Colegio De Dagupan
Institute of Graduate Studies
Arellano St., Dagupan City
Master in Education
Major in English Language Teaching
Course Title: (Med 003) Linguistics
Topic: Language Variation
Reference/s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variation_(linguistics)
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-linguistic-variation-1691242
Introduction:
Language is always changing. We've seen that language changes across space
and across social group. Language also varies across time.
Generation by generation, pronunciations evolve, new words are borrowed or
invented, the meaning of old words drifts, and morphology develops or decays. The rate
of change varies, but whether the changes are faster or slower, they build up until the
"mother tongue" becomes arbitrarily distant and different. After a thousand years, the
original and new languages will not be mutually intelligible. After ten thousand years, the
relationship will be essentially indistinguishable from chance relationships between
historically unrelated languages.
These changes can be considered as part of the so called “language variation.”
This is a characteristic of language: there is more than one way of saying the same
thing. Speakers may vary pronunciation (accent), word choice (lexicon), or morphology
and syntax (sometimes called "grammar").But while the diversity of variation is great,
there seem to be boundaries on variation – speakers do not generally make drastic
alterations in sentence word order or use novel sounds that are completely foreign to
the language being spoken.
Body:
The term linguistic variation (or simply variation) refers to regional, social, or
contextual differences in the ways that a particular language is used.Variation between
languages, dialects, and speakers is known as interspeaker variation. Variation within
the language of a single speaker is called intraspeaker variation.
"Linguistic variation is central to the study of language use. In fact it is
impossible to study the language forms used in natural texts without being confronted
with the issue of linguistic variability. Variability is inherent in human language: a
single speaker will use different linguistic forms on different occasions, and different
speakers of a language will express the same meanings using different forms. Most of
this variation is highly systematic: speakers of a language make choices
in pronunciation, morphology, word choice, and grammar depending on a number of
non-linguistic factors. These factors include the speaker's purpose in communication,
the relationship between speaker and hearer, the production circumstances, and
various demographic affiliations that a speaker has.”(Randi Reppen et al., Using
Corpora to Explore Linguistic Variation. John Benjamins, 2002).
But the question here is that how and why does language change?
Changes can take originate in language learning, or through language
contact, social differentiation, and natural processes in usage.
Language learning: Language is transformed as it is transmitted from one generation
to the next. Each individual must re-create a grammar and lexicon based on input
received from parents, older siblings and other members of the speech community. The
experience of each individual is different, and the process of linguistic replication is
imperfect, so that the result is variable across individuals. However, a bias in the
learning process -- for instance, towards regularization -- will cause systematic drift,
generation by generation. In addition, random differences may spread and become
'fixed', especially in small populations.
Language contact: Migration, conquest and trade bring speakers of one language into
contact with speakers of another language. Some individuals will become fully bilingual
as children, while others learn a second language more or less well as adults. In such
contact situations, languages often borrow words, sounds, constructions and so on.
Social differentiation. Social groups adopt distinctive norms of dress, adornment,
gesture and so forth; language is part of the package. Linguistic distinctiveness can be
achieved through vocabulary (slang or jargon), pronunciation (usually via exaggeration
of some variants already available in the environment), morphological processes,
syntactic constructions, and so on.
Natural processes in usage. Rapid or casual speech naturally produces processes
such as assimilation, dissimilation, syncope and apocope. Through repetition, particular
cases may become conventionalized, and therefore produced even in slower or more
careful speech. Word meaning change in a similar way, through conventionalization of
processes like metaphor and metonymy.
Language changes for several reasons. First, it changes because the needs of
its speakers change. New technologies, new products, and new experiences require
new words to refer to them clearly and efficiently. Consider texting: originally it was
called text messaging, because it allowed one person to send another text rather than
voice messages by phone. As that became more common, people began using the
shorter form text to refer to both the message and the process, as in I just got a
text or I'll text Sylvia right now.
Another reason for change is that no two people have had exactly the same
language experience. We all know a slightly different set of words and constructions,
depending on our age, job, education level, region of the country, and so on. We pick up
new words and phrases from all the different people we talk with, and these combine to
make something new and unlike any other person's particular way of speaking. At the
same time, various groups in society use language as a way of marking their group
identity; showing who is and isn't a member of the group.
Conclusion:
Definitely, language is always changing, evolving, and adapting to the needs of
its users. In the modern world that we have today, language change is often socially
problematic. Long before divergent dialects lose mutual intelligibility completely, they
begin to show difficulties and inefficiencies in communication, especially under noisy or
stressful conditions. Also, as people observe language change, they usually react
negatively, feeling that the language has "gone down hill". You never seem to hear
older people commenting that the language of their children or grandchildren's
generation has improved compared to the language of their own youth.
With these changes, we must learn to adapt and for us to adapt, we have to be
flexible.
