Norhan Saad Ali

Sociolinguistics MAE 754

Nov 8th , 2024

BENGHAZI OPEN UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF GRADUATE STUDIES
APPLIED LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT
SOCIOLINGUISTICS (SUMMARY-CHAPTER 2)

:Language choice in multilingual communities

?What is Linguistic Repertoire
All of the linguistic varieties used in the speaking and
writing practices of a speech community
In other words, the linguistic repertoire of a speech
community includes all the linguistic varieties (registers,
dialects, styles, accents, etc.) which exist in this
.community
In monolingual speech communities this repertoire is
.made up of varieties of one single language
In multilingual speech communities (e.g. in Switzerland
or India) it may be comprised of several languages and
.may include linguistic varieties of all these languages
Standard Language: a standard variety is generally
one which is written, and which has undergone some
degree of regulation or codification (in a grammar and
.a dictionary)

Vernacular language: It generally refers to a -

language which has not been standardized or
codified and which does not have official status. It
generally refers to the most colloquial variety in a
.person's linguistic repertoire

Lingua franca: a language used for communication -

between different language users, for people whose
first languages differ, such as pidgin between
.European colonizers and African slaves (Swahili)
Example 1
Kalala is 16 years old. He lives in Bukavu, an African
city in the east of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo-Zaire with a population of about 240,000. It is a
multicultural, multilingual city with more people coming
and going for work and business reasons than people
who live there permanently. Over 40 groups speaking
different languages can be found in the city. Kalala,
like many of his friends, is unemployed. He spends his
days roaming the streets, stopping off periodically at
regular meeting places in the market-place, in the
park, or at a friend’s place. During a normal day he
 uses at least three different varieties or codes, and
.sometimes more

Same ethnic group Different ethnic

(Indigenous variety/
tribal language)
Shi Swahili
Standard Local Standard Local
Formal Shi Informal Zairean Kingwan
Shi a
Weddings Family At Local
Funerals Market school market
place Forms place
Bills
If we list the varieties or codes he uses regularly, we
find that Kalala’s linguistic repertoire includes three
varieties of Swahili (standard Zairean, local Swahili or
,Kingwana, and Indoubil)
and two varieties of his tribal language, Shi (a formal
.and an informal or casual style)
The factors that lead Kalala to use one code rather
than another are the kinds of social factors identified
in the previous chapter as relevant to language choice
.in speech communities throughout the world

Kalala’s own linguistic repertoire and the repertoire of the

person he is talking to are basic limiting factors, for
instance
Exercise: 1
Using the information provided in the section above, .1
which varieties do you think Kalala will use to
?talk to his younger brother at home )1(
?plan the morning’s activities with his best friend )2(
greet a stranger from a different tribe whom he met in )3(
?the street

:Domains of language use

Social domains "are sociolinguistic contexts definable
for any given society by three significant dimensions:
the location, the participants and the topic". ... Some
examples of social domains include the domains of
.school, family, religion, workplace, and government
A domain of language involves typical interactions
between typical participants in typical settings about a
typical topic. Examples of these domains are family,
.friendship, religion, education and employment
 : Example 3
In Paraguay, a small South American country, two
languages are used – Spanish, the language of the
colonisers, and Guaraní, the American Indian
indigenous language. People in Paraguay are proud
that they have their own language which distinguishes
them from the rest of South America. Many rural
Paraguayans are monolingual in Guaraní, but those
who live in the cities are usually bilingual. They read
Spanish literature, but they gossip in both Spanish and
.Guaraní

Table Domains of language use in Paraguay

Languag Topic
e
Guaraní Planning a family party
Guaraní Funny anecdote
Spanish Choosing the Sunday liturgy

Guaraní Telling a story

Spanish Solving a math's problem

Spanish Getting an import license

Social factors affecting code choice

The participant.1
who is speaking and (b) who are they speaking )a(
?to
The setting or social context of the interaction: where .2
?are they speaking
?The topic: what is being talked about .3
?The function: why are they speaking .4

Social dimensions
A social distance scale concerned with participant .1
relationships
A status scale concerned with participant relationships .2
A formality scale relating to the setting or type of .3
interaction
Two functional scales relating to the purposes or topic .4
.of interaction
A linguistic division of labor
diglossia

:Diglossia has three crucial features

Two distinct varieties of the same language are /1

used in the community, with one regarded as a high
.(or H) variety and the other a low (or L) variety
Each variety is used for quite distinct functions; H /2
.and L complement each other
.No one uses the H variety in everyday conversation /3
:Example
Arabic- speaking countries use classical Arabic as their
.H variety and regional colloquial varieties as L varieties

The two varieties are (or were) linguistically

related, the relationship is closer in some cases
:than others
The degree of difference in the pronunciation of H and
L varies from place to place
The grammar of H is morphologically more
.complicated
The H vocabulary includes many more formal and
technical terms
Diglossia is a characteristic of speech communities
.rather than individuals
.Individuals may be bilingual
.Societies or communities are diglossic
:Exerise5
Fill in the following table on the basis of your predictions
about when H will be used and when L will be used in
.diglossic communities

H(igh) Variety L(ow) Variety

Religion (sermon, prayers)
Literature (novels, non-fiction)
Newspaper (editorial)
Broadcasting: TV news
Education (written material, lectures)
Education (lesson discussion) Broadcasting: radio
Shopping Gossiping

:Attitudes to H vs L in a diglossia situation

Attitudes towards the two codes in a diglossia situation
.are complicated
People admire the H variety even when they can’t
.understand it
Attitudes to it are usually very respectful. It has
.prestige in the sense of high status
These attitudes are reinforced by the fact that the H
variety is the one which is described and ‘fixed’, or
.standardized, in grammar books and dictionaries
Attitudes to the L variety are varied and often
.ambivalent
L variety is regarded as the best way of expressing •
.their real feelings
Literature is generally written in H rather than L, but •
.there may be a rich oral literature in L
Though H has generally been standardized and •
codified in grammar books and dictionaries for
centuries, L languages are also increasingly being
.codified and standardized

:Example
In Arabic-speaking countries, classical Arabic is
.respected as the language of the Qoran
It is taught in school and used for very formal
.interactions and in writing
But for most everyday conversations in Arabic-
speaking countries people use the everyday colloquial
.variety
A friend of mine (the author) went to Morocco having
learned classical Arabic at university in England. When
he arrived and used his classical variety some people
were very impressed. People generally respect and
admire those who have mastered classical Arabic. But
most of them couldn’t understand what he was saying.
His colleagues warned him that he would be laughed
at or regarded as sacrilegious if he went about trying
to buy food in classical Arabic. It would be a bit like
asking for steaks at the butcher’s using Shakespearian
.English

Polyglossia
The term polyglossia has been used for situations like
this where a community regularly uses more than three
.languages
:Example
Kalala’s linguistic repertoire described above in provides
.a nice example of polyglossic relationships
Polyglossia is thus a useful term for describing situations
where a number of distinct codes or varieties are used
for clearly distinct purposes or in clearly distinguishable
.situations
There is a sense in which the variety at the formal end of
the scale could be regarded as an H variety, while the
.most casual variety could be labelled L
One L variety: The colloquial Maori used to talk to
(friends and family and in local shops) and could be
.described as
:Two H varieties
formal variety of Maori for (ceremonial purposes and
.for formal interaction)
English was the language of the (school, the
government, the courts, and (non-Maori New
.Zealanders)
So, if we expand the concept of diglossia the situation
.could be described as triglossic rather than diglossic
Exercise 8
How can the following three dimensions be used to
distinguish between H and L varieties in a diglossic
?speech community
Formality )1
Social distance )2
Social status )3

L typically used H typically used

In informal settings: e.g. family dinner In formal settings: e

Between participants with low social - - - Between participant
distance in high solidarity contexts: e.g. distance - in low sol
friends in a coffee bar broadcast political d
With people of equal or low(er) status With people of high(
because of the domains in which it is the domains in whic
used: e.g. to a child in the shops the doctor in a med

Code Switching or Code Mixing

Code Switching
is the process of alternating between two or more
languages (or dialects or varieties of language), in a
single conversation, while keeping up the linguistic features
.of that language or variety of language
Multilingual speakers often move back and forth
between two languages or verities of languages while
conversing with each other to facilitate their
.conversation

Situational code-switching (Participants, solidarity -1

and status)
It occurs when there is some obvious change in social
:situations, such as

The arrival of a new person

A code-switch may be related to a particular participant
.or addressee
It indicates a change in the social situation and account
.of the presence of a new participant

E.g. Mere is Maori and although the rest of the meeting will
be conducted in English, Sarah switches to Maori to greet
.her. The Maori greeting is an expression of solidarity
In a Polish family living in Lancashire in the 1950s, the
family used Polish in the home. When the local
English-speaking priest called, however, everyone
.switched to English
Signal of group membership and shared ethnicity
with an addressee
Even speakers who are not very proficient in a second
language may use very short and brief phrases and
words for this purpose
This kind of switching is sometimes called emblematic
switching or tag switching. The switch is simply an
.interjection or a linguistic tag in the other language
Social reasons – serves as an ethnic identity marker
and solidarity marker
E.g. The exchange in (c, P.35), for instance, occurred
between two Mexican Americans in the USA. By using
the Spanish tag, M signaled to A that she recognized
the relevance of their shared ethnic background to
.their future relationship
The tag served as a solidarity marker between two
minority ethnic group members whose previous
.conversation has been entirely in English

Switches can also distance a speaker from those they

are talking to
Young people often switch to signal their sophistication
.and identification with modernity

.E.g
In one conversation, two young women and a young
man are discussing local music. While the women use
Pamaka, their community language, the young man
deliberately switches to Sranan Tongo and avoids
.Pamaka
His language switch distances him from the other
participants, while also signaling his alignment with the
.urban western world
A switch may also indicate a change in the other
dimensions such as the status relations between
.people or the formality of their interaction
More formal relationships, (involve status differences
,too)
E.g. as doctor–patient or administrator–client
.involve the H variety or code
Friendly relationships (involving minimal social distance)
E.g. as neighbor or friend
.involve an L code
Referential code-switching (Topic) -2
Topic
People may switch code within a speech event to
.discuss a particular topic
Bilinguals often find it easier to discuss particular
.topics in one code rather than another
E.g. Chinese students from Guangzhou in an English-
speaking country tend to use Cantonese with each other,
except to discuss their studies and technical topics when
they switch to English. This is partly because they have
learned the vocabulary of economics or linguistics or
physics in English, so they do not always know the
words for ‘capital formation’ or ‘morpheme’ or ‘electron’
in Cantonese. They often switch to English for
.considerable stretches of speech
:Quotation
Another example of a referentially oriented code-
switch is when a speaker switches code to quote a
.person
The switch involves just the words that the speaker is
.claiming the quoted person said
So the switch acts like a set of quotation marks to
.emphasize the precise message content
The speaker wishes to be accurate – the exact words
.are important

:Affective code-switching, used to -3

.express affective rather than referential meaning
.achieve a range of interesting rhetorical effects
amusement and dramatic effect
make rude remarks or jokes
humorous anecdotes
A language switch in the opposite direction, from the L
.to the H variety, is often used to express disapproval
a person may code-switch from the H to the L variety
.because they are angry
E.g. German symbolizes authority, and so by using
German the grandfather emphasizes his anger and
.disapproval of the children’s behavior
In a Chinese immigrant family in the north-east of
England, Chinese is the usual language of the home.
When a mother switched to English to ask her son why
he had not finished his homework, he recognized he was
being indirectly told that he had better finish his
.homework before starting to play on the computer

Metaphorical switching or (code-mixing)

Code-mixing is the other phenomenon closely related to
code-switching. It usually occurs when conversant use
both languages together, switch between two language
to the extent that they change from one tongue to the
other in the course
of a single utterance. Code mixing takes place without a
change of topic and can involve various levels of
language
such as phonology, morphology, grammatical structures
or
.lexical items
This type of switching has sometimes been called
metaphorical switching. The term also reflects the fact
.that this kind of switching involves rhetorical skill
Skillful code-switching operates like metaphor to enrich
.the communication

Lexical borrowing
These ‘switches’ are triggered by lack of vocabulary.
People may also borrow words from another language
to express a concept or describe an object for which
there is no obvious word available in the language
.they are using
Borrowing of this kind generally involves single words
– mainly nouns – and it is motivated by lexical need. It
is very different from switching where speakers have a
genuine choice about which words or phrases they will
.use in which language
Borrowings often differ from code-switches in form too.
Borrowed words are usually adapted to the speaker’s
first language. They are pronounced and used
grammatically as if they were part of the speaker’s first
.language
E.g
cigarette )‫سيجارة‬/‫) سجائر‬
( blouse‫باليزل‬/‫( بلوزة‬
Attitudes to code-switching
The attitudes and the reactions to code-switching
styles of the majority monolingual groups such as in
places like North America and Britain are negative in
.many communities
In places such as East Africa, where multilingualism is
the norm, attitudes to proficient code-switching are
.much more positive
Why? The ability to manipulate two or more codes
proficiently. It seems possible that an increase in
ethnic self-consciousness and confidence may alter
attitudes among minority group members in other
.communities over time