Sociolinguistics is the scientific study of the social aspects of language.

It is the study of
the relationship between language use and the structure of society. That is it studies how
language functions in society. Sociolinguistics deals with questions like “who speaks what
language to whom, when and where” and for what purpose. Whereas many linguists concentrate
on discovering unity beneath the diversity of human languages, sociolinguists try to analyse the
social factors, which lead to this diversity. In fact linguistics differs from sociolinguistics by
taking account only of the structure or form of language and by excluding social contexts in
which language functions. The following distinctions can be made between the structural
approach and the functional approach to the study of language:
STRUCTURAL (Linguistics) FUNCTIONAL ( Sociolinguistics)
Describes the structure of language Describes the ways of speaking.
Analysis of code is primary and analysis Analysis of language use is primary and analysis of
of language use is secondary. code is secondary.
Language is seen as performing a Language is seen as performing a gamut of socio-
referential function. cultural functions, along with referential function.
Language is considered to be Language is considered to be heterogeneous for the
homogenous for the community. community, i.e., it comprises varieties.
Rules deal with grammaticality Rules in sociolinguistics deal with appropriateness.
The linguist is interested in the native The sociolinguist is interested in the language user’s
speaker’s linguistic competence, i.e., his communicative competence, i.e., his ability to use
ability to produce and understand the the grammatical sentences appropriately in a socio-
grammatical sentences of his language. cultural context.
Analyses the sentence out of context. Interested in analysing meaningful discourse.
In brief, sociolinguists are interested in language differences, and especially in variation within
a particular language. Sociolinguistic studies are based on the fact that language is not a single
homogeneous entity, but has different forms in different situations. The changes in language
occur because of changes in social conditions, for example, social class, gender, regional and
cultural groups. Sociolinguistic studies takes into account such factors as the social background
of the speaker and the addressee, the relationship between them and the context and manner
of the interaction, maintaining that they are crucial to an understanding of both the structure
and function of the language used in a situation. It is concerned with language as a social
phenomenon.
Sociolinguistics can be concerned with observing the details of individual behaviour too.
It can also be involved in the large-scale investigation of linguistic behaviour and also study the
relationship between language and society in large units such as entire nations. Sociolinguists
working in areas such as the sociology of language planning are concerned with issues like the
treatment of language minorities and the selection and codification of languages in countries,
which hitherto, have had no standard language. In multilingual situations, developments occur
which are important for linguists, including the growth of pidgin and creole languages.
Sociolinguists also study the behaviour of bilinguals, investigating the way in which they switch
from one language to another depending on social context. Also in a multilingual setting,
sometimes, one language may dominate other languages taking over more and more domains in
which these languages were once used. Understanding the conditions, which facilitate language
shift and the dynamics of the process itself, is properly viewed as a sociolinguistic task.
Sociolinguistics thus focuses on languages as they are used by ordinary human beings to
communicate with one another and to develop and maintain social relationships.
Sociolinguistics is a complex science since the relationship between language and society
is extremely complex. Some aspects of this subject maybe more sociological in emphasis, others
may be more linguistic. Thus it encompasses many different activities, which are social and
linguistic to varying degrees. For example, the analysis of conversation focuses on language as
used in social interaction. Conversation analysts deal with norms for the practice of
conversation, which include the study of such elements of conversation as ‘turn-taking’,
‘interruption’, ‘silence’ and common conversational markers such as well, anyway etc. The
ethnology of speaking is a related area, which studies how language use varies from one society
to another. The social psychology of language investigates the attitudes that people have to
different language varieties (accents, dialects etc.) and the way in which these attitudes
influence perceptions of the characteristics and abilities of speakers.
One of the major advances of modern sociolinguistics has been the introduction of
quantitative techniques, which enables investigators to measure exactly and gain detailed
insight into the nature of the relationship between language and social class. Such quantitative
techniques also enable linguists to investigate some of the processes involved in linguistic
change. For example, in a sociolinguistic study in Bradford, Malcolm Petyt showed that the
percentage of hs ‘dropped’ by speakers correlated closely with social class as measured by
factors such as occupation and income. Such quantitative techniques enable linguists to
investigate some of the processes involved in language change. For example William Labov was
able to show in the 1960s that in New York city the consonant r was being reintroduced in the
pronunciation of words like form and farm by comparing the number of rs used by older
speakers to the number used by younger ones.
Sociolinguists prefer to begin with the notion of a speech community rather than with a
‘language’. A particular group may speak a different variety of a language from the rest of the
community. This group becomes a speech community. Bloomfield defines a speech community
as “a group of people who interact by means of speech.” Lyons says that a speech community
comprises “all the people who use a given language or dialect.” Today a speech community is
defined as any group of people who consider that they speak the same language. For instance,
Dutch and German must be considered as separate languages, since, in spite of their
similarities, the Dutch consider that they speak Dutch and the Germans consider that they speak
German. All the Chinese dialects must be classified as one language, because, in spite of far-
reaching differences, their speakers all consider that they speak Chinese. A speech community
can be either monolingual or multilingual, i.e., it can share one or more than one language or
dialect. Latest definitions emphasize shared attitudes to language and group identity as
characteristics of a speech community.
Within a speech community, there is considerable language variation. The speech of its
members varies according to many factors. The most obvious type of variety in a speech
community is the use of different dialects. Another example is the several different language
styles every native speaker normally has at his command, called ‘registers’, which are varied
according to the topic under discussion, the formality of the occasion and the medium used
(speech, writing or sign). The same person may utter any of the following three sentences,
depending on the circumstances: 1. I should be grateful if you would make less noise. 2.
Please be quite. 3. Shut up. Here the utterances range from a high or formal style, down
to a low or informal one. Knowing ‘what’ to say ‘when’ is known as communicative
competence. The appropriate level of formality in the use of language is a matter of great
importance in many societies. An extreme example is found in java where the society is divided
into three distinct social groups. Each of these groups has a distinct style of speech associated
with it. The formality also depends on the medium used. For instance speech
and writing differ in a number of ways as shown here:
SPEECH WRITING
Speech normally contains more informal features while
> 1 participant Single
writing contains more formal features. Written language
Inexplicit Explicit
is sometimes wrongly thought of as an ideal model for Repetitive Non-repetitive
speech. In practice, those who reproduce written Fragments Full Sentences
language, when they speak, sound quite odd. Simple structure Elaborate Structure
Sociolinguists use the term speech/verbal Concrete, Common Abstract, less common
repertoire to refer to the range of language varieties of vocabulary vocabulary
a language available for use for a speaker, each of which enables him to perform a particular
social role. “It is … a set of varieties each with its own internal structure.” The verbal
repertoire of the monolingual communities comprises varieties, dialects, registers and styles.
The verbal repertoire of bi/multilingual communities comprises two or more languages and their
varieties, dialects, registers and styles. So the term encompasses all the languages, varieties,
dialects, styles etc. that individuals and groups have in their repertoire to communicate in
social situations. So there is individual as well as social repertoire. Varieties of language will be
selected from this verbal repertoire depending on features of the social context, such as the
formality of the situation and the topic of conversation. For example, one might say somewhat
foolish or rather silly or a bit daft depending on who one is talking to, what one is talking
about, the situation one is in and the impression one wants to create.
Sociolinguists analyse language with reference to the socio-cultural context in which it is
used. A format for such an analysis has been created by Hymes. Within a community Hymes
detects many situations associated with speech which are speech situations. Such speech
situations can naturally be described as ceremonies, fights, hunts, meals, lovemaking and the
like. Speech situations may enter as contexts into the statements of ‘rules of speaking’ as
aspects of setting. A speech event is a smaller unit of description than the speech situation.
The term speech event will be restricted to activities or aspects of activities that are directly
governed by rules or norms for the use of speech. A conversation, a lecture, a formal
introduction etc. are examples of speech events. The speech act is a smaller unit of description
than both the speech situation and event. It represents a level distinct from the sentence, and
not identifiable with any other portion of other levels of grammar. A speech act is a functional
unit while a sentence is a formal unit. The function of an utterance can be signalled by a
conventional formula (for example: I hereby order you to leave this building = command,
intonation (for example: Go : Go = command : polite request) and social relationship between
the speaker and the hearer (for example, Would you mind typing this letter? = command
when uttered by a superior, = request when uttered by an equal). These concepts can be
illustrated by the following example. Suppose a party is being thrown, it is a speech situation. A
conversation during this party between two or more guests is a speech event. And a joke within
this conversation is a speech act.
Language and gender
Possible sex differences in language usage have been receiving a lot of attention by
sociolinguists these days. Popular impressions about sex differences in language may not be
always correct. For instance, the popular belief that women talk more than men is wrong; in
fact men talk more than women do.
In the western world, research has shown that women speak ‘better’ than men, that is,
there speech is closer to the prestige standard. Several factors like the social pressure put on
them by the society to behave in a lady like manner or the subconscious desire to speak in a way
which will enable their children to progress socially, might be behind this.
Women have been found to use more hedges, tentative phrases such as kind of, sort of
etc. in place of straight statements:
e.g., Bill is kind of short instead of Bill is short.
Women have been accused of using question intonation in response to queries:
e.g., Query: What time’s dinner? Response: About Eight o’ clock?
But such speech may be supportive. A question intonation promotes the flow of
conversation by encouraging an easy to make response. Supportive speech is more often
associated with women than with men. Friendly females are likely to help the conversation
along using ‘minimal responses’ like mmm, aha, yes etc., which encourage the speaker by
showing that he/she is being listened to. Such supportive speech contrasts with its opposite,
power talking, a typically male feature. ‘Powerful’ speakers typically control the topic,
interrupt others and demand explicit explanations. Occasionally this must be justified as when
chairing a meeting or some teaching situations etc. yet, quite often people try to dominate and
flatten the confidence of other participants through the powerful use of language. Power talking
may be used by either sex, though it is more typically male. Male speakers not only speak more,
they also interrupt more. Men also issue more direct orders.

LANGUAGE VARIATION
Recent work in sociolinguistics points to a shift in interest from language as a uniform and
invariant structure to language in all its variety, from the form of language to its function in social
situation. Catford observes, “the concept of a ‘whole language’ is so vast and heterogeneous that it is
not operationally useful for many linguistic purposes … It is, therefore, desirable to have a framework of
categories for the classification of sub-categories or varieties within a total language.” It was for this
purpose that the notion of variety was found to be useful.
Language is described as a product of social conventions and cultural traditions. Changes in
language occur with the changes that appear in these conventions and traditions. Social class, gender,
regional and cultural groups can cause changes in the structure of a language. A particular social group
may speak a particular variety of language and another social group of the community may use a slightly
different variety of the same language. Variety is a thus term in linguistics for a distinct form of a
language. Usually mutual intelligibility is taken as a criterion for determining whether two varieties are
varieties belonging to the same language or constitute separate languages. But this is difficult to
determine. Speakers of genetically related languages like Hindi and Gujarathi, Hindi and Marathi and
Hindi and Punjabi can understand one another if each were to speak their own language. Other factors
like phonological and/or grammatical similarity and genetic relatedness are not helpful in differentiating
languages and varieties. Therefore, the ultimate decision in applying the label ‘language’ or ‘variety’
rests with the members of the speech community. And is generally determined by socio-political
factors.
Variation in language may also occur if the speakers live in different geographical regions.
Changes begin to appear slowly and such changes finally lead to the evolution of a linguistic variety.
There are numerous varieties of the English language. Quirk and Greenbaum distinguish six varieties of
English. Accordingly we have regional dialects, social dialects and non-native varieties. The same
language is spoken differently in different regions, in diverse cultural contexts and in different social
situations at different times. Linguists study this phenomenon both descriptively and historically.
Varieties fall into three types: (1) User related varieties, associated with particular peoples and
often places, such as Black English (English as used by blacks, especially African-Americans in the US and
Canadian English (English as used in Canada). In this sense, the term variety is similar to but less likely
to carry emotive or judgemental implications than dialect, patois etc. (2) Use related varieties
associated with function such as legal English and literary English. In this sense the term variety is
conceptually close to register and in practice is a synonym of usage, as in legal usage. (3) Varieties
defining social relations between speaker and hearer. For example, formal, informal, and intimate
styles.
DIALECT
A dialect may be viewed as the variety of a language used by a particular group of people. The
term dialect is a general and technical term for a form or a variety of a language. A dialect is usually
associated with a particular geographical area. Examples are the Geordie and Cockney dialects of
English, which are spoken in Tyneside and London respectively. The term dialect refers to far greater
difference than mere pronunciation. The Lancashire dialect differs from standard British English in sound
system, syntax and vocabulary, with phrases such as I don’t want for to go, summat for something, and
nowt for nothing. American English ranks as a different dialect from British English, with phonological
innovations such as nasal vowels and constructions such as I kinda figured maybe and He said for you not
to worry.
Dialectal differences may be phonological, morphological, syntactic or lexical. Dialectologists
today regard a dialect as a historical subtype of a language and a language as the aggregate of the
features of its dialects. Most languages have dialects, each with a distinctive accent, grammar,
vocabulary and idiom. For example, distinct Northern, Western, Coastal South and Midland dialects can
be identified in American English. Traditionally dialects have been regarded as socially lower than a
‘proper’ form or ‘standard variety’ of the language. A case in point would be the prestige enjoyed by the
Queen’s English in Britain. Such ‘standard’ varieties too are regional in origin but they have come to be
accepted as the standard form of the language because of several factors like the development of a
literary canon, use as the medium of education and literacy and social empowerment through its use by
the governing, cultural and scholarly elite.
Although the term dialect usually refers to regional speech, it can be extended to cover
differences according to class and occupation too. The variety of a language (dialect) used in a particular
region is known as regional dialect. In England each county is said to have its own regional dialect.
Yorkshire and Derby are examples of regional dialects of English. Kunnamkulam dialect of Malayalam is
an example of a regional dialect. Within a dialect there may be other variations. These variations are
often due to the educational, occupational and social status of the speakers. Dialects based on social
differences are known as social dialects or sociolects. They are spoken by the members of a particular
group or stratum of a speech community. Social dialect (sociolect) can be either class dialect,
depending on the social class to which the speakers belong, or caste dialect, depending on the caste to
which the speakers belong. The dialects of the working class and aristocracy in London are examples of
class dialects. The Cockney dialect of the lower classes in London is different from the dialect used by
the aristocracy in London. The Nampoothiri dialect in Kerala is an example of a caste dialect.
The study of dialects is called dialectology. One dialect may be demarcated from another by
listening to the linguistic features that occur in a particular region. The lines on the map dividing
geographical areas on the basis of distinct linguistic features are called isoglosses. The point, at which a
certain linguistic feature (pronunciation, usage or vocabulary) ceases to be prevalent and gives way to
another feature, is called dialect boundary. A dialect is a user-based variety of the language. Dialects
may acquire some importance and prestige and evolve into distinct languages.
Today the extracted element -lect has become a term for any kind of distinct language variety
spoken by an individual or group, with such derivatives as acrolect (a high or prestigious variety),
basilect (a low or socially stigmatised variety) and a mesolect (a lect in a socially intermediate position
between the above two).
Dialect And Accent The term dialect is often confused with the word accent. An accent refers only to a
difference in pronunciation. A Scotsman and a Londoner are likely to speak English with different
accents. But if the underlying system and the vocabulary are the same they will be speaking the same
dialect. In fact, although a considerable number of local accents re fond in Britain, dialects are dying out
due to the influence of education, radio and television.
Idiolect An individual speaker of a given dialect is said to have his own speech habits. These speech
habits distinguish him from fellow members of the group to which he belongs. The totality of the speech
habits of an individual at a given time is called an idiolect or a personal dialect. A dialect may be
regarded as a collection of similar idiolects. A language then can be viewed as a collection of dialects.
In the final analysis, it can be seen that, a language is a collection of more or less similar idiolects.
REGISTER
Discourse (subject matter), occupation and the field of activity demand the use of special
vocabulary. A professor of medicine uses a technical vocabulary when he addresses his students and he
uses a non-technical vocabulary when he talks to his patients. For example, he might tell his students
“The patient died of a myocardial infarction.”, but, he would convey the same idea to a common man
with “The patient died of a heart attack.”. The special varieties of a language used in different
circumstances or different contexts by the same person are called registers. So a register is a topic-
oriented variety of a language.
Register as used in sociolinguistics and stylistics is a variety of language defined according to
social use, such as scientific, formal, religious and journalistic. The term has however been used
variously in different theoretical approaches, some giving it a broad definition (moving in the direction
of variety in its most general sense) others narrowing it to certain aspects of language in social use (such
as occupational varieties only). The term was first given wide currency by British linguist Michael
Halliday, who drew a contrast between varieties of language defined according to the characteristics of
the user (dialects) and those defined according to the characteristics of the situation (register). Registers
were then sub-classified into three domains: ‘field of discourse’, referring to the subject matter of the
variety, such as science or advertising; ‘mode of discourse’, referring to the choice between speech and
writing; and ‘manner of discourse’, referring to the social relations between the participants, as shown
by variations in formality.
As J. C. Catford points out, by register we mean a variety of language correlated with a person’s
social role on a given occasion. Each profession (law, science, medicine etc.) develops its own special
form of language. Thus we have legal language, scientific language, medical language etc. This special
form of language according to its use is known as register. Thus we have the legal register, scientific
register, medical register etc. Registral varieties are generally characterised by variations in the lexicon
and less frequently by variations in grammar.
A study of this type will help us to understand how language is related to a social context. The
concept of register is important in showing that language-use in communication is to a certain extent,
governed by context and situation and registral switching is an important aspect of the language user’s
communicative competence. It is also to be noted that while dialects are user-oriented, registers are
use-oriented.
PIDGIN
The term pidgin is widely considered to have come from the Chinese pronunciation of the word
business. It is a marginal language, which arises to fulfil certain restricted communicative function
among groups with no common language. So it is a hybrid, makeshift language. Such a system typically
develops on trade routes and in coastal areas. Most of the present day pidgins grew up along the trade
routes of the world – especially in those parts where the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese and the
Dutch built up their empires. In other words a pidgin is a system of communication, which has grown up
among people who do not share a common language, but who to talk to each other, usually for reasons
of trade.
Pidgin is thus a term used in a general and a technical sense for a contact language, which draws
on elements from two or more languages. A pidgin is no one’s first language, and is used at first in a
limited set of circumstances. It is used where communication would not be otherwise possible. It has a
limited vocabulary and a reduced, simplified grammar compared to the languages from which it derives.
The language from which the pidgin draws most of its vocabulary is known as the principal lexifier or
base language. The names given to pidgin languages usually refer to their location and the principal
lexifier. Papuan Pidgin English therefore refers to the pidgin that is spoken in Papua and whose base
language is English from which it draws most of its vocabulary.
A pidgin, by definition is nobody’s native language. Chinese Pidgin English is an instance in point.
Its vocabulary is largely English. Some Chinese words and a few words from other languages like Spanish,
Portuguese, and Malay are also heard. Its grammar is mainly Chinese. Butler English is an Indian variety
of Pidgin English, which arose in the Madras Presidency of British India as a means of communication
between the English, and their Indian bearers. A pidgin is usually based on one language, as well as on
independent constructions of its own. For example, Tok Pisin (also known as Melanesian Pidgin English
and Neo-melanesian), which is spoken in Papua New Guinea, is based on English, and many of the words
sound somewhat like English ones:
E.g., Mi go long taun. (I go/went to town)
Yu wokabaut long rot. (You walk/walked along the road)
But there are plenty of others, which cannot be predicted from English, such as, lotu (church),
diwai (tree) etc. In addition it has acquired syntactic constructions, which do not figure in English. For
example, there is consistent distinction between transitive verbs, which take the ending –im, and
intransitive verbs.
E.g. 1. Mi bagarapim ka bilong yu. (Icrashed your car)
2. Ka bilong mi i bagarap. (My car broke down)
Another innovation is the particle i which sometimes has to be placed before the verb as in (E.g., 2)
above.
The phonology, syntax and lexicon are simpler in pidgin than in an ordinary language. There are
fewer phonemes. In Tok Pisin, for example / p / and / f / are often merged, so are / s / and / S /, and
there are only five vowels. English fish was borrowed as pis and ship as sip. In order to avoid confusion,
piss became pispis and sheep became sipsip. There are very few word endings, the sentences have a
simple structure, and there is only a restricted (a few hundred or thousand) vocabulary drawn largely
from the language of the socially dominant group (superstrate language). Pidgins may compensate for
lack of vocabulary by circumlocution: to hum in English is expressed in Tok Pisin as singsing taim maus i
pas (to sing with the mouth closed). Sometimes one or two items stretch over a wide area as with the
following uses of the word pikinini (Tok Pisin meaning child):
Pikinini man - son (literally – child man)
Pikinini meri - daughter (literally – child woman)
Pikinini hos - foal (literally – child horse)
Pikinini pis - minnow (literally – child fish)
Pikinini bilong diwai - fruit of tree (literally – child of tree)
A notable feature of pidgins is lack of grammatical complexity. The grammar of a pidgin language
follows the principle that there should be close relation between form and meaning. There is a tendency
for each morpheme to occur only once in an utterance and for it to have only one form. Non-pidgin
languages generally have built-in redundancy and require the expression of the same meaning in several
places in an utterance. For instance, in English, singular and plural is marked in both noun and modifier
and concord in both noun and verb. However, the equivalents in Tok Pisin show no variation in the verb
form or the noun.
E.g., English Tok Pisin
One man comes. Wanpela man i come.
Six men come. Sikspela man i come.
There is a reduction of many grammatical features, such as inflectional morphology, as in Tok Pisin mi
kam, which can mean I come, I am coming, and I came. Where English marks possession by adding ‘s
(John’s house), Tok Pisin has haus bilong John. Here, bilong has been taken from English but has shifted
its function from verb to preposition and can mean belonging to. Pidgins tend to have only a small
number of prepositions.
Pidgins often have a short life span and it is very rare to find one in existence for more than a
century. Many pidgins today have ceased to exist when contact stopped between the two communities.
Sometimes a pidgin becomes the lingua franca, a common language. This has happened in Papua New
Guinea, where Tok Pisin is known or used by over a million people – more than any other language in the
country. When a pidgin becomes widely used, its form changes dramatically. Though pidgins are very
limited forms of communication with few words and a few simple constructions helped along by gesture
and miming, when a pidgin expands, its vocabulary increases greatly, it develops its own rules of
grammatical construction, and it becomes used for all the functions of everyday life.
Pidgin Englishes are mainly to be found in two big families – one in the Atlantic and the other in
the Pacific. The Atlantic varieties developed in West Africa, and were transported to the West Indies and
America during the years of the slave trade. In Africa, they are still widely used in Gambia, Sierra Leone,
Liberia, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria and Cameroon. The Pacific varieties are found in wide sweep across the
South-Western part of the ocean, from the coast of China to the northern part of Australia, in such
places as Hawaii, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea. In the Americas they are found, in a developed form,
in most of the islands and on the mainland, spoken largely by the black population.
CREOLE
Sometimes pidgins increase in importance and come to be used at home and in more and more
areas of life. Thus, it happens in some communities that people of diverse first languages use a pidgin as
their common medium of communication. The children of these people come to hear it more regularly
and in due course for some of them it becomes their first language. The pidgin thus becomes the mother
tongue of the children born to the parents who are using it in their homes. Thus a pidgin and gets
nativised and becomes the common language of the community when it is called a creole. In other
words, when a pidgin develops beyond its role as a trade language and becomes the first language of a
social community it is called a Creole. Unlike pidgin, a Creole has a large number of native speakers. Its
use is not restricted to a field of activity like trade and it serves as a full-fledged language. Once a
pidgin becomes a creole the system tends to develop rapidly. The status of the language fundamentally
alters, and it comes to be used in a more flexible and creative way. Speech is speeded up, the syntax
becomes more complex, and even extra vocabulary items are created. Instead of being seen as
subordinate to other languages in the area, it starts to compete with them. Fairly soon, if it continues
to develop, a creole is likely to be indistinguishable from a ‘full’ language. Creolised varieties of English
are very important throughout the Caribbean, and in the countries to which Caribbean people have
emigrated – notably Britain. A French-based Creole is spoken by a majority of the population in Haiti and
an English-based Creole is used in Jamaica. Black English in the United States is also creole in its origin.
In some circumstances, however, a creole can be devoured by its parent. If a creole is spoken in
area where the base language is used, then there may be social pressure on the creole speakers to speak
the base, which often ahs more prestige. Therefore, slowly, the creole becomes decreolised as words
and constructions from the base language replace the creole ones. Decreolisation is a development in
which a creole gradually converges with its superstrate or lexifier language. For example, in Hawaii and
Jamaica the creoles are moving towards Standard English. Decreolisation may obscure the origins of a
variety, as in the case of American Black English.
The implications and interest behind the study of pidgins and creoles spread far behind
sociolinguistics. They are valuable for the insights they provide into language change, and they might
shed light on language universals as they present language in a stripped down and basic state.
STYLE
In addition to regional, social and registral varieties there is another kind of variation, which can
be termed stylistic variation. An individual commands various styles in his/her repertoire and is able to
switch from one style to another depending on situations and role relations. Martin Joos identified five
styles for English: frozen, formal, consultative, casual and intimate. The following illustrate these styles:
1. Visitors should make their way at once to the upper floor by way of the staircase. (Frozen)

2. Visitors should go up the stairs at once. (Formal)

3. Would you mind going upstairs right away please? (Consultative)

4. Time you all went upstairs now. (Casual)

5. Up you go chaps! (Intimate)

The markers of each style may be lexical, grammatical or phonological. In practice it is rather
difficult to mark these five styles off: however, stylistic variation can be thought of as a continuum with
different degrees of formality and informality.
NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE VARIETIES
 When a second language is widely used in a community and therefore develops over time, certain
characteristic features, which distinguish it from native varieties of the language, are formed. Such
varieties are termed non-native. Examples are West African English or South Asian English, which
comprises the English of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. There are important differences
between Native and Non-native varieties.
1. A Native Variety is acquired from childhood in natural settings while a Non-Native variety
is learned in formal settings as in schools.

2. A Native variety is the language in which a child’s first socialisation takes place while a
Non-Native variety is learnt after the child has acquired its first language.

3. A Native variety has a wide range of use, i.e. a Native speaker controls a wide range of
registral and stylistic variation. A Non-Native variety on the other hand has a limited range
of use.

4. A Native variety shows minor yet well-recognised phonetic variations. All other components of
the language system are almost the same. A Non-Native variety shows significant phonetic
variation. It also shows marked lexical and minor syntactic differences.

STANDARD AND NON-STANDARD VARIETIES

A standard variety of a language is that which is generally used by educated speakers and for
which reference works like dictionaries and grammars are available. The term standard’ refers to social
acceptability and to the prestige accorded to the variety. So the term ‘standard language’ stands for a
language that is used for example, in general publishing, the news media, education, government, and
such professions as law and medicine and by especially the middle classes. A standard language is part of
a language, which is traditionally equated with the language itself. It is seen as a product of such
refining influences as use in the royal court, by the middle classes, and in literature, printing, publishing
and education. Because the standard has been generally set apart from and above the dialect, the
phrase standard dialect is used to indicate that in linguistics terms it too can be regarded as a dialect,
despite its special status.
A Non-Standard variety of a language is that which is generally used by uneducated speakers and
for which reference works are generally not available. It has low social acceptability and is rated low on
the prestige scale. Non-standard is a term for usages and varieties that are not part of a standard
language. Such socially marked usages as He ain’t comin’, I seen him; such regionally marked usages as
Ah dinnae ken (Scots: I don’t know); such regional varieties of English as Geordie in England and
Brookylenese in the US are examples. The term has in fact three uses: 1. as a neutral alternative to sub-
standard, 2. as one in a set of three (standard, non-standard & sub-standard), 3. as a euphemism for
sub-standard.
BILINGUALISM & MULTILINGUALISM
Languages in contact give rise to socio-linguistic phenomenon such as
bilingualism/multilingualism, diglossia, code-switching/code mixing pidgins and creoles. When people of
widely different cultural and linguistic backgrounds live together in a geographical region sharing
common socio-economic and political activities of the community, stable bi/multilingual societies are
created. For example, a country like Canada can be called bilingual while a country like India is
multilingual. Sociolinguists are interested in studying bi/multilingualism by using a descriptive framework
which may contribute to an understanding of ‘who speaks what language to whom and when’. Fishman
suggests that the concept of domains is useful for such studies. Examples of domains are family, religion,
education, employment and government (among others): these are abstracted from situations, locales,
topics and role-relationships in a society. Generally in a bi/multilingual situation one language is
associated with one domain. For example, in the family domain the interaction between parent and child
would be in the mother tongue. Here the domain is family; the Role-relation is parent-child and the
locale home.

DIGLOSSIA
Diglossia is a term, which denotes the use of two or more varieties of language for different
purposes in the same community. The varieties are called H and L the first being generally a standard
variety used for ‘high’ purposes and second often a ‘low’ spoken vernacular. In Egypt, for example,
Classical Arabic is H and local colloquial Arabic id L.
 Language and Politics

Language and politics problematizes the roles played by speech and writing in human
interaction. It is concerned with how we use language to organise our social existence, at any
level from the family up to that of the state, and also with how this activity shapes the way we
conceive of the language itself. This study does not take language to be something given in
advance, existing independently of the uses to which it is put. Rather, it takes seriously the
massive body of evidence that – languages themselves are constructed out of the practices of
speech and writing, and the beliefs (or ‘ideologies’) of those doing the speaking and writing; –
my language is shaped by who it is that I am speaking to, and by how my relationship with them
will be affected by what I say; – the politics of identity shapes how we interpret what people
say to us, so much so as to be a prime factor in our deciding on the truth value of their
utterances.
THE POLITICS OF WHICH LANGUAGE TO SPEAK In most of the world, the linguistic
condition is one of stable bilingualism or multilingualism, or the not-quite-bilingualism known as
diglossia, in which two quite divergent linguistic systems co-exist in a community that
recognises them as forms of ‘the same language’, but with one of them reserved for use in
especially prestigious functions. In all these types of non-monolingualism, the choice of which
language to use in a particular circumstance is a political matter, in two senses. First, because
it simultaneously depends upon and determines the relationships among the speakers, and
secondly, because sanctions of some sort are likely to follow from a wrong choice.
In a diglossic situation like that of the Tamil Nadu in southeast India, the use of ‘low’
Tamil in a ‘high’ prestige context – an official ceremony, for example – would be received as
wholly inappropriate, and whoever committed the offence would find himself or herself
suspected of subversive motives. In post-colonial contexts, the choice between the former
colonial or imperial language and an ‘indigenous’ language is almost always politically charged,
though in different ways in different places.
Resistance to larger languages is now what is politically ‘marked’ among the younger
generation. The politically neutral choice is to go with the larger language on account of the
educational and economic opportunities it offers; but this is not to deny that significant
numbers of younger people will still resist such a choice, and will interpret those who opt for it
as cultural traitors. The politics of language choice become particularly difficult when
institutional choices have to be made – in what language or languages the government will
conduct its business and communicate with its citizens, and, above all, what the language or
languages of education will be. The institutional issues are all the more sensitive when – as is
the case in most of the world – the institutions were set up by a colonial power, and the ex-
colonial language continues to be used in some institutional functions.
Power and politics are fundamentally about whose will, whose choices, will prevail. Who
has the power to determine what is good and bad English, or what is grammatically right or
wrong in any language? Who should decide on the language or languages of education in a
multilingual setting? Who determines what is acceptable or offensive in a given language at a
given time, and how? When I believe I am making choices in language, are they actually being
forced upon me by some kind of hegemonic social structure? Or by the language itself? Are my
interpretations of what I read and hear really mine, or are they too forced upon me by
corporate and governmental interests seeking to control the way I perceive and think?
Pragmatics
Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics concerned with the use of language in social contexts and
the ways people produce and comprehend meanings through language. A term traditionally used to
label one of the three major divisions of semiotics (along with semantics and syntactics) it was coined in
the 1930s by psychologist and philosopher Charles Morris. Pragmatics was developed as a subfield of
linguistics in the 1970s. In modern linguistics, it has come to be applied to the study of language from
the point of view of the users, especially of the choices they make, the constraints they encounter in
using language in social interaction, and the effects their use of language has on the other participants
in an act of communication. At present, no coherent pragmatic theory has been achieved, mainly
because of the variety of topics it has to account for – including aspects of deixis, conversational
implicatures, presuppositions, speech acts and discourse structure. It has been characterized as the
study of the principles and practice of conversational performance – this including all aspects of
language usage, understanding and appropriateness. Especial attention has been paid to the range of
pragmatic particles which are found in speech (e.g. you know, I mean, sort of, tag questions) which play
an important role in controlling the pragmatic nature of an interaction. Several derivative terms have
been proposed in order to classify the wide range of subject-matter involved. Unlike semantics, which
examines meaning that is conventional or "coded" in a given language, pragmatics studies how the
transmission of meaning depends not only on structural and linguistic knowledge (grammar, lexicon,
etc.) of the speaker and listener but also on the context of the utterance. The ability to understand
another speaker's intended meaning is called pragmatic competence. Pragmalinguistics has been used
by some to refer to the more linguistic ‘end’ of pragmatics, wherein one studies these matters from the
viewpoint of the structural resources available in a language. Sociopragmatics, by contrast, studies the
way conditions on language use derive from the social situation. General pragmatics is the study of the
principles governing the communicative use of language, especially as encountered in conversations –
principles which may be studied as putative universals, or restricted to the study of specific languages.
Literary pragmatics applies pragmatic notions (especially to do with narrative) to the production and
reception of literary texts. Applied pragmatics focuses on problems of interaction that arise in contexts
where successful communication is critical, such as medical interviews, judicial settings, counselling and
foreign-language teaching.