SOCIOLINGUISTICS

THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC DIMENSION OF LANGUAGE IN SECOND LANGUGE TEACHING

Relevance of Language as a social phenomenon to the domain of Second language teaching:

    Communication is seen as a social act in sociolinguistics. Consequently, teachers and methodologists should also acknowledge this dimension of language as a social creation. In the classroom, the second language should not be treated as an artifact to be scrutinized and formally adhered to, but rather as an instrument to signal meaning. In fact, sociolinguistic research reveals that grammatical precision does not necessarily lead to successful communication. A real understanding of the nature of communicative competence should pervade the learning process. This implies that teaching should not be reduced to the mere acquisition of skills. Since all verbal behavior is embedded in sociocultural and contextual frameworks, cross-cultural awareness of this complexity should be provided, as well as of the internal variation within language. Bicultural and bilingual teacher is the most effective model for the second language learner.

Among other sociolinguistic insights that could be brought to mind with respect to L2 teaching, one would have to highlight the underestimated classroom implication of the interpenetration between language and culture, as the school of research founded by Hymes(1962), known as “the ethnography of communication” (Performance  more important than competence)has made clear. The cultural relativity of language cannot be taken for granted nor can it be disregarded. Reducing communicative competence to the mere acquisition of skills is equal to being blind to the fact that learning a language should involve the construction and comprehension of appropriate sociocultural meaning.

The problem is that the sociocultural determinants of language are, by no means, always explicit. Linguistic communication involves many ‘cognitive economies’ that rely on the speaker’s and listener’s presuppositions.  Being familiar with the underlying cultural presuppositions contributes to a heightened linguistic comprehension of the target community means of speaking.    

Consequently, one of the roles of teachers should be to free students from their ethnocentrism and work towards attaining a higher sensitivity for cross-cultural communicative contrasts and similarities. The teacher not only has to be aware of the sociological and ethnographic parameters impinging on the speech of his/her own and the target community.  He or she also has to be skilled to stimulate their students to accept and be interested in another culture without damaging their self-image. There are grounds to argue that this is best done not by the native speaker but by a bicultural teacher, who has the necessary cross-cultural awareness to verbalise the relevant background knowledge, which, incidentally, cannot be made conscious by mere exposure in the natural setting of the language.

Cross-cultural sensitivity can also be useful to understand and consequently avoid the feeling of alienation that some teaching too insistent on a native-like command of a L2 can produce. From this perspective, it becomes clear that the aim is not to produce imitation native speakers, as much language teaching has tried to do. The point is to equip students to communicative adequately, to stand between two cultures, without losing their own identity. This is called ‘intercultural communicative competency’ by Byram(1990)( see also Cook 1991: ch.7; Preston 1989). These lead us to the conclusion that the best model for language teaching is the fluent l2 user, not the native speaker.

Not only language learning but also teaching is dependent on the cultural milieu where it takes place. A teaching method has to suit the beliefs of the society about what activities are proper for classrooms. It is difficult for the teacher to reform the deep seated social preconceptions of their students. Therefore, another issue that derives from this revelatory viewpoint is the need to evaluate the impact of culturally determined learning styles on the acquisition of foreign cultural forms of discourse.

Another sociolinguistic insight worthy of our attention here refers to linguistic variation, one of the central concerns in sociolinguistics. In the dynamic process of transmitting and decoding meaning, language has adapted in relation to the sociocultural system it serves and evolved into different speech styles, according to situations, relationships, intention, etc.  The learners should be made sensitive to the range of variation that exists in native speaker performance. They should not be encouraged to believe that the native speaker competence is some ideal, perfect and uniform phenomenon, if we do not want an artificial, monolithic output as the outcome of our teaching. They would need an awareness of different varieties and above all, of different registers, their lexical and grammatical features and the social contexts where they are appropriate.

Finally, fostering their sociolinguistic competence would imply developing in them a sense of the interactional aspects of language use, such as the norms associated with turn-taking in conversational interaction, patterns of convergence, non-convergence and divergence, as the Speech Accommodation Theory has analysed in communicative encounters, the signaling of social identity by verbal means or of the establishment of social group by the use of language variants, etc. This type of interactive discourse usually occurs in speech rather than writing. The emphasis here is not on non-interactive discourse but on what Halliday(1975) terms the “interpersonal” function of language. Part of language learning implies producing and fully comprehending social interactions, that is to say, the ability to engage in conversation and be a fluent and competent speaker as well as understanding that communication is a dynamic social process embedded in contextual and situational parameters.

The Socio-Educational Model and the Acculturation Model, which don’t neglect the social aspect of language. The former developed by Gardner(1985) takes learning success as dependent upon aptitude and motivation, which depends on attitudes to the learning situation, to the teacher and the course, and towards the target culture. The Acculturation Model put forward by John Schumann(1986) sets the crucial aspect of language learning in the kind of relationship between the learner’s group and the target group.

What a second language learner needs is not confined to linguistic competence, but includes performance where that knowledge is made use of in conjunction with other sets of language systems, such as pragmatics, discourse rules, rules of sociolinguistic appropriacy, rules for conversational strategies. A competent performance clearly integrates a sociocultural dimension of language in the process of speech comprehension and production.

Sociolinguistics Definition:

“The study of language in its social context.”

“The study of language and linguistic behavior as influenced by social and cultural factors.” – William Labov

Importance of Sociolinguistics to Second Language Teachers:

1.       Connection between language and society is inevitable.

2.       Pedagogical, socio-cultural factors are inevitable so included in classroom teaching.

(A)  “In Language Teaching, it is important to related language to society, because languages are taught and learned to establish contact and communication across language boundaries. Hence society and culture are more than background and even more than contexts. Society and culture are after all the concepts that represent people with whom the learner eventually must make contact if language learning is to have any value in human terms.” – H.H. Sterne

Important today because of globalization, cultural nuances has come to the forefront in language teaching. “Hence, Sociolinguistics plays a vital role in influencing the specification of language content in a communicative syllabus.” – Fraida Dubin and Elite Otshtain ‘Course Design Developing Programmes and Materials for Language Learning’.

(B) “Language and culture are widely accepted as being inseparable.” – Jaine and Michael Clerk

“Language determines thought and world view and that therefore culture and thought are dependent upon language.” – SW Hypothesis

“The validity of the linguistic relativity principle has thus far not been sufficiently demonstrated neither has it been flatly refuted. “ –Carroll

Communication:

“The act of communication is therefore seen not as basically an exchange of linguistic messages, but rather as a socially meaningful episode in which the use of language plays a part only in as much as the social rules and functions are already previously agreed upon or known by the participants in the verbal exchange.” – Sterne

There are three essential features in communication : linguistic knowledge, interactional skills and cultural knowledge.

‘The study of social roles, situations or functions that control the use of different speech varieties in predictable ways has therefore become of particular significance to the development of sociolinguistics.” – Sterne

Communicative Competence:

The intuitive mastery that the native speaker uses to interpret the language appropriately in the process of interaction and in relation to social contexts has been called by Hymes and others as ‘Communicative Competence’: “When to speak, when not to, and as to what to talk about, with whom, when, where and in what manner”.

Sociolinguistic competence is the ability to interpret the social meaning of the choice of linguistic varieties and to use language with the appropriate social meaning for the communication situation. Note: Sociolinguistics is a very broad discipline and the term sociolinguistic competence could be used much more broadly than it is here, where we have restricted its use to refer to the recognition and use of appropriate varieties of language. Examples When greeting someone in a very formal situation an American might say, Hello, how are you? or Nice to see you again, but if he were meeting a friend in an informal situation it would be much more appropriate to say Hi, or Hey, whatcha been doing?

Linguistic imperialism, or language imperialism, "involves the transfer of a dominant language to other peoples. The transfer is essentially a demonstration of power—traditionally, military power but also, in the modern world, economic power—and aspects of the dominant culture are usually transferred along with the language."^[1]

1.AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLINGUITICS: Social factors, dimensions and explanations. Language in social contexts. Social network analysis. Principal components analysis.

2. LANGUAGE CHOICE IN MULTILINGUAL COMMUNITIES: Diglossia, codeswithching, bilingualism

3. LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE, LANGUAGE SHIFT AND LANGUAGE STATUS:

Language loss, maintenance and revival. Vernacular languages, standard languages, linguas

francas, pidgins and creoles.

4. LANGUAGE VARIATION: Regional variation, social variation. Language and social

mobility, accent and group identification.

5. LANGUAGE VARIATION II: Sex, age, ethnicity, style, context and register.

6. CROSSCULTURAL COMMUNICATION: Mediated multilingual communication,

discourse in contrastive perspective.

7. LANGUAGE PLANNING: Formal language planning, functional language planning. Case

studies (Europe, USA). Language policies and the Politics of Language.

8. SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE TEACHING: Language attitudes and

motivation. Pursuing plurilingualism and biliteracy.

9. LANGUAGE AND IDEOLOGY: Introducing Critical Applied Linguistics. Imperialism vs.

Linguicism.

10. CONCLUSION: Sociolinguistic competence. Dimensions of sociolinguistic analysis.

Sociolinguitic universals.

Social dimensions of language for second language teachers : (i) the larger social and political context affects language broadly : language attitudes, motivation and standards; societal multilingualism; language planning and policy (ii) the larger social context affects the particular linguistic forms the individual uses: regional and social variations, pidgins and creoles; language and gender (iii) specific social situations and role relationships within a culture: the ethonography of communication

Examines the processes involved in language planning and policy and the role of English language teaching professionals in deciding and promoting language policies as well as how these professionals affect changes in their local contexts. Conclusions indicate that linguistic self-determinism is viable and desirable because it promotes social equity and fosters diversity.

the question of which language variety should be used as a medium of instruction in ELT involves two different issues: the variety used by teachers and students in the classroom, and the target language of the learners. Both issues are usually framed as pedagogical: Which variety (or varieties) will best serve learners’ educational needs? In contrast, a critical perspective views pedagogical rationales for alternative ELT policies and practices as mechanisms for justifying conventions of language teaching. Thus, critical ELT research explores the underlying ideological orientations of alternative policies and practices. This chapter summarizes research, describes current debates, and suggests future directions for research on the ideology of medium of instruction issues. It suggests that medium of instruction issues are often called into service of social agendas that determine which language groups enjoy particular economic, political, and social benefits.

Linguistic Relativity or Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis:

The principle of linguistic relativity is Benjamin Whorf's theory of the way in which an individual's thoughts are influenced by the language(s) they have available to express them.

Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (SWH) (also known as the "linguistic relativity hypothesis" Linguistic relativity is the claim that culture, through language, affects the way in which we think, and especially our classification of the experienced world.) postulates a systematic relationship between the grammatical categories of the language a person speaks and how that person both understands the world and behaves in it. Known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, it was an underlying axiom of linguist and anthropologist Edward Sapir and his colleague and student Benjamin Whorf.

The hypothesis postulates that a particular language's nature influences the habitual thought of its speakers: that different language patterns yield different patterns of thought. This idea challenges the possibility of perfectly representing the world with language, because it implies that the mechanisms of any language condition the thoughts of its speaker community. Linguistic determinism is the idea that language shapes thought.

Interesting versions of the linguistic relativity hypothesis embody two claims:

(i)Linguistic Diversity:
Languages, especially members of quite different language families, differ in important ways from one another.

(ii)Linguistic Influence on Thought:
The structure and lexicon of one's language influences how one perceives and conceptualizes the world, and they do so in a systematic way.

Together these two claims suggest that speakers of quite different languages think about the world in quite different ways. There is a clear sense in which the thesis of linguistic diversity is uncontroversial. Even if all human languages share many underlying, abstract linguistic universals, there are often large differences in their syntactic structures and in their lexicons. The second claim is more controversial, but since linguistic forces could shape thought in varying degrees, it comes in more and less plausible forms.

Hyme’s ‘Ethnography of Communication’:

Ethnography is a field of study which is concerned primarily with the description and analysis of culture, and linguistics is a field concerned, among other things, with the description and analysis of language codes. In spite of long-standing awareness of the interrelationship of language and culture, the descriptive and analytic products of ethnographers and linguists traditionally failed to deal with this interrelationship.

As with science, the ethnography of communication has two foci: particularistic and generalizing. On the one hand, it is directed at the description and understanding of communicative behavior in specific cultural settings, but it is also directed toward the formulation of concepts and theories upon which to build a global metatheory of human communication.

The subject matter of the ethnography of communication is best illustrated by one of its most general questions: what does a speaker need to know to communicate appropriately within a particular speech community, and how does he or she learn to do so? Such knowledge, together with whatever skills are needed to make use of it, is ‘communicative competence’. The requisite knowledge includes not only rules for communication(both linguistic and sociolinguistic) and shared rules for interaction, but also the cultural rules and knowledge that are the basis for the context and content of communicative events and interaction processes.

Two aspects become important in Educational Linguistics:

(i)                 Language Varieties

(ii)               Language Planning

“From this perspective, socio-linguistics looks at countries, regions, cities, and so on and relates social structures and social groups to the languages and varieties of language used in the society in question.” – Sterne

Language Choice in Multilingual Communities: Diglossia, Codeswitching, bilingualism

Multilingualism :  Multilingualism is a concept that became popular after WW II. Before WW II Britain was powerful and they tried to emphasis ‘uniformity’ and local culture elements became irritants to get rid off.  But after WW II, situation changed. After world war II, all over the world linguistic, ethnic, cultural and religious minorities have become to assert their language rights and to maintain their cultural distinctiveness.

Stuard’s framework

“The social allocation of functions to different languages or varieties.” – Joshua Fishmen, an American Linguist.

We have two languages always in conflict: Pidgin and Cerole

1. Pidgin language (origin in Engl. word `business'?) is nobody's native language; may arise when two speakers of different languages with no common language try to have a makeshift conversation. Lexicon usually comes from one language, structure often from the other. Because of colonialism, slavery etc. the prestige of Pidgin languages is very low. Many pidgins are `contact vernaculars', may only exist for one speech event.
2. Creole (orig. person of European descent born and raised in a tropical colony) is a language that was originally a pidgin but has become nativized, i.e. a community of speakers claims it as their first language. Next used to designate the language(s) of people of Caribbean and African descent in colonial and ex-colonial countries (Jamaica, Haiti, Mauritius, Réunion, Hawaii, Pitcairn, etc.) Code switching

“The concept of socio-lingusitic variable has become central to the description of speech. A variable is some point of usage for which two or more competing forms are available in a community which speakers show interesting and significant differences in the frequency with which they use one or another of these competing forms.” - Trashk

Code-switching is a term in linguistics referring to using more than one language or variety in conversation. Bilinguals, who can speak at least two languages, have the ability to use elements of both languages when conversing with another bilingual. Code-switching is the syntactically and phonologically appropriate use of multiple varieties. Code-switching can occur between sentences (intersentential) or within a single sentence (intrasentential). Although some commentators have seen code-switching as reflecting a lack of language ability, most contemporary scholars consider code-switching to be a normal and natural product of interaction between the bilingual (or multilingual) speaker's languages
Diglossia

In Charles A. Ferguson's article "Diglossia" in the journal Word (1959), diglossia was described as a kind of bilingualism in a given society in which one of the languages is (H), i.e. has high prestige, and another of the languages is (L), i.e. has low prestige. In Ferguson's definition, (H) and (L) are always closely related.

In linguistics, diglossia, also called linguistic duality^[1], is a situation where, in a given society, there are two (often closely-related) languages, one of high prestige, which is generally used by the government and in formal texts, and one of low prestige, which is usually the spoken vernacular tongue. The high-prestige language tends to be the more formalised, and its forms and vocabulary often 'filter down' into the vernacular, though often in a changed form. As an aspect of study of the relationships between codes and social structure, diglossia is an important concept in the field of sociolinguistics.

LANGUAGE PLANNING:  

[   Formal language planning, functional language planning -Language policies and the Politics of Language – Case Studies (India, Tamil Nadu)  ]

Definition:

“Language Planning is the conscious deliberate attempt to alter the function or status of either a language or a linguistic variety.” – Chris Kennedy

“Organised efforts to find solutions to language problems in a society … a means to arrive at more informed decisions about language in society.” – Sterne

Language Planning takes place mostly in developing nation, especially those ruled over by colonial power. After freedom, many conflicting opinions arise: language of ruler or adopt a new language policy.

Language planning refers to deliberate efforts to influence the behaviour of others with respect to the acquisition, structure, or functional allocation of language. Typically it will involve the development of goals, objectives and strategies to change the way language is used. At a governmental level, language planning takes the form of language policy. Many nations have language regulatory bodies which are specifically charged with formulating and implementing language planning policies.                                                                                                          The term language planning has often been identified with a third world context, being seen as a tool for the establishment of standardized national languages as a part of modernisation and nation building. In fact, language planning is neither a modern phenomenon nor is it confined to the third world.

Language Policy:

“Language Policy refers to conscious Governmental efforts(political decisions) to affect the structure and function of language varieties.” – James Tollefron

Language Policy is what a government does either officially through legislation, court decisions or policy to determine how languages are used, cultivate language skills needed to meet national priorities or to establish the rights of individuals or groups to use and maintain languages.
One way of distinguishing "language policy" from "language planning" is to consider "language policy" as the expression of the ideological orientations and views, and "language planning" as the actual proposal that makes up their implementation.

Importance of Language Planning for Language Teachers(language in education):

[ Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching: Language attitudes and motivation - Pursuing plurilingualism and biliteracy.  ]

By adopting a socio-linguistic perspective teachers can understand and interpret more effectively the languages they teach and the sociolinguistic situations in which they operate.” – H. H. Sterne

Three factors are to be considered:

1.       Language Situation Variables:   who are the people using the particular language- different ages, religion, ethnicity, social status …; heterogeneous class;  level of proficiency; different language varieties; for what purpose

2.       Macro-Policy Goals:

(i)                  The change given to the emphasis or importance to a language, by the Educational Experts(and especially Politicians) : ‘Language Maintenance’ or ‘Language Shift’

(ii)                Structural Changes in a variety to make it simpler and easier to understand and popularize it. It refers to the conscious efforts of the Government and the Language Experts to effect changes in the variety: ‘Language Revival’.

(iii)               Changes in the functional distribution: ‘Functional Language Planning’

3.       Micro-policy goals: (refers to the grass root levels where actual teaching occurs – curriculum development)

(i)                  Input Variables: What language or which dialect to teach

(ii)                Learner Variables:

(iii)               Learning Variables:  refers to the methods of teaching- structured or unstructured via movie, radio, internet

(iv)              Learned Variables: SLA and their needs, feed back after learning regarding language and methods of teaching.

Dimensions of Language Planning:

[ Functional language planning : Language : loss, maintenance, revival ; vernacular vs standard language; lingua franca, pidgins, creoles ]

 Heinz Kloss distinguished two basic types of Language Planning: Status Planning (about language uses) ; Corpus Planning (about the language system); Acquisition Planning (about language users)

(i)                 Corpus Planning: ( Concerned with the internal structure of the language)

Corpus planning refers to prescriptive intervention in the forms of a language. This may be achieved by creating new words or expressions, modifying old ones, or selecting among alternative forms. Corpus planning aims to develop the resources of a language so that it becomes an appropriate medium of communication for modern topics and forms of discourse, equipped with the terminology needed for use in administration, education, etc. Corpus planning is often related to the standardization of a language, involving the preparation of a normative orthography, grammar and dictionary for the guidance of writers and speakers in a speech community. Efforts at linguistic purism and the exclusion of foreign words also belong to corpus planning, as do spelling reform and the introduction of new writing systems (e.g. that of the Turkish language). For a previously unwritten language, the first step in corpus planning is the development of a writing system.
Corpus Planning can be defined as those aspects of language planning which are primarily linguistic and hence internal to language. Some of these aspects related to language are : (i) orthographic innovation, including design, harmonization, change of script and spelling reform (ii) pronunciation (iii) changes in language structure (iv) vocabulary expansion (v) simplification of registers (vi) registers, style and (vii) the preparation of language material.

Haugen divides these processes into two categories : (i) those related to the establishment of ‘norms’, and  (ii) those related to the extension of the linguistic functions of language. In his model Haugen labels the former category ‘codification’(or standardization) procedures, and the latter ‘Elaboration’(or the functional development of language).

Vikor has enumerated a set of underlying Corpus Planning principles which shape the way a corpus is planned. These principles can be grouped into four major categories:

(i)                  Internal linguistic principles (phonemicity, morphophonemecity, simplicity, etymology, invariance and stability);

(ii)                Principles related to attitudes toward other languages (rapprochement or adaptation, reaction[purism]);

(iii)               Principles concerning the relationship between the language and its users (majority, liberality, prestige, counter-prestige, usage, estheticism, rationalism); and

(iv)              Principles derived from societal ideologies (nationalism, liberalism, traditionalism, democracy egalitarianism, modernity, authority).

(ii)               Status Planning:

(Steps undertaken to change the use and function of a language or language variety within that society. Language Planners specify how the languages interact with one another and their respective status as : official, provincial, language of wider communication, international, literary, religious, …)

Status planning refers to deliberate efforts to allocate the functions of languages and literacy within a speech community. It involves status choices, making a particular language or variety an official language, national language, etc. Often it will involve elevating a language or dialect into a prestige variety, which may be at the expense of competing dialects. Status planning is often part and parcel of creating a new writing system. Status planning tends to be the most controversial aspect of language planning.
(iii)  Prestige Planning and Acquisition Planning:

(Prestige Planning aims at popularizing the language by according it with social prestige.Acquisition Planning is language virtually dying out – small interest group trying to make next generation acquire that language. Eg. Sanskrit

“Efforts to spread and promote the learning of a language is Acquisition Planning” – Andrea Dumer.)

Acquisition planning concerns the teaching and learning languages, whether national languages or second and foreign languages. It involves efforts to influence the number of users and the distribution of languages and literacy, achieved by creating opportunities or incentives to learn them. Such efforts may be based on policies of assimilation or pluralism. Acquisition planning is directly related to language spread. While acquisition planning is normally the province of national, regional, or local governments, bodies such as the British Council, Alliance francaise, Institutp Cervantes, the Goethe-Institute, and latterly the Confucius Institute are also very active internationally promoting education in their respective languages.
Process of Language Planning:

The term ‘language planning’ itself was coined by the American linguist Eina Haugen in the 50’s and he specified four important overlapping stages of language planning:

(i)                  Selection

(ii)                Codification -Lexicalization

(iii)               Implementation

(iv)              Elaboration

The Criticism of Language Planning:

“Language Planning can be characterized as a method of decision-making in which a rational choice between alternative solutions is made.” – Andrea Dumer

-          Identification of the problem and fact finding

-          Specification of the goal- what exactly want to do

-          Production of possible solutions

-          Implementing the solution

-          Evaluation of the solution