Meeting 10

Sociolinguistics:
Language in Society
 What is sociolinguistics?
 Sociolinguistics is the study of the relationship
between language use and the structure of
society.

 Sociolinguistics study about all phenomena of

using language in a community, whether one
language is always used by the speaker or it is
no longer exist and there is the extinction of
language in one community.
 Dialect
In talking about studying a language, it can not
be separated from the people who use that
language.

Language always relates to the society and

community, as well as to the cultures.

In doing that relation, it can be found in a

community people tend to use language based
on varieties of language, such as the
pronunciation of word(s) and the meaning of
some words.
 continuation
 In result, the use of a language can be in form of
different dialect and idiolect.
 Dialect relates to the variety of language used by
community, it is based on region.
 Dialect can be divided into two:
1. Dialect that consist of various aspect from
region
2. Sociolect, which is dialect that relates to
society include the age, sex, social status of
the speakers. While, idiolect relates to the
use of language individually or the unique of
individual in speaking. So that, it is easy to
know people background of language by
hearing their dialect.
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• Social factors of speak can be based on:

1) to whom you speak (whether parents,
friends, superior, or subordinates)
2) where you speak (at school, at church,
street)
3) what topic (serious or not)
4) what function you speak (formal or
informal).
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 Dialect is a part of accent-the characteristics of
speech that convey information about the speaker’s
dialect, which may reveal in what country or what
part of the country the speaker grew up or to which
sociolinguistics group the speaker belongs.

 The terms accent is also used to refer to the speech

of someone who speaks a language no natively, for
example a French person speaking English is
described as having a French accent.

 In this sense, accent refers to phonological

differences or “interference” from a different
language spoken elsewhere.
 Lingua Franca
• Many areas of the world are populated by people
speaking divergent languages. In such areas, where
groups desire social or commercial communication,
one language is often used by common agreement.
Such a language is called a lingua franca.

• So, it is a link language which is used to

communicate among other different languages. For
example, bahasa Indonesia is a lingua franca
among Indonesian people from different regions.
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• Lingua franca emerge because of people mobile so

that they need one means of communication that
help them understand different language.

• In the past, lingua franca is the result of trade

language. English has been called “the lingua franca
of the whole world, “French at one time, was “the
lingua franca of diplomacy,” and Latin and Greek
were the lingua francas of Christianity in the West
and East, respectively for a millennium.
 Pidgins and Creoles
• A lingua franca is typically a language with a broad
base of native speakers, likely to be used and
learned by persons whose native language is in the
same language family.

• When a lingua franca is used by some native

languages among other “marginal languages”, it is
called as pidgin. The two (or possibly more) groups
use their native languages as a basis for a
rudimentary language of few lexical items and
“straightforward” grammatical rules.

• One such pidgin is called Tok Pisin, originally was

called Melanesian Pidgin English. It is widely used in
Papua New Guinea.
 continuation
• One distinguishing characteristic of pidgin languages is
that no one learns them as native speakers.
• When a pidgin comes to be adopted by a community as
its native tongue, and children learn it as a first
language, that language is called a creole; the pidgin
has become creolized.
• Creole become fully developed languages, having more
lexical items and a broader array of grammatical
distinction than pidgins. In time, they become languages
as complete in every way as other languages.
• For example, Gullah is an English-based creole spoken
by the descendants of African slaves on the islands off
the coast of Georgia and South Carolina. Louisiana
Creole, related to Haitian Creole, is spoken by large
numbers of blacks and whites in Louisiana.
 Styles and Slang
• Most speakers of a language know many “dialects.”
They use one “dialect” when out with friends,
another when on a job interview or presenting a
report in class, and another when talking to their
parents. These “situation dialects” are called styles.

• Nearly everybody has at least an informal and a

formal style. In an informal style the rules on
contraction are used more often, the syntactic rules
of negation and agreement may be altered, and
many words are used that do not occur in formal
style.
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• One mark of an informal style is the frequent occurrence
of slang. Slang has been defined as “one of those things
that everybody can recognize and nobody can define.”

• The use of slang, colloquial language, introduces many

new words into the language by recombining old words
into new meanings. Spaced out, right on, hangup, and
rip-off have all gained a degree of acceptance.

• Slang may also introduce an entirely new word, such as

barf, flub, and pooped.

• Finally, slang often consist of ascribing totally new

meanings to old words. Grass and pot widened their
meaning to “marijuana”; pig and fuzz are derogatory
term for “policeman”; rap, cool, dig, stoned, bread, and
split have all extended their semantic domain.
 Exercises
1. What does sociolinguistics means?
a.A language that relates with interactional
context
b.Language in society
c.Trade in language
d.A language that has a totally meaning
e.A situation of dialect
 Continuation

2. What is a language that is adopted as a

common language between speakers whose
native languages are different?
a.Dialect
b.Accent
c.Lingua franca
d.Style
e.Slang
 Continuation
3. Phonology, morphology, semantic and syntax
are all concepts studied in?
a. Historical linguistics
b. ethnolinguistics
c. sociolinguistics
d. descriptive linguistics
e. Graphology
 Continuation

4. What is a language that is peculiar to a specific

region or social group?
a. lingua franca
b. dialect
c. accent
d. pidgins
e. creoles
 continuation
5. There is someone who speaks with different
dialect based on the situation. So, it is called…
a. lingua franca
b. dialect
c. accent
d. style
e. creoles
 Answer Key
1. b
2. c
3. d
4. b
5. d