Week 14 EdLing 102 : Language and Society

Processing the Matter

Sociolinguistics is a branch of linguistics that analyzes the effects of
social and cultural factors within a speech community upon its language
patterns; the study of cultural and social effects on language; the study of
language and linguistic behavior as influenced by social and cultural factors.

Sociolinguistics has become an increasingly important and popular field of

study, as certain cultures around the world expand their communication base and
intergroup and interpersonal relations take on escalating significance.
The basic notion underlying sociolinguistics is quite simple: Language use
symbolically represents fundamental dimensions of social behavior and human
interaction. The notion is simple, but the ways in which language reflects behavior can
often be complex and subtle. Furthermore, the relationship between language and
society affects a wide range of encounters--from broadly based international relations to
narrowly defined interpersonal relationships. For example, sociolinguists might
investigate language attitudes among large populations on a national level, such as
those exhibited in the US with respect to the English-only amendment--the legislative
proposal to make English the 'official' language of the US. Similarly, we might study the
status of French and English in Canada or the status of national and vernacular
languages in the developing nations of the world as symbols of fundamental social
relations among cultures and nationalities. In considering language as a social
institution, sociolinguists often use sociological techniques involving data from
questionnaires and summary statistical data, along with information from direct
observation.
Sociolinguistics is a field of study which deals mostly with language use, particularly
spoken language, but not the grammatical or phonetic structure of a language.
Sociolinguists do not study a language or a linguistic variety as a closed system with no
reference to speaker and social life. Sociolinguists emphasize that language use –
the sociolinguistic language system – is always variable and heterogeneous.
 
Sociolinguists do not divide languages and speakers into "good" and "bad". They
follow the so-called differentiation theory which says that all linguistic varieties (not only
standard languages, but also dialects, urban languages, youth language, language of
various social groups) are valuable. Their value depends on the social context and
situation. Every linguistic variety performs necessary functions to its speakers, but their
value differs, because their value depends on distribution of power, welfare and prestige
in a certain society during a certain historical period of time under certain social,
political, cultural and economic circumstances.
 
It is namely the social attitudes that determine which linguistic variety, language
feature or style speakers choose in a certain situation. Even though people cannot
command every possible linguistic resource, it is easier to achieve desirable aim if your
linguistic repertoire is rich and wide. Here we talk about the communicative
competence: we not only convey information, but also express our individual or group
identity... and make use of it.
 
Studies, which investigate linguistic variants, are called micro-sociolinguistic.
Studies, which investigate social aspects and language attitudes, are called macro-
sociolinguistic. The range of sociolinguistic research is very wide, but all sociolinguistic
studies are related to the superior aim – to identify which social factors determine the
choice of linguistic variants and language change.
 
Object of a sociolinguistic research can be:

 language of speakers of different age, gender, social class and roles and
language of various social groups;
 conversation strategies, speakers' communicative competence;
 urban and regional varieties, relation between dialects and standard language,
multilingualism, language contacts;
 public language (TV, radio);
 language of the new media (text messages, Facebook, skype);
 language attitudes and their alternations (which language or linguistic varieties,
language features are considered to be prestigious, nice, the most suitable in
different social contexts and in different periods of time);
 language policy and standardization (which ideologies is language regulation
based on, how does language policy affect language attitudes, education policy).

As sociolinguistics is such a vast, broad topic, it attracts a myriad of interest from

researchers of all disciplines. Different researchers often take on opposing views – for
example, variationists and interactionalists.
Variationist Sociolinguistics – Strand of Sociolinguistics which is interested in looking at
social variation within dialects and examine how variation is rule-governed.
Interactional Sociolinguistics – Strand of Sociolinguistics which looks at different styles
of interaction by speech communities.
 

Below is an example diagram featuring some well-known researchers in the field of

sociolinguistics
 

Develop your understanding of the researchers cited above via their profiles below:

Penelope Eckert – High School Ethnography

Jenny Cheshire – Linguistic Variation and Function in Adolescents
Don H. Zimmerman & Candace West – Language and Sex/Gender
William Labov – New York City
William Labov – Martha’s Vineyard

SOCIOLINGUISTICS IN THE PHILIPPINES ANDREW GONZALEZ, FSC De La Salle

University

1. MAIN CONCERNS. The main concern or preoccupation in the Philippines at present is the fourth
dimension of language development, cultivation or more specifically, the intellectualization of
Filipino. After almost three quarters of a century 'selecting' the basis of the national language,
by a surprisingly uncontroversial choice and an overwhelming consensus, Tagalog has finally
been chosen as the basis of the National Language, renamed Pilipino in 1959, then Filipino by
the 1973 Constitution (without a specific referent), and finally FILIPINO once more by the 1987
Constitution, this time, with a specific referent: Tagalog-based Filipino enriched with loanwords
from the Philippine and other languages and henceforth to be called FILIPINO. One variety of
this language is widely disseminated and is expected to be spoken by close to 100% of the
population by the end of the century. A monolingual dictionary isin press, finally, and guides to
 usage and to mechanics have been published by our national language agency. Cultivation has
been going on in the literary domain; there is presently a rich carpus of creative work in Filipino
which continues to be added to by our artists. The main task is now the process of using it as a
language of scholarly discourse in our schools; based on our experience since 1974, we think
that the most productive level in which to do this is at the tertiary level, not the primary one,
and to use a 'trickledown' model of language intellectualization and to concentrate on pre-
service education training in teacher-training institutions for the shift to Filipino in a bilingual
mode of instruction. The process of intellectualization is terra incognita, for other than the
seminal ideas from Havranek of the Prague School in the 1920's, the historical accounts of
language for science developments of Japanese, German and other languages, and documented
legal steps in language planning, there is practically no literature on the actual process of
intellectualization in the minds of the lead-population creating the corpus of literature. Both
sociological and above all psychological parameters must be considered in this process; our own
work in this area promises to be a contribution to the world body of knowledge. Closely tied up
with the phases of language development is language planning, which although not called by
such a term has been on-going in our country since the sixteenth century; this process has now
been documented through historical records. In modern times, to provide required data for
policy formulation, the country has become sophisticated in language surveys; we have
extensive experience since 1968 of language surveys at both local and national levels and have
authenticated information on language use (who speaks what to whom and about what in
specific domains), language attitudes, the implementation of language policy (especially the
evaluation phase) and theoretical insights from these experiences, to enrich existing paradigms
of language development. Applied linguistics, specifically, the teaching of English as a second
language, is quite well developed in the Philippines; insofar as sociolinguistics is concerned,
however, the specific contribution would be the insights from nearly a century of English-
language teaching on the social, political, economic and cultural conditions for the spread and
maintenance of a' second language and the gradual dissemination of a national lingua franca.
Language policy in the Philippines is carried-out almost exclusively by the school system
(although the mass media have made significant contributions more by happenstance than
direct planning). There is thus a rich lode of experience being mined at present on bilingual
education programs. With the present talk on federalization as an ultimate model following
decentralization of governance in the country, then the importance of regional and local
languages comes to the fore once more, so that in the future the Philippines shall probably have
a trilingual program rather than a bilingual program. In work on indigenous minor languages, the
analytical work being done by the Summer Institute of linguistics continues.
An area in sociolinguistics, which is highly developed, mostly by SIL field workers, is
mutual comprehensibility tests between speakers living side by side and supposedly, speaking
mutually unintelligible languages.

2. CENTERS .
Language development is presently the concern of the Linangan ng mga Wika sa
Pilipinas (Institute for Philippine Languages), which used to be the Institute of National
Language. A congressional body is supposed to be set up, to be called the National language
Commission, to oversee the development of FILIPINO. The SIL linguists continue to work on
minority languages, literacy materials, translations.
Among academic institutions, the University of the Philippines Department of linguistics
and Department of Filipino and Other Philippine Languages focus their attention on the
development of Filipino; the Department of Linguistics has consciously taken a 'universal.
 approach' to the development of Filipino, tapping, existing lexical resources of all Philippine
languages as: candidates for possible inclusion into the 'lexicon of the national language. The
Institute of Language Teaching of the College of Education of the same university is doing work
on applied linguistics and sociolinguistics. De La Salle University has a core of sociolinguists
working on the cuItivation of Filipino, translation, contributions to the build-up of a corpus of
scholarly Iiterature in Filipino and language planning.
PhiIippine Normall College continues its work on bilingual education research, language
planning and applied linguistics.
The only non-Manila center active in language research, mostly descriptive analysis and
some language survey work, is the Department of Linguistics of St. Louis University in Baguio.

3. SOCIOLINGUISTS
The dean of sociolinguists in the Philippines, active in research and publications, in spite of his official-
retirement, is Bonifacio P. Sibayan. The Linguistic Society of the Philippines continues its work in this
area through its board of directors: Emy Pascasio (Ateneo University), Nelly I. Cubar (University of the
Philippines), Lourdes S. Bautista (De: La Salle University), Fe T. Otanes (Philippine Normal College),
Wilfredo Alberca (Polytechnic University 0f the Philippines). Other linguists, likewise, working in the area
of the sociology of language are Ernesto Constantino (University of the Philippines), Consuelo Paz
(University of the Philippines), Nelia Casambre (University of the Philippines), Roopa Dewan (De La Salle
University).

4. CONCLUDING NOTES

Sociolinguistics as an academic discipline is alive. and well in the Philippines. It is, taught as a
special course at both graduate and undergraduate levels, and because of the present preoccupation in
the country with national language development, research in the field, especially in the areas of
language planning and development and more recently, language intellectualization, is being actively
done by a number of senior linguists in the. Metro Manila area.

Because of its special role in language development, it occupies center stage in much research
in the country and constitutes an important core discipline for courses at the graduate level in language
teaching and education as well as in more theoretically-oriented programs.

In the Philippines, the future area of development will be in language cultivation, the
documentation of this process, and the psychological and sociological dimensions of the
intellectualization of Filipino.