LANGUAGE CHOICE

Compiled by:
Bayu Setiawan (40300122113)
Lisna (40300122101)
Nur Maulidiyah Mujtahid (40300122107)
Wahyuni (40300122116)
Siti Fatimah (40300122098)

FACULTY OF ADAB AND HUMANITIES

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
ALAUDDIN STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY MAKASSAR
2024
 PREFACE

By mentioning the name of Allah SWT, the Most Merciful, the Most Merciful, we pray
and praise for His presence, who has bestowed His grace, guidance, and father to us, so that
we can complete this scientific paper.
We have compiled this scientific paper to the maximum and received assistance from
various parties so that it can facilitate the construction of this paper. For that we express our
gratitude to all parties who have contributed to the making of this paper. Despite all that, we
fully realize that there are still shortcomings both in terms of sentence structure and grammar.
Therefore with open arms we accept all suggestions and criticisms from readers so that we can
improve this scientific paper.
Finally, we hope that the scientific paper on language choices and its benefits for this
community can provide benefits and inspiration for readers.

Gowa,13 March 2024

Writer
 Table of contents
PREFACE ................................................................................................................................................ 2
CHAPTER 1 ............................................................................................................................................ 4
INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................................... 4
A. Background ................................................................................................................................... 4
CHAPTER II ............................................................................................................................................ 5
DISCUSSION .......................................................................................................................................... 5
A. Societal Multilingualism ................................................................................................................ 5
B. Domains ........................................................................................................................................ 6
C. Diglossia ........................................................................................................................................ 7
D. Language Shift And Death ............................................................................................................. 7
E. Code-switching or code-mixing ..................................................................................................... 8
CHAPTER III ........................................................................................................................................ 11
CLOSING .............................................................................................................................................. 11
A. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 11
B. Suggestion................................................................................................................................... 11
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................................... 12
 CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

A. Background

Language choice, also known as articulation, refers to the choice of words and style of
expression that an author uses, whether in speech or writing. Language choice varies from one
situation or text to another, even from the same author. Language choice is a key element of
rhetorical analysis because it communicates more than just the literal meaning of words. An
author can use his or her language choices to convey a number of messages including tone,
setting, and narrative voice and character. There are even different types of language choices
that convey different meanings other than the literal word.
The idea that multilingualism is divisive, while monolingualism is a normal and
desirable state of affairs, is still with us today. In a speech made on Australian radio in 1994
Rupert Murdoch claimed that multilingualism was the cause of Indian disunity, and
monolingualism the reason for the unity of the English-speaking world. He rejoiced in the fact.
Despite the emphasis of mainstream linguistics on monolingualism and homogeneous
speech communities, widespread bilingualism and multilingualism of the type found in north-
west New Britain discussed in Chapter 1 are actually more common. It has been estimated that
there are some 5,000 languages in the world but only about 185 nation-states recognized by the
United Nations. Probably about half the world’s population is bilingual and bilingualism is
present in practically every country in the world. I will use the terms ‘bilingualism’ and
‘multilingualism’ interchangeably. With the formation of new nation-states, the question of
which language (or which version of a particular one) will become the official national
language arises and has often led to bitter controversy. Even countries with more than one
official language, such as Canada (where French and English share co-official status), have not
escaped attempts by various factions to gain political advantage by exploiting issues of
language loyalty. A distinction is usually drawn between individual and societal
multilingualism, although it is not always possible to maintain. Some countries, such as
Canada, are officially bilingual in English and French, although not all Canadians are bilingual.
There are many more French Canadians who learn English as a second language than English
Canadians who learn French. In other countries such as India and Papua New Guinea there is
a high degree of individual bilingualism with the average person knowing at least two
languages. The connection between individual and societal bilingualism also becomes evident
when we consider some of the reasons why certain individuals are or become bilingual. Usually
the more powerful groups in any society are able to force their language upon the less powerful.
If we take Finland as an example, we find that the Saami (Lapps), Romanies, and Swedes have
to learn Finnish, but Finns do not have to learn any of these languages. Or similarly in Britain,
the British child does not have to learn Panjabi or Welsh, but both these groups are expected to
learn English.
 CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

A. Societal Multilingualism

The first step in understanding what choices are available to speakers is to gain some idea
of what languages and varieties are available to them in a particular social context. “Individual
multilingualism” refers to the ability of a person to use more than two languages rather
fluently—though most persons are not equally proficiency in the languages they use in their
private, academic and professional lives. Individual multilingualism involves people who are
able to make themselves understood in more than two languages, whether they are teenagers
or adults who have learnt two or more foreign languages in addition to their mother tongue –
in which case they are referred to as polyglots. They could also be children who have bilingual
parents or family who speak two different languages and they grow up learning both home
languages, plus the language of the community. They can also be youngsters from immigrant
families who speak their home language when they are with their family, use the official
language at school, and are also learning an additional foreign language there.
Like ‘language’ and ‘dialect’, ‘mother tongue’ is not a technical term and there are many
problems with its use. In one of its popular senses, the term ‘mother tongue’ evokes the notion
of mothers as the passive repositories of languages, which they pass on to their children. In
some communities, however, it is fathers who transmit their language to their children. Such a
case obtains, for example, in the Vaupes area of Columbia and Brazil. There groups are
patrilineal and one’s primary language is the language of the father. Because marriage is
exogamous, one may not marry a person from one’s own or a ‘brother’ language group.
Husbands and wives communicate dual-lingually as in north-west New Britain. The children
may become fluent in the language of both parents, but consider the father’s language to be
their own.
A widely cited and influential document arguing the advantages of vernacular education
used the term ‘mother tongue’ (UNESCO 1953). It states: ‘On educational grounds we
recommend that the use of the mother tongue be extended to as late a stage in education as
possible. In particular, pupils should begin their schooling through the medium of the mother
tongue, because they understand it best and because to begin their school life in the mother
tongue will make the break between home and school as small as possible.’ Other influential
pieces of legislation use the term ‘mother tongue’ too, such as the 1977 Directive of the Council
of the European Community on the education of the children of migrant workers (Brussels
77/486/EEC). It instructs member states of the European Community to ‘take appropriate
measures to promote the teaching of the mother tongue and of the culture of the country of
origin of the children of migrant workers, and also as part of compulsory free education to
teach one or more of the official languages of the host state’. When various minority groups
campaign for provision of so-called ‘mother tongue teaching’, the question of what one’s
mother tongue is designated to be can be crucial because it determines who has a right to
education in a particular language. In Britain, for example, Pakistani speakers of Panjabi will
claim Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, as their mother tongue, and not Panjabi, which
is a spoken language used in the home. For religious reasons Urdu provides a rallying point too
for many Pakistanis, whereas Panjabi does not. Sikhs in Britain, however, will claim Panjabi
as their mother tongue, for similar reasons. For them, it is both a home language and a public
language.
Language of the Panjab state, it is an important regional language in India, and for Sikhs it
has special significance as a religious language. Ethnic groups are often defined as belonging
to a linguistic minority on the basis of their mother tongue. Some members of some minority
groups such as West Indians in Britain would like to claim that varieties of West Indian creole
constitute a language and therefore deserve recognition as their mother tongue. The belief that
having one’s own language is criterial for ethnicity may be used by a state and its mainstream
population to deny the legitimacy of claims to special status and land rights made by a group
who have shifted from their indigenous languages to the language of the majority.

B. Domains

In research on the Puerto Rican community in New York City, a team of sociolinguists
arrived at a list of five ‘domains’ in which either Spanish or English was used consistently.
These were established on the basis of observation and interviews and comprised: family,
friendship, religion, employment, and education. These domains served as anchor points for
distinct value systems embodied in the use of Spanish as opposed to English. A domain is an
abstraction which refers to a sphere of activity representing a combination of specific times,
settings, and role relationships. They conducted further studies to support their claim that each
of these domains carried different expectations for using Spanish or English.
People were asked to imagine themselves in hypothetical situations where two of the three
components of the conversational context were given. For example, they might be asked to
imagine they were talking to someone at their place of work about how to do a job most
efficiently. They were then asked to whom they would most likely be talking and in what
language. The respondents tended to provide congruent answers for any given domain, and
their choice of language was consistent. The most likely place for Spanish was the family
domain, followed by friendship, religion, employment, and education.
Table 2.2 Domains of language use

Domain Addressee Setting Topic Variety/Code

Family Parent Home Planing And Family Party Makassar
Friendship Friend Beach How To Play Beach Tennis Makassar
Religion Priest Church Choosing The Sunday Liturgy Indonesia
Education Teacher School Solving A Maths Proplems Indonesia
Employment Employer Workplace Applying For A Promotion Indonesia
 C. Diglossia

Often each language or variety in a multilingual community serves a specialized function

and is used for particular purposes. This situation is known as ‘diglossia’. An example can be
taken from Arabic-speaking countries such as Egypt in which the language used at home may
be a local version of Arabic. The language that is recognized publicly, however, is modern
standard Arabic, which takes many of its normative rules from the classical Arabic of the
Koran. The standard language is used for ‘high’ functions such as giving a lecture, reading,
writing, or broadcasting, while the home variety is reserved for ‘low’ functions such as
interacting with friends at home. The High (H) and Low (L) varieties differ not only in
grammar, phonology, and vocabulary, but also with respect to a number of social
characteristics, namely, function, prestige, literary heritage, acquisition, standardization, and
stability.
The pattern of code or variety choice in Eggenwil is one which has been described with the
term diglossia . This term has been used both in a narrow sense and in a much broader sense
and I will describe both. In the narrow and original sense of the term, diglossia has three crucial
features: 1. Two distinct varieties of the same language are used in the community, with one
regarded as a high (or H) variety and the other a low (or L) variety. 2. Each variety is used for
quite distinct functions; H and L complement each other. 3. No one uses the H variety in
everyday conversation. formal domains, the H vocabulary includes many more formal and
technical terms such as conservation and psychometric , while the L variety has words for
everyday objects such as saucepan and shoe .

D. Language Shift And Death

Stability, however, is a subjective notion. There are many bilingual situations which do not
last for more than three generations. In some cases indigenous languages can be swamped by
intrusive ones over a relatively short period of time. This is what has happened to the Aboriginal
languages of Australia and the Celtic languages of the British Isles. In other places, immigrant
languages have disappeared as their speakers have adopted the language of the new
environment. This is true for many speakers of south Asian languages, like Gujarati and
Bengali, in Britain. In cases such as these of bilingualism without diglossia, the two languages
compete for use in the same domains. Speakers are unable to establish the
compartmentalization necessary for survival of the L variety. In such instances language shift
may be unavoidable.
Choices made by individuals on an everyday basis have an effect on the long-term situation
of the languages concerned. Language shift generally involves bilingualism (often with
diglossia) as a stage on the way to eventual monolingualism in a new language. Typically a
community which was once monolingual becomes bilingual as a result of contact with another
(usually socially more powerful) group and becomes transitionally bilingual in the new
language until their own language is given up altogether.
Many factors are responsible for language shift and death, e.g. religious and educational
background, settlement patterns, ties with the homeland (in the case of immigrant
bilingualism), extent of exogamous marriage, attitudes of majority and minority language
groups, government policies concerning language and education. Where large groups of
immigrants concentrate in particular geographical areas, they are often better able to preserve
their languages, e.g. third-generation Chinese Americans who reside in China-towns have
shifted less towards English than their age-mates outside China-towns. Often a shift from rural
to urban areas triggers a language shift; e.g. in Papua New Guinea, where Tok Pisin (an English-
based pidgin used as a lingua franca) is the language most used in the towns, many children
grow up not speaking their parents’ vernacular languages. When a language serves important
religious functions, as German does among the Pennsylvania Dutch, it may stand a better
chance of survival. The inability of minorities to maintain the home as an intact domain for the
use of their language has often been decisive for language shift.

E. Code-switching or code-mixing

Code-switching is an alternation between two languages or language varieties in one

conversation that crosses sentence or clause boundaries" Herk (2012). Meanwhile, Grosjean
(1982). Whereas "code-mixing" is the alternation of one language to another within the same
utterance or within the same spoken or written text.
The Maori is in italics. THE TRANSLATION IS IN SMALL CAPITALS.]
Sarah: I think everyone's here except Mere.
John: She said she might be a bit late but actually I think that's her arriving now.
Sarah: You're right. Kia ora Mere. Haere mai. Kei te pehea koe?
MERE. COME IN. HOW ARE YOU?)
[HI Mere: Kia ora e hoa. Kei te pai. Have you started yet?
[HELLO MY FRIEND]: I'M FINE
People sometimes switch code within a domain or social situation. When there is some
obvious change in the situation, such as the arrival of a new person, it is easy to explain the
switch. In example 8, Mere is Maori and although the rest of the meeting will be conducted in
English, Sarah switches to Maori to greet her. The Maori greeting is an expression of solidarity.
So a code-switch may be related to a particular participant or addressee. In a Polish family
living in Lancashire in the 1950s, the family used Polish in the home. When the local English-
speaking priest called, however, everyone switched to English. In both of these cases the switch
indicates a change in the social situation and takes positive account of the presence of a new
participant.
 A speaker may similarly switch to another language as a signal of group membership and
shared ethnicity with an addressee, Even speakers who are not very proficient in a second.
language may use brief phrases and words for this purpose. Scottish Highlanders who are not
proficient speakers of Gaelic nevertheless express their identification with the local Gaelic
speech community by using Gaelic tags and phrases interspersed with their English. Maori
people often use Maori words and phrases in this way too, whether their knowledge of Maori
is extensive or not. Such switches are often very short and they are made primarily for social
reasons to signal and actively construct the speaker's ethnic identity and solidarity with the
Example :
(a) Tamati: ( Engari [so] now we turn to more important matters. (Switch between Maori and
English)
b) Ming: Confiscated by Customs, dà gài [PROBABLY]
(Switch between English and Mandarin Chinese)
(c) A: Well I'm glad I met you. OK?
Ming: andale pues [OK SWELL], and do come again. Mm?
(Switch between Spanish and English)
In (a), Tamati uses a Maori tag at the beginning of his utterance while the Mandarin speaker in
(b) uses a final tag. This kind of switching is sometimes called emblematic switching or tak
switching. The switch is simply an interjection or a linguistic tag in the other language which
serves as an ethnic identity marker. The exchange in (c), for instance, occurred between two
Mexican Americans or Chicanos in the USA. By using the Spanish tag, M signalled to A that
she recognised the relevance of their shared ethnic background to their future relationship. The
tag served as a solidarity marker between two minority ethnic group members whose previous
conversation has been entirely in English.
Switches motivated by the identity and relationship between participants often express. a
move along the solidarity/social distance dimension introduced in chapter 1. While example
9(c) illustrates a tag contributing to the construction of solidarity, switches can also distance a
speaker from those they are talking to. In Pamaka, a village in Suriname, young people switch
between their local community language, l'amaka, and Sranan Tongo, the language of Suriname
urban centres. Pamaka is the usual language of interaction in the community, but young people
often switch to Sranan Tongo to signal their sophistication and identification. with modernity.
In one conversation, two young women and a young man are discussing localmusic. While the
women use Pamaka, their community language, the young man deliberately switches to Sranan
Tongo and avoids Pamaka. His language switch distances him from the other participants,
while also signalling his alignment with the urban western world. A switch may also indicate a
change in the other dimensions mentioned in the first chapter.
such as the status relations between people or the formality of their interaction. The
examples above have illustrated that different kinds of relationships are often expressed or
actively constructed through the use of different varieties or codes. More formal relationships,
which sometimes involve status differences too, such as doctor-patient or administrator-client,
often involve the H variety or code: e.g. Bokmål in Hemnesberget, Spanish in Paraguay,
standard Swahili in Bukavu. Friendly relationships involving minimal social distance, such as
neighbour or friend, generally involve an L code: e.g. Ranamål in Hemnesberget, Guaraní in
Paraguay, Indoubil, Kingwana or a tribal language such as Shi in Bukavu.
The similarity that exists between code switching and code mixing is the use of two or
more languages, or two variations of a language in one speech community... (Chaer, 2014: 115)
difference
Fasold (in Chaer, 2014: 115) explains that if someone uses a word or phrase from one
language, he has mixed codes. But if one clause clearly has the grammatical structure of another
language, then the event that occurs is code switching.
 CHAPTER III

CLOSING

A. Conclusion
The choice of language in communication is greatly determined by the understanding
of the message conveyed in a multilingual society. Sociolinguistically, The choice of
language in different domains is determined by many factors, including age, gender,
education, and other social categories. People who speak more than one language, or who
have command over more than one variety of any language, are generally very sensitive to
the differences in the choice of the languages they use and they are equally aware that in
some contexts one variety will serve their needs better than another (Meyerhoff, 2006), this
may lead them to change the variety they use depending on where they are. There is more
individual creativity and flexibility involved. It is sometimes difficult to say just whether it
is the domain of the interaction that determines what linguistic variety a speaker will
choose, or whether the person they are talking to is what determines their choice. Speakers
choose different language depending on who you are talking to, the social context of the
talk, the function and topic of the discussion - turn out to be important in accounting for
language choice in many different kinds of speech community (Meyerhoff, 2006, Holmes,
2013). In addition to this, it is very important to consider which variety to use requires a
good deal of cultural knowledge. Sociolinguistically, the domain and addressee factors
overlap on each other and a speaker felt that one decision follows another before he/she
would come to a decision about which variety to use.

B. Suggestion
In the future, we will be able to apply social language selection and be able to know
the social context of language selection behavior
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Holmes, J. (1992). An introduction to sosociolinguistics: USA: pearson education

Romaine,S. (1994). Languange in society An Introduction to Sociolinguistics: New York:
Oxford University Press