Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects
of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and
context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language used on society.
Sociolinguistics differs from sociology
of language in that the focus of
sociology of language is the effect of language on the society, while sociolinguistics
focuses on the society's effect on language. Or it can be said sociolinguistics is the field that
studies the relation between language and society, between the uses of language
and social structures in which the users of the language live. It is the field
of study that assumes that the human society is made up of many related pattern
and behaviors, some of which are linguistics (Spolsky,1998:3).
According to sociolingustists
sociolinguistics is a broad area of investigation that developed through the
interaction of linguistics with a number of other academic diciplines. It has
strong connections with anthropology through the study of language and culture
and with sociology through the investigation of the role language plays in the
organization of social groups and institutions.
Sociolinguistics deals with language
as it is spoken by human in everyday life, including the variations from area
to area i a country or within dofferent levels of society. From this point of
view, sociolinguistics is dealing with at least these following topics:
1. Language varieties and Vernacular
A vernacular or vernacular language is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, especially as distinguished from a literary, national or standard language, or a lingua franca used in the region or state inhabited by that population. It
refers to the language a person grows up
with and uses in everyday life in ordinary, commonplace, social interactions.
Holmes (2013:77) stated that there are three
components of the meaning of the term verncular. The most basic refers to the
fact that the vernacular is an uncondified or
unstandardised variety. The second refers to the way it is acquired- in
the home , as a first variety. The third is the fact that it is used for
relatively circumscribed functions.The first components has led to the use of
the term vernacular wit somewhat different meanings.
2. Code Mixing and Code Switching
Code-mixing refers to the mixing
of two or more languages or language varietis in speech. Code-mixing
is similar to the use or creation of pidgins; but while a pidgin is created
across groups that do not share a common language, code-mixing may occur within
a multilingual setting where speakers share more than one language
Code -
switching is the alternation in the use of two language ( or even more ) in the some discourse. The switch can happen within
words , clauses , or sentences. However, there is only a switch in the
language, not an integration of the word, clause or sentence into the other
language.
code-switching
emphasizes a multilingual speaker's movement from one grammatical system to
another, the term code-mixing suggests a hybrid form, drawing from distinct
grammars. In other words, code-mixing emphasizes the formal aspects of
language structures or linguistic competence,
while code-switching emphasizes linguistic performance.
3.
Diglossia
According
to Homles, ( 2013: 30 ) diglossia is a characteristic of speech communities
rather than individuals. Individuals may be bilingual. Societies or communities
are diglossic. In other words,the term diglossia describes societal or
institutionalised bilingualism,where two varieties are required to cover all
the community’s domains. Wardhaugh and Fuller ( 2015:90 ) said that diglossia
is the term used to describe a situation in which there are two distinct codes
with clear functional separation, that is, one code is employed in one set of
circumstances and the other in an entirely different set.
4.
Language Planning and
Standardization
Languange
planning is an attempt to interfere deliberately with a language or one of its varieties: it is human
intervention into natural processes of language change,duffusion, and erosion.
Any
attempt to set up norms or rules for when to use each is called status
planning. Once a language has been fixed as appropiate for use in a specific
situation, any effort to fix or modify
its structure is called corpus planning.One aspect of corpus planning is the
process of language standardization.
According
Wardaugh ( 2013: 31 ), standardization refers to the process by which a
language has been codified in some way. That process usually involves the
development of such things as grammars, spelling books,and dictionaries,and
possibly a literature.
( ADD STANDAR N NONSTANDARD
LANGUAGE)
5.
Lingua Franca, Pidgins and Creoles
Lingua
franca refers to any variation that evolves out of the need to facilitate
communication among people whose mother tongues are different. The variation
does not necessarily have to be the mother tongue of any one of the participans
and does not have to be fully developed. One example is “air speak”, a
variation of English spoken by pilots and flight personnel. The term lingua
franca most probably derived from the name given to the simplified French
dialect spoken by the crusaders in the Middle Ages: lingua franca, language of
the Francs. This variety was widely used around the Mediterranean.
Pidgin
is a variation deriving from the need of speakers of differing mother tongues
to communicate within a restricted context, such as trade. In contrast to a
Lingua Franca, a pidgin language derives by mixing various features of two or
more languages. A pidgin is a language variety invented by the speakers.
Therefore, there is no native speaker of a pidgin language; i.e. no speaker
born into this language as their mother tongue. Various pidgin language arose
from the contact of whites with native people in the Americas and Africa as well as Asia.
Among the qualities that all Pidgins have in common is that they evince a
rather restricted vocabulary and lack tense markers. Their grammar is therefore
elaborated to a minimal extent. Examples from Neo- Melanesian or Tok Pisin are:
“mi go”, “mi lukim yu” = “I see/will see you”, etc. “gras bilong het” = “hair”.
Creole
is etymologically derived from the native tribe of the Criollio, refers to a
pidgin variation that has become established and conventionalized to the extent
that it can be called a language. For instance, if two people of different
language communicities marry, they will create a pidgin variation. This, in
trun, becomes the mother tongue of their children who elaborate this pidgin
with more grammatical features, such as case markers and an axpansion of
vocabulary. The language variety can then be called a creole language.
6.
Dialect
Dialect,
and accent are two terms which should not be confused. While a dialect is a
distinct variation of a language bound to geographical regions or a social
stratification, the accent of a speaker is a blend of his linguistic background
with his effort to pronounce the standard language or a distinct dialect of a
cmpletely different language group. The accent a person may show hence only
occurs when he or she uses a language veriety or a language different from
their own. A person can speak English with an Indonesian accent. Meyerhoff
(2006:27) asserts that when linguists talk about accents, they are referring
only to how speakers prononce words, whereas they use dialect to refer to
distinctive features at the level of pronounciation and vocabulary and sentence
structure. There are two kinds of dialect, they are regional or geographical
and social dialect. Dialects are linguistic varieties which are distinguishable
by their vocabulary, grammar, and pronounciation; the speech of people from
different social, as well as regional, groups may differ in these ways.
Wardhaugh and Fuller (2015:42) explain that the term dialect can also be used
to describe differences in speech associated with various social groups or
classes.
7.
Variety
The
term variety is employed by linguists as a neutral term to cover any coherent
language system typical of a set of people (even if the set contains only one
member). So variety is a cover term for idiolect, register, dialect, accent,
language, and possibly patois as well. This term is currently preferred among
lingusts because it avoids taking decisions about whether, for example, the two
varieties under discussions are dialects of the same language or different
languages, or in the case of languages, whether they are pidgins or creoles or
not.
Register
is another technical term, but has several definitions. The term patois is used in French linguistics,
but not consistenly in English linguistics. Jargon
and slang tend to be used
specifically of vocabulary.
Using
the term variety is an attempt to avoid giving offence by the use of a term
which may be semantically or emotionally loaded because of its ordinary
language use. Talking about a standard variety also has the advantage that it
does not cause any semantic clash in the way that standard dialect may for
speakers unaware of the way in which the term is used by linguists.
