SOCIOLINGUISTICS : DIALECT AND VARIETIES

DIALECT AND VARIETIES

A paper

Presented to fulfill the Requirement of the task of SOCIOLINGUITICS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A.    Background of Study

The study of language variation is an important part of sociolinguistics, to the extent that it requires reference to social factors. Sociolinguistics is the study of the relationship between language and society, of language variation, and of attitudes about language, the variation may occur at all levels of the grammar. Languages vary from one place to another, from one social group to another, and from one situation to another, and these are the main topics of this chapter.

There are many ways of speaking, and its way of speaking is a variety. In a more precise manner, a variety may be defined as a set of linguistic items with similar social distribution. Generally, variety defines as a distinct language system, with grammar, vocabulary, etc.

On the other hand, in this term discuss about dialect. Dialect define as a variety of a language spoken by a group of people that is characterized by systematic features (e.g., phonological, lexical, grammatical) that distinguish it from other varieties of that same language.

In this case, explain that there are many systematic differences between different languages although the differences is just in dialect, some of country has different dialect of the same language. So, it is very important to know what the dialect uses in a country are.

   

B.     Problem Formulation

In this paper, the writers have some problem formulation, it’s are:

1.      What is the meaning of dialect?

2.      What are the types of dialect?

3.      What are the examples of each dialect’s types?

C.    Purpose of Study

According to the problem formulation, the writers have some purpose of study, such as:

1.    To know the meaning of dialect.

2.    To know the types of dialect.

3.    To know the examples of each dialect’s types.

  

CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

A.    Definition of Dialect

Based on oxford advanced learner’s dictionary, dialect is the form of a language that is spoken in one area with grammar, word and pronunciation that may be different from other forms of the same language. A variety of a language spoken by a group of people that is characterized by systematic features (e.g., phonological, lexical, grammatical, pronunciation, vocabulary) that distinguish it from other varieties of that same language is called a dialect. For example the word tog in English refers to clothes one wears in formal dinner, but in New Zealand, it refers to clothes one wears to swim in.

Dialects as a regional variety of a language have differences in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. It also defined by a language spoken by class or profession that is a form of a language spoken by members of a particular social class or profession.

Everyone speaks a dialect (in fact, many dialects at different levels). The people who speak a certain dialect are called a speech community. A Speech community is a group of people speaking a common dialect. The group may be defined in terms of extra linguistic factors, such as age, region, socioeconomic status, group identification. It is very rare, however, that a speech community defines a “pure” dialect.

A dialect spoken by one individual is called an idiolect. Everyone has small differences between the way they talk and the way even their family and best friends talk, creating a “minimal dialect". Idiolect is the speech variety of an individual speaker. So, dialect is a continuum of idiolect.

  

B.     Variety of Dialect

According to Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, variety is several different sorts of the same thing. In a more precise manner, the definition of variety according to Hudson (1996, p. 22): ‘a set of linguistic items with similar distribution.

The existence of dialect caused by isolation or long term separation of groups. Isolation can be across time, geography or social barriers. Two types of dialects:

1.    Social dialect

Socialists (social dialects) are a linguistic differentiation based upon on membership in a longstanding socially-isolated or separate group. Social dialect as a variety of language that reflects social variation in language use, according to certain factors related to the social group of the speaker such as education, occupation, income level (upper-class English, middle-class English and lower-class English. For example: Standard English can be classified as a type of social English spoken by the well-educated English speakers throughout the world.

Ø  Standard Versus Nonstandard Dialects

Standard dialects or language (Standard American English | SAE for example) is a dominant dialect used in school, print or mass media, taught to the non-native speakers as a foreign language, and associated with wealth, education, literature, political leadership and high social status.

Misconceptions

Standard English                            Non-standard English

Good, correct, pure, nice                bad, wrong, ugly, corrupt

The English language                     not the English language,

Beautiful, norm, superior                deviant from the norm,

Inferior

These characteristics all have in common the concept of prestige. That is, the standard dialect is the dialect which is associated with those who hold prestige and power in the society it is spoken in.

Ø  Reasons for the misconceptions:

The people who speak Standard English are usually of high social status, especially in England.

The Linguistic View point:

o   Standard English is just a variety or dialect of English. It cannot even legitimately be considered better than other varieties.

o   All languages and all dialects are equally “good“ as linguistic systems.

o   All varieties of a language are structured, complex, rule-governed systems which can adequately meet the needs of their speakers for communication.

o   It follows that value judgment of languages are social rather than linguistic. Attitudes toward non-standard varieties are attitudes which reflect the social structure of the society.

The difference one wishes to capture when labelling dialects as “standard” or “non-standard” is this: a dialect is ‘standard” if it fulfils some general guidelines, such as being used in schools, being taught to foreigners learning the language, being used by the media, etc.

 “Standard” dialects are idealizations, not actual well-defined dialects of a given language. Nobody actually speaks, for example, Standard American English (SAE). Many people almost speak it.

For the particular case of SAE we are more interested in grammar than we are in accent (pronunciation) features. The reason is social-regional pronunciation variation is not considered in the US to be very important socially (within limits), so people with a large range of accents can still be considered to be speaking the standard dialect. Contrast this with England, where societal divisions correspond rather closely to pronunciation.

Examples: Senators, governors, presidents, and other high-ranking government officials are generally considered to be prime examples of SAE, yet they exhibit a huge amount of variation in pronunciation.

In the traditional European rank society people generally spoke the dialect of their home area, and there was only minor variation between the ranks. On the basis of a person’s language variety you could easily locate her or him geographically, but not at all to the same degree socially. Language varieties that are used by particular societal strata are referred to as socialists. It should be emphasized, however, that most language varieties have a particular geographical as well as social distribution, although the geographical variation is generally larger among the lower classes than among the middle and upper classes. For example: in British English: pavement, boot, bonnet, petrol, baggage. But in American English: sidewalk, trunk, hood, gas, luggage.

Social dialect consists of:

1.    Social groups or classes

2.    Occupation, place of residence, education, new or old money, income, racial or ethnic origin, cultural background, etc.

3.    Black English

2.    Regional dialect

Regional dialects are a linguistic differentiation based upon on membership in a long standing geographically-isolated or separate group. For example regional US dialect such as:

a.    Northern                                                                                               

b.    Western

c.    Hawai‘i / midland

d.   General Southern

               

Dialectology is the study of regional dialects, or dialects defined by geographical regions.

1)   This was done originally by travelling around a country and asking the people living in various locales what words or phrases they use for particular objects and concepts.

2)   The most famous American study was performed by Hans Kurath in the second quarter of this century, and covered most of the east 1/4 of the U.S.

3)   What Kurath (and all dialectologists) looked for were isoglosses (iso=same gloss=speech) -boundaries separating regions of a country which uses different words or constructions to describe the same things.

4)   What Kurath found in some parts of the country were that the isoglosses for several unrelated words fell in practically the same locations, forming bundles of isoglosses.

5)   These bundles were significant discoveries, as they indicated the existence of a real correlation between speech patterns and region. These bundles also provided a living linguistic reminder of the patterns of migration of Americans moving westward.

Regional dialects roughly correspond to province boundaries. Thus, South Korean regional dialects are Kyǒngsang, Ch’ungch’ǒng, Chǒlla, and Cheju Island. The NorthKorean regional dialects are Hamkyǒng, P’yǒngan, and Hwanghae. Some of thedialects are not easily mutually intelligible. Regional dialect consist of:

a.    Dialect continuum

The different language speaking areas in West Africa may be referred to as dialect areas, and there are between ten and fifteen major dialect areas. The important ones are found in (a) northern Senegal and southern Mauritania, (b) Guinea, (c) Mali, (d) Burkina Faso, western Nigeria, and western Niger, (e) central Nigeria, and (f) eastern Nigeria and northern Cameroon. When speakers from neighbouring dialect areas are meet, they can communicate with each other without problems, each one her or his native variety. However, if a language speaker from one end of West Africa meets a language speaker from the other end, there may be problems, although communication is still possible, perhaps with some exceptions (speakers from eastern Nigeria and northern Cameroon would have difficulties in understanding a speaker from Guinea), and depending to a certain extent upon individual speakers—everybody is not equally good at understanding dialects differing from their own.

A dialect continuum is a chain of dialects; let us say dialects 1–10, with the following property: Speakers of dialect 1 understand dialect 2 extremely well. Speakers of dialect 1 and dialect 3 understand each other rather less well, and speakers of dialect 1 and dialect 4 less well again. There comes to a point, however, say at dialect 5, where dialect 1 is no longer intelligible to the local people and vice versa.

There are many dialect continua around the world. For example, the rural dialects of Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy constitute a dialect continuum. There is always mutual intelligibility between the dialects of neighbouring villages, throughout the area, although the intelligibility decreases as the distance increases. Another European dialect continuum is found in Scandinavia, where there is always intelligibility among neighbouring dialects of the North Germanic language area of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. The Arabic dialects from Morocco to Iraq also constitute a dialect continuum, and so does also a large part of the Indo-Aryan language area of northern India.

b.      Dialect geography: isoglosses, dialect boundaries

a)      Isoglosses

Isogloss is a term that refers to the boundary lines that mark the areas in which certain dialect words are used on the following of the table, there are some words from three. Different dialects such as, Fuuta Tooro (Senegal / Mauritania), Maasina (Mali), andAadamaawa (Nigeria / Cameroon). The two first words in table , those meaning ‘land’ and ‘book’, shows a case where the geographically central dialect of Maasina has different forms from the geographically peripheral dialects of Fuuta Tooro and Aadamaawa. This indicates that an innovation has taken place in the Maasina dialect, which has changed the fricatives/f/ and /s/ (the only fricatives in most dialects of Fula) into /w/ and /j/ (written y) in coda position. It is possible to show on a map the geographical distribution of those varieties of language that has fricatives in coda position and those varieties that do not, and the border between the former varieties and the latter varieties is referred to as an isogloss.

MEANING	FUUTA TOORO	MAASINA	AADAMAAWA
‘land’	lesdi	leydi	lesdi
‘book’	deftere	dewtere	deftere
‘to write’	winndude	winndude	winndugo
‘writes’	winndat	winndan	winndan

                        Table 1 . Words from three dialects   

Here we can observe that Aadamaawa differs from Maasina and Fuuta Tooro.Consequently, there is an isogloss between Aadamaawa and the two others. Historically, Aadamaawa is the innovating dialect. Finally, Fuuta Tooro differs from Maasina and Aadamaawa by having the active habitual suffix –at, while the two others have –an. There is an isogloss separating Fuuta Tooro from the two other dialects. Historically, Maasina and Aadamaawa have innovated: they do not allow word final suffixes ending in /t/ anymore. In the table 2 we have drawn a schematic map showing the mentioned isoglosses and how they separate the three dialects.

b)      Dialect boundaries

Geographical boundaries also play a part. If a group of people are more or less isolated or are prevented from freely mingling with nearby populations due to mountains, rivers, forests, etc., then those populations will develop unique linguistic characteristics which will eventually become distinguishing elements of their dialects.

c.       Accent

Definition of accent according to oxford advanced learners dictionary accent is way of pronunciation words of language that show which country, area or social class a person come from. Accent as a manner of pronunciation, it is a way of pronouncing words that indicates the place of origin or social background of the speaker. An accent is a certain form of a language spoken by a subgroup of speakers of that language which is defined by phonological features. Everyone has an accent, just as everyone speaks a dialect. It's not a question of “having” or “not having” an accent or dialect, it's a question of which accent or dialect you speak with. Note that you can speak the same dialect as someone else while using a different accent (though frequently the two vary together). Thus people from Boston and Brooklyn use about the same dialect, but their accents are radically different. So, accents are distinguished from each other by pronunciation.

For example:

In British English: pavement, boot, bonnet, petrol, baggage. But in American English: sidewalk, trunk, hood, gas, luggage.

d.  Received Pronunciation (RP): England, non-localized accent, higher social or educational background

The language one uses often reflects one's social identity and education, for example: dropping the initial h in words like house can indicate a lower socioeconomic background. On the other hand, pronouncing the letter r in the city of New York is considered as a prestigious feature, but the opposite is true in London.

CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION

            Every country has language; it has to learn for our especially in sociolinguistics. As we know that language does not exist in a vacuum. Since language is a social phenomenon it is natural to assume that the structure of a society has some impact on the language of the speakers of that society. The  study of this relationship and of other extra linguistic factors is the sub-field of sociolinguistics.

As we learn before, we know variety of language can be defined as linguistics items that similar with social distribution. Besides that, dialect also influences language. Dialect is a variety of a language spoken by a group of people that is characterized by systematic features (e.g., phonological, lexical, grammatical) that distinguish it from other varieties of that same language. In society, educational background, cultural, regional appear variety of language and dialect, there are included in language variation.

So, with the differences in every part of explanation of this paper we can understand and tolerance for the differences between the speech of individuals and groups. The differences create new knowledge about language from other country in the world.