Language, Dialect, & Varieties (Regional & Social Dialect, Style and Register)

A. Language  and Varieties

Language is both a system of communication between individuals and a social phenomenon. When two or more people communicate with each other in speech, we can call the system of communication that they employ a code. In most cases that code will be something we may also want to call a language. Language varieties refers to the various forms of language triggered by social factors. Language may changes from region to region, from one social class to another, from individual to individual, and from situation to situation. This actual changes result in the varieties of language.

B. Dialect

A variety of a language spoken by a group of people that is characterised by systematic features (e.g., phonological, lexical, grammatical) that distinguish it from other varieties of that same language.

Idiolect: the speech variety of an individual speaker

a. Language vs Dialect

Linguistic criterion

 Mutual intelligibility

    YES? = dialects

    NO? = languages

e.g., British vs. American vs. Irish vs. Australian (= dialects of English)

Q: Why do dialects exist?

A: Because of isolation or long term separation of groups Isolation can be across time, geography or social barriers.

Two types of “dialects”:

(1) sociolects or “social dialects”: linguistic differentiation based upon on membership in a longstanding socially-isolated or separate group. Social dialect originated from social groups and depend on a variety of factors, social class, religion, and ethnicity. Factors such us occupation, place of residence, education, income, racial or ethnic origin, cultural background, caste, religion related to the way people speak.

example:

• Caste in India often determines which variety of the language a speaker use.
• Christian, Muslim, and Jewish in Baghdad speak different Variety of Arabic.
• Ethnic group in America, e.g Labov's work in NY.
• Speakers of Jewish and Italian ethnicity differentiated from the standard variety or Black English.

(2) regional dialects: linguistic differentiation based upon on membership in a longstanding geographically-isolated or separate group. Dialects that are defined in terms of geographic boundaries, very distinctive local varieties.

• It is reflected in the differences of pronunciation, in the choice and forms of words and syntax.
• There is a dialect continuum.
• Various pressures-political, social, cultural, and educational, serve to harden current national boundaries to make the linguistic differences among states.
• Dialect Geography-term-used to describe attempts made to map the distribution of various linguistic features.

C. Styles and Register

     a. Style

         Style is language variation which reflects changes in situational factors, such as addressee, setting, task or topic. Style is often analysed along a scale of formality, the level of formality is influenced by some factors like the various differences among the participants, topic, emotional involvement, etc. (Janet Holmes, 2001)

Addressee as an Influence on Style

Age of addressee ==> People generally talk to the very young and to the very old. For example: Baby-talk.
Social background of addressee ==> People talk differently to the higher class and to the lower class. For example: The pronunciation of newsreaders on different radio station  (Janet Holmes, 2001).

    b. Register

             Meanwhile, for the terms of Register, Janet Holmes ( 2001: 246) explained that Registers are specific sets of vocabulary items associated with different occupational group or the language of groups of people with common interests or jobs. For example: the language used by air-plane pilots, surgeons, bank managers, jazz fans, commentators, etc.

References Link:

http://englishliteraturecenter.blogspot.co.id/2012/06/language-varieties-in-sociolinguistics.html

http://www.slideshare.net/sarihafizh/language-dialect-and-varieties-31983024

http://faculty.washington.edu/wassink/LING200/lect19_socio1.pdf