Nama : Bety Miftakhul Jannah

Student ID : 1800004107

Kelas : B

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTIK (10)

1. What problems arise in an attempt to define the notion of a 'language'?

The answer to all these questions appears to be •no•. A geographical definition of a
language would separate Australian, British and American English, which is obviously
unsatisfactory. Nationality is a vague notion which has little to do with the language a.
person speaks. Numerous Soviet Jews, for example, regard theinselves as essentially
Jewish, yet speak Russian. Mutual intelligibility is of little help, since a Glaswegian
and a cockney are likely to find it harder to understand one:: another ihan a Dutchmail
ar.d a German who are considered to be speaking distinct languages. And there is no·
objective linguistic-criterion which can be applied. Dutch and German are not only
mutually intelligible, they ace also su.Jcturally more alike than some of the so-called
dialects of Chinese.
2. Distinguish between dialect and accent?
 Dialect
The most obvious type of Yariety in a speech community is the use of different dialects.
A dialect is usually associated with a particular geographical area. such as the Geordie
and Cockney dialects of English, which are spoken in Tyneside and London
respectively. The term dialect refers to far greater difference than more pronunciation.
The Lancashire dialect clifiers from standard British English in sound sysrem, syntax
and vocabulary, with phrases such as I don't want for to go. summat for something,
nowt for nothing. American English ranks as a different dialect from British English,
with phonological innovations such as nasal vowels, ana constructions such as I kinda
figured maybe' ana 'He said for you not to worry'.
 Accent
An accent refers only to a difference in pronunciation. A Scotsman ana a Londoner are
likely to speak English with different accents. But if the underlying system and the
vocabulary are the same, they will be speaking the same dialect. In fact, although a
considerable number of local accents are still found in Britain, dialects are dying out,
due to the influence of education, radio and television.
3. Which socio-economic class is likely to show the greatest phonclogical variation within
its speech, and why?
It is well-known that sales-staff tend to mimic the speech of their customers, and, as
Labov predicted, he found that in the store that was considered socially inferior, the
number of [r] sounds was low, under 20%. In the middleranking store, [r]was inserted
about 50% of the time, and in the store considered socially superior, [r] was used over
60% of the time. These preliminary results dearly showed that the use of [r] in New
York was a useful guide to social status. After this preliminary survey, Labov then
examined the speech of each class of person in more detaiL Perhaps predietably, he
found that [r] was inserted much more frequently in careful speech and in the reading
of word lists than in casual speech. This was true of all social classes. There was,
however one unexpected finding. When reading word lists, lower-middleclass speakers
inserted [r].more often than upper-middle-class speakers - even though in casual
speech, the situation was reversed, with lower-middle-class speech containing fewer [r]
sounds. This suggests that lower-middle-class speakers are more consciously aware of
speech as an indicator of social class, and are making efforts to improve their status.

4. in what ways might women's speech differ from men's?

Moreover, in recent years, particularly among employed women, the differences
between men's and women's speech appear to be diminishing. Furthermore, some
characteristics attributed to women tum out to be far more widespread. For example,
women have been claimed to use more hedges, tentative phrases such as kind of, sort
of, in place of straight statements: 'Bill is kind of short', instead of ‘sill is short'. They
have also bee accused of using question intonation in response to queires: About eight
o'clock?' as a reply to: 'What time's dinner?' Yet this insecure style of conversation
seems to be typical of powerless' people, those who are somewhat nervous and afraid
of antagonizing others. Powerless people come from either sex.
5. What is language planning, and how might it be canied out effectively?
 language planning as "the authoritative allocation of resources to the attainment of
language status and corpus goals, whether in connection with new functions that are
aspired to or in connection with old functions that need to be discharged more
adequately" (1987).
 A study of the ways in which these multiple languages are nsed is particularly important
for language planning, a situation in which a government or education~~ to manipulate
 the linguistic situation in a particular direCtion. This is more likely to be successful if
existing uses of a language are gradually extended, since the sudden imposition of a
particular language by decree may well result in failure.
6. What is a pidgin, and how may it be distinguished from a creole?
 A pidgin is a restricted language system which arises in order to fulfil essential
communication needs among people with no common language. It is no one's first
language, and is used at first in a limited set of circumstances.
 Sometimes, pidgins die out of their own accord. At other times they increase in
importance, and become used in more and more areas of life. If someone then acquires
a pidgin as a first language - perhaps because of intermarriage between people whose
only common-language is the pidgin - the Language has then become creole.