for 1981
the Court of Auditors of the European
Communities dwelt at length o n the language
problem.
149
Jean-E. Humblet
150
152
linguists. T h e aim here is not, as before, to
analyse one language in relation to another,
but to break d o w n the very essence of a
language into what is k n o w n as a tree system,
and to identify its major characteristics.
Moreover, the system will be required progressively to assimilate other languages and
to take account of future advances in the dataprocessing field.
The programme that has been adopted
extends over a five-and-a-half-year period,
during which a team of eight officials from the
Commission of the European Communities
will work together with computer scientists
and linguists with specialist knowledge of the
seven current official Community languages.
It should be noted that the Commission has
acquired considerable experience in this field,
having compiled a computerized dictionary,
E U R O D I C A U T O M , which provides equivalents for 150,000 terms in the seven official
languages. This is not the only multilingual
thesaurus that has been produced. There is
also a software programme, A S T U T E , which
is extremely effective for the updating and
printing of thesauri, particularly in the fields
of metallurgy, food, veterinary medicine and
agriculture, and which is used by the Council
of Europe for its E U D I S E D thesaurus.13
The future-oriented nature of this interdisciplinary work, involving linguists, c o m puter scientists and documentalists, makes it
an exciting project. A s regards its considerable cost, it is calculated that it will ultimately generate savings of at least 50 per
cent on translation costs.
The question must nevertheless be considered of the possible use of an artificial or
semi-artificial language. Previously, the C o m mission of the European Communities' Directorate-General N o . Ill, responsible for
market and industrial affairs, had in fact
concluded a contract with Esperanto specialists with a view to using the language for the
purpose of abstracting documents. However,
any mention of an artificial languageparticularly Esperantoinevitably triggers off
deep-seated sociological resistance, the chief
arguments against it being bound up with the
Jean-E. Humblet
need to safeguard national cultures. S o m e
critics point out that, were Esperanto to be
spoken currently, it too would become a living
language, evolving in all the ways that living
languages evolve. There is no very apparent
willingness to integrate an artificial or semiartificial language such as Esperanto in the
research n o w being carried out. T h e champions of national languages in each state look
upon artificial languages as potential enemies,
as though their o w n natural language were not
itself involved in a power relationship.14
Conclusions
The Tower of Babel so strikingly depicted by
Brueghel is still standing, even if h u m a n
intelligence and the sophisticated equipment
available to it provide some hope of an
improvement in the situation.
Inevitably, however, the efforts that are
m a d e by various international organizations
are geared to their o w n needs and limited to
their official languages. N o artificial language
being as yet an official language, the organizations of the United Nations system
can work only in relation to their five or six
official languages, the Council of Europe in
relation to its two official languages and the
European Communities in relation to their
seven, eight or nine official languages.
Moreover, the cultural argument in effect
ignores the fact that culture today integrates
technology, in particular data-processing, no
less than the natural languages, in all their
richness and infinite shades of meaning.
There can be n o sense in defending natural
languages against artificial languages w h e n
the culture of the educated m e n and
w o m e n w h o might be speaking them is n o
longer historical or literary, but imbued with
the culture of the computer age.
In conclusion, w e should like to reformulate the problem in politico-sociological terms.
Considering that the various intergovernmental organizations gear their analysis of the
problem to their o w n short- and medium-term
needs, it is vital to take stock of the issue with
rather greater detachment, in other words to
153
Delegates, the press and interpreters in their cabins at a meeting of the European Communities in
Brussels. Van Parys/Sygma
154
Central Europe. In he chooses English, he
will have a world language at his c o m m a n d ,
but will still not be able to communicate with
his neighbour, the U S S R .
W e therefore consider that only an artificial language can prevent the stranglehold
of one language over another with all its
economic and cultural consequences.
With the possible exception of Englishspeaking communities, all other nations and
speakers of other languages will benefit from
the creation of a neutral artificial language.
Contrary to what is all too frequently claimed,
this is the only reliable w a y of safeguarding
specific, geographically limited cultures, as for
example Catalan, or cultures such as French
that once enjoyed and still enjoy considerable
prominence.
In this w a y there will still be r o o m ,
alongside a local language, for the use in
schools of an international language, serving
as a veritable m e d i u m of culture; to this it will
be sufficient to add the teaching of an artificial
language, two hours of instruction per week
over a two or three year period being ample in
view of the ease with which such a language
can be learned and the m i n i m u m c o m m u n i cation skills that it guarantees.
Thus as regards major world languages,
there will remain, for example, the Englishspeaking, French-speaking, Spanish-speaking,
Arabic-speaking
and Russian-speaking
spheres. In addition, however, w e shall be
certain of possessing a tool of communication
of worldwide scope, with at the same time
Jean-E. Humblet
155
Notes
1. See Ivo Lapenna, ' L a
situation juridique des "langues
officielles" avant la fondation
des Nations Unies', Monda
Lingvo-problemo, Vol. I,
N o . 1, 1969, pp. 6-7.
2. Ibid., p . 9.
3. See m y article, 'Paul Otlet
and Henri Lafontaine, Inventors
of the U . D . C . and Founders of
the International Institute of
Bibliography', International
Forum on Information and
Documentation, Vol. 1, N o . 2 ,
1972, pp. 6-8.
4. See Ivo Lapenna, ' T h e
C o m m o n Language before
International Organization',
Monda lingvo-problemo.
Vol. II, 1970, pp. 83-102.
5. 'Problmes linguistiques dans
l'Europe des neuf. Etudes,
N o . 4 , 1974, pp. 601-19.
6. T h e 'half language is Irish,
York.
Sociolinguistics
and language teaching
Mary-Louise Kearney
Introduction
158
of language as used by specific social groups,
the pioneers in this field being Bernstein,
Bright, Labov and H y m e s . H e r e , the goal was
to identify the key characteristics of the
language of certain subjects, as manifested by
their everyday speech, and thus to d e m o n strate the reflection of socio-cultural factors
in linguistic performance. Consequently,
linguists became interested in areas such as
creles, dialects and bilingual communities.
Thus, the diversity of linguistic research
over the past twenty years has served to
consolidate the importance of sociolinguistics as a discipline and to identify its numerous applications. In particular, its relevance
to the domain of foreign- or second-language
learning is n o w indisputable in so far as code
and context are viewed as an indivisible
duality.
Theoretical considerations
It is important to situate sociolinguistics
within the broader field of applied linguistics,
which seeks to relate research to a practical
methodology for teaching languages. While
the philologists m a y concern themselves with
the numerous problems of pure linguistics,
including the questions posed by semantics
and phonology, applied linguists and, m o r e
particularly,
language
researchers
and
teachers are essentially interested in two basic
areas.
T h efirstof these is content: the selection
of material to teach, based o n descriptive
rather than prescriptive phonetic, grammatical and lexical items, as well as their patterns.
In this respect, current usage and not rigid
adherence to a theoretical n o r m must be the
principal criterion for correctness. Moreover,
pertinence to the learner's needs is the guide
to the actual selection of content.
M e t h o d , the second basic area of
interest, refers to the m a n n e r in which this
pertinent content m a y be taught and learned.
This includes recourse to associated disciplines such as pedagogy, psychology and
technology in an effort to elaborate an
Mary-Louise Kearney
159
Sumerian-Accadian dictionary for the instruction of scribes,firstmillennium B . C . The Sumerian words are
in the central column; to the left, their pronunciation in Accadian expressed in simple syllabic signs, to the
right their translation into Accadian. From the library of the great temple of Uruk in lower Mesopotamia.
Muse du Louvre, Paris.
160
adequately, though notflawlessly,by using a
restricted corpus of structures and vocabulary in the target language.
H o w e v e r , whether the learner wishes to
gain a limited knowledge or whether he is
aiming to achieve a sophisticated level of
spoken or written excellence in another
language, his goal is to give a performance
of his linguistic ability which is correct and
acceptable to a native speaker of the target
code. This is the essence of standard c o m m u nicative competence and the real axis of
m o d e r n language learning for teacher and
student alike. Implicit in the objective is the
fact that linguistic ability goes far beyond the
mastery of the actual target code. This must
be balanced by an appreciation of the appropriate usage of the linguistic forms in context,
which requires a knowledge of the society in
which the language originated and the character of the people w h o are its native speakers.
This axis of code and context raises the
question of discourse analysis, which insists
upon the fact that speech is the result of a
combination of individual utterances. A s
the British linguist H . G . W i d d o w s o n has
noted, 'Grammatical competence remains
in a perpetual state of potentiality unless
it is realized in communication.' 2
Evidently, further and far-reaching research will be undertaken in the field of
foreign- and second-language learning. H o w ever, it is certain that the acquisition and
improvement of the four fundamental c o m municative skills and their use in various
social contexts will remain central issues,
thereby confirming the practical orientation of
sociolinguistics.
The praxis
H o w does sociolinguistics affect language
teaching and learning? T h e answer is that the
discipline provides a clear guide as to the
appropriateness of the student's use of the
target code. In order to measure the degree of
appropriateness, the most reliable criterion
must be the acceptability of the linguistic
Mary-Louise Kearney
161
Peter Carmichael/Cnsi
162
Mary-Louise Kearney
Another area in which interest has rapidly developed is the dynamics of c o m m u n i cation, which borrows significant elements
from the domain of group dynamics, including
a strong emphasis o n the psychology of the
learner. S o m e important elements are: (a) the
purpose of communication (to persuade, to
object, to compliment, etc.); (b) the roles of
the interlocutors (strangers, family, friends,
professionals, etc.); (c) their emotional in-
163
Mary-Louise Kearney
164
Learning strategies
Interactional courses emphasize the student's
capacity to develop his o w n learning abilities:
Learning and teaching should not be regarded as
converse activities at all, [and] the logic of a
communicative approach calls for an emphasis
on the learner's development of abilities
through his o w n learning processes which the
teacher should stimulate rather than determine.4
Six strategies are useful in terms of developing
a sound appreciation of a language in use:
T h e acquisition of a solid knowledge of the
grammar of the target code and its
patterns through consulting descriptive
reference texts.
T h e necessity to activate this knowledge even
at the risk of frequent errors in the early
stages and persistent mistakes as c o m petence increases.
T h e development of current vocabulary
through reading and listening to authentic extracts of the language as used in
the media.
T h e monitoring of speechthe learner can
check his o w n and that of native speakers
to gauge his ability to reproduce what he
has heard; this helps him to separate
errors (what is u n k n o w n ) from mistakes
(what he has probably seen but forgotten
through insufficient use).
A n awareness of register in the language so as
to identify formal, slang or everyday
consultative speech.
T h e development of intelligent guessing techniques w h e n faced with an u n k n o w n
item, plus the polishing of the circumlocution skill which can allow the learner
to avoid too m a n y hiatuses in his c o m prehension and production of discourse.
Therefore, by being aware of the interaction
between himself and his interlocutors, the
student develops effective learning strategies
to assess and improve his performance.
Conclusion
With regard to future developments in the
field of sociolinguistics, it should be noted
that an interactional course design helps to
situate language pedagogy within the broader
domain of the ethnography of c o m m u n i cation, which is a concept conceived by the
American linguist, Dell H y m e s . This discipline seeks to describe the linguistic p h e n o m ena of a particular society. Clearly this has
implications in terms of language teaching in
so far as the learner wishes to acquire the
standard code of a given language.
T h e interactional course, which aims at
teaching communicative competence, m a y be
described in terms of the following axis:
Language
Teacher
Learner
Situation
Evaluation procedures
Three types of procedure relate to the interactional course: (a) the initial assessment to
165
166
Mary-Louise Kearney
linguistic emphasis o n language and situation is reiterated yet again as the proper
axis for teaching communication.
If sociolinguistics is n o w viewed as an
entity in the broaderfieldof the ethnography
of communication, the links between the two
domains remain very close, due to their
mutual insistence o n the relationship between
language and society. While the ethnography
of communication seeks to depict a global
Notes
1. J. B . Pride (ed.),
Sociolinguistic Aspects of
Language Learning and
Teaching, p. ix, London,
Oxford University Press,
1979.
2. H . G . Widdowson,
3. J. L . Austin, How To Do
Directions in the Teaching of
Things With Words, Cambridge,
Discourse in Explorations in
Mass., Harvard University
Applied Linguistics, p. 90,
Press, 1962.
London, Oxford University
Press, 1979.
4. Widdowson, op. cit., p. 6.
167
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C I C O U R E L , A . V . Cognitive
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l'criture. Paris, Gonthier, 1968. Acquisition and Communicative
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B E N D E R L Y , B . L. The
Stanford University Press, 1973.
Multilingual Mind. Psychology
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Today, Vol. 15, N o . 3, 1981,
Sociology of Language. Vols. I
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and II. The Hague, M o u t o n ,
BERNSTEIN, B . Class, Codes and 1971, 1972.
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CALISSON, R.; COSTE, D .
Towards a Sociology of
Dictionnaire de didactique des
Language. London, Routledge
langues. Paris, Hachette, 1976.
& Kegan Paul, 1973.
B I C K L E Y , V . The International
G A L I S S O N , R . et al. D'autres
voies pour la didactique des
langues. Paris, Hatier, 1982.
G I L E S , H . ; S T C L A I R , R . (eds.).
. Foundations in
Sociolinguistics: An
Ethnographic Approach.
Philadelphia, University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1974.
L A B O V , W . Sociolinguistic
Patterns. Philadelphia,
University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1972.
L I N D E N F E L D , J. Correlational
G U M P E R Z , J. J. The
V A N P A S S E L , F . Synthse
prsentant les tendances et
expriences nouvelles en matire
d'enseignement des langues
secondes. Paris, Unesco, 1982.
. Discourse Strategies. N e w
York, Academic Press, 1981.
W H O R F , B . L . Language,
Thought and Reality. N e w York,
Wiley, 1956.
H A L L I D A Y , M . A . K . System
and Function in Linguistics.
London, Oxford University
Press, 1976.
H Y M E S , D . On Communicative
Competence. Philadelphia,
University of Pennsylvania
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WIDDOWSON, H. G .
Explorations in Applied
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University Press, 1979.
W I L K I N S , D . A . Notional
Syllabuses. London, Oxford
University Press, 1976.
Language modernization
in the developing world
Lachman M . Khubchandani
Lachman M. Khubchandani
170
T A B L E 1. Dimensions of language development
Dimension
Ecological
Utilization
Population strength
Social
Legitimization
Domains of use
Projectional
Graphization
Literature
M e d i u m of education
Technologization
'Developed' languages
'Underdeveloped' languages
Non-standard varieties,
substandard languages (slangs,
hybrids)
Languages with restrictive use
(vernaculars in diglossia
situations)
Written languages
Literary languages
Advanced 'cultivated' languages
Languages suitable for typing,
shorthand and
telecommunication purposes
Unwritten languages
Colloquial 'bazaar' languages
Preparatory 'ethnic' languages
Languages not extended for
technological tasks
171
Assumptions
In the context of language development,
experts have suggested taxonomical classifications of sociolinguistic types of languages as
'tribal, early modern (developing), modern
(developed), contemporary', etc. In this taxon o m y linguistic modernization is plotted as 'a
process the sense of which is to remove the
inadequate premodern features from language' (Neustupny. 1974, p . 35). But the precise features characterizing inadequacy or
modernity in a language system (lexical,
syntactic, etc.) are left to subjective evaluation by extra-linguistic dimensionsecological, social, projectional and so on, as presented in Table 1.
T h e languages of newly emerged nations
are considered to be deficient communication
systems with all 'the unprecedented disadvantages of the latecomers' (Fishman, 1974,
p. 84). According to this evolutionary scale of
development, it is assumed that newly independent societies are to strive for 'secondary
modernization' by trailing behind the path
already taken by advanced societies (along
with the targets of reproducing their achievements). Consequently, m a n y of the transformations sought through language modernization in these societies (such as targets of
language learning, language standardization,
coining technical terminologies) are externally
induced rather than internally generated,
unlike the classical European modernization
processes stimulated during the Renaissance
and Reformation. Hence, the Westernization
of languages in the developing world is pro-
jected as a further intensification of modernization based upon both methods and substance overtly borrowed from successful
foreign models.
In this vein, modernization in traditional
172
languages is compared on the scale of 'intertranslatability' with the languages of already
industrialized, secularized and differentiated
societies (Ferguson, 1968). Intertranslatability
is regarded as an adequate rendering of lexical
and grammatical features, along with conversational as well as literary styles, which are
already accurately and easily expressible in
one or another language of reference c o m m u nities considered to be modern.
These processes eliminate m a n y interim
stages, involve rapid transformations, sudden
thrusts and dramatic reconstructions, and also
have to cope with pressures from politicized'
masses (Das Gupta, 1970). Consequently, in
this unending pursuit of a mirage, by the time
the vernaculars have finished struggling to
acquire the credibility of developed languages, the latter will have m o v e d on to additional heights, such as usage with c o m puters, space satellites and so on.
T h e simplistic projection of education in
a mother-tongue as a means of establishing
equality of opportunity for individual selfadvancement (Unesco, 1953) has led to dem a n d s for languages' autonomy, that is, 'the
promotion of full-fledged or autonomous
status for a language as an exclusive vehicle
for full expression in differentfieldsof knowledge and in all walks of life' (Khubchandani, 1974ft). It is taken for granted that the
highbrow values of speech communication
uniformity, precision, elegance, purity of
form, allegiance to literary tradition, and the
elaboration of language through the coinage
of technical termsare essential means of
developing a language. In this context, intellectualizationa tendency towards increasingly definite and accurate expressionis
equated
with
language
modernization
(Garvin, 1973).
This aim encourages two types of activity
in a speech community guided primarily by its
language lite:
Language codification: prescribing 'standards'
(i.e. authentic versions) for a language
through a writing system, spelling and
g r a m m a r manuals, dictionaries, style
sheets and so on.
Lachman M. Khubchandani
l , ; v . | g g j i
Indian history, mythology and legend is being m a d e available in cartoon-strip form, as well as o n cassettes.
Illustration from the A m a r Chitra Katha continuing series (over 180 titles) to acquaint children with their
Cultural heritage. India Book House Education Trust, Bombay.
174
seriously attended to. Garvin (1973) hints
at the handicap of looking at languageplanning problems from a European perspective, and of duplicating the European experience in other parts of the world. H e is
also apprehensive of the possibility of the
developing nations rejecting this approach
and 'passing directly into a " M a c L u h a n esque" period where oral mass c o m m u n i cation in the local traditional style would be
m a d e possible by the electronic media'
(p. 32).
In this regard, Neustupny's (1974) four
indices of modernizationhomogeneity, development, equality and allianceseem to be
based primarily upon 'analytical developments' in contemporary European languages.
In the absence of anyfirmcommunicative evidence, such generalizations should be regarded merely as 'rationalization of a basically
modern system' (p. 43). T h e magnitude of
various linguistic and education problems in
newly independent nations appear to be quite
beyond the experience of most European
countries in the past or the present. A t the
present stage of language-planning theory, the
universality of such modernization processes
in mobilizing deliberate changes in speech
behaviour has yet to be proven.
O n e also finds similar parallels in the
linguistic scholarship of the eighteenth
century, w h e n overt similarities between
language and extra-linguistic traits in changing
societies attracted the attention of m a n y IndoEuropeanists (Max Mller and others) w h o
sought to correlate language development
with the realities of everyday life. T h e IndoEuropean languages of agricultural settlers
were assumed to be superior by virture of
representing 'perfect morphological inflection'
compared with the agglutinative Mongolian
languages of the nomadic races and the
monosyllabic Chinese languages. Influenced
by the dominai theory of genealogical development, m a n y Western philologists at that
time regarded the characteristics of their o w n
speech as the epitome of language development, and believed that 'exotic' features like
agglutination or monosyllabicity characterized
Lachman M. Khubchandani
'frozen'
languagessomewhat
primitive
languages which never blossomed into IndoEuropean! 3 H e n c e , in the context of formulating a theory of language development, it is
all the m o r e necessary to examine critically
the assumptions representing socio-political
trends of modernization and Westernization
as superior tools for enriching communicative
competence.
Sociolinguistic realities
The South Asian experience provides a
unique model of plurality in verbal and nonverbal communications which has withstood
the test of time over the centuries. A critical
appraisal of these patterns demonstrates the
magnitude of functional heterogeneity in
language use. S o m e of the salient characteristics out of which the edifice of linguistic
plurality in the Indian subcontinent has been
built over the ages are relativity, hierarchy
and instrumentality.
Relativity
The verbal repertoire a m o n g m a n y c o m m u n i ties in India is characterized by its relation to
identity and purpose of interaction. It brings
to the fore the non-congruence and crisscrossing of identity affiliations, segmented in
overlapping groups, on the basis of occupation, caste, religion, mother-tongue, region
and so o n . This characteristic is in sharp
contrast to the prevailing tendency in h o m ogenized societies (such as those in Europe),
where a high premium is placed o n the
cultivation of an 'absolute' standard of
language through positive or negative attitudes to specific usages in the verbal repertoire. A s an illustration, in Sanskrit plays
during the classical period, royal male characters speak formal standard Sanskrit (etymologically, 'well-cultivated' speech), royal
females speak colloquial standard Prakrit
('natural' speech) and commoners speak grassroots Apabhramsha ('contaminated' speech).
Hierarchy
A system of linguistic stratification forms the
175
Language standardization
M a n y stratificational characteristics, emerging
from intense social contact, play a significant
176
role in explicating full meaning in a discourse.
These characteristics are markedly different
from those of regional differentiation, which
result from isolation or lack of interaction
a m o n g different groups. In this respect, the
cultivation of caste dialects a m o n g traditional
societies o n the subcontinent signifies a system of linguistic stratification a m o n g different
castes, in the midst of a fuzzy diversity in the
everyday repertoire (Pandit, 1969). It results
from the handling of complex tasks of social
stratification. Rigid adherence to caste dialects in certain parts of India, characterized by
acute awareness of propriety and deference
considerations to higher castes, greatly resembles the obsession with propriety evident
in the pervasive use of so-called standard
diction in m o d e r n , technologized societies.
O n e does not find any conclusive evidence for assuming that such codes represent
deficient communication systems, as implied
by m a n y social scientists dealing with contemporary societies (Fishman, 1974; Neustupny,
1974). In making such an assumption, w e m a y
be committing an error similar to that of the
eighteenth-century Indo-Europeanists swayed
by ethnocentric bias.
M o s t of the languages in the subcontinent
cultivated through the plural character of the
society have not been subjected to the pressures of standardization as practised in the
W e s t , and have not been explicitly formulated through spelling and grammar manuals,
dictionaries and so o n . For m a n y major
Indian languages standardization imperatives
and literacy drives have been introduced so
recently that they have not yet seriously
challenged the dominance of implicit identity
pressures.
In standard usage, emphasis shifts from
an 'event-centred' discourse to an idealoriented,
'expression-concentrating'
discourse. Correct expressions (as ultimately
defined by a language lite) attain precedence
over expressions that actually occur spontaneously (in response to a situation or
event). T h u s , rigidly standardized societies
can turn the effortless gift of social verbalization into directed efforts to learn the diction
Lachman M. Khubchandani
111
EUROPEAN
BRANCH
0,4/0.07%
Proportions
PAKISTAN (including
Pakistani-held portions
of Jammu and Kashmir)
BANGLADESH
NEPAL, BHUTAN
A N D SIKKIM
SRI LANKA
Strength Of language families a n d m a j o r languages Of S o u t h A s i a . From Historic Atlas of South Asia, by kind permission of
the Regents of the University of Minnesota.
Language cultivation
Language is a complex multilateral p h e n o m enon,
manifested
through physiological,
178
psychological, institutional and other forms.
Various overt and covert characteristics in
verbal communications point to at least three
distinct contours of speech behaviour: (a) what
people do with speech, that is, language
usage; (b) what people think they d o with
speech, that is, language image; and (c)
what people claim they d o with speech, that
is, language posture. Since language is primarily a time- and space-bound institutional
reality, it would be rather idealistic to subject
language claims to a universal standard
interpretation in all regions and for all times.
Communication patterns in South Asia,
characterized by a plurilingual hierarchy, pose
a serious challenge to the monistic norms of
underlying invariability in interpreting diverse
speech behaviours. O n e speech variety can be
distinguished from another in a n u m b e r of
ways; varying degrees of boundedness between languages, dialects or speech varieties
can be explained only through a pluralistic
view of language. In this regard Steiner
(1975), in rejecting a theory of language in
favour of a theory of languages, makes a
decisive break with both traditional and
fashionable linguistics. In his view, a metamathematical universalist view of language is
bound to fail to account for the nature of
relations between languages (or speech
varieties) as they actually exist and differ.
' A genuine philosophy of language must
grapple with the p h e n o m e n o n and rationale
of the h u m a n "invention" and retention of
anywhere between five and ten thousand
distinct tongues.' 8
O n e notices m a n y instances in the pluralistic societies of Asia and Africa where the
boundaries distinguishing two languages, two
castes or two religions are not sharply delineated. Linguists and social scientists have
m a d e m a n y attempts to distinguish 'language'
from 'dialect', 'register' and other speech
labels by applying various parameters, such as
percentage of cognates, mutual intelligibility, autonomy of morphological systems,
functional
dominance,
literary achievements, writing systems, lexical and stylistic
elaboration, standardization and even juridi-
Lachman M. Khubchandani
179
180
stabilized irrespective of maintaining propriety in speech; whereas in an interaction
characterizing achieved (or mobilized) roles,
one notices a marked difference in the degree
of expectancy of the standardized n o r m a
sort of prerequisite for entry into the desired
club. H e n c e societies structured around role
ascription need not necessarily be handicapped by their communicative restrictions, as
is assumed by m a n y language-planning experts (Fishman, 1974). Similarly, the restrictive range of experience in the traditional
repertoire is at the same time compensated by
the absorbing qualities of depth in 'personalized' interaction. O n the other hand, a wider
range of experience in modernistic societies
tends to promote 'transitional' characteristics
in speech, with insistence o n explicit norms
for standardization. In the present context,
language-cultivation programmes for m a n y
technologically developing societies are being
r e c o m m e n d e d o n the assumption that the
imitation of communication models of affluent
societies is inevitable (Neustupny, 1974).
M a n y language experts, concerned with
language primarily as a system of informational signalling, tend to regard explicit
and intentive use of speech and its overt
correlations as functional, but stratificational
and pragmatic manifestations through implicit
and instinctive suggestions and covert design
in speech as non-functional (Neustupny, 1974,
p . 39). In this sense, elaborate networks of
address and reference systems in m a n y oriental languages, identifying generation, sex,
group and other social hierarchies, are interpreted as non-functional, 'early m o d e r n '
characteristics in language (for a discussion
of the address system in Japanese, see
Neustupny, 1974).
In several studies of pronouns in different
languages, there seems to be m u c h concern
over clear-cut categorization of the m o d e s of
address. Attempts have been m a d e to dichotomize these m o d e s o n the universal plane of
'power' and 'solidarity', and to show h o w
these universal characteristics can distinguish
feudal and m o d e r n pronominal patterns to
suggest the static and dynamic stages of
Lachman M. Khubchandani
Contemporary trends
M a n y newly independent countries have been
acquiring a fresh order of pluralism in cultural
and linguistic expression. There has been
growing acceptance of cultural pluralism
throughout the world. Diverse profiles of
speech communication in different countries
and at different times m a k e us realize the
futility of pursuing illusory goals of universal
order in the n a m e of efficient communications.
In the campaign for autonomy in the
Indian context, language-elites try to push
forward elaborate instruction and orientation
programmes in order to introduce n e w values
and induce what they consider to be desirable
181
182
Lachman M. Khubchandani
183
Rehearsing facial expressions: one way of transcending language barriers. Henri Canicr-Brcsson/Magnum.
is generally presumed but to the purists' reluctance to accept borrowed expressions for n e w
concepts from living situations. Development
of highbrow tatsamized styles,9 based o n
artificial coinage from non-native classical
stock, has been a great deterrent to adopting
Indian languages for this purpose. Because of
highbrow elegant values in formal language
behaviour, the cultivation of urban-based
standards has been the prerogative of the socalled purists of language. Ironically, in lite
parlance, m o d e r n languages saturated with
instant derivative terms from non-native classical and neoclassical stocksSanskrit, PersoArabic, or classical Tamilare regarded as
shuddha ('pure'), but those mixed with everyday-life terms borrowed from other living
languagessuch as English, Bengali and
Marathi, matching the newly
acquired
concepts from different culturesare regarded as khichrii ('hotchpotch, pot-pourri').
184
bilingualism and the use of English a m o n g the
educated classes over the past few decades
that various stylesandexpressioiirtave been
added to the stock of Indian languages to
qualify them for their n e w roles in society.
Also, important reference works such as
grammars, dictionaries, encyclopedias, translations and other teaching aids have been
published in these languages. It is evident
that such active bilingualism is playing a very
significant role in the standardization of the
major Indian languages.
Lachman M. Khubchandani
N o one would deny the value of standardization for ensuring efficiency and precision in: craifflurrication, but most of the
standardization devices in Indian languages
today serve only to extend the traditioninspired value system of small lites over all
domains in the entire speech community. In
standardizing languages for a pluralistic society, it is, essential to inculcate an entirely
different set of values in order to build o n the
resources inherent in the wide range of speech
settings characteristic of intricately segmented
communities. T h e tradition-inspired norms as
professed by grammarians are also valuable in
broadening the range of intellectual experiences and in sharpening awareness of the
various societal expectations of verbalization.
These are thus complementary to the c o m munity's implicit situation-bound propriety
controls in speech.
In South Asia today a host of language
development agencies, isolated language institutes and individual language advisory boards,
insulated from each other by sharply defined
jurisdictions and committed to diverse traditions, seem to be pulling in different, at
times contradictory, directions in the n a m e of
modernization. B y and large, languageplanning agencies do not seem to be sensitive to the fact that the speech behaviour of
a heterogeneous community is guided not
so m u c h by the dicta of insulated traditions
as by the demands of ecosystems. A n individual or a speech community responds to
the verbal needs of heterogeneous situations spontaneously by means of several
'echo' processes, such as convergence, assimilation, maintenance, creativityknow in
linguistic parlance as analogy, interference,
pidginization, code-switching and so on.
Several developing countries have occupied themselves with gigantic programmes for
'language codification' and 'language elaboration' in a manner utterly unmindful of the
natural sensitivities of plural speech c o m m u n i ties. U n d e r the influence of purists' tradition
in philology and pedagogy, m a n y languageplanning agencies seem to regard concepts
like language hybridization, grass-roots folk
185
Dult/Camera Press.
186
Lachman M . Khubchandani
Notes
1. 'Unless an Indian language
has grown up to its full stature,
with a good literature in science
and other subjects, the m o v e for
its acceptance as the m e d i u m of
instruction immediately would
be a retrograde step'
(Government of India, 1965,
p. 71).
2. T o quote an instance, at the
annual conference in 1952,
187
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and America: Autonomy
and
Regional Dependence. Lexington, University Press of K e n tucky, 1983. 286 pp. $33.80.
ManagKuala
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Giitman, Graciela; Meezger,
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Industrializacin en Venezuela y Hitotsubashi University, 1983.
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and the Pacific, Bangkok,
2125 February 1983: Teaching
and Research in Philosophy in
Asia and the Pacific: Report.
Bangkok,
Unesco
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Office for Education in Asia
and the Pacific, 1983. 40 p p .
Women as Heads of Households
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[37]
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F r o m 1949 to the end of 1958, this Journal appeared under the n a m e of International Social Science
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and needs
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91. Images of world society
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339
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R . , 1980. Disarmament
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Y . H . ; LAMPERT, D . E . , 1976. The
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