“Languages, Dialects, and Varieties”
Created By:
Name : Susi Susanti
Class : V D
Student Number : 11314200355
English Education Department
Faculty of Education and Teacher’s Training
State Islamic University of Sultan Syarif Kasim Riau
Pekanbaru
2015
Contents
Contents………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… i
CHAPTER I : Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………. 1
1.1 Background of Problems………………………………………………………………………………………1
1.2 Formulation of Problems………………………………………………………………………………………1
1.3 Objectives…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..1
CHAPTER II : Discussion………………………………………………………………………………………………2
1. Languages, Dialects, and Varieties…………………………………………………………………………2
- Language and Dialect……………………………………………………………………………… ..2
- Regional Dialects………………………………………………………………………………………..4
- Social Dialects…………………………………………………………………………………………….6
- Styles, Register, and Beliefs………………………………………………………………………….6
CHAPTER III : Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………7
……………………………………………………………………………………………….8
Chapter I
Introduction
1.1 Background of Problem
As we know that in fact, the language in the world is not a single language but different. Moreover, in a variety of languages have various forms, such as standard and non-standard variations. These variations arise because of social and cultural factors, where individuals or groups of individuals live.
Shape or form of language of a person or group of people less influenced by environmental or extra lingual factors that come into contact with it. Therefore extra lingual factor is thus a form of language to suit a wide-variety of social reality that reflection.
All languages exhibit internal variation, each language exists in a number of varieties and is in one sense the sum of those varieties. Hudson (1996, p. 22). Defines a variety of language as ‘a set of linguistic items with similar distribution,’ a definition that allows us to say that all of the following are varieties: Canadian English, London English, the English of football commentaries, and so on.
Speakers have various ways of saying the same thing. It may arise from the mechanical limitations of the speech organs for instance speaker may not be fully under the speaker’s control. Linguistic variable is linguistic unit or a sociolinguistic has variant in lexical and grammatical, but are most often phonological.
The terms of variety language are emerged due to different systems reflecting different varieties of the human condition. Variety is a specific set of ‘linguistic items’ or ‘human speech patterns’ (presumably, sounds, words, grammatical features, etc.) which we can connect with some external factor apparently, a geographical area or a social group (Hudson, 1996; Ferguson, 1972 and Wardhaugh, 2006).
1.2 Formulation of the Problems
1. What are languages, dialects, and varieties ?
2. What are language and dialect ?
3. What are regional and social dialects ?
- What are styles, registers, and beliefs ? 1.3 Objectives
- To know what are languages, dialects, and varieties ?
2. To know what are language and dialect ?
3. To know what are regional dialect and social dialects ? - To know what are styles, registers, and beliefs ?
Discussion
Languages, Dialects and Varieties
Hudson (1996, p. 22) defines a variety of language as ‘a set of linguistic items with similar distribution’, a definition that allows us to say that all of the following are varieties: Canadian English, London English, the English of football commentaries, and so on. According to Hudson, this definition also allows us ‘to treat all the languages of some multilingual speaker, or community, as a single variety, since all the linguistic items concerned have a similar social distribution.’ A variety can therefore be something greater than a single language as well as something less. less even than something traditionally referred to as a dialect. Ferguson (1972, p. 30) offers another definition of variety: ‘anybody of human speech patterns which is sufficiently homogeneous to be analyzed by available techniques of synchronic description and which has a sufficiently large repertory of elements and their arrangements or processes with broad enough semantic scope to function in all formal contexts of communication.
The terms of variety language are emerged due to different systems reflecting different varieties of the human condition. Variety is a specific set of ‘linguistic items’ or ‘human speech patterns’ (presumably, sounds, words, grammatical features, etc.) which we can connect with some external factor apparently, a geographical area or a social group (Hudson, 1996; Ferguson, 1972 and Wardhaugh, 2006). Consequently, if we can identify such a unique set of items or patterns for each group in question, it might be possible to say there are such varieties as Standard English, Cockney,lower-class New York City speech, Oxford English, legalese, cocktail party talk, and so on. One important task, then, in sociolinguistics is to determine if such unique sets of items or patterns do exist.
- Language and Dialect
A Chinese may be surprised to find that another person who appears to be Chinese does not speak Chinese, and some Japanese have gone so far as to claim not to be able to understand Caucasians who speak fluent Japanese. Just as such a strong connection between language and ethnicity may prove to be invaluable in nation-building, it can also be fraught with problems when individuals and groups seek to realize some other identity.
Language variety refers to the various forms of language triggered by social factors. Language may change form region to region, from one social to another, from individual to individual, and from situation to situation. This actual changes result in the varieties of language. According to Bell these criteria may be used to distinguish certain languages from others.
There are seven criteria of languages, they are:
1. Standardization is codificatin of language (grammars, spelling books, dictionaries, literature) in some way. It is possible to teach it in a deliberate manner, it takes on ideological dimensions- social, cultural, and sometimes political – beyond the purely linguistic ones. To make standardization, it requires choosing one elite vernacular and it can be prestigious.
2. Vitality is the existence of a living community of speakers. This criterion can be used to distinguish languages that are ‘alive’ from those that are ‘dead.’ Latin is dead in this sense too for no one speaks it as a native language; it exists only in a written form frozen in time, pronounced rather than spoken, and studied rather than used.
3. Historicity : A particular group of people finds their identity by using a particular
Language. 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 : Other speakers of a language must be felt different from other languages. However, this is a very subjective criterion. Ukrainians say their language is quite different
from Russian and deplored its Russification when they were part of the Soviet Union.
5. Reduction : Particular variety may be regarded as a sub-variety rather than as an independent entity. Speakers of Cockney will
almost certainly say that they speak a variety of English, admit that they are not representative speakers of English, and recognize the existence of other varieties
with equivalent subordinate status. Sometimes the reduction is in the kinds of
opportunities afforded to users of the variety. For example, there may be a reduction
of resources; that is, the variety may lack a writing system, it is contrast to standardized language.
6. Mixture : Feelings about the purity or lack of purity of 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.
7. De facto norms : Speakers recognize as ‘good’ speakers and ‘poor’ speakers and that the good speakers represent the norms of proper usage.
A dialect is a type of language spoken by a group of people. Sometimes people who live in the same place make a dialect. Sometimes people who are similar in some way make a dialect. There is no agreed difference between a dialect and a language. Some dialect are called “language” they may spell words differently and even be known as a language (for example, English is sometimes called a Germanic dialect). Other dialects are different types of a language that come from different places or countries (for example, British English and American English are dialects of English). The study of dialect is called dialectology. Differencess in dialects can be found :
- in different words (for example, people who speak British English may go to church
- In different pronuounciation, Words are written the same way but pronuounced differently by different speakers.
- In different grammar (for example, sme people who speak English may say I dived, and others may say I dove.
A dialect is a social variety of a language or a form of a language spoken in different region of that place. Dialect can be one of two different thing: a variety of language that is specific to one group of speakers. That is can be effect of the area they live in, and social class.
4 types of dialects:
a. Regional or geographical dialect : varieties of a language spoken in a geographical area.
b. Temporal dialects :varieties of a language used at particular stages in its historical development.
c. Social dialect/sociolects : varieties of a language used by people belonging to particular social classes.
d. Idiolects : varieties of language used by individual speakers, with particularities of prnuounciatin, grammar and vocabulary.
REGIONAL DIALECTS
Regional variation in the way a language is spoken is likely to provide one of
the easiest ways of observing variety in language. The varieties of differences in pronunciation, in the choices and forms of words, and in syntax, usually called regional dialects of the language. the term dialect is sometimes used only if there is a strong
tradition of writing in the local variety. Old English and to a lesser extent Middle
English had dialects in this sense. In the absence of such a tradition of writing
the term patois may be used to describe the variety.
The dialect–patois distinction actually seems to make more sense in some
situations, e.g., France, than in others. In medieval France, a number of languages
flourished and several were associated with strong literary traditions. However,
as the language of Paris asserted itself from the fourteenth century on, these traditions withered.
There are some further interesting differences in the use of the terms dialect
and patois (Petyt, 1980, pp. 24–5). Patois is usually used to describe only rural
forms of speech. a dialect usually has a wider
geographical distribution than a patois, so that, whereas regional dialect and
village patois seem unobjectionable, the same cannot be said for regional patois
and village dialect. However, as I indicated above, many Jamaicans refer to the
popular spoken variety of Jamaican English as a patois rather than as a dialect.
This use of the term dialect to differentiate among regional varieties of specific
languages is perhaps more readily applicable to contemporary conditions in Europe and some other developed countries than it would have been in medieval or Renaissance Europe or today in certain other parts of the world, where it was
(and still is) possible to travel long distances and, by making only small changes
in speech from location to location, continue to communicate with the inhabitants.
Heeringa and Nerbonne (2001). They conclude that the traveler ‘perceives phonological distance indirectly’ (p. 398) and that there are ‘unsharp borders between dialect areas’ (p. 399).
Such a situation is often referred to as a dialect continuum. What you have
is a continuum of dialects sequentially arranged over space: A, B, C, D, and so
- Over large distances the dialects at each end of the continuum may well
unintelligible with one or both ends, or even with certain other intermediate
ones. In such a distribution, which dialects can be classified together under one
language. Various pressures – political, social, cultural, and educational – serve to harden current state boundaries and to make the linguistic differences among states more, not less, pronounced. Dialects continue therefore to disappear as national languages arise. They are subject to two kinds of pressure: one from within, to conform to a national standard, and one from without, to become different from standards elsewhere.
Dialect geography is the term used to describe attempts made to map the distributions of various linguistic features so as to show their geographical provenance. Sometimes maps are drawn to show actual boundaries around such features, boundaries called isoglosses, so as to distinguish an area in which a certain feature is found from areas in which it is absent. When several such isoglosses coincide, the result is sometimes called
a dialect boundary. Then we may be tempted to say that speakers on one side
of that boundary speak one dialect and speakers on the other side speak a
different dialect.
Finally, the term dialect, particularly when it is used in reference to regional
variation, should not be confused with the term accent. Standard English, for
example, is spoken in a variety of accents, often with clear regional and social associations: there are accents associated with North America, Singapore, India, Liverpool (Scouse), Tyneside (Geordie), Boston, New York, and so on. One English accent has achieved a certain eminence, the accent known as
Received Pronunciation (or RP), the accent of perhaps as few as 3 percent of
those who live in England.
Social Dialects
Social dialect is varieties of a language used by people belonging to particular social classes. Whereas regional dialects are geographically based, social dialects originate among social groups and are related to a variety of factors, the principal ones
apparently being social class, religion, and ethnicity. In India, for example, caste,
one of the clearest of all social differentiators, quite often determines which variety of a language a speaker uses.
The various relationships among languages and dialects discussed above can be used to show how the concepts of ‘power’ and ‘solidarity’ help us understand what is happening. Power requires some kind of asymmetrical relationship between entities: one has more of something that is important, e.g. status, money, influence. Language has more power than any of its dialects. It is the powerful dialect but it has become so because of non-linguistic factors. Standard English and Parisian French are good examples. Still another difficulty arises from the fact that the terms.
Styles, Register, and Beliefs
Styles is variation in a person’s speech or writing. Style usually varies from casual to formal according to type of situation, the person, the setting, the topic discussed, etc.
Register are varieties of language used in different situations, which are identified by deegre of formality. Register can be vary from vocabulary, phonology, grammar to semantics. Register is determined by some factors:
• Field of discourse: what is being discussed
• Mode of discourse: oral or written
• Tenor of discourse: relation between participant.
The 3 variables determine the features of language fit with the situation. When fitted, the right register turns up. A register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, when speaking in a formal setting, an English speaker my be more likely to adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in –ing with a velar nasal instead of an alveolar nasal (e.g. “walking”, not “walkin”). Choose more formal words (e.g. father vs.dad, child vs. Kid, etc), and refrain from using contractions such an ain’t, then when speaking in an informal setting.
Linguists know that many popular beliefs about language are false and that much we are taught about language is misdirected. They also know how difficult it is to effect change.’ Language beliefs are well entrenched as are language attitudes and language behaviors. Sociolinguists should strive for an understanding of all three because all affect how people behave toward others. As we have seen, many varieties of language exist and each language exists in a number of guises. However, languages do not vary in every possible way. It is still quite possible to listen to an individual speaker and infer very specific things about that speaker after hearing relatively little of his or her speech. The interesting problem is accounting for our ability to do that.
Dialect, style, and register differences are largely independent: you can talk casually about mountain climbing in a local variety of a language, or you can
write a formal technical study of wine making. You may also be judged to speak
‘better’ or ‘worse’ than other speakers who have much the same background.
Chapter III
Conclusion
Based on the explanation above, the writer will give summarize to readers about the “Language, Dialects and Varieties”. The language and dialect as follow: Lower part of variety language is dialect and as the main part is language. Register are varieties of language used in different situations, which are identified by degrees of formality. Language may change forms region to region, from one social to another, from individual to individual, and from situation to situation. This actual changes result in the varieties of language. There are some points of varieties of language: standard language, dialects, registers. Criteria of language: Standardization, Vitality, Historicity, Autonomy, Reduction, Mixture and De facto norms.
The differences in dialect are because sometimes people who live in the same place make a dialect and sometimes people who are similar in some way make a dialect. Other dialects are different types of a language that come from different places or countries. Dialect can be one of two different thing: a variety of language that is specific to one group of speakers. That is can be effect of the area they live in, and social class. Types of dialects: Regional or geographical dialect, Temporal dialect, Social dialect, Idiolects and Style.
References
Amelia, rizki, 2013, ”An Introduction to Sociolinguistics” .Benteng Media: Pekanbaru.
Wardhaugh, Ronald 2006, “An Introduction to Sociolinguistics” 4th ed. Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
http://rajinbelajarrr.blogspot.com/2014/03/makalah-sociolinguistic-dialects-and.html retrieved on Thursday, 22, at 5:00 PM.
http://waodesittinurindah.blogspot.com/2013/05/makalh-pidgins-and-creole-in.html retrieved on Thursday, 22, at 5:24 PM.
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