Socilolinguistics and the Sociology of Language

The term ‘Sociolinguistics’, a branch of linguistics was first used in about 1965. Sociolinguistics is the study of language in relation to society or the study of the interaction between language and society.

Language, Dialects, and Varieties

Language: a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication

Variety :

A specific set of linguistic items or human speech patterns (presumably, sounds, words, grammatical features) which we can uniquely associate with some external factor (presumably, a geographical area or social group).We find varieties such as London English, Oxford English, religious English. For some linguists ‘variety’ is given a more restricted definition, as a specialized type of language used within a dialect, e.g. for occupational purposes.

Lingua Franca:

Language used for communication between two or more groups that have different native languages. It may be a standard language--for example, English and French are often used for international diplomacy, and Swahili is used by speakers of the many different local languages of E Africa. A lingua franca may also be a pidgin, like Melanesian Pidgin, widely used in the S Pacific. The term lingua franca (Latin: "Frankish language") was first applied to a pidgin based on French and Italian developed in the Mediterranean.

Idiolect :

The unique characteristics of the language of an individual speaker (a personal dialect). English may have 400 000 000 idiolects, or the number equal to the number of speakers of English.

Dialect :

Mutually intelligible form of a language that differs in systematic ways from each other. A dialect can be seen as an abstraction deriving from the analysis of a large number of idiolects. When the Javanese of speakers in different geographical regions and from different social groups shows systematic difference, the groups are said to speak different dialects of the same language. It is not always easy to decide whether the systematic difference between two speech communities reflect two dialects or two languages. A rule of thumb definition can be used: “ When dialects become mutually unintelligible – when the speakers of one dialect group can no longer understand the speakers of another dialect group – these ‘dialects’ become different languages” However, to define “mutually intelligible” is itself a difficult task. Danes speaking Danish and Norwegians speaking Norwegian and Swedes speaking Swedish can converse with each other; yet Danish and Norwegian and Swedish are considered separate languages because they are spoken in separate countries and because there are regular differences in their grammar. Similarly, Hindi and Urdu are mutually intelligible “languages” spoken in Pakistan and India, although the differences between them are not much greater than between English spoken in America and Australia. A dialect is a subordinate variety of a language, so that we can say that Texas English and London English are dialects of English. A language is a superordinate term. A language may contain more than one dialect.; e.g., English, French, and Italian are spoken in various dialects.

Accent :

The characteristics of speech that convey information about speaker’s dialect. The term accent is also used to refer to the speech of someone who speaks a language nonnatively; for example a French person speaking English is described as having a French accent.

Regional dialects :

Difference in pronunciation, in the choices and forms of words, and in syntax from one location to another in a geographical area in which a language is spoken.

Dialect geography:

The term used to describe attempts made to map the distributions of various linguistic features so as to show their geographical provenance (asal). For example, in seeking to determine features of the dialects of English and to show their distributions, dialect geographers try to find answers to questions such as ; is this an r- pronouncing area of English, as in words like car, cart, or is it not ?; what names do people give to particular objects in the environment, e.g., elevator or lift, petrol or gas ?; Do people say ‘I haven’t any’, ‘I don’t have any’ or ‘I ain’t got none’? and so on.

Isoglosses :

boundaries in a map so as to distinguish an area in which a certain feature is found from areas in which it is absent. When several such isoglosses coincide (bertepatan/serupa), the result is called a dialect boundary. We may say that speakers on one side of that boundary speak one dialect and speakers on the other side, a different dialect.

Social dialect:

differences in speech associated with various social groups or classes. Sociolect is another term for the same reason. Whereas regional dialects are geographically based, social dialects originate from social groups and depend on a variety of factors such as social class, religion, and ethnicity. In India, for example, caste, one the clearest of all social class differentiators, quite often determines which variety of a language a speaker uses. In a city like Baghdad the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim variety inhabitants speak different varieties of Arabic. In this case the first two groups use their variety solely within the group but the Muslim variety serves as a lingua franca ( auxiliary language

used to enable routine communication to take place between groups of people who speak different native languages; English is the world’s most common lingua franca, followed by French) among the groups. Consequently, Christians and Jews who deal with Muslims must use two varieties: their own at home and the Muslim variety for trade and in all inter-group relationships.

Style :

This term refers to the formality of speech. The study of dialects is further complicated by the fact that speakers can adopt different styles of speaking. Nearly everybody has at least an informal and formal style. We can speak very formally or very informally, the choice being governed by circumstances. Ceremonial occasions almost invariably require very formal speech, public lectures somewhat less formal, casual conversation quite informal, and conversations between intimates on matters of little importance may be extremely informal and casual.

Register :

sets of vocabulary items associated with discrete occupational or social groups. Surgeons, airline pilots, bank managers, sales clerks, and jazz fans use different vocabularies.

Pidgin :

Pidgin is a language with no native speakers: it is no one‘s first language but is a contact language. A pidgin is sometimes regarded as a ‘reduced’ variety of a ‘normal’ language, with simplification of the grammar and vocabulary of that language, considerable phonological variation, and an admixture of local vocabulary to meet special needs of the contact groups. Pidgin usually arise to permit communication between groups with no language in common. The process of pidginization probably requires a situation that involves at least three languages, one of which is ‘dominant’ over the others. Such developments need considerable motivation on the part of the speakers, and it is therefore not surprising that pidgin language flourish (tumbuh subur) in areas of economic development, as in the pidgins based on English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, in the East and West Indies, Africa and the Americas.

Pidginized varieties of language are used much more as lingua francas by people who cannot speak the corresponding standard languages than they are used between such people and speakers of the standard varieties. For example, Pidgin Chinese English was used mainly by speakers of different Chinese language, and neo-Melanesian (or Tok Pisin) is today used as a unifying language among speakers of many different languages in Papua New Guinea. In both cases few speakers of standard English ever really mastered the pidgins. Structures which have been reduced in this way are said to be ‘pidginized’. A common view of a pidginized variety of a language, for example, Nigerian Pidgin English, is that it is some kind of ‘bad’ English, that is, English imperfectly learned and therefore of no possible interest. Consequently, those who speak a pidgin are likely to be regarded as deficient in some way, almost certainly socially and culturally, and sometimes even cognitively.

Pidgins such as Chinese Pidgin English and Melanesian Pidgin English arose through contact between English-speaking traders and inhabitants of the Far East and the Pacific islands. Other Pidgins appeared with the slave trade in Africa and with the importation African slaves to Caribbean plantations. Most of the small vocabulary of a pidgin language (Melanesian Pidgin has only 2000 words, Chinese Pidgin English only 700) is usually drawn from a single language (Melanesian Pidgin, for example, has an English word stock of more than 90%). If a pidgin becomes established as the native language of a group, it is known as a Creole.

Creole :

a pidgin language which has become the mother-tongue of a speech community, as in the case in Jamaica, Haiti, Dominica, and in several other ex-colonial parts of the world. The process of creolization expands the structural and stylistic range of the pidginized language, such that the creolized language becomes comparable in formal and functional complexity to other languaes.

Pidginization generally involves the simplification of a language, e.g. reduction in morphology (word structure) and syntax (grammatical structure), tolerance of considerable phonological variation (pronunciation), and extensive borrowing of word forms from local mother-tongue. On the other hand, creolization involves expansion of the morphology and syntax, regularization of the phonology, deliberate increase in number of functions in which language is used, and development of a rational and stable system for increasing vocabulary. Pidgin and creole language are distributed mainly in the equatorial belt around the world, usually in places with direct or easy access to oceans. The distribution is closely related to long standing patterns of trade, including trade of in slaves. Such varieties of language also tend to be associated with dark skin and membership for their speakers in the third world community of notions.

The examples of pidgin language:

Yu à (‘you’ singular); yupela à (‘you’ plural)

Me à (‘I’ or ‘me’)

Mepela à (‘we’/ ‘I and other(s) but not you’)

Yume à (‘I and you’)

i no tu had à (It’s not too hard’).

The distribution of Pidgin and Creole is :

- in the equatorial belt around the world

- usually in places with direct or easy access to the oceans.

- closely related to long standing patterns of trade, including trade in slaves.

- to be associated with dark skin and membership for their speakers in the third world community of nations.

Linguistic Characteristics of Pidgin and Creole are as follows:

- Each pidgin or creole is a well-organized linguistic system. We cannot speak Neo-

Melanesian (Tok Pisin) by just simplifying English quite arbitrarily. We have to learn like

other languages

- The sounds of a pidgin or Creole are likely to be fewer and less complicated in their

possible arrangements than those of the corresponding standard English.

e.g. In Neo-Melanesian no contrat is possible between it and eat, and sip, ship, and

chip. The result is there are more potential homophones.

The concepts of Neo-Melanesian is reflected in the following examples :

Gras belong het à ‘hair’

Gras belong fes à ‘beard’

Gras belong maus à ‘moustache’

Theories of Origin

- Pidgins arise because the people among whom they are found lack the ability to learn

the standard languages with which the pidgins are associated. Pidgins arise as contact

languages under very special circumstances.

- Pidgins and Creoles retain certain characteristics of ancestral African language. This

theory is called Sub-Stratum Theory. African slaves were often multilingual, spoke

languages of similar structure but different vocabulary, and tended to treat English,

French, and Portuguese in the same way.

- Pidgins and Creoles have a variety of origins; any similarities among them arise from

the shared circumstances of their origins. This theory is called Polygenesis theory.

For example, speakers of English have had to make themselves understood for the

purposes of trade and those trading with them have had to be understood.

Consequently, certain simplified forms of English have developed in a number of

places, giving rise to varieties of pidgin English.

- Bickerton says that the essential difference between pidginization and creolization is

that pidginization is second-language learning with restricted input and creolization is

first language learning, also with restricted input.

Choosing a Code

Code :

Code (the general sense) is a set of conventions for converting one signaling system into another. In Sociolinguistics, code refers to a language or a variety of language. The term is useful because it is neutral. This term is mainly used as a neutral label for any system of communication involving language and which avoids the sociolinguist having to commit himself to such terms as dialects, language or variety, which have special status in his theories. What is interesting is the factors that govern the choice of a particular code on a particular occasion. Why do people choose to use one code rather than another, what brings about shifts from one code to another, and why do they occasionally prefer to use a code formed from two other codes by mixing the two ?

Monolingualism : Monolingualism is the ability to use a single language code.

Bilingualism : Monolingualism is the ability to use two languages.

Multilingualism : Multilingualism is the ability to use more than two languages.

Diglossia (diglossic) :

Diglossia is a situation where two very different varieties of language co-occur throughout speech community, each with a distinct range of social function. A diglossic situation exists in a society when it has two distinct codes which show clear functional separation; that is, one is employed in one set of circumstances and the other in an entirely different set. A key defining characteristic of diglossia is that the two varieties are kept quite apart functionally. One is used in one set of circumstances and the other in an entirely different set. For example, the high (H) varieties are used for delivering sermons and formal lectures, especially in a parliament or legislative body, for giving political speeches, for broadcasting the news on radio and television, and for writing poetry, fine literature, and editorials in newspaper. In contrast, the low (L) varieties are used in giving instructions to workers in low-prestige occupations or to household servants, in conversation with familiars and so on.

In a multilingual society, people are usually forced to select a particular code whenever they choose to speak, and they may also decide to switch from one code to another or to mix codes. The situations which bring a speaker to choose a certain code are solidarity with listeners, choice of topic, and perceived social and cultural distance. In other words, the motivation of the speaker is an important consideration in the choice. Moreover, such motivation need not be at all conscious, for apparently many speakers are not aware that they have used one particular variety of a language rather than another or sometimes even that they have switched languages, i.e., have code-switched or they have mixed languages, i.e., have code mixed. There are two kinds of code-switching: situational and metaphorical. Situational code-switching, occurs when the languages used change according to the situation in which the conversants find themselves: they speak one language in one situation and another in a different one. No topic change is involved. When a change of topic requires a change in the language used we have metaphorical code-switching. Code mixing occurs when conversants use both languages together to the extent that they change from one language to the other in the course of a single utterance. Instances of situational code-switching are usually fairly easy to classify for what they are. What we observe is that one variety is used in a certain set of situations and another in an entirely different set. However, the changeover from one to the other may be instantaneous. Sometimes the situations are so socially prescribed that they can even be taught, e.g., those associated with ceremonial or religious functions. Metaphorical code-switching has an affective dimension to it: you change the code as you redefine the situation: formal to informal, official to personal, serious to humorous, and politeness to solidarity.

Speech Communities

Language is both an individual possession and a social possession. We would expect, therefore that certain individuals would behave linguistically like other individuals: they might be said to speak the same language, or the same dialect or the same variety, i.e., to employ the same code, and in that respect to be members of the same speech community. A community or group is any set of individuals united for a common end, that end being quite distinct from ends pursued by other groups. Consequently, a person may belong at any one time to many different groups or communities depending on the particular ends in view. What is speech community ?

Bloomfield says that speech community is a group of people who interact by means of speech. Gumperz offers another definition of the speech community: Any human aggregate (kumpulan) characterized by regular and frequent interaction by means of a shared body of verbal signs and set off from similar aggregates by significant differences in language use. Most groups of permanence, be they small bands bounded by face-to-face contact, modern nations divisible into smaller sub regions, or even occupational associations or neighborhood gangs, may be treated as speech communities, provided (asalkan) they show linguistic peculiarities that warrant (memerlukan) special study. Not only must members of speech community share a set of grammatical rules, but there must also be regular relationships between language use and social structure. Hymes distinguishes between participating in speech community and being a fully fledged member of speech community. To participate in a speech community is not quite the same as to be member of it. Here we encounter the limitation of any conception of speech community in terms of knowledge alone even knowledge of patterns of speaking as well as of grammar, and of course, of any definition in terms of interaction alone. Just the matter of accent may erect a barrier between participation and membership in one case, although be ignored in another.

Based on the explanation above, Each individual is a member of many different speech communities. It is in the best interests of most people to be able to identify themselves on one occasion as members of one community and on another as members of another. You are a member of one speech community by virtue of the fact that on a particular occasion you identify with X rather than Y when apparently X and Y contrast in a single dimension. This approach would suggest that there is an English speech community (because there are French and German ones). A Texas speech community (because there are oxford and Barkley ones), Chicano speech community (because there are Spanish and English ones), and so on. An individual must therefore belong to various speech communities at the same time, but on any particular occasion will identify with only one of them, the particular identification depending on what is especially important or contrastive in the circumstances. One of the consequences of such intersecting identifications is, of course, linguistic variation: people do not speak alike, nor does any individual always speak in the same way on every occasion. The variation we see in language must partly reflect a need that people feel to be seen as the same as certain other people on some occasions and as different on others.

No two individuals are exactly alike in their linguistic capabilities, just as no two social situations are exactly alike. People are separated from one another by fine gradations of social class, regional origin, and occupation; by factors such as religion, sex, nationality, and ethnicity; by psychological differences such as particular kinds of linguistic skills, e.g., verbality and literacy; and by characteristics of personality. These are some of the more obvious differences that effect individual variation in speech. Any individual has a speech repertoire; that is, he or she controls a number of varieties of a language or of two or more languages. Quite often, many individuals will have virtually identical repertoire. A speech repertoire is the range of linguistic varieties which the speaker has at his disposal (yag tersedia baginya) and which he may appropriately use as a member of his speech community.

Language and Culture

A few words are necessary concerning what we mean by ‘culture’. We do not intend to use the term culture in the sense of ‘high culture’, i.e., the appreciation of music, literature, the arts, and so on. Rather, we intend to use it in the sense of whatever a person must know in order to function in a particular society. This is the same sense as Goodenough’s well known definition ; ‘a society’s culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and to do so in any role that they accept for any one of themselves.’ That knowledge is socially acquired: the necessary behaviors are learned and do not come from any kind of genetic endowment (anugerah).

One long-standing claim concerning the relationship between language and culture is that the structure of a language determines the way in which speakers of that language view the world. A somewhat weaker version is that the structure does not determine the world-view but still extremely influential in predisposing (mempengaruhi) speakers of a language toward adopting a particular world-view. The opposite claim would be that the culture of a people finds reflection in the language they employ: because they value certain things and do them in certain way, they come to use their language in ways that reflect what they value and what they do. If speakers of one language have certain words to describe things and speakers of another language lack similar words, then speakers of the first language will find it easier to talk about those things. We can see how this might be the case if we consider the technical vocabulary of any trade, calling, or profession; for example, physicians talk easily about medical phenomena, more easily than you or I, because they have the vocabulary to do so.

The claim that the structure of a language influences how its speakers view the world is today most usually associated with the linguist Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf. Today, the claim is usually referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or Whorfian hypothesis.

Those who find the Whorfian hypothesis argue that the language a person speaks affects that person’s relationship to the external world in one or more ways. If language A has a word for a particular concept, then that word makes it easier for speakers of language a to refer to that concept than speakers of language b, who lack such a word and are forced to use a circumlocution (pemakaian kata-kata yang terlalu banyak). Moreover, it is actually easier for speakers of language A to perceive instances the concept. If a language system requires certain distinctions to be made because of its grammatical system, then the speakers of that language become conscious of the kinds of distinctions that must be referred to: for example, sex, time, and number. These kinds of distinctions may also have an effect on how speakers learn to deal with the world, i.e., they can have consequences for both cognitive and cultural development.

Data such as the following are sometimes cited in support of such claims. The Garo of Assam, India, have dozens of words for different types of baskets, rice, and ants. These are important items in their culture. However, they have no single-world equivalent to the English word ant. Both people and bulls have legs in English, but Spanish requires people to have piernas and bulls to have patas. Bedouin Arabic has many words for types of camels; English does not. Speakers of English have many words for different kinds of automobiles, just as the Inuit have many words for different kinds of snow and Trobriand Islanders of the Pacific have many words for different kinds of yams (ubi rambat). The Navaho of the Southwest United States, the Shona of Rhodesia, and the Hanunoo of the Philippines divide the color spectrum differently from each other in the distinctions they make, and English speakers divide it differently again. English has a general cover term animal for various kinds of creatures, but it lacks a term to cover both fruit and nuts; however, Chinese does have such cover term.

Kinship Systems

One interesting way in which people use language in daily living is to refer to various kinds of kin. Kinship systems are a universal feature of languages, because kinship is so important in social organization. Some systems are much ‘richer’ than others, but all make use of such factors as sex, age, generation, blood, and marriage in their organization. One of the attractions that kinship systems have for investigators is that these factors are fairly readily ascertainable (hampir dg. Mudah dapat diketahui). One can therefore relate them with considerable confidence to the actual words that people use to describe a particular kin relationship.

There may be certain difficulties, of course. You can ask a particular person what he or she calls others who have known relationships to that person, for example, that person’s father (Fa), or mother’s brother (MoBr), or mother’s sister’s husband (MoSiHu), in an attemp to show how individuals employ various terms, but without trying to specify anything concerning the semantic composition of the terms: for example, In English, both one’s father’s father (FaFa) and one’s mother’s father (MoFa) are called grandfather, but that term includes another term father. You will find, too, in English that one’s brother’s wife’s father (BrWiFa) cannot be referred to directly; brother’s wife’s father (or sister-in-law’s father) is circumlocution rather than the kind of term that is of interest in kinship terminology.

This kind of approach sometimes runs into serious difficulties. It is often virtually impossible to devise an exhaustive account of a particular system. You may also be unable to account for many instances you may find of terms which are very obviously kinship terms but are used with people who are very obviously not kin by any of criteria usually employed, e.g. the Vietnamese use the terms equivalent to English sister, brother, uncle, and aunt in various social relationship. Such an approach also misses the fact that certain terms recur to mark different relationships; for example; English uncle is used to designate FaBr, MoBr, FaSiHu, and MoSiHu, and also non-kin relationship, as when children are sometimes taught to use it for close friends of their parents. A rather different approach to kinship terminology is therefore often employed.

In this later approach, an investigator seeks to explain why sometimes ‘different’ relationships are described by the ‘same’ term, e.g. why Spanish tio is equivalent to both English uncle and either father’s or mother’s male cousin, and why ‘similar’ relationships are described by ‘different terms’. Burling describes the kinship system of Njamal, a tribe of Australian aborigines, in this way. To understand why the Njamal use the terms they do, you must know that every Njamal belongs to one of two ‘moieties’, that of his (or her) father; the mother belongs to the other moiety. Marriage must be with someone from the other moiety so that husbands and wives and fathers and mothers represent different moiety membership. This fact, and the need also to indicate the generation, and sometimes the sex, of the reference or ego (i.e., the person from whom the relationship is expressed), and occasionally the other’s age relative to the age (i.e., as being younger or older), provide the keys to understanding the Njamal system. One consequence is that a young Njamal man calls by the same name, njuba, his mother’s brother’s daughter (MoBrDa) and his father’s sister’s daughter (FaSiDa), which are both English cousin. But he uses turda for his father’s brother’s daughter (FaBrDa) and his mother’s sister’s daughter (MoSiDa) when both are older than he is. He calls any such daughters who are younger than he is maraga. All of these are cousins in English. He may marry a njuba, since a cross-cousin is of the opposite moiety, but he cannot marry a turda or a maraga, a parallel cousin of the same moiety. Moiety membership is the overriding consideration in the classification system, being stronger than sex. For example, a term like maili is sexually marked as ‘male’, e.g., Fafa, FaMoHu, or FaMoBrWiBr when used to refer to someone in an ascending generation and in the same moiety. In a descending generation, however, maili also used to designate membership in the same moiety, but in this case it can be applied to both males and females, to DadaHu, BrSoDa, and Da SoWiSi.

Taboo

Certain things are not said, not because they cannot be, but because ‘people don’t talk about those things’; or, if those things are talked about, they are talked about in very roundabout ways. In the first case we have instances of linguistic taboo; in the second we have the employment of euphemisms so as to avoid mentioning certain matters directly.

The word taboo was borrowed from Tongan, a Polynesian language, in which it refers to acts that are forbidden or to be avoided. When an act is taboo, reference to this act may also become taboo. That is, first you are forbidden to do something; then you are forbidden to talk about it. Taboo is one way in which a society expresses its disapproval of certain kinds of behavior believed to be harmful to its members, either for supernatural reasons or because such behavior is held to violate a moral code. Consequently, so far as language is concerned, certain things are not to be said or certain objects can be referred to only in certain circumstances, for example, only by certain people, or through deliberate circumlocutions, i.e., euphemistically.

What acts or words are forbidden reflect the particular customs and views of the society. Some words may be used in certain circumstances and not in others; for example, among the Zuni Indian, it is improper to use the word takka, meaning ‘frogs’ during the religious ceremony; a complex compound word must be used instead, which literally translated would be ‘several-are-sitting-in-a-shallow-basin-where-they-are-in-liquid’.

In certain societies, words that have religious connotations are considered profane (kotor/tidak sopan) if used outside of formal or religious ceremonies. Christians are forbidden to ‘take the Lord’s name in vain’ (menggunakan nama tuhan tanpa meng-hormatinya), and this prohibition has been extended to the use of curses (kutukan), which are believed to have magical powes. Thus hell and damn are changed to heck and darn, perhaps with the belief or hope that this change will fool (mengelabui) the ‘powers that be’. In England the word bloody is a taboo word, perhaps because it originally referred to the blood of Christ. The Oxford English Dictionary states that bloody has been in general colloquial use from the Restoration and is ‘now constantly in the mouths of the lowest classes, but by respectable people considered “ a horrid word ” on a par with Setara/sama dengan) obscene (cabul) or profane (kotor) language, and usually printed in the newspapers “ b________ y.” ‘ It further states that the origin of the term is not quite certain. This uncertainty itself gives us a clue about ‘dirty’ words: people who use them often do not know why they are taboo, only that they are, and to some extent, this is why they remain in the language to give vent (celah) to strong emotion.

Words relating to sex, sex organs, and natural bodily function make up a large part of the set of taboo words of many cultures. Some languages have no native words to mean ‘sexual intercourse’ but do borrow some words from neighboring people. Other languages have many words for this common and universal act, most of which are considered taboo.

Two or more words or expression can have the same linguistic meaning, with one acceptable and the others the cause of embarrassment or horror. In English, words borrowed from Latin sound ‘scientific’ and therefore appear to be technical and ‘clean’, whereas native Anglo-Saxon counterparts are taboo. This fact reflects the opinion that the vocabulary used by the upper classes was superior to that used by the lower classes, a distinction going back at least to the Norman conquest in 1066, when, as Farb puts it, ‘ duchess (istri orang bangsawan) perspired and expectorated and menstruated while a kitchen maid sweated and spat (spit ‘meludah’) and bled.’

There is no linguistic reason why the word vagina is ‘clean’ whereas cunt is ‘dirty’; nor why prick or cock is taboo, but penis is acknowledged as referring to part of male anatomy; or why everyone defecates /def keit/ (buang air besar), but only vulgar people shit. Many people even avoid words like breast, intercourse, and testicles as much as words like tits, fuck, and balls. There is no linguistic basis for such view, but pointing this fact out does not imply advocating the use or non-use of any such words.

Taboo is one way in which a society expresses its disapproval of certain kinds of behavior believed to be harmful to its members, either for supernatural reasons or because such behavior is held to violate a moral code. Consequently, so far as language is concerned, certain things are not to be said or certain objects can be referred to only in certain circumstances, for example, only by certain people, or through deliberate circumlocutions, i.e., euphemistically. Of course, there are always those who are prepared to break the taboos in an attempt to show their own freedom from such restrictions or to expose the taboos as irrational and unjustified, as in certain movements for ‘free speech’.

English has its taboos, and most people who speak English know what these are and observe the ‘rules’. When someone breaks the rules, that rupture (perpecahan) may arouse considerable comment. Linguistic taboos are also violated on occasion to draw attention to oneself, or to show contempt, or to be aggressive or provocative, or to mock authority

Solidarity and Politeness

When we speak, we must constantly make choices of many different kinds: What we want to say, how we want to say it, and the specific sentence types, words, and sounds that best unite the what with how. How we say something is at least as important as what we say; in fact, the content and the form are quite inseparable, being but two facets of the same object. One way of looking at this relationship is to examine a few specific aspects of communication: namely, pronominal choice between tu and vous forms in languages which require such a choice; the us of naming and address terms; and the employment of politeness markers. In each case we will see that certain linguistic choices a speaker makes indicate the social relationship that the speaker perceives to exist between him or her and the listener or listeners. Moreover, in many cases it is impossible to avoid making such choices in the actual ‘packaging’ of messages. We will also see that languages vary considerably in this respect, at least in regard to those aspects we will examine.

Many languages have a distinction corresponding to the tu—vous (T/V) distinction in Frensch, where grammatically there is ‘singular you’ tu (T) and ‘plural you’ vous (V) but usage requires that you use vous withindividuals on certain occasions. The T form is sometimes described as the ‘familiar’ form and the V form as the ‘polite’ one. Other languages with similar T/V distinction are Latin (tu/vous), Russian (ty/vy), Italian (tu/Lei), German (du/sie), Swedish (du/ni), and Greek (esi/esis). English, itself, once had such a distinction, the thou/you distinction.

According to Brown and Gilman , the T/V distinction began as a genuine difference between singular and plural. By medieval times the upper classes apparently began to use V forms with each other to show mutual respect and politeness. However, T forms persisted (tetap bertahan), so that the upper classes used mutual V , the lower classes used mutual T, and the upper classes addressed the lower classes with T but received V. This latter nonreciprocal T/V usage therefore came to symbolize a ‘power’ relationship. It was extended to such situations as people to animals, master or mistress to servants, parents to children, priest to penitent, and officer to soldier, with, in each case, the first mentioned giving T but receiving V.

Reciprocal V usage became ‘polite’ usage. This polite usage spread downward in society, but not all the way down, so that in certain classes, but never the lowest, it became expected between husband and wife, parents and children, and lovers. Reciprocal T usage was always available to show intimacy, and its use for that purpose also spread to situations in which two people agreed they had strong common interests, i.e., a feeling of ‘solidarity’. This mutual T for solidarity gradually came to replace the mutual V of politeness, since solidarity is often more important than politeness in personal relationship. Moreover, the use of the non-reciprocal T/V to express power decreased and mutual V was often used in its place, as between officer and soldier. Today we can still find non-reciprocal T/V uses, but solidarity has tended to replace power, so that now mutual T is found quite often in relationships which previously had non- reciprocal usage, e.g., father and son, and employer and employee.

English, of course, has no active T/V distinction. The use of T forms by such groups as Quakers is very much limited, but those T forms are a solidarity marker for those who do use them. The T/V use that remains in English is archaic (kuno), found in fixed formulas such as prayers or in use in plays written during the era when the T/V distinction was alive or in modern works that try to recapture aspects of that era. It is still possible, however, for speakers of English to show power and solidarity relationships through language; they just have to use other means. As we will see, speakers of English, just like speakers of other languages, can use address terms for that purpose.

Address Terms

How do you name or address another? By title (T), by first name (FN), by last name (LN), by a nickname; by some combination of these, or by nothing at all, so deliberately avoiding the problem? What factors govern the choice you make ? Is the address process non-reciprocal; that is, if I call you Mr. Jones, do you call me John? Or is it reciprocal, so that Mr. Jones leads to Mr. Smith and John to Fred? All kinds of combinations are possible in English: Dr Smith, John Smith, Smith, John, Johnnie, Doc, Sir, Mack, and so on. Dr. Smith himself might also expect Doctor from a patient, Dad from his son, John from his brother, Dear from his wife, and Sir from a police officer who stops him if he drives too fast, and he might be rather surprised if any one of these is substituted for any other, e.g., ‘Excuse me, dear, can I see your licence?’ From the police officer.

Address by title alone is the least intimate form of address in that titles usually designate ranks or occupations, as in Colonel, Doctor, or Waiter. They are devoid of ‘personal’ content. We can argue therefore that Doctor Smith is more intimate than Doctor alone, acknowledging as it does that the other person’s name is known and can be mentioned. Knowing and using another’s first name is, of course, a sign of considerable intimacy or at least of a desire for such intimacy. Using a nickname or pet name shows an even greater intimacy. When someone uses your first name alone in addressing you, you may feel on occasion that that person is presuming an intimacy you do not recognize or, alternatively, is trying to assert some power over you. Note that a mother’s John Smith to a misbehaving son reduces the intimacy of first name alone, or first name with diminutive (Johnny), or pet name (Honey), and consequently serves to signal a rebuke.

We can see some of the possible dangers in cross-cultural communication when different relationships are expressed through what appears, superficially at least, to be the same address system. The dangers are even greater if one learns the terms in a new address system but fails to appreciate how they are related to one another. Ervin-Tripp (1972, P231) in Wardaugh (1988: 260) provides the following example:

Suppose the speaker, but not the listener, has a system in which familiarity, not merely solidarity, is required for the use of a first name. He will use TLN in the United States to his new colleagues and be regarded as aloof or excessively formal. He will feel that first-name usage from his colleagues is brash and intrusive. In the same way, encounters across social groups may lead to misunderstandings within the United states. Suppose a used-car salesman regards his relation to his customers as solidarity, or a physician so regards his relation to old patients. The American… might regard such speakers as intrusive, having ,made a false claim to a solidarity status. In this way, one can pinpoint abrasive features of interaction across groups.

I might add that the use of person’s first name in North America does not necessarily indicate friendship or respect. First names are required among people who work closely together, even though they may not like each other at all. First names may even be used to refer to public figures, but contemptuously as well as admiringly.

In certain circumstances, the use of a first name by one person to another without reciprocity can be heavily marked for power. In the southern states of the United States, white have often used naming and addressing practices to put blacks in their place. Hence the odious use of Boy to address black males. The asymmetrical use of names also was part of the system. Whites addressed blacks by their first names in situations which required them to use titles, or titles and last names, if they were addressing whites. There was a clear racial distinction in the practice.

Address Terms

The Nuer, a Sudanese people, have very different naming practices from those with which we are likely to be familiar. Every Nuer has a personal or birth name, which is a name given to the child by the parents shortly after birth and retained for life. A personal name may be handed down, particularly to sons, for a son may be called something equivalent ‘son of [personal name]’. Nuer personal names are interesting in what they name, e.g., Reath ‘drought’, Nhial ‘rain’ Pun ‘wild rice’, Cuol ‘to conpensate’, Mun ‘earth’, and Met ‘to deceive’. Sometimes the maternal grandparents give a child a second personal name. The consequence is that a child’s paternal kin may address the child by one personal name and a child’s maternal kin by another. There are also special personal names for twins and children who are born after twins. Males are addressed by their personal names in their paternal villages during boyhood, but this usage shifts in later years when senior males are addressed as Gwa ‘father’ by less senior males, who themselves receive Gwa from much younger males. Children, however, call everyone in the village by their personal names, older people and parents included.

Every Nuer child also has a clan name, but name is largely ceremonial so that its use is confined to such events as weddings and initiations. Use of the clan name between females expresses considerable formality as when a woman uses it to address her son’s wife. The clan name may also be used by mothers to their small children to express approval and pleasure. Clan names are also used when one is addressed outside one’s local tribal area by people from those tribes.

In addition to personal names, which are given, and clan names, which are inherited, the Nuer also have ox name, that is, names derived from a favored ox. A man may choose his own ox name. This is a name which a man uses in the triumphs of sport, hunting, and war, and it is the name used among age-mates for purposes of address. Women’s ox names come from the bulls calved by the cows they milk. Women’s ox names are used mainly among women. Occasionally , young men will address young girls by their ox names as part of flirting behavior or their sisters by these names if they are pleased with them. Married women replace the ox names with cow names taken from the family herds, and men do not use these names at all.

Evan-Pritchard points out a number of further complication in naming and addressing, having to do with the complicated social arrangements found in Nuer life. A person’s name varies with circumstances, for each person has a number of names which he or she can use. In addressing another, the choice of name which one uses for the other depends both on one’s knowledge of exactly who that other is. (e.g., his or her age and lineage).

Having taken this brief glance at Nuer name and addressing practices, we can now turn our attention to English usage. Brown and Ford’s study (1961) of naming practices in English was based on an analysis of modern plays, the naming practices observed in a business in Boston, and the reported usage of business executive and children in the mid-western United States and in ‘Yoredale’ in England. They report that the asymmetric use of title, last name, and first name (TLN/FN) indicated inequality in power, that mutual TLN indicated inequality and unfamiliarity, and that mutual FN indicated equality and familiarity. The switch from mutual TLN to FN is also usually initiated by the more powerful member of the relationship. Other options exist too in addressing another: title alone (T), e.g., Professor or Doctor; last name alone (LN), e.g., Smith; or multiple naming, e.g., variation between Mr. Smith and Fred. We should note that in such a classification, titles like Sir or Madam are generalized variants of the T (title) category, i.e., generic titles, and forms like Mack, Buddy, jack, or Mate are generic first names (FN), as in ‘What’s up, Mate?’ or Hey, Mack, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’

Middle-and upper-class Negro women never permit their first names to be known … The wife of well-to-do Negro business man went into a department store in Atlanta to enquire about an account. The clerk asked her first name and she said ‘ Mrs. William Jones’. The clerk insisted on her first name, and when she refused to give it declared that the business could not be completed without it. It was a large account; and the manager, to whom appeal was made, decided that ‘Mrs’ was simply good business and not ‘social equality’.

In this case ‘good business’ overrode the desire to reinforce the social inequality that would have resulted from the woman’s giving the sales-clerk the information requested and then the inevitable use of that first name alone by the clerk in addressing the customer.

In English, when we are in doubt as to how to address another we can actually avoid the difficulty by not using any address term at all. We can say Good morning as well as Good morning, Sir/Mr. Smith/Susie. In other languages such avoidance may be either impolite or deficient.

MY COURSES

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Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Sociolinguistics

Theories of Origin

Choosing a Code

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