Sociolinguistics

Linguistic Geography
• Throughout this book, we have been talking about
languages such as English, Spanish or Swahili as if there
was a single variety of each in everyday use. That is, we
have largely ignored the fact that every language has a lot
of variation, especially in the way it is spoken. If we just
look at English, we find widespread variation in the way it
is spoken in different countries such as Australia, Britain
and the USA. We can also find a range of varieties in
different parts of those countries, with Lee Tonouchi’s
account of “Trick-O-Treat” in Hawai’i as just one example.
In this chapter, we investigate aspects of language
variation based on where that language is used, as a
way of doing linguistic geography. First, we should
identify the particular variety that we have normally
assumed when we referred to a language as English,
Spanish or Swahili.
 • When we talked about the words and structures of a language in
earlier chapters, we were concentrating on the features of only one
variety, usually called the standard language. This is actually an
idealized variety, because it has no specific region. It is the
variety associated with administrative, commercial and
educational centers, regardless of region. If we think of Standard
English, it is the version we believe is found in printed English in
The standard newspapers and books, is widely used in the mass media and is
taught in most schools. It is the variety we normally try to teach to
language those who want to learn English as a second or foreign language. It
is clearly associated with education and broadcasting in public
contexts and is more easily described in terms of the written
language (i.e. vocabulary, spelling, grammar) than the spoken
language. If we are thinking of that general variety used in public
broadcasting in the United States, we can refer more specifically to
Standard American English or, in Britain, to Standard British
English. In other parts of the world, we can talk about other
recognized varieties such as Standard Australian English, Standard
Canadian English or Standard Indian English.
 • Whether we think we speak a standard variety of English or not, we all
speak with an accent. It is a myth that some speakers have accents
while others do not. We might feel that some speakers have very
distinct or easily recognized types of accent while others may have
more subtle or less noticeable accents, but every language-user
speaks with an accent. Technically, the term “accent” is restricted
to the description of aspects of pronunciation that identify where
an individual speaker is from, regionally or socially. It is different

Accent and from the term dialect, which is used to describe features of
grammar and vocabulary as well as aspects of pronunciation. We
recognize that the sentence You don’t know what you’re talking
dialect about will generally “look” the same whether spoken with an
American accent or a Scottish accent. Both speakers will be using
forms associated with Standard English, but have different
pronunciations. However, this next sentence – Ye dinnae ken whit
yer haverin’ aboot – has the same meaning as the first, but has been
written out in an approximation of what a person who speaks one
dialect of Scottish English might say. There are differences in
pronunciation (e.g. whit, aboot), but there are also examples of
different vocabulary (e.g. ken, haverin’) and a different grammatical
form (dinnae).
• While differences in vocabulary are often easily recognized, dialect
variations in the meaning of grammatical constructions are less
frequently documented. In the following example (from Trudgill, 1983) two
British English speaking visitors (B and C) and a local Irish English
speaker (A) are involved in a conversation in Donegal, Ireland.
• A: How long are youse here?
• B: Till after Easter. (Speaker A looks puzzled.)
• C: We came on Sunday.
• A: Ah. Youse’re here a while then.
• It seems that the construction How long are youse here?, in speaker A’s
dialect, is used with a meaning close to the structure “How long have
you been here?” referring to past time. Speaker B, however, answers as if
the question was referring to future time (“How long are you going to be
here?”). When speaker C answers with a past time response (We came on
Sunday), speaker A acknowledges it and repeats his use of a present
tense (Youse’re here) to refer to past time. Note that the dialect form
youse (= “you” plural) seems to be understood by the visitors though it is
unlikely to be part of their own dialect.
Dialectology
• Despite occasional difficulties, there is a general impression of mutual
intelligibility among many speakers of different dialects of English. This is
one of the criteria used in the study of dialects, or dialectology, to
distinguish between two different dialects of the same language (whose
speakers can usually understand each other) and two different languages
(whose speakers can’t usually understand each other). This is not the only, or
the most reliable, way of identifying dialects, but it is helpful in establishing
the fact that each different dialect, like each language, is equally worthy
of analysis. It is important to recognize, from a linguistic point of view, that
none of the varieties of a language is inherently “better” than any other.
They are simply different. From a social point of view, however, some
varieties do become more prestigious. In fact, the variety that develops
as the standard language has usually been one socially prestigious
dialect, originally associated with a center of economic and political
power (e.g. London for British English and Paris for French). Yet, there
always continue to be other varieties of a language spoken in different
regions.
Regional dialects
• The existence of different regional dialects is widely
recognized and often the source of some humour for those
living in different regions. In the United States, people from
the Brooklyn area of New York may joke about a Southerner’s
definition of sex by telling you that sex is fo’ less than tin, in their
best imitation of someone from the Southern states. In return,
Southerners can wonder aloud about what a tree guy is in
Brooklyn, since they have heard Brooklyn speakers refer to doze
tree guys. Some regional dialects clearly have stereotyped
pronunciations associated with them.
• Going beyond stereotypes, those involved in the serious investigation
of regional dialects have devoted a lot of survey research to the
identification of consistent features of speech found in one
geographical area compared to another. These dialect surveys often
involve painstaking attention to detail and tend to operate with very
specific criteria in identifying acceptable informants. After all, it is
important to know if the person whose speech you are recording
really is a typical representative of the region’s dialect.
Consequently, the informants in the major dialect surveys of the
twentieth century tended to be NORMS or “non-mobile, older, rural,
male speakers.” Such speakers were selected because it was believed
that they were less likely to have influences from outside the region in
their speech. One unfortunate consequence of using such criteria is
that the resulting dialect description tends to be more accurate of a
period well before the time of investigation.
Isoglosses and dialect boundaries
• We can look at some examples of regional variation found in a survey to
find a number of significant differences in the speech of those living in
different areas and to be able to chart where the boundaries are, in
dialect terms, between those areas. If it is found, for example, that the
vast majority of informants in one area say they carry things home from
the store in a paper bag while the majority in another area say they use
a paper sack, then it is usually possible to draw a line across a map
separating the two areas, as shown on the accompanying illustration.
This line is called an isogloss and represents a boundary between
the areas with regard to that one particular linguistic item.
• Dialect boundaries: when a number of isoglosses come together a
more solid line can be drawn, which indicates a dialect boundary.
The dialect continuum
• Another note of caution is required with regard to dialect boundaries. The
drawing of isoglosses and dialect boundaries is quite useful in establishing a
broad view of regional dialects, but it tends to obscure the fact that, at most
dialect boundary areas, one dialect or language variety merges into another.
Keeping this in mind, we can view regional variation as existing along a
dialect continuum rather than as having sharp breaks from one region to
the next.
• Speakers who move back and forth across the border area, using different
varieties with some ease, may be described as bidialectal (i.e. “speaking
two dialects”). Most of us grow up with some form of bidialectalism,
speaking one dialect “in the street” among family and friends, and having to
learn another dialect “in school.” However, in some places, there are
different languages used in the street and in school. When we talk about
people knowing two distinct languages, we describe them as bilingual.
Bilingualism and diglossia
• In many countries, regional variation is not simply a matter of two (or
more) dialects of a single language, but can involve two (or more) quite
distinct and different languages. Canada, for example, is an
officially bilingual country, with both French and English as official
languages. This recognition of the linguistic rights of the country’s
French speakers, largely in Quebec, did not come about without a lot of
political upheaval. For most of its history, Canada was essentially an
English-speaking country, with a French-speaking minority group. In
such a situation, bilingualism at the level of the individual tends to be a
feature of the minority group. In this form of bilingualism, a member of
a minority group grows up in one linguistic community, mainly speaking
one language ([Link] in Britain or Spanish in the United States), but
learns another language (e.g. English) in order to take part in the larger
dominant linguistic community. Indeed, many members of linguistic
minorities can live out their entire lives without ever seeing their
native language appear in the public domain. Sometimes political
activism can change that.
• Individual bilingualism, however, doesn’t have to be the result of
political dominance by a group using a different language. It can
simply be the result of having two parents who speak different
languages. If a child simultaneously acquires the French spoken
by her mother and the English spoken by her father, then the
distinction between the two languages may not even be noticed by
the child. There will simply be two ways of talking according to the
person being talked to. However, even in this type of bilingualism,
one language tends eventually to become the dominant one, with
the other in a subordinate role.
Diglossia
• A rather special situation involving two distinct varieties of a
language, called diglossia, exists in some countries. In
diglossia, there is a “low” variety, acquired locally and used for
everyday affairs, and a “high” or special variety, learned in
school and used for important matters. A type of diglossia exists
in Arabic-speaking countries where the high variety (Classical
Arabic) is used in formal lectures, serious political events and
especially in religious discussions. The low variety is the local
version of the language, such as Egyptian Arabic or Lebanese
Arabic.
 Language planning
• Government, legal and educational organizations in many countries have to plan which
variety or varieties of the languages spoken in the country are to be used for official
business.
• The process of language planning may be seen in a better light when the full series of
stages is implemented over a number of years. The adoption of Swahili as the national
language of Tanzania in East Africa may serve as a good example. There still exist a large
number of other languages, as well as the colonial vestiges of English, but the educational,
legal and government systems have gradually introduced Swahili as the official language.
• The process of “selection” (choosing an official language) is followed by “codification,” in
which basic grammars, dictionaries and written models are used to establish the standard
variety.
• The process of “elaboration” follows, with the standard variety being developed for use in
all aspects of social life and the appearance of a body of literary work written in the
standard.
• The process of “implementation” is largely a matter of government attempts to encourage
use of the standard, and “acceptance” is the final stage when a substantial majority of the
population have come to use the standard and to think of it as the national language,
playing a part in not only social, but also national identity.
Pidgins and creoles
• a kind of “contact” language called a pidgin.
• A pidgin is a variety of a language that developed for some practical
purpose, such as trading, among groups of people who had a lot of
contact, but who did not know each other’s languages. As such, it would
have no native speakers. The origin of the term “pidgin” is thought to be from
a Chinese version of the English word “business.”
• There are several English pidgins still used today. They are characterized by
an absence of any complex grammatical morphology and a somewhat
limited vocabulary. Inflectional suffixes such as -s (plural) and -’s
(possessive) on nouns in Standard English are rare in pidgins, while
structures like tu buk (“two books”) and di gyal place (“the girl’s place”) are
common. Functional morphemes often take the place of inflectional
morphemes found in the source language. For example, instead of changing
the form of you to your, as in the English phrase your book, English-based
pidgins use a form like bilong, and change the word order to produce phrases
like buk bilong yu.
• When a pidgin develops beyond its role as a trade or contact
language and becomes the first language of a social
community, it is described as a creole.
• A creole initially develops as the first language of children growing
up in a pidgin-using community and becomes more complex as it
serves more communicative purposes. Thus, unlike pidgins,
creoles have large numbers of native speakers and are not
restricted at all in their uses.
The post-creole continuum
• In many contemporary situations where creoles evolved, there is
usually evidence of another process at work. Just as there was
development from a pidgin to a creole, known as creolization, there
is now often a retreat from the use of the creole by those who have
greater contact with a standard variety of the language. Where
education and greater social prestige are associated with a “higher”
variety (e.g. British English in Jamaica), a number of speakers will
tend to use fewer creole forms and structures. This process, known
as decreolization, leads at one extreme to a variety that is closer to the
external standard model and leaves, at the other extreme, a basic
variety with more local creole features. Between these two extremes
may be a range of slightly different varieties, some with many and some
with fewer creole features. This range of varieties, evolving after (=
“post”) the creole has come into existence, is called the post-creole
continuum.