THE CHARACTERISTICS OF LANGUAGE AS SOCIAL SYMPTOM

( THE SPECULATIVE STUDY OF THE ORIGINAL OF LANGUAGE )

WHAT IS SOCIOLINGUISTICS?
Sociolinguistics is a branch or sub-dicipline of linguistics which studies all aspects of
the relationship between language and society.
Richard Anthony Hudson, in his book Sociolinguistics defines Sociolinguistics as
“the study of language in relation to society.”
Although it is relatively a new science – it developed during the early 1960s as an
interdiciplinary field combining aspects of Antrophology, Linguistics, Social and educational
Psychology, and Sociology – Sociolinguistics has already developed three prominent sub-
diciplines: sociolinguistic variation, involving the evolution and description of languages; the
ethnography of speaking, which examines the social conventions governing linguistic
interaction; and the sociology of language, which focuses on how a society’s structure affects
its choice of a language ( Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge ).
Sociolinguists study such matters as the linguistic identity of social group, social
attitude to language, standard and non-standard forms of language, the pattern and needs of
national language use, social varieties and levels of language, the social basis of
multilingualism, and so on.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY

Language plays a very important role in our life (society). It cannot be separated from
society. There is no society using no language. It is in society that man acquires and uses
language.
Language is used for many things: as medium of communication, as medium for
thought, as a vehicle for literary expression, as a social institution, as a matter for political
controversy, and as factor in nation building.
Every normal human being is a member of social group, sometimes of more than one.
Every human being depends, in all her/his social activities, on the use of language. Without
language human society cannot think.
Society and language cannot really be separated in their existence. The relation which
exists between them can be found in the definition made by Bernard Bloch and George L.
Trager, of Brown University and Yale University, in their book Outlines of Linguistics
Analysis. They write that “a language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of
which a social group cooperates.”
Ronald Wardhaugh, in his book An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, explains that
there is a variety of possible relationships between language and society. This variety is
described as follows:
1. Social structure may either influence or determine linguistic structure and/or behaviour.
Certain evidence may be adduced to support this view: the age-grading phenomenon whereby
young children speak differently from older children and, in turn, children speak differently
from nature adults; studies which show that the varieties of language that speakers use reflect
such matters as their regional, social, or ethnic origin and possibly even their sex; and other
studies which show that particular ways of speaking, choices of words, and even rules for
conversing are determined by certain social requirements.
2. A second possible relationship is directly opposed to the first: Linguistic structure and/or
behaviour may either influence or determine social structure.
3. A third possible relationship is that the influence is bi-directional: Language and society
may influence each other.
4. A fourth possibility is to assume that there is no relationship at all between linguistic
structure and social structure and that each is independent of the other.

SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

Richard Anthony Hudson, in his book Sociolinguistics has described the difference
between sociolinguistics and the sociology of language as follows: Sociolinguistics is “the
study of language in relation to society,” whereas the sociology of language is “ the study of
society in relation to language.” In other words, in sociolinguistics the study is concerned
with society in order to find out as much as we can about what kind of thing language is, and
in the sociology of language the direction of interest is reversed.
He has also described that “the difference between sociolinguistics and the sociology
of language is very much one of emphasis, according to whether the investigator is more
interested in language or society, and also according to whether he has more skill in
analyzing linguistic or social structures. There is a very large area of overlap between the two
and it seems pointless to try to divide the disciplines more clearly than at present.”
LANGUAGE AND DIALECT
Language may be defined as any particular system of human communication.
Sometimes a language is spoken by most people in a particular country, for example,
Japanese in Japan, but sometimes a language is spoken by only part of the population of a
country, for example, Tamil in India, French in Canada, etc.
Language are usually not spoken in exactly the same way from one part of a country
to the other. Differences in the way a language is spoken by different people are described in
terms of regional and social variation (regional and social dialect (sociolect)).
In general usage, language and dialect may be employed virtually interchangeably. In
some cases which term is used depends entirely on extra linguistic considerations,
particularly on certain political or social factors.
Einar Haugen (1966) regards that a language is larger than a dialect. This means that a
variety which is called a language contains more items than one called a dialect. (This is the
sense in which we refer to English as a language, containing the sum total of all the terms in
all its dialects, with “Standard English” as one dialect among many others (Yorkshire
English, Indian English, etc.)).
He also adds that a language has prestige which a dialect lacks. In this sense, Standard
English (the kinds of English used in books) is not a dialect at all, but a language, whereas the
varieties which are not used in formal writing are dialects. Whether some variety is called a
language or a dialect depends on how much prestige one thinks it has, and for most people
this is a clear-cut matter, which depends on whether it is used in formal writing.
A dialect is often thought of as standing out side the language. As a social norm, then,
a dialect is a language that is excluded from polite society (Haugen,1966). It is often
equivalent to non-standard or even sub-standard, when such terms are applied to language,
and can connote various degrees of inferiority, with that connotation of inferiority carried
over to those who speak a dialect.
Dialect, as the variety of a language, is classified into regional dialect and social
dialect (sociolect).
Regional Dialect is a variety of a language (dialect) which is spojen in one part of a
country (or a variation in speech according to the particular area where a speaker comes
from). The variation in this dialect may occur with respect to pronunciation, vocabulary, or
syntax. For example, in the Southwest of England and in the American Midwest, there are
many speakers who use an /r/ sound in word such as car, tour, part, etc., whereas speakers
from some other places, such as New England and London region, do not.
 Social dialect (sociolect) is a variety of a language (a dialect) which is used by people
belonging to a particular social class. The speakers of this type of dialect usually share a
similar socioeconomic and / or educational background. This type of dialect may be classified
as high (in status) or low (in status). They may show different in some words, grammar and /
or pronunciation from other forms of the same language. For example, people of higher social
class will say “ He and I were going there,” whereas people of lower social class will say
“I’m in me was going there.”

LANGUAGE AS THE OBJECT OF STUDY

The Speculative Study of the Origin of Language
Men have speculated for centuries on the origin of language, and through time to time
people have produced theories which satisfied themselves; they have not often managed to
convince other people. Nevertheless, in their inquiries they have been led to study a number
of topics connected with human language; and these topics have their own interest, however
much or little they bear on the major mystery.

1. The Great Original

Before the 19th century, it had been the usual assumption that the original of all
known languages was one of the languages still spoken, or one which had only recently (the
last thousand year or so) fallen into disuse.
Almost every language spoken in the civilized world was at some time suggested as
the original. Hebrew was the language of the Old Testament, and was the favorite choice. In
the 17th century a Swedish writer had an interesting alternative theory; he believed that in the
Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had spoken Danish; the Serpent, French; and God, Swedish.
As late as 1934 a meeting of Turkish scholars had solemnly declared that Turkish was the
language from which all others originated. But Greek has also been frequently put forward by
classical scholars; a sixteenth-century Dutch scholar suggested Dutch; Celtic has been
suggested by Irishmen and Welshmen; and Gothic was suggested by a Renaissance German.

2. The Royal Experiment

It was the experiment of three kings with the idea that if a number of small children
were isolated at birth from all sounds of human speech and brought up together in silence,
then, when they did start talking, it would be the original language of mankind that they use.
The first king to try it was the Egyptian Psammitichos. His victims are supposed to have said
first Bekos; which happened to be the Prygian word for “bread”. This solved the mystery to
the king’s satisfaction.
Later, the Emperor Frederick II (died in 1250) failed in his experiment, because the
children he used in the experiment died before saying anything. Later still, James IV of
Scotland declared that the children in his experiment came to speak ‘very good Hebrew’.
3. The Bow-wow Thoery
This theory suggests that human speech originated in imitation of the noises of
animals. For examples: Cats mew; dogs bark; and so on.
4. The Ding-dog Theory
According to this theory, the first sounds that had meaning for men were those
they made in imitation of natural sounds, such as the falling of stones or the running
of water: hubbub, splash, boom.
5. The Pooh-pooh Theory
This theory suggests that language originated in the involuntary expression of
emotion. Examples of emotional noises: Ow, Ouch, Ah.
6. The Yo-he-ho Theory
This suggests that language started with the unintentional noises which we
make when we are doing some physical work. These noises are often rhythmical, and
rhythmical noises are useful when working in company with each other, since they
help to keep their efforts coordinated. Unintentional exclamation may have evolved
into something like songs, and from these songs language may have originated.
7. Gesture Theories
Several theories popular today suggest that language began as some form of
gesture. Although we usually think of gestures as movements of the hands and arms,
it is possible to make gestures with the heads and lips. Different gestures, involving
all the muscles of the head and mouth, would results in different noises; and it would
soon become apparent from the noise alone what gestures caused it. These noises
would therefore come to stand in the place of the gestures rather than accompanying
them; and words would have been born. A man gesturing towards someone else might
push lips forward in the direction of the person he is indicating. The English you and
thou, the French vous, the German du, and the Indonesian kau have this sort of lip-
action.
Characteristics of Language
According to Wardhaugh (1972), linguists are in broad agreement about some of the
important characteristics of human language, and one definition of language widely
associated with linguistics may be used to illustrate areas of agreement. This particular
definition states that language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human
communication.
1. Language as a system
The key term in the above definition is ‘system’. It is also the most difficult
term to discuss. We may observe that a language must be systematic, for otherwise it
could not be learned or used consistently. However, we must also ask in what ways a
language is systematic. A very basic observation is that each language contains two
systems rather than one, a system of sounds and a system of meanings. Only certain
sounds are used by speakers of any language, and only certain combinations of these
sounds are possible. A speakers of English can say I saw the bank but cannot say *I
saw the banque, which make him sound partly a Frenchman, or *I saw the nbka,
which makes him feel that he is saying some kind of tongue twister. Likewise, he can
say I saw the bank, but not *I bank saw the, which is nonsense, and if says I bank the
saw, that sentence means something quite different and is rather absurd. Linguists
concern themselves not only with characteristics of the two systems but also with how
the systems relate to each other within one overall linguistic system for a particular
language. The nature of this relationship in all language is very important and
constitutes a most interesting problem.
Linguists are also concerned with the units and processes within the system.
An utterance is not a continuous phenomenon; it is broken into discrete units of
various sizes, and these units are arranged by various processes. We must seek to
understand what these units and process are. Very likely they are not those that the
educated public holds dear, or at least not as they are defined by that public, for
example such units as letters and words, and such process as sentences constructed
according to some “sense-making” formula. We can postulate such units as phonemes
and morphemes, and such arrangements and processes as constituent structure and
transformations. Our search must be for those discrete units and processes which
systematically account for interesting data within a theory that says something of
significance to fellow scientists.
2. Language as arbitrary
 The term “arbitrary” in the definition does not mean that everything about
language is unpredictable, for language does not vary in every possible way. It means
that there will be no way of predicting what a word means just from hearing it, or
knowing in advance whether or how nouns will be inflected, or of saying whether
pronouns will fall into particular pattern. Likewise, there will be no way of predicting
exactly which sounds will occur, of knowing what the ratio of consonants to vowels
will be, or of saying whether the nasal passages will be involved in the production of
certain vowels. If languages were completely unpredictable in their system, we could
not even talk about nouns, verbs, pronouns, consonants, and vowels at all. However,
linguistic systems are not completely unpredictable: all the phenomena mentioned in
the previous will be found in any language we choose to examine, taking different
realizations, of course, in different languages.
In the great majority of cases, there is no link whatsoever between the signal
and the message. The symbols used are arbitrary. There is no intrinsic connection, for
example, between the word elephant and the animal it symbolizes. Nor is the phrases
‘This banana is bad’ intrinsically connected with food. Onomatopoeic words such as
quack-quack and bang are exception- but there are relatively few of these compared
with the total number of words.
3. Language as vocal
The term “vocal” in the definition refers to the fact that the primary medium of
language is sound, and it is sound for all languages, no matter how well developed are
their writing systems. All the evidence we have, from the continued existence of
preliterate society, through the knowledge we have of language acquisition by
children, to the existence of historical records, confirms the fact that writing is based
on speaking.
We must acknowledge the centrality of speech to any study of language and
therefore take an interest in phonetics and phonology.
4. Language as symbol
The term “symbol” in the definition refers to the fact that there is no
connection, or at least in a few cases only a minimal connection, between the sounds
that people use and the objects to which these sound refer. Language is a symbolic
system, a system in which words are associated with objects, ideas, and actions by
conventions so that “a rose by any other name would smell a sweet.”
5. Language as human
 The term “human” in the definition refers to the fact that the kind of system
that interests us is possessed only by human beings and is very different from the
communication systems that other forms of life possess.
6. Language as communication
The final term in the definition is “communication”: language is used for
communication. Language allows people to say things to each other and express their
communicative needs. Language is the cement of society, allowing people to live,
work, and play together, to tell them truth but also to tell a lie, or lies. Sometimes it is
used merely to keep communication channel open so that if any need arises to say
something of importance a suitable channels is available. This last function is met
through the convention of greeting and leave-taking, by small talk at parties, and in
the chatter of secretaries in a large office.
The communication of most interest to us is, of course, the communication of
meaning. A language allows its speakers to talk about anything within their realm of
knowledge. We must therefore take an interest in the topic of meaning, even though at
times precise questions about meaning cannot easily be formulated or answered even
when formulated. The sentences John opened the door, The key opened the door, and
The door opened. All communicate meaning; however, no general agreement exists as
to how that meaning achieved in each case. A sentence such as John and the key
opened the door is bizarre, and both *John opened and *The key opened are
unacceptable. These sentences fail to communicate meaning. We are faced with the
problem of explaining such failure.