Language, Dialect, and Varieties ( An Introduction to Sociolinguistics )

Language, Dialect, and Varieties

Language is a method of human communication either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way

Language Varieties : Language Varieties refers to the various forms of language triggered by social factors. Languages 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.

Dialect is a language variety spoken by a speech community, that is characterized by systematic features (e.g. phonological, lexical, grammatical) that distinguish it from another variety of an individual speaker.

Varieties : according Hudson in Wardaugh, varieties is a set of linguistics items with similar distribution, according to Ferguson in Wardaugh, is anybody of human speech patterns which sufficiently large repertory of elements and their arrangements or process with broad enough semantic scope to function in all normal of communication.

Facts about dialects:

            All languages consist of dialects (is a group of dialects, to speak a language is to speak a dialect of that language , therefore, everyone speaks at least one dialect. Dialects differences are usually minor and dialects of a language are usually mutually intelligible.

Language and Dialect

What is the difference between language and dialect?

Variety is a term used for to replace both terms. Hudson says a set of linguistics items with similar distribution. Variety is some linguistics shared items which can uniquely be associated with some social items.

 

Kind of Dialect

Regional dialect : there may even be very distinctive local colorings in the language which you notice as you move from one location to another, such distinctive varieties are usually called regional dialects of the language.

Social dialects is the term dialect can also be used to describe differences in speech associated with various social groups or classes. There are social dialects as well as regional ones.

One such attempt has listed seven criteria that may be useful in discussing different kinds of languages. According to Bell in Wardaugh, these criteria may be used to distinguish certain languages from others

  

1.                  Standardization : refers to the process by which a language has been codified in some ways. That process usually involves the development of such things as grammars, spelling books, and dictionaries, and possibly a literature.

2.                  Vitality : the second of Bell’s seven criteria refers to the existence of a living community of speakers. This criterion can be used to distinguish languages that are “alive” from those that are “dead”.

3.                  Historically : refers to the fact that a particular group of people finds a sense of identity through using a particular languages it belongs to them. social, political, religious, or ethnic ties may also be important for the group, but the bond provided by a common language may prove to be the strongest tie of all

4.                  Autonomy : is an interesting concept because it is really one of feeling. A language must be felt by its speakers to be different from other languages. However, this is a very subjective criterion.

5.                  Reduction : refers to the fact that a particular variety may be regarded as a sub-variety rather than as an independent entity.

6.                  Mixture : refers to feelings speakers have about the purity of the variety they speak. This criterion appears to be more important to speakers of some languages than of others, e.g. more important to speakers of French and German than to speakers of English. However, it partly explains why speakers of pidgins and creoles have difficulty in classifying what they speak as full languages these varieties are, in certain respects, quite obviously mixed and the people who speak them often feel that the varieties are neither one thing nor another , but rather are debased, deficient, degenerate, or marginal varieties of some other standard language.

7.                  Finally, having de facto norms refer to the feeling that many speakers have that there are both “good” speakers and “poor” speakers and that the good speakers represent the norms of proper usage. Sometimes, this means focusing on one particular sub-variety as representing the “best” usage.

 

·      What are differences of accents and dialects ?

Ø  Dialect is based on region, pronunciation, social, grammatical, word choices. While accent is only based on pronunciation.

·      How do we know where comes from speaker by accent ?

Ø  By his/her pressures, stress, intonation

·      How distinguish slang word and idiom ?

Ø  By word choices. Idiom is phrase that all native speakers of English understand. While slang word is language used by certain community. It in the air cannot be understood by native speakers (only those communities). And it uses strange words.

·      What are differences of accents and dialects ?

Ø  Dialect is based on region, pronunciation, social, grammatical, word choices. While accent is only based on pronunciation.

·      How do we know where comes from speaker by accent ?

Ø  By his/her pressures, stress, intonation

·      How distinguish slang word and idiom ?

Ø  By word choices. Idiom is phrase that all native speakers of English understand. While slang word is language used by certain community. It in the air cannot be understood by native speakers (only those communities). And it uses strange words.