Language of Social Variation

 Introduction: When we study language and regional variation, we focused on variation in language use found in different geographical areas. However, not everyone in a single geographical area speaks in the same way in every situation. We recognize that certain uses of language are more likely to be used by some individuals in society and not by others. We are also aware of the fact that people who live in the same region, but who differ in terms of education and economic status, often speak in quite different ways. Indeed, these differences may be used, implicitly or explicitly, as indications of membership in different social groups or speech communities.

Speech Community: It is a group of people who share a set of norms and expectations regarding the use of language. The study of the linguistic features that have social relevance for participants in those speech communities is called ‘sociolinguistics.

Sociolinguistics: The term sociolinguistics is used generally for the study of the relationship between language and society. This is a broad area of investigation that developed through the interaction of linguistics with a number of other academic disciplines.  It has strong connections with anthropology through the study of language and culture. With sociology the investigation of the role of language plays in the organization of social groups and institutions is carried out. With social psychology, particularly with regard to how attitudes and perceptions are expressed and how in-group and out-group behaviors are identified. We use all these connections when we try to analyze language from a social perspective.

Social Dialects: Whereas the traditional study of regional dialects tended to concentrate on the speech of people in rural areas, the study of social dialects has been mainly concerned with speakers in towns and cities. In the social study of dialect, it is social class that is mainly used to define groups of speakers as having something in common.  For Example: ‘Working-class speech’ The terms ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ are used to further subdivide the groups.

Education and Occupation:  A personal dialect is idiolect: an individual way of speaking. However, we generally tend to sound like others with whom we share similar educational backgrounds and/or occupations. Among those who leave the educational system at an early age, there is a general pattern of using certain forms that are relatively infrequent in the speech of those who go on to complete college. Those who spend more time in the educational system tend to have more features in their spoken language that derive from a lot of time spent with the written language. The observation that some teacher “talk like a book” is possibly a reflection of an extreme form of this influence from the written language after years in the educational system. As adults, the outcome of our time in the educational system is usually reflected in our occupation and socio-economic status. The way bank executives, as opposed to window cleaners, talk to each other usually provides linguistic evidence for the significance of these social variables.

In one of the earliest studies in sociolinguistics, Labov (1966) combined elements from place of occupation and socio-economic status by looking at pronunciation differences among salespeople in three New York City department stores. Labov went into each of these stores and asked salespeople specific questions, such as where are the women’s shoes, in order to elicit answers with the expression fourth floor.  The higher the socio-economic status of the store, the more /r/ sounds in “fourth” were produced, and the lower the status, the fewer /r/ sounds were produced by those who worked there. So, the frequency of occurrence of this linguistic variable (r) could mark the speech samples as upper middle class versus middle class versus working class.

Social Markers:  The use of this particular speech sound functions as a social marker. For Example: The significance of the linguistic variable (r) in Labov’s study

 Speech Style and Style-shifting: In his department store study, Labov included another subtle element that allowed him to investigate not only the type of social stratification, but also speech style as a social feature of language use. The most basic distinction in speech style is between formal uses and informal uses. Formal style is when we pay more careful attention to how we’re speaking and informal style is when we pay less attention. They are sometimes described as ‘careful style’ and ‘casual style’. Change from one to the other by an individual is called style-shifting. When Labov initially asked the salespeople where certain items were, he assumed they were answering in an informal manner. After they answered his question, Labov then pretended not to have heard and said, “Excuse me?” in order to elicit a repetition of the same expression, which was pronounced with more attention to being clear. This was taken as a representative sample of the speaker’s more careful style. In a finding, that has been confirmed in other studies, middle-class speakers are much more likely to shift their style of speaking significantly in the direction of the upper middle class when they are using a careful style.

Prestige: In discussing style-shifting, we introduced the idea of a ‘prestige’ form as a way of explaining the direction in which certain individuals change their speech.

1.     Overt prestige: It is when the change is in the direction of a form that is more frequent in the speech of those perceived to have higher social status, or status that is generally recognized as ‘better’ or more positively valued in the larger community.

2.     Covert prestige: Not changing the speech style from casual to careful as radically as lower-middle-class speakers. It is may be that because they value the features that mark them as members of their social group and consequently avoid changing them in the direction of features associated with another social group. They may value group solidarity more than upward mobility. For Example: Among younger speakers in the middle class, there is often covert prestige attached to many features of pronunciation and grammar (I ain’t doin’ nuttin’ rather than I’m not doing anything) that are more often associated with the speech of lower-status groups.

Speech Accommodation: Our speech style is not only a function of speakers’ social class and attention to speech, but it is also influenced by their perception of their listeners. Hence, speech accommodation is defined as our ability to modify our speech style toward or away from the perceived style of the person(s) we’re talking to. We can adopt a speech style that attempts to reduce social distance, described as convergence, and use forms that are similar to those used by the person we’re talking to.  In contrast, when a speech style is used to emphasize social distance between speakers, the process is called divergence. We can make our speech style diverge from another’s by using forms that are distinctly different.

Register: It is a conventional way of using language that is appropriate in a specific context, which may be identified as:  Situational (e.g. in church), Occupational (e.g. among lawyers), Topical (e.g. talking about language).

Jargon: One of the defining features of a register is the use of jargon, which is special technical vocabulary (e.g. suffix) associated with a specific area of work or interest.  In social terms, jargon helps to create and maintain connections among those who see themselves as ‘insiders’ in some way and to exclude ‘outsiders’.  Whereas jargon is specialized vocabulary used by those inside established social groups, often defined by professional status (e.g. legal jargon).

Slang: It is more typically used among those who are outside established higher-status groups. Slang, or ‘colloquial speech’, describes words or phrases that are used instead of more everyday terms among younger speakers and other groups with special interests. For Example: The word bucks (for dollars or money) has been a slang expression for more than a hundred years, but the addition of mega- (‘a lot of’) in megabucks is a more recent innovation. Like clothing and music, slang is an aspect of social life that is subject to fashion, especially among adolescents.  It can be used by those inside a group who share ideas and attitudes as a way of distinguishing themselves from others.  As a marker of group identity during a limited stage of life such as early adolescence, slang expressions can ‘grow old’ rather quickly.  For Example:  Older forms for ‘really good’ such as groovy, hip and super were replaced by awesome. Age: The difference in slang use between groups divided into older and younger speakers shows that age is another important factor involved in social variation.

Vernacular Language: It is a general expression for a kind of social dialect, typically spoken by a lower status group, which is treated as ‘nonstandard’ because of marked differences from a socially prestigious variety treated as the standard language. For Example: African American Vernacular English (AAVE).  For Example: The double negative construction, as in He don’t know nothin or I ain’t afraid of no ghosts. 

Language of Regional Variation

 Introduction: Every language has a lot of variation, especially in the way it is spoken.  If we just look at English, we find widespread variation in the way it is spoken in different countries such as Australia, Britain and the USA. We can also find a range of varieties in different parts of those countries.

Standard Language: It is the variety associated with administrative, commercial and educational centres, regardless of region. If we think of Standard English, it is the version we believe is found in printed English in newspapers and books, is widely used in the mass media and is taught in most schools. It is the variety we normally try to teach to those who want to learn English as a second or foreign language. It is clearly associated with education and broadcasting in public contexts and is more easily described in terms of the written language. Even in Standard English, there are American Standard English, British Standard English, Australian Standard English and Canadian Standard English and so on.

Accent and Dialect:  Every language-user speaks with an accent.  The description of aspects of pronunciation that identify where an individual speaker is regionally or socially from. Dialect is used to describe features of grammar and vocabulary as well as aspects of pronunciation.

Dialectology: Dialectology means the study of dialects. Each dialect is simply different and none of them is better than any other.  Some varieties do become more prestigious. The variety that develops as the standard language has usually been one socially prestigious dialect, originally connected with a political or cultural centre (e.g. London for British English and Paris for French). Yet, there always continue to be other varieties of a language spoken in different regions.

Regional Dialects: The existence of different regional dialects is widely recognized. Going beyond stereotypes, those involved in the serious investigation of regional dialects have devoted a lot of survey research to the identification of consistent features of speech found in one geographical area compared to another.

Isoglosses and Dialect Boundaries: Isogloss is a line that represents a boundary between areas with regard to that one particular linguistic item. For example: that the vast majority of informants in one area say they carry things home from the store in a paper bag while the majority in another area say they use a paper sack, then it is usually possible to draw a line across a map separating the two areas, as shown on the accompanying illustration. If a very similar distribution is found for another two items, such as a preference for pail to the north and bucket to the south, then another isogloss, probably overlapping the first, can be drawn on the map. When a number of isoglosses come together in this way, a more solid line, indicating a dialect boundary, can be drawn.

Dialect Continuum: Dialect continuum means one dialect or language variety merges into another.  We can view regional variation as existing along a rather than as having sharp breaks from one region to the next.  For Example: As you travel from Holland into Germany, you will find concentrations of Dutch speakers giving way to areas near the border where ‘Dutch’ may sound more like ‘Deutsch’ because the Dutch dialects and the German dialects are less clearly differentiated. Then, as you travel into Germany, greater concentrations of distinctly German speakers occur.

Bidialectal: It means speaking two dialects. Speakers who move back and forth across this border area, using different varieties with some ease. Most of us grow up with some form of bidialectalism, speaking one dialect ‘in the street’ among family and friends, and having to learn another dialect ‘in school’

Bilingualism: When we talk about people knowing two distinct languages, we describe them as bilingual. In many countries, regional variation can involve two (or more) quite distinct and different languages. For example: Canada is an officially bilingual country, with both French and English as official languages. Individual bilingualism, however,can simply be the result of having two parents who speak different languages. However, even in this type of bilingualism, one language tends eventually to become the dominant one, with the other in a subordinate role.

Diglossia: It means two distinct varieties of a language exists in some countries. In diglossia, there is a ‘low’ variety, acquired locally and used for everyday affairs, and a ‘high’ or special variety, learned in school and used for important matters.  For Example:  A type of diglossia exists in Arabic speaking countries where the high variety (Classical Arabic) is used in formal lectures, serious political events and especially in religious discussions. The low variety is the local version of the language, such as Egyptian Arabic or Lebanese Arabic. The low variety is called ‘vernacular.’

Language Planning:  Government, legal and educational organizations in many countries have to plan which variety or varieties of the languages spoken in the country are to be used for official business. For Example: ! In Israel, despite the fact that it was not the most widely used language among the population, Hebrew was chosen as the official government language.  In India, the choice was Hindi. There were ‘National Language Wars’ in the Philippines before different groups could agree on the name of the national language (Filipino).

The Process of Developing a National Language:

1.     Selection: The process of ‘selection’ (choosing an official language)

2.     Codification: ‘Codification’, in which basic grammars, dictionaries and written models are used to establish the standard variety.

3.     Elaboration: ‘Elaboration’ with the standard variety being developed for use in all aspects of social life, and the appearance of a body of literary work written in the standard form.

4.     Implementation: ‘Implementation’ is largely a matter of government attempts to encourage use of the standard language.

5.     Acceptance: ‘Acceptance’ is the final stage when a substantial majority of the population has come to use the standard one and to think of it as the national language, playing a part in not only social, but also national identity.

Pidgin:  A pidgin is a variety of a language (e.g. English) that developed for some practical purpose, such as trading, among groups of people who had a lot of contact, but who did not know each other’s languages. The origin of the term ‘pidgin’ is thought to be from a Chinese version of the English word ‘business.’ For example, in Papua New Guinea, a lot of official business is conducted in Tok Pisin. There are believed to be between six and twelve million people still using pidgin languages and between ten and seventeen million using descendants from pidgins called ‘creoles’.

Creole: When a pidgin develops beyond its role as a trade or contact language and becomes the first language of a social community, it is described as a creole. A creole develops as the first language of the children of pidgin speakers. Thus, unlike pidgins, creoles have large numbers of native speakers and are not restricted at all in their uses. Tok Pisin is now a creole.  For Example Hawai’i Creole English. A French creole is spoken by the majority of the population in Haiti. English creoles are used in Jamaica and Sierra Leone.

Life in South Africa (Gandhi) Simple Essay

 Introduction; 

Before leading the Indian freedom movement, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi used to live in South Africa to fight against injustice and class division. Within 10 years, Gandhi propagated the philosophy of Satyagraha there and propelled the country towards a no class or ethnic discrimination society. Gandhi arrived in Durban aboard SS Safari in 1893. In no time, Gandhi became the leader of the South African Indian community. His involvement in the non-violent movement in South Africa had made such an impact that even now, he is looked up to as a leader there. From 1893 to 1914, Gandhi worked as an attorney and a public worker. In a meeting in New Delhi, Gandhi said he was born in India but was made in South Africa. So, what are all the things he did there that created such huge impact?

Here is a list of 10 things what Gandhi did in South Africa:

1. While he was travelling by train to Pretoria, Gandhi, despite carrying first class ticket, was thrown out of the train by the authorities because a white man complained of an Indian sharing the space with him.

2. As a response, Gandhi formed the Natal Indian Congress in 1894. This organisation led non-violent protests against the oppressive treatment of the white people towards the native Africans and Indians.

3. In 1896, he came to India for a short time and gathered 800 Indians to serve along with him in South Africa. They were welcomed by an irate mob and Gandhi was injured in the attack.

4. During the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899, Gandhi gathered around 1,100 Indians and organised the Indian Ambulance Corps for the British but the ethnic discrimination and torture continued on Indians.

5. English artist John Ruskin's book Unto This Last inspired Gandhi and he set up Phoenix Farm near Durban. Here, Gandhi would train his cadres on non-violent Satyagraha or peaceful restraint. Phoenix Farm is considered as the birthplace of Satyagraha. However, it was at the Tolstoy Farm, Gandhi's second camp in South Africa, where Satyagraha was molded into a weapon of protest.

6. In September 1906, Gandhi organised the first Satyagraha campaign to protest against the Transvaal Asiatic ordinance that was constituted against the local Indians. Again in June 1907, he held Satyagraha against the Black Act.

7. In 1908, he was sentenced to jail for organising the non-violent movements. But, after his meeting with General Smuts, a British Commonwealth statesman, he was released. However, he was later attacked for this and was again sentenced to jail against which he organised Satyagraha again.

8. In 1909, he was sentenced to a three-month jail term in Volkshurst and Pretoria. After his release, Gandhi went to England to seek the assistance of the Indian community there.

9. He also fought against the nullification of non-Christian marriages in 1913.

Life in South Africa ( Gandhi)

 Introduction: The best part of my life' is how Gandhi described his days in South Africa twenty-five years after he had left it. It was certainly the most formative period of his career. His personality and politics could have been cast in a unique mould with the trials, challenges and opportunities that he encountered in South Africa. This helped him to become one of the most charismatic and creative leaders of the twentieth century.

Journey to South Africa: Curiously, it was an accident that provided the impulse for Gandhi's visit to South Africa in 1893. After his return from England  qualifed as a barrister, he started his legal career in Bombay. But it was not a successful one and so he decided to settle at Rajkot, Gujarat. It was at this time, that Dada Abdullah, an Indian merchant in Natal, offered to engage him for a civil suit in that country. The contract was for a year; the remuneration was £105, a first class return fare, and actual expenses. So, towards the end of May 1893 he landed at Durban. In a Durban court he was ordered by the European magistrate to take off his turban. He refused and left the courtroom. A week later, when he was on his way to Pretoria, he was unceremoniously thrown out of the first-class carriage at Maritzburg station. In retrospect, this incident seemed to him one of the most creative experiences of his life. He resolved not to accept injustice as part of the natural or unnatural order in South Africa.

Gandhi as a Political Campaigner: While in Pretoria he studied the conditions under which his countrymen lived, and tried to educate them on their rights and duties, but he had no intention of staying on in South Africa. In June 1894, when the year's contract drew to a close, he was back in Durban, ready to sail for India. But he happened to glance through the local newspaper The Natal Mercury and learnt that the Natal Legislative Assembly was considering a bill to deprive Indians of the right to vote. ‘This is the first nail in our coffin’ Gandhi told his hosts. Neither as a student in England nor as a lawyer in India had Gandhi taken much interest in politics. In July 1894, when he was barely twenty-five, he blossomed overnight into a proficient political campaigner.

Gandhi as a Politician: A sound instinct guided young Gandhi in organizing his first political campaign. He drafted petitions to the Natal Legislature and the British government. Though his effort was not a successful one, but he made commotion in Natal, England, and India. So, the Indian community begged him to stay on to continue the fight on their behalf. Gandhi felt that what the Indian urgently needed was a permanent organization to look after their interests. In deference to Dadabhai Naoroji who had presided over the Indian National Congress in 1893, he named the new organization Natal Indian Congress. Without knowing the function of Indian National Congress, Gandhi was able to fashion the Natal Indians with his innovative ideologies. 1. His strategy was twofold. In the first place, a spirit of solidarity had to be infused into the Muslim merchants and their Hindu-Parsi clerks, the semi-slave indentured labourers from Madras and the Natal born Indian Christians. 2. Secondly, the widest publicity was to be given to the Indians' case to quicken the conscience of the peoples and governments of Natal, India and Great Britain.

In these early years of his political apprenticeship, he formulated his own code of conduct for a politician. He did not accept the popular view that in politics one must fight for one's party right or wrong. He avoided exaggeration and discouraged it in his colleagues. He did not spare his own people, he was not only the stoutest champion of Natal Indians, but also their severest critic.

Gandhi’s Political Ideology: In 1896 Gandhi went to India to fetch his wife and children and to canvass support for the cause of Indians overseas. On landing at Durban in January 1897, he was assaulted and nearly lynched by a white mob. Two years later, he raised an Indian ambulance corps during the Boer War.  'What we [Indians] want', Gandhi told the British High Commissioner in South Africa, 'is not political power, but we do wish to live side with other British subjects in peace and amity, and with dignity and self-respect’. This is precisely what the Boers and Britons did not want. Instead of considering the welfare of Africans and Indians, General Smuts later declared that the South African government had made up its mind to make this a white man's country.

Satyagraha: In 1906 the Transvaal government published a particularly humiliating ordinance for the registration of its Indian citizens. The Indians held a mass protest meeting at Johannesburg, and under Gandhi's leadership took a pledge to defy the ordinance. Thus, was born ‘satyagraha’, a new method of redressing wrongs and fighting oppression without hatred and without violence. The principles and the technique of the new movement evolved gradually in the ensuing months and years.

The satyagraha struggle in South Africa lasted eight years. It had its ups and downs, but under Gandhi's leadership the small Indian minority sustained its resistance against heavy odds. Hundreds of Indians chose to sacrifice their livelihood and liberty rather than submit to law. In the last phase of the struggle in 1913, hundreds of Indians including women, went to jail. Many Indians working in mines were shooted. It was a terrible ordeal for the Indians, but it was also a bad advertisement for the rulers of South Africa. Even Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy of India, publicly condemned the measures adopted by the South African government, by calling it uncivilized. Under pressure from world opinion and from the Government of India and the British government, the South African government concluded in 1914 what came to be known as the Gandhi-Smuts agreement. Not all the Indian grievances were redressed, but the first dent had been made in the armour of racial discrimination, and Gandhi was able to return to India. Perhaps he had already sensed that the racial problem in South Africa could not be solved so long as European imperialism-rule over Asian and African peoples by European nations- continued.

Gandhi’s Personality: It was not only Gandhi's politics but his personality that was shaped in South Africa. His interest in moral and religious questions had dated back to his childhood, but it was in South Africa that he had an opportunity of systematically studying them. The study of comparative religion, helped him develop into a man who understands that the real spiritual progress is to translated his beliefs in workday life. The book that became Gandhi's bond with Hinduism was the Bhagavad Gita. It was from it that he imbibed the ideal of aparigraha (non-possession).  

Conclusion: Thus, Gandhiji, an ordinary lawyer, turned into a political leader in South Africa. His ideologies against racial discrimination and injustice put him on the high pedestal of world’s politics. Through his political career, Gandhi had also developed his personality – a simple man with indomitable spirit. The birth of non-cooperation or ‘satyagraha’ is the soul of Gandhi’s political policy which earned equality and freedom not only to the Indians in South Africa but also Indians in India.