Variety (linguistics)

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In sociolinguistics, a variety, also known as a lect or an isolect, [1] is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, registers, styles, or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety. [2] The use of the word variety to refer to the different forms avoids the use of the term language, which many people associate only with the standard language, and the term dialect, which is often associated with non-standard language forms thought of as less prestigious or "proper" than the standard. [3] Linguists speak of both standard and non-standard (vernacular) [4] varieties as equally complex, valid, and full-fledged forms of language. Lect avoids the problem in ambiguous cases of deciding whether two varieties are distinct languages or dialects of a single language.

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Variation at the level of the lexicon, such as slang and argot, is often considered in relation to particular styles or levels of formality (also called registers), but such uses are sometimes discussed as varieties as well. [2]

Dialects

O'Grady et al. define dialect: "A regional or social variety of a language characterized by its own phonological, syntactic, and lexical properties." [5] A variety spoken in a particular region is called a regional dialect (regiolect, geolect [6] ); some regional varieties are called regionalects [7] or topolects, especially to discuss varieties of Chinese. [8] In addition, there are varieties associated with particular ethnic groups (sometimes called ethnolects), socioeconomic classes (sometimes called sociolects), or other social or cultural groups.

Dialectology is the study of dialects and their geographic or social distribution. [5] Traditionally, dialectologists study the variety of language used within a particular speech community, a group of people who share a set of norms or conventions for language use. [2]

In order to sidestep the vexing problem of distinguishing dialect from language, some linguists have been using the term communalect [9] [10] – defined as "a neutral term for any speech tradition tied to a specific community". [11]

More recently, sociolinguists have adopted the concept of the community of practice, a group of people who develop shared knowledge and shared norms of interaction, as the social group within which dialects develop and change. [12] Sociolinguists Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet explain: "Some communities of practice may develop more distinctive ways of speaking than others. Thus, it is within communities of practice that linguistic influence may spread within and among speech communities." [13]

The words dialect and accent are often used synonymously in everyday speech, but linguists define the two terms differently. Accent generally refers to differences in pronunciation, especially those that are associated with geographic or social differences, whereas dialect refers to differences in grammar and vocabulary as well. [14]

Standard varieties

Many languages have a standard variety, some lect that is selected and promoted prescriptively by either quasi-legal authorities or other social institutions, such as schools or media. Standard varieties are accorded more sociolinguistic prestige than other, nonstandard lects and are generally thought of as "correct" by speakers of the language. Since the selection is an arbitrary standard, standard forms are the "correct" varieties only in the sense that they are tacitly valued by higher socio-economic strata and promoted by public influencers on matters of language use, such as writers, publishers, critics, language teachers, and self-appointed language guardians. As Ralph Harold Fasold puts it, "The standard language may not even be the best possible constellation of linguistic features available. It is general social acceptance that gives us a workable arbitrary standard, not any inherent superiority of the characteristics it specifies." [15]

Sociolinguists generally recognize the standard variety of a language as one of the dialects of that language. [16]

In some cases, an authoritative regulatory body, such as the Académie Française , [17] maintains and codifies the usage norms for a standard variety. More often, though, standards are understood in an implicit, practice-based way. Writing about Standard English, John Algeo suggests that the standard variety "is simply what English speakers agree to regard as good". [18]

Registers and styles

A register (sometimes called a style) is a variety of language used in a particular social setting. [19] Settings may be defined in terms of greater or lesser formality, [20] or in terms of socially recognized events, such as baby talk, which is used in many western cultures to talk to small children or as a joking register used in teasing or playing The Dozens. [19] There are also registers associated with particular professions or interest groups; jargon refers specifically to the vocabulary associated with such registers.

Unlike dialects, which are used by particular speech communities and associated with geographical settings or social groupings, registers are associated with particular communicative situations, purposes, or levels of formality, and can constitute divisions within a single regional lect or standardized variety. Dialect and register may thus be thought of as different dimensions of linguistic variation. For example, Trudgill suggests the following sentence as an example of a nonstandard dialect that is used with the technical register of physical geography:

There was two eskers what we saw in them U-shaped valleys. [16]

Most speakers command a range of registers, which they use in different situations. The choice of register is affected by the setting and topic of speech, as well as the relationship that exists between the speakers. [21]

The appropriate form of language may also change during the course of a communicative event as the relationship between speakers changes, or different social facts become relevant. Speakers may shift styles, as their perception of an event in progress changes. Consider the following telephone call to the Embassy of Cuba in Washington, DC.

Caller: ¿Es la embajada de Cuba? (Is this the Cuban embassy?)
Receptionist: Sí. Dígame. (Yes, may I help you?)
Caller: Es Rosa. (It's Rosa.)
Receptionist: ¡Ah Rosa! ¿Cóma anda eso? (Oh, Rosa! How's it going?)

At first, the receptionist uses a relatively formal register, as befits her professional role. After the caller identifies herself, the receptionist recognizes that she is speaking to a friend, and she shifts to an informal register of colloquial Cuban Spanish. [21] The shift is similar to metaphorical code-switching, but since it involves styles or registers, it is considered an example of style-shifting.

Idiolect

An idiolect is defined as "the language use typical of an individual person". [22] An individual's idiolect may be affected by contact with various regional or social dialects, professional registers and, in the case of multilinguals, various languages. [23]

For scholars who view language from the perspective of linguistic competence, essentially the knowledge of language and grammar that exists in the mind of an individual language user, the idiolect, is a way of referring to the specific knowledge. For scholars who regard language as a shared social practice, the idiolect is more like a dialect with a speech community of one individual. [24]

See also

Related Research Articles

Dialect refers to two distinctly different types of linguistic relationships.

Idiolect is an individual's unique use of language, including speech. This unique usage encompasses vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. This differs from a dialect, a common set of linguistic characteristics shared among a group of people.

Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on language and the ways it is used. It can overlap with the sociology of language, which focuses on the effect of language on society. Sociolinguistics overlaps considerably with pragmatics and is closely related to linguistic anthropology.

African-American English is the set of English sociolects spoken by most Black people in the United States and many in Canada; most commonly, it refers to a dialect continuum ranging from African-American Vernacular English to a more standard American English. Like all widely spoken language varieties, African-American English shows variation stylistically, generationally, geographically, in rural versus urban characteristics, in vernacular versus standard registers, etc. There has been a significant body of African-American literature and oral tradition for centuries.

A standard language is a language variety that has undergone substantial codification of grammar and usage, although occasionally the term refers to the entirety of a language that includes a standardized form as one of its varieties. Typically, the language varieties that undergo substantive standardization are the dialects associated with centers of commerce, power and government. By processes that linguistic anthropologists call "referential displacement" and that sociolinguists call "elaboration of function", these varieties acquire the social prestige associated with commerce and government. As a sociological effect of these processes, most users of this language come to believe that the standard language is inherently superior or consider it the linguistic baseline against which to judge other varieties of language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diglossia</span> Community restriction of languages or dialects to specific settings

In linguistics, diglossia is a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety, a second, highly codified lect is used in certain situations such as literature, formal education, or other specific settings, but not used normally for ordinary conversation. The H variety may have no native speakers but various degrees of fluency of the low speakers. In cases of three dialects, the term triglossia is used. When referring to two writing systems coexisting for a single language, the term digraphia is used.

In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, an age group, or other social group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Speech community</span> Group of people who share expectations regarding linguistic usage

A speech community is a group of people who share a set of linguistic norms and expectations regarding the use of language. It is a concept mostly associated with sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics.

In sociolinguistics, a register is a variety of language used for a particular purpose or particular communicative situation. For example, when speaking officially or in a public setting, an English speaker may be more likely to follow prescriptive norms for formal usage than in a casual setting, for example, by pronouncing words ending in -ing with a velar nasal instead of an alveolar nasal, choosing words that are considered more "formal", and refraining from using words considered nonstandard, such as ain't and y'all.

In sociolinguistics, prestige is the level of regard normally accorded a specific language or dialect within a speech community, relative to other languages or dialects. Prestige varieties are language or dialect families which are generally considered by a society to be the most "correct" or otherwise superior. In many cases, they are the standard form of the language, though there are exceptions, particularly in situations of covert prestige. In addition to dialects and languages, prestige is also applied to smaller linguistic features, such as the pronunciation or usage of words or grammatical constructs, which may not be distinctive enough to constitute a separate dialect. The concept of prestige provides one explanation for the phenomenon of variation in form among speakers of a language or languages.

An ethnolect is generally defined as a language variety that marks speakers as members of ethnic groups who originally used another language or distinctive variety. According to another definition, an ethnolect is any speech variety associated with a specific ethnic group. It may be a distinguishing mark of social identity, both within the group and for outsiders. The term combines the concepts of an ethnic group and dialect.

Jenny L. Cheshire is a British sociolinguist and professor at Queen Mary University of London. Her research interests include language variation and change, language contact and dialect convergence, and language in education, with a focus on conversational narratives and spoken English. She is most known for her work on grammatical variation, especially syntax and discourse structures, in adolescent speech and on Multicultural London English.

Code-mixing is the mixing of two or more languages or language varieties in speech.

A diaphoneme is an abstract phonological unit that identifies a correspondence between related sounds of two or more varieties of a language or language cluster. For example, some English varieties contrast the vowel of late with that of wait or eight. Other English varieties contrast the vowel of late or wait with that of eight. This non-overlapping pair of phonemes from two different varieties can be reconciled by positing three different diaphonemes: A first diaphoneme for words like late, a second diaphoneme for words like wait, and a third diaphoneme for words like eight.

Linguistic insecurity comprises feelings of anxiety, self-consciousness, or lack of confidence in the mind of a speaker surrounding their use of language. Often, this anxiety comes from speakers' belief that their speech does not conform to the perceived standard and/or the style of language expected by the speakers' interlocutor(s). Linguistic insecurity is situationally induced and is often based on a feeling of inadequacy regarding personal performance in certain contexts, rather than a fixed attribute of an individual. This insecurity can lead to stylistic, and phonetic shifts away from an affected speaker's default speech variety; these shifts may be performed consciously on the part of the speaker, or may be reflective of an unconscious effort to conform to a more prestigious or context-appropriate variety or style of speech. Linguistic insecurity is linked to the perception of speech varieties in any community, and so may vary based on socioeconomic class and gender. It is also especially pertinent in multilingual societies.

Variation is a characteristic of language: there is more than one way of saying the same thing. Speakers may vary in pronunciation (accent), word choice (lexicon), or morphology and syntax. But while the diversity of variation is great, there seem to be boundaries on variation – speakers do not generally make drastic alterations in word order or use novel sounds that are completely foreign to the language being spoken. Linguistic variation does not equate to language ungrammaticality, but speakers are still sensitive to what is and is not possible in their native lect.

Interactional sociolinguistics is a subdiscipline of linguistics that uses discourse analysis to study how language users create meaning via social interaction. It is one of the ways in which linguists look at the intersections of human language and human society; other subfields that take this perspective are language planning, minority language studies, quantitative sociolinguistics, and sociohistorical linguistics, among others. Interactional sociolinguistics is a theoretical and methodological framework within the discipline of linguistic anthropology, which combines the methodology of linguistics with the cultural consideration of anthropology in order to understand how the use of language informs social and cultural interaction. Interactional sociolinguistics was founded by linguistic anthropologist John J. Gumperz. Topics that might benefit from an Interactional sociolinguistic analysis include: cross-cultural miscommunication, politeness, and framing.

In sociolinguistics, a style is a set of linguistic variants with specific social meanings. In this context, social meanings can include group membership, personal attributes, or beliefs. Linguistic variation is at the heart of the concept of linguistic style—without variation, there is no basis for distinguishing social meanings. Variation can occur syntactically, lexically, and phonologically.

The gender paradox is a sociolinguistic phenomenon first observed by William Labov, who noted, "Women conform more closely than men to sociolinguistic norms that are overtly prescribed, but conform less than men when they are not." Specifically, the "paradox" arises from sociolinguistic data showing that women are more likely to use prestige forms and avoid stigmatized variants than men for a majority of linguistic variables, but that they are also more likely to lead language change by using innovative forms of variables.

References

  1. ↑ Hudson, Alfred B. 1967. The Barito isolects of Borneo: A classification based on comparative reconstruction and lexicostatistics. Data Paper no. 68, Southeast Asia Program, Department of Asian Studies, Cornell University. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University,
  2. 1 2 3 Meecham, Marjorie and Janie Rees-Miller. (2001) "Language in social contexts." In W. O'Grady, J. Archibald, M. Aronoff and J. Rees-Miller (eds) Contemporary Linguistics. pp. 537-590. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.
  3. ↑ Schilling-Estes, Natalies. (2006) "Dialect variation." In R.W. Fasold and J. Connor-Linton (eds) An Introduction to Language and Linguistics. pp. 311-341. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  4. ↑ Wolfram, Walt; Schilling-Estes, Natalie (1998). American English: dialects and variation. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell. pp. 13–16.
  5. 1 2 O'Grady, William, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff, and Jane Rees-Miller. eds. (2001) Contemporary Linguistics. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.
  6. ↑ Christopher D. Land (21 February 2013), "Varieties of the Greek language", in Stanley E. Porter, Andrew Pitts (ed.), The Language of the New Testament: Context, History, and Development, BRILL, p. 250, ISBN   978-9004234772
  7. ↑ Daniel. W. Bruhn, Walls of the Tongue: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed (PDF), p. 8
  8. ↑ "topolect". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2010.
  9. ↑ Pawley, Andrew & Timoci Sayaba. 1971. Fijian dialect divisions: eastern and western Fijian. Journal of the Polynesian Society 80.4 (1971): 405-436.
  10. ↑ See p.8 of: Ross, Malcolm D. (1988). Proto-Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of Western Melanesia . Canberra: Australian National University. ISBN   978-0-85883-367-8. OCLC   20100109.
  11. ↑ See p.89 of François, Alexandre (2012), "The dynamics of linguistic diversity: Egalitarian multilingualism and power imbalance among northern Vanuatu languages" (PDF), International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2012 (214): 85–110, doi:10.1515/ijsl-2012-0022, S2CID   145208588 .
  12. ↑ Lave, Jean & Etienne Wenger. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  13. ↑ Eckert, Penelope & Sally McConnell-Ginet. (2003) Language and Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  14. ↑ Lyons, John (2002) [1981]. Language and Linguistics: An introduction. Cambridge University Press. p. 268. ISBN   0-52-123034-9.
  15. ↑ Fasold, Ralph. (2006) "The politics of language." In R.W. Fasold and J. Connor-Linton (eds) An Introduction to Language and Linguistics. pp. 371-400. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  16. 1 2 Trudgill, Peter (1999). "Standard English: what it isn't". In Bex, T.; Watts, R.J. (eds.). Standard English: The Widening Debate. London: Routledge. pp. 117–128. Archived from the original on 21 March 2009.
  17. ↑ "Le Dictionnaire". Académie française (in French). Retrieved 20 July 2016.
  18. ↑ Algeo, John. (1993) "What Makes Good English Good?" In L. Miller Cleary and M.D. Lin (eds) Linguistics for Teachers. pp. 473-82. New York: McGraw.
  19. 1 2 Ottenheimer, Harriet Joseph. (2006) The Anthropology of Language. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage.
  20. ↑ Joos, Martin. (1961) The Five Clocks. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.
  21. 1 2 Saville-Troike, Muriel. (1982) The Ethnography of Communication: An Introduction. Oxford and Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell.
  22. ↑ Freeborn, Dennis, Peter French & David Langford. (1993) Varieties of English. Houndsmill and London: MacMillan Press.
  23. ↑ Gregory, Michael and Susanne Carroll. (1978) Language and situation: language varieties and their social contexts. London: Routledge.
  24. ↑ Barber, Alex. (2004) "Idiolects." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Retrieved 07-01-2009.
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