On language and

society
Fakry Hamdani
 • Establishing social
relationships
The • The role played by language in
function of conveying information about
the speaker
language
(Trudgill, 2004)
Mutual intelligibility
• If two speakers cannot understand one another, then they are
speaking different languages.
• If they can understand each other, we could say that they are
speaking dialects of the same language.
• You can say that Japanese and Swedish are clearly different
languages, but some languages are very similar.
• Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are all very close, to the point where
they’re pretty much mutually intelligible.
Scandinavian Languages
• Norwegian has a preference for putting the possessor after the noun
it possesses:
den raude bilen min - the red the car my (Norwegian)
min röda bil - my red car (Swedish)
min røde bil - my red car (Danish)
• Unlike Danish and Swedish, many Norwegian dialects and one of the
written forms retain a strong form in the present:
kjem - come/comes (Norwegian)
kommer - come/comes (Swedish)
kommer - come/comes (Danish)
English Swedish Danish
Hello / Hi Hej / Hejsan Hej
Thank you Tack (så mycket) (Mange) tak
Scandinavian
(very much) Languages
What's your Vad heter du? Hvad hedder Comparative
name? du?
Vocabulary
OK / Fine Fint / okej Fint
How old are Hur gammal är Hvor gammel er
you? (f) du? du?
 • Dialect: differences between kinds
of language which are differences
of vocabulary and grammar as well
as pronunciation.
Dialect and • Accent: differences of
accent pronunciation, and it is often
important to distinguish clearly
between the two.

(Trudgill, 2004, p. 6)
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
• The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: the possibility that human beings' views of their
environment may be conditioned by their language
• The social environment can also be reflected in language and can often have an effect on
the structure of the vocabulary. For example, a society's kinship system.
• The important kin relationships in English-speaking societies are those that are signalled
by single vocabulary items: son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter, brother, sister,
father, mother, husband, wife, grand father, grandmother, uncle, aunt, cousin.
• We can, of course, talk of other relationships such as eldest son, maternal aunt, great
uncle and second cousin, but the distinction between 'maternal' and 'paternal' aunt is
not important in our society, and is therefore not reflected in the English lexicon.

(Trudgill, 2004, pp. 14-15)

 • Sociolinguistics, then, is that part of
linguistics which is concerned with language
as a social and cultural phenomenon.
• The values of a society can also have an
effect on its language.
Language • Taboo words: The most severe taboos are
now associated with words connected with
and society sex, closely followed by those connected
with excretion and the Christian religion
• Ethnic slurs: Negrito, Niger, Gaijin, Indon,
Keling, non-pri
• Slang expressions: Gelay, forrealz, cringe,
Srsly