Sociolinguistic Dialect In Society

SOCIOLINGUISTIC

Dialect in Society

Compiled by :

Nikmaturohmah

Miza Anisa Sari

Hadisa

Lecturer :

Andri Saputra,S.Pd

TARBIYAH AND TADRIS FACULTY

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION

INSTITUT AGAMA ISLAM NEGERI

BENGKULU

2014

Dialect in Society

1.      Introduction .

For as long as observations about language have been recorded, the symbolic function of dialect in  society has been recognized. Over three thousand years ago, the sh versus spronunciation of  shibboleth in the Hebrew word for “ear of corn” was used to detect impostors from true allies among  the fleeing Ephraimites who attempted to disguise themselves as Gileadites. As indicated in the  Biblical account, the social consequences of the dialect difference were quite severe:

and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead asked him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he replied, “No,” they said,‘’All right, say Shibboleth.” If  he said, “Sibboleth,” because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized  him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan.

(Judges 12: 5–6)

The present-day social consequences of dialect differences may not be quite as gruesome as those  described in the account given in the Old Testament, but the diagnostic differentiation of social  groups on the basis of dialect remains symbolically just as significant.

The term  dialect is used here to refer to any regional, social, or ethnic variety of a language. The  language differences associated with dialect may occur on any level of language, thus including  pronunciation, grammatical, semantic, and language use differences. At first glance, the distinction  between “dialect” and “language” seems fairly straightforward – dialects are subdivisions of language.  However, on closer inspection, the boundary between dialects and languages may become blurry as  simple criteria such as structural affinity or mutual intelligibility break down. Thus, many of the so-called dialects of Chinese such as Pekingese (Mandarin), Cantonese, and Wu (Shanghai), are mutually  unintelligible in their spoken form. By the same token, Swedes and Norwegians are generally able to  understand each other although their distinct cultures and literatures warrant their designation as  different languages.

(So dialect is society is user of language in big conteks or variation of language in the village, city, or country in world. Our can look from level of language pronunciation, grammatical, semantic, and language use differences.)

In a similar way, the notions of regional, social, and ethnic dialect are not nearly as obvious as we  might assume at first glance. Speakers are at the same time affiliated with a number of different  groups and their varying memberships may contribute to the variety of language they employ.  Speakers located within the same geographical territory may be affiliated with quite different ethnic  and/or social groups, and thus end up speaking quite disparate varieties even as they share a subset  of regional language peculiarities. While it is certainly convenient to use the term dialect as we do  here, to refer to the general notion of a language variety, more precise definition of the term relies on  its correlation with the particular parameters of social structure that determine its existence in a given speech community.

As it has developed over the past several decades, the systematic investigation of dialects in society has challenged some of the established perspectives of both linguistics and dialectology. Linguistics,  as it progressed in the second half of the twentieth century, focused on the formal structure of  language as an abstract cognitive system, with little attention given to the kinds of variants that were  central to the examination of dialect variation. In accordance with more formal descriptive and  explanatory goals, the primary data base became native speaker intuitions vis-à-vis actual language  usage because of the insight these intuitions could provide to the cognitive processes underlying  language. From this perspective, the social context of language was considered outside the purview of  an abstract, cognitively based model of language description.

At the same time, dialectology in the twentieth century became more aligned with geography and  history as it focused on the distribution of particular variants in geographical space and time.  Accordingly, isolated sets of dialectally diagnostic lexical and phonological items collected through  the direct elicitation of single instances of forms became primary data (e.g., Kurath and McDavid,  1961; Orton, Sanderson, and Widdowson, 1978; Carver, 1987). .

The line of investigation that developed in social dialectology over the past several decades has  altered in a significant way our fundamental understanding of the nature of dialect variation in society  with respect to both the linguistic and social sides of the sociolinguistic equation. In the following  sections, we consider the nature of dialect variation, the patterning of this variation within society,  and the kinds of social consequences that obtain from the socially situated distribution of dialect.

2.      The Nature of Dialect Variation

According to popular beliefs, dialect patterns are relatively straightforward and simple: All members  of one group invariably use one particular dialect form while members of a different group  categorically use another one. While this subjective impression is of sociolinguistic import, the  objective reality of dialect distribution within society is far more complex and variable than this  popular perception. On one level there is an intricate interaction between the systematic patterning of  language and social structure; on another level, however, linguistic variation is inherent in the  linguistic system, existing apart from the social meaning that may ultimately be assigned to it. In fact,  one of the major shortcomings of traditional dialectology as it developed in North America and the  United Kingdom over the past half century was its failure to come to grips with the underlying  linguistic-systemic principles that guided the organization and direction of much linguistic variation  subsumed under the rubric of dialect. The commonly adopted premise in dialectology that “each word  has its own history” (Gilliéron, 1902–10) unfortunately often precluded the extended consideration of  the internal linguistic-systemic principles that guide the orderly distribution of language variation. The following sections illustrate a couple of ways in which dialect variation is guided by the internal mechanisms of language systems. From that point, we proceed to show how such variation may  distribute itself in society, and the kinds of social meaning that this variation is assigned.

2.1 The internal motivation of dialects

Following the “each word has its own history” edict of traditional dialectology, dialect differences have

often been described as if they consisted of unrelated sets of items. Thus various phonetic  productions of two different English vowels in assorted dialects of English, such as the /u/ of words  such as  boot and  tube and the of words such as  bought and  caught , would be viewed as structurally  independent entities because they involve different phonological units within the system. Similarly,  the use of the socially diagnostic English reflexive

hisself versus  himself in Kirk  liked hisself and the  subject-verb concord pattern  We was down there yesterday versus  We were down there yesterday are  viewed as socially diagnostic items quite independent of each other since there appears to be no   nherent structural relationship between these forms. While the patterned co-occurrence of forms  such as these may be noted as a part of an overall dialect profile, their coexistence within a given  dialect is viewed as arbitrary from a descriptive-theoretical perspective.

Such a viewpoint seems far too limited in its assessment of the nature of language variation and  change that serves as the foundation of dialect differentiation. Furthermore, there is empirical  evidence that argues for a set of underlying principles that guide dialect variation, or at least the  tendencies of variation, which exist independent of dialect contact and diffusion (Chambers, 1993).  For example, vernacular dialects of English throughout the world (Wolfram and Fasold, 1974;  Cheshire, 1982; Bailey and Görlach, 1983; Trudgill, 1990) with no apparent common diffusional  source, share the feature of negative concord in sentences such as

They don't do nothing to nobody  about nothing. Such uniformity among vernacular dialects of English suggests that there are  underlying, language-internal pressures that guide some types of dialect variation. In the case of  negative concord, the predisposition of languages to generalize processes is a natural, internal  mechanism that may account for the representation of this process among different, independent,  vernacular varieties. A negative marking rule that specifies that the negative should be attached to a  phrase element and all post-verbal indefinites is a more general rule than one that may select  only one position for the placement of negation. The fact that other language adaptation situations

manifest negative concord supports the contention that an underlying change and variation principle  is at work in this case. For example, in both first language (Brown, 1973) and second language  acquisition (Schumann, 1978), speakers go through a negative concord stage regardless of their  normative target dialects.  In a similar vein, we may appeal to the process of  analogical leveling , which exerts internally induced  systemic pressure to align exceptional forms in conformity with dominant patterns, as the basis for  explaining the widespread existence among unrelated vernacular varieties of English of the reflexive  hisself within the paradigmatic set of  my-/your-/her-/our-self(ves) or the extensive regularization of  the past tense finite form of  be in  I/you/she/we/you/they was found.

The underlying principles that  govern dialect variation are essentially the same as those that govern language change in general  (e.g., Kiparsky, 1989; Joseph and Janda, 1987; Kroch, 1989), but the ratification of variation and hence its identification as language change is derived from the social context in which the linguistic  variation occurs. Although the social interpretation of language forms involved in variation may  appear somewhat capricious, it is not altogether whimsical. For example, the fact that standard  dialects typically include more marked language forms – items or structures less natural in their  linguistic composition – than their vernacular counterparts may be related to the fact that prescriptive  norms often require speakers to recognize language forms on a conscious level. The practical dialect  consequence of this socially ascribed conscious attention to marked forms is the rejection of some  natural linguistic changes that have resulted in unmarked forms (Kroch, 1978). For example, the  persistence of the marked, irregular plural oxen instead of regularizing it to  oxes can only be  attributed to such socially ascribed, conscious attention.

Labov's delineation of vowel rotation alternatives in English (Labov, Yaeger, and Steiner, 1972; Labov, 1991, 1994) is a prototypical illustration of how dialects shift their vowel systems in orderly and predictable wayswhich are then assigned social meaning. Given the nature of vowel production, it is  convenient to view different vowels as occupying “phonetic spaces” in a continuum of vowel positions.  The notion of phonetic space is important because the shift of one vowel in phonetic space often has  an effect on adjacent vowels. As one vowel moves (e.g., becomes higher or more backed in its  phonetic position) phonetically closer to or further away from an adjacent vowel, the next vowel may  shift its phonetic value to maintain adequate phonetic distance in relation to the vowel that has  moved initially. A whole sequence of vowel rotation may thus be set in motion.

The pattern of phonetic rotation in vowels, known as chain shiftingor the push-pull chain, is actively involved in differentiating the current character of long vowels. In the southern vowel shift, the vowel  of  bed takes on a glide, becoming more like  beyd [bId]. Meanwhile, the front long vowels (the vowels  of  Beet and  Late ) are moving downward and somewhat backward, and the back vowels are moving  forward. This scheme is represented in  figure 7.2 . Figures 7.1 and 7.2 show quite different rotational  shifts in terms of directionality, but a unifying set of principles dictates the systematic movement of  vowels in both shift patterns. In chain shifts, several primary descriptive principles are

Principle I: Peripheral vowels (typically long and tense) rise.

Principle II: Non-Peripheral (typically short and lax) nuclei fall.

Principle III: Back vowels move to the front.

Various subsets of vowel rotations may be noted, as in the northern cities vowel shift and the  southern vowel shift, and vowels may change their status with respect to peripherality so that systems  may be altered rather drastically, but the underlying principles seem to be generalizable. While the  operation of the underlying principles is more detailed than that presented here, and the underlying  explanation of these descriptive shifts in terms of phonetic production and/or communicative  strategy needs explication, principles that apply generally to vowel subsystems illustrate in an  important way how dialect differences are sensitive to language-internal principles of organization  and change. The search for underlying principles guiding dialect change and variation does not  eliminate the need to view some aspects of dialect difference as isolated units (particularly with  respect to lexical variation), but the appeal to internal-systemic principles of change and variation has  taken the linguistic understanding of dialect description a giant step forward.

2.2 Systematic variability

Another dimension that needs to be admitted into the perspective on dialects in society is the  systematic nature of variability. One of the important discoveries to emerge from the detailed study of  dialects over the past several decades is the fact that dialects are sometimes differentiated not by the  discrete or categorical use or nonuse of forms, but by the relative frequency with which different  variants of a form occurred. For a number of phonological and grammatical dialect features, it can be  shown that dialects are more typically differentiated by the extent to which these features are found  rather than the mere absence or presence of particular variants. For example, studies of the alternation of in[in] and -ing[i] in words like swimmin'or swimming show that, while practically all dialects of English show this alternation, different dialects are distinguished by the relative frequency with which we find  -in' and  -ing in particular language varieties. Thus we found in a study of speaker  representing different social classes in Detroit, Michigan, that the mean use of  in' ranged from almost  20 percent use for speakers demographically defined as upper middle class to approximately 80  percent usage by speakers designated as lower working class (Shuy, Wolfram, and Riley, 1967). It is  important to note that ALL of the individual speakers exhibit variability between  -ing and  -in'. In the  study of variation, frequency levels are computed by first noting all those cases where a form like  in' MIGHT HAVE occurred (namely, an unstressed syllable), followed by a tabulation of the number of  cases in which  -in' ACTUALLY occurred.

3.      The Social Distribution

In many respects, describing the social distribution of language variation is dependent upon the kinds  of group affiliations, interactional relations, and sociocultural ideologies operating within a society. The range of social factors and conditions that may be correlated with linguistic variation is quite  wide-ranging (e.g., Preston, 1986a), but there is little agreement about a definitive set of social  factors that vary with linguistic variation or an underlying, unitary, social or sociopsychological  explanation of these parameters. Covariation between linguistic variation and social variation is  multifarious and multidimensional, as the individual members of a society are at once affiliated with a range of overlapping groups with varying sociocultural ideologies, assume a variety of functional roles  within and across groups, and participate in an assortment of interactional situations.

In early studies  of dialect in society (e.g., Labov, 1966c; Wolfram, 1969) it was common for linguists to appropriate a set of predetermined background demographic variables such as region, socioeconomic class,  ethnicity, age, and sex, and to show the covariance of linguistic forms with these variables, either in  isolation or, more commonly, in intersecting arrays. Later descriptions focused on the nature of  communication networks (L. Milroy, 1980), the dynamics of situational context (Biber and Finegan,  1993), and the projection of social identity (LePage and Tabouret-Keller, 1986) in an effort to  describe more authentically the social reality of dialect in society. (See chapters 8, 9, and 19 by Wodak  and Benke, Eckert, and Tabouret-Keller for a discussion of some of these factors.)

 For our purposes  here, it is sufficient but critical to recognize that many of the social variables typically appealed to in  studies of covariance are abstractions extracted from an intricate, interactive, and multidimensional social reality. For example, McConnell-Ginet (1988) and Eckert (1989) point out that dialect  differences correlated with gender differences assume a social construction based upon the biological  category of sex. But the social construction of gender may be exceedingly complex, as it involves  roles and ideologies creating differential ways for men and women to experience life, culture, and  society. As Eckert notes, “there is no apparent reason to believe that there is a simple, constant  relation between gender and variation” (Eckert, 1989: 247). Similar provisos could be offered for  virtually any of the traditional variables examined in the covariation of social and linguistic factors.  The perspective on dialect in society implied in the preceding discussion is an ethnographically  informed one, since only such a vantage point can reveal the local kinds of affiliations, interactions,  and ideologies that lead to the symbolic functions of dialect within a given community.

Group affiliation, communication networks, social identity, and social context all come into play in determining the role of this dialect variable in the Ocracoke community. But we can only ascribe social meaning to the  patterns of covariance between dialect variables and social variables as we understand the  sociohistorical background, the interactions, the ideologies, and the identities that define the local  social context of dialect.

3.1 Patterns of distribution

Quite obviously, not all dialect structures are dist ributed in the same way within society. Given varying  histories of dialect contact, dialect diffusion, and internal dialect change, and the varieties of social  meaning ascribed to dialect forms, linguistic variables may align with given social groupings in a  variety of ways. The pattern of dialect distribution which most closely matches the popular perception  of dialect differences is referred to as  group-exclusive usage , where one group of speakers uses a  form but another group never does. In its ideal interpretation, group-exclusive usage means that ALL  members of a particular community of speakers would use the dialect form whereas NO members of  other groups would ever use it. This ideal pattern is rarely, if ever, manifested in dialects. The kinds of  social grouping that take place in society are just too complex for this pattern to work out so neatly.  In some cases, distinctions between groups exist on a continuum rather than in discrete sets.  Furthermore, as we mentioned above, the definition of a social group usually involves a constellation  of characteristics rather than a single dimension, thus making the simple correlation of a linguistic  form with social structure intricate and multidimensional.

Notwithstanding the qualifications that have to be made when talking about group-exclusive dialect  features, there certainly are items that are not shared across groups of speakers. The essential aspect  of these dialect forms, however, seems to be the fact that speakers from other groups do NOT use  these forms rather than the fact that all the members of a particular group use them. Group-exclusive  usage is therefore easier to define negatively than positively. Viewed in this way, there are many  dialect features on all levels of language organization that show group-exclusive social distribution.

Stable linguistic variables defined primarily on the standard-nonstandard continuum of English tend to be sharply stratified, whereas linguistic features undergoing change often exhibit fine stratification. This is due in part to the role of social factors in language change within a community. Change tends to start in a given social class and spread from that point to other social classes in a diffuse manner.  The kind of correlation that exists between social factors and linguistic variation may thus be a  function of both social and linguistic considerations; there is no single pattern that can be applied to  this covariatio

3.2The social evaluation of linguistic features

Although there is no inherent social value associate d with the variants of a linguistic variable, it is not  surprising that the social values assigned to certain groups in society will be attached to the linguistic  forms used by the members of these groups. While this general pattern of social evaluation holds, the  correlation of particular linguistic variables with social stratification is not always so direct, as  sociolinguistic history molds the diagnostic role of language structures in various ways.  The use of particular language variants may be evaluated as socially prestigious or socially  stigmatized.

Socially prestigious variants are those forms that are positively valued through their  association with high status groups as linguistic markers of status, whereas  socially stigmatized variants carry a stigma through their association with low-status groups. It is essential to understand  that stigmatized and prestigious variants do not exist on a single axis in which the alternative to a  socially stigmatized variant is a socially prestigious one, or vice versa. The absence of negative concord in sentences such as  She didn't do anything , for example, in standard varieties of English is  not particularly prestigious; it is simply NOT stigmatized. On the other hand, there may be particular  patterns of negative formation that carry prestige in some varieties. For example, the choice of single  negative marking on the post-verbal indefinite negatives (e.g.,  He'll do nothing) rather than on the auxiliary (e.g., He won't do anything may be considered a prestigious option in some varieties of English, but the alternative marking in the auxiliary is not considered stigmatized

The social recognition and evaluation of dialects does not relate just to particular dialect variables but  to entire dialect communities. Research on  perceptual dialectology (Preston, 1986b) shows that  overall dialect perception is generated by linguistic differences, popular culture caricatures, and local  identification strategies. For example, caricatures of New York City speech make this a highly  recognized dialect area for virtually all American English speakers, regardless of their geographical  locale. At the same time, the perceptual location of other regional areas may be subjected to a  “proximity factor,” in which the more distant the dialect is geographically, the more likely it is to be classified globally.

4.      Dialects and Social Commitment

The preceding discussion has viewed the role of dialects in society primarily on a micro-level, as we  have examined the relations that exist between language variables and social variables. There are,  however, issues related to the broadly based position of dialects in society. In this final section, we  address some of these broader issues and consider the social role that sociolinguists can assume in  addressing concerns relevant to dialects in society.

We have assumed in our discussion that dialects will continue to flourish in contemporary society, but many popular accounts of dialects question their enduring vitality. For example, in the United States it  is often reported that dialects are levelling because of the widespread exposure to a standard,  relatively homogenized dialect through the media, the increase in interregional travel and migration,  and ready transportational access to virtually any dialect area of the country within a matter of hours.

Our preceding discussion indicates that the future of dialect diversity is assured on both a linguistic  and social basis. For example, we have seen that the pressures of internally induced linguistic variation can take dialects in radically different directions once a particular linguistic shift has been  initiated. The vowel changes taking place in the northern cities and southern vowel shifts in the  United States are apparently making these varieties more dissimilar than ever, and some of the  current rotational shifts may lead to changes in the English vowel system that are as dramatic as  those witnessed during the great vowel shift that took place from 1300 through 1500 (Labov, 1994)

Principle of error correction

 A scientist who becomes aware of a widespread idea or social practice with important consequences that is invalidated by his own data is obligated to bring this error to the attention of the widest possible audience (Labov, 1982: 172).

Principle of debt incurred

An investigator who has obtained linguistic data from members of a speech community has an obligation to use the knowledge based on that data for the benefit of the community, when it has need of it (Labov, 1982: 173

Principle of linguistic gratuity

Investigators who have obtained linguistic data from members of a speech community should actively pursue positive ways in which they can return linguistic favors to the community