SOCIOLINGUISTICS

LESSON 2

INSTRUCTOR: LE NGUYEN NHU ANH

 LESSON 2
LANGUAGE CHOICE
IN MULTILINGUAL
COMMUNITIES
Lesson Contents
Key takeaways:

Choosing your variety or code

Diglossia

Code-switching or code-mixing
Choosing your variety or code Standard (Zairean) Swahili
different tribal group (lingua franca),
What is your linguistic repertoire?
national language: official
Example 1
transaction; officials in government
offices; tries for job
Informal Shi:
home with family; market place Local Swahili (Kingwana)
(same ethnic) younger children; street; marketplace
Indoubil:
Formal Shi:
friends, young people in Bukavu;
wedding, funerals
ingroup slang in monolingual
communities (based on Swahili, dev.
with French, English, Italian
=> Varieties of Shi Kalala
=> Varieties of Swahili
Choosing your variety or code
What is your linguistic repertoire?
Example 1

Kalala’s linguistic repertoire Addressee’s linguistic repertoire

Shi: informal style Rega: informal style

formal style formal style
Indoubil Lingala
Kingwana
Standard Zairean Swahili Standard Zairean Swahili

Source: Based on Goyvaerts et al. 1983, Goyvaerts 1988, 1996.

Exercises and discussions
Exercise 1
Which varieties do you think Kalala will use to
(i) talk to his younger brother at home?
(ii) plan the morning’s activities with his best friend?
(iii) greet a stranger from a different tribe whom he met in the street?
Exercises and discussions
Answer to exercise 1

(i) Kalala would probably use informal Shi, especially if his parents were present. If his brother
was close in age and they got on well they would be likely to use Indoubil to each other. If his
brother was much younger, he would not yet know much Indoubil.

(ii) Indoubil, the language of peer-group friendship.

(iii) This would depend on his assessment of what languages the stranger knew. He would
probably use Kingwana if he guessed the person lived in Bukavu, but standard Swahili if he
thought they came from out of town. However, his assessment of the stranger’s social status, or
the function of the interaction might also be relevant.
Choosing your variety or code
What is your linguistic repertoire?
“A lingua franca … is a language or dialect systematically
used to make communication possible between groups of
people who do not share a native language or dialect,
particularly when it is a third language that is distinct from
both of the speakers' native languages.” (Chirikba, 2008)

Other names:
• bridge language
• common language
• trade language
• auxiliary language
• vehicular language
• link language
Choosing your variety or code
Domains of Language Use
Example 2

English: Tongan:
language at school Home with family;
can be used with sisters -Grandmother: Tongan customs
-Mother: gossip about Tongan
friends and relatives
Meal-time language: members’
activities, outings, social event

Anahina
Choosing your variety or code
Domains of Language Use
Language choice <= social factors:
• Who you are talking to
• The social context of the talk
• The function and topic of the discussion
Typical interactions involving these social factors => Domains
Choosing your variety or code
Domains of Language Use
A domain involves typical interactions between typical participants in typical settings.
Choosing your variety or code
Domains of Language Use
Example 3

Spanish: Guaraní:
colonisers; used by those who American Indian indigenous
live in the cities, language of language; Paraguayan identity
literature, language of gossip signal; also used by many rural
Paraguayans; used by those
who live in the cities, language
of gossip
Paraguay
Choosing your variety or code
Domains of Language Use
Choosing your variety or code
Domains of Language Use
Example 4

Portuguese: English:
at home; to older people at at school; after-school job
Portuguese Catholic church and serving in a local café
community centre, sometimes
greeted by customers at work

Maria
Choosing your variety or code
Domains of Language Use
Information about the domains of use in a community
=> draw a very simple model summarising the norms of language use for the community.
=> useful for bilingual and multilingual speech communities

Domains identified in example 4

Domain Variety/code
Home/family Portuguese
Church/religion Portuguese
Work/employment English
School/education English
 Choosing your variety or code
Domains of Language Use
An explicit model is useful because:
1. It forces us to be very clear about which
domains and varieties are relevant to
language choice.
2. It provides a clear basis for comparing
patterns of code choice in different
speech communities.

Appropriate code choice in different domains among the Portuguese communityin London
Exercises and discussions
Exercise 4a
Consider example 2 above. What does it suggest about the limitations of a domain-based
approach to language choice?
Exercises and discussions
Answer to exercise 4a

The domain-based approach allows for only one choice of language per domain, namely the
language used most of the time in that domain. Clearly, more than one language may occur in any
domain. Different people may use different languages in the same domain. For a variety of
reasons (such as who they are talking to), the same person may also use different languages in
the same domain.
Choosing your variety or code
Domains of Language Use
Example 5

Cantonese: Singapore English:

at home; to mother and to friends, sisters; in large
grandmother; market place to department stores
elder people Formal Singapore English:
Hokkien: taught at primary school; to
in smaller shops and government officials, office job
marketplace application
Mandarin Chinese: English:
taught at primary school; secondary school; university;
Oi Lin Tan
Channel 8 on TV, Chinese textbooks
newspaper
Exercises and discussions
Exercise 4b
Although Oi Lin Tan uses Cantonese to her mother, she uses Singapore English to her sisters. On
the other hand, she uses Cantonese at the market to elderly Cantonese vegetable sellers. What
factors might account for these code choices?
Exercises and discussions
Answer to exercise 4b

Oi Lin’s choices illustrate further factors which may influence code choice. The particular
addressee may influence code choice within a domain.
She uses Singapore English to her sisters and friends of the same age – it is the code commonly
used by young people to each other, partly because they use it so much at school, partly because
they feel positive about it.
She uses Cantonese to elderly vegetable sellers, perhaps because she wants to emphasise their
common ethnicity, so they will feel well-disposed towards her and she may get a better bargain.
Perhaps also because she judges that Cantonese is the language they are most proficient in, and
she wants the exchange to be as comfortable as possible for them.
Choosing your variety or code
Other social factors affecting code choice

Note 1: Note 2:
In describing the patterns of code use Models can usefully go beyond the
of particular communities, the relevant social factors summarised in the
social factors may not fit neatly into domain concept to take account of
institutionalised domains. social dimensions: social distance,
relative status or role, degrees of
formality and the function or goal of
the interaction.
Exercises and discussions
Exercise 5
Using the information provided in example 1, draw a diagram like that in figure 2.1 summarising
the factors relevant to code choice for Kalala in Bukavu.
Exercises and discussions
Answer to exercise 5 Model of appropriate code choice in Bukavu
Diglossia
A division of labour
Example 6

Swiss German: Standard German:

(regional dialect), everyday language of school; newspaper;
interactions; radical clerics; university lecture; national TV news;
weather broadcasts sermons in church; novels

Silvia
Diglossia
A division of labour
Diglossia (narrow sense)

1. Two distinct varieties of the same language are used in

the community, with one regarded as a high (or H) variety
and the other a low (or L) variety.
2. Each variety is used for quite distinct functions; H and L
complement each other.
3. No one uses the H variety in everyday conversation.
Exercises and discussions
Exercise 6
Fill in the following table on the basis of your predictions about when H will be used and when L
will be used in diglossic communities.
Exercises and discussions
Answer to exercise 6
Diglossia
A division of labour
Attitudes to H vs L in a diglossia situation

H variety L variety
admired, varied
respectful,
prestigious
Diglossia
A division of labour
Diglossia (narrow sense)

(i) They are different varieties of the same language.

(ii) They are used in mutually exclusive situations.
(iii) Only L is used for conversation with family and friends.
(iv) L is learned ‘naturally’ in the home. H is learned more formally – usually in school.
(v) H has higher prestige. However, people are often more emotionally attached to L
emotionally (covert prestige).
(vi) H is codified in grammar books and dictionaries.
(vii) Literature is usually written in H, but when the L variety begins to gain status
people begin to use it to write in too.
Summary of H & L varieties
Diglossia
Extending the scope of 'diglossia'
Diglossia (broader sense)

Any situation where two languages are used for

different functions in a speech community, especially
where one language is used for H functions and the
other for L functions. There is a division of labour
between the languages.
Exercises and discussions
Exercise 8
(a) Fill in the following table using the description of twentieth century Paraguayan patterns of
language use outlined in example 3 and table 2.3 above as a basis for predicting which language
is likely to be the main one associated with a particular domain.

(b) Does twentieth century Paraguay qualify as a diglossic society if criterion (ii) is regarded as
the only important one?
Exercises and discussions
Answer to exercise 8a
Exercises and discussions
Answer to exercise 8b

Yes, on the whole. In some domains, as discussed above, choice of language depended on factors
such as the particular topic or function of the interaction. In rural areas, lack of proficiency in
Spanish may (still) lead to the use of Guaraní in situations where Spanish would be appropriate in
the town. Nevertheless in general in the 1960s, people were still clear that one code rather than
the other is most appropriate in particular interactions. In the twenty-first century, however,
interactions in urban homes typically involve both languages.
Diglossia
Diglossia with and without bilingualism
• Diglossia is a characteristic of speech communities rather than individuals.
• Individuals may be bilingual.
• Societies or communities are diglossic.
• Diglossia describes societal or institutionalised bilingualism, where two varieties
are required to cover all the community’s domains.
Diglossia
Diglossia with and without bilingualism

• Box 1: the society is diglossic, (most) individuals are bilingual.

• Box 2: individuals are bilingual, there is no community-wide functional differentiation in
the use of their languages.
• Box 3: two languages are used for different functions, by largely different speech
communities.
• Box 4: monolingual groups, typical of isolated ethnic communities
Diglossia
Polyglossia
situations where a number of distinct codes or varieties are used for clearly distinct
purposes or in clearly distinguishable situations.

Oi Lin Tan
Diglossia
Triglossia

Colloquial Maori: English:

L variety; friends and family; in H variety; language of school; the
local shops government; the courts; official
transactions with non-Maori New
Formal Maori: Zealanders
H variety; ceremonial purposes;
formal interaction on the
marae
Diglossia
Changes in a diglossia situation
• 2 varieties can continue to exist side by side
Or
• 1 variety may gradually displace the other
Exercises and discussions
Exercise 9
How can the following three dimensions be used to distinguish between H and L varieties in a
diglossic speech community?

(i) Formality
(ii) Social distance
(iii) Social status
Exercises and discussions
Answer to exercise 9
Code-switching or code-mixing
Participants, solidarity and status
Example 8
The Maori is in italics. THE TRANSLATION IS IN SMALL CAPITALS. ]
Sarah : I think everyone’s here except Mere.
John : She said she might be a bit late but actually I think
that’s her arriving now.
Sarah : You’re right. Kia ora Mere. Haere mai. Kei te pehea koe?
[ HI MERE. COME IN. HOW ARE YOU ?]
Mere : Kia ora e hoa. Kei te pai. Have you started yet?
[ HELLO MY FRIEND. I’M FINE ]

 SOLIDARITY
Code-switching or code-mixing
Participants, solidarity and status
Example 9
(a) Tamati : Engari [SO] now we turn to more important matters.
(Switch between Maori and English)
(b) Ming : Confiscated by Customs, dà gài [PROBABLY]  IDENTITY
(Switch between English and Mandarin Chinese)
(c) A: Well I’m glad I met you. OK?
M: ándale pues [ OK SWELL ], and do come again. Mm?
 SOLIDARITY
(Switch between Spanish and English)
Code-switching or code-mixing
Participants, solidarity and status
Example 10
[ BOKMÅL IS IN SMALL CAPITALS . Ranamål in lower case.]
Jan : Hello Petter. How is your wife now?
Petter : Oh she’s much better thank you Jan. She’s out of hospital
and convalescing well.
Jan : That’s good I’m pleased to hear it. DO YOU THINK YOU
COULD HELP ME WITH THIS PESKY FORM? I AM HAVING A
GREAT DEAL OF DIFFICULTY WITH IT.
Petter : OF COURSE. GIVE IT HERE . . .

 Change of topic  Change of relationship

Exercises and discussions
Exercise 10
When people switch from one code to another for reasons which can be clearly identified, it is
sometimes called situational switching. If we knew the relevant situational or social factors in
advance in such cases, we could usually predict the switches. Which code would you predict the
speaker will switch from and which code will they switch to in the following situations and why?
(a) A Hemnesberget resident chatting to a friend in the queue at the community
administration office gets to the counter and speaks to the clerk.
(b) Three students from the Chinese province of Guangdong are sharing a flat together in
London. They are discussing the ingredients of the stir-fry vegetable dish they are cooking.
One of them starts to discuss the chemical composition of the different ingredients.
Exercises and discussions
Answer to exercise 10

(a) From Ranamål to Bokmål because Ranamål is the variety used for personal interactions while
Bokmål is appropriate for official transactions.

(b) From their Chinese dialect, Cantonese, to English because the topic of Chinese food is
appropriately discussed in Cantonese but the technical topic introduced is more easily discussed
in English, the language in which they are studying.
Code-switching or code-mixing
Participants, solidarity and status
People sometimes switch code within a domain or social situation.
• related to a particular participant or addressee (expression of
solidarity, group membership, shared ethnicity)
• Emblematic/Tag switching: an interjection or a linguistic tag in the
other language => ethnic identity marker
• Express a move along the solidarity/social distance dimension
• Indicate a change in the status relations between people or the
formality of their interaction
• Situational switching: when people switch from one code to another
for reasons which can be clearly identified
Code-switching or code-mixing
Topic
Example 11
[The Māori is in italics. the TRANSLATION IS IN SMALL CAPITALS.]
A Māori person is recalling the visit of a respected elder to a nearby
town.
‘That’s what he said in Blenheim. Ki a mātou Ngāti Porou, te
Māoritanga i papi ake i te whenua. [WE OF THE NGĀTI POROU TRIBE
BELIEVE THE ORIGINS OF MĀORITANGA ARE IN THE EARTH.] And those
Blenheim people listened carefully to him too.’

 Switch to quote a person

Code-switching or code-mixing
Topic
Example 12
[The Mandarin Chinese is in italics. the TRANSLATION IS IN SMALL
CAPITALS.]
A group of Chinese students from Beijing are discussing Chinese
customs.
Li: People here get divorced too easily. Like exchanging faulty goods. In
China it’s not the same. Jià goǔ súi goǔ, jià jī súi jī. [IF YOU HAVE
MARRIED A DOG, YOU FOLLOW A DOG, IF YOU’VE MARRIED A CHICKEN,
YOU FOLLOW A CHICKEN.]

嫁鸡随鸡，嫁狗随狗

 Switch to recite a proverb

Code-switching or code-mixing
Topic
For many bilinguals, certain kinds of referential content are more
appropriately or more easily expressed in one language than the other.
Referentially oriented code-switch:
• triggered by topic
• for quotation / proverb citation => stress on accuracy
Code-switching or code-mixing
Switching for affective functions

Standard English:
(West Midlands accent)
Patois:
a variety of Jamaican Creole)

Polly
Code-switching or code-mixing
Switching for affective functions

Standard English: Use Patois to swear at the teacher

(West Midlands accent)
Patois:
 Switch to express anger
a variety of Jamaican Creole)  Affective function

Polly
Code-switching or code-mixing
Switching for affective functions
Example 14
[Patois is written in italics.]
With Melanie right you have to say she speaks tri different sort of
language when she wants to. Cos she speak half Patois, half English
and when im ready im will come out wid, ‘I day and I bay and I ay this
and I ay that. I day have it and I day know where it is’ . . . And then she
goes ‘Lord God, I so hot’. Now she’ll be sitting there right and she’ll go.
‘It’s hot isn’t it?’, you know, and you think which one is she going to
grow up speaking?

 Switch for amusement and dramatic effect

Code-switching or code-mixing
Switching for affective functions
Example 15
[The German is in italics. the TRANSLATION IS IN SMALL CAPITALS.]
In the town of Oberwart two little Hungarian-speaking children were
playing in the woodshed and knocked over a carefully stacked pile of
firewood. Their grandfather walked in and said in Hungarian, the language
he usually used to them:
‘Szo! ide dzüni! jeszt jerámunyi mind e kettüötök, no hát akkor!’
[WELL COME HERE! PUT ALL THIS AWAY, BOTH OF YOU, WELL NOW.]
When they did not respond quickly enough he switched to (dialectal)
German: ‘Kum her!’[COME HERE!]

 Switch to emphasize anger and disapproval

Code-switching or code-mixing
Metaphorical switching
Example 16 Tok Pisin => social
distance, status,
referential information
of the business world

Buang => high

solidarity, equal status,
friendly feelings

 Switch for rhetorical reasons

Code-switching or code-mixing
Metaphorical switching
Example 18 English => distance and
objectivity
[THE WORDS ORIGINALLY SPOKEN IN SAMOAN ARE IN SMALL CAPITALS.]
Alf is 55 and overweight. He is talking to a fellow Samoan at work about
his attempt to go on a diet.
My doctor told me to go on a diet. She said I was overweight. So I tried. Samoan => personal
BUT IT WAS SO HARD. I’D KEEP THINKING ABOUT FOOD ALL THE TIME. Even feelings
when I was at work. And in bed at night I’D GET DESPERATE. I COULDN’T
GET TO SLEEP. So I’d get up and RAID THE FRIDGE. THEN I’D FEEL GUILTY
AND SICK AND WHEN I WOKE UP NEXT DAY I WOULD BE SO DEPRESSED
because I had to start the diet all over again. The doctor wasn’t
sympathetic. She just shrugged and said ‘well it’s your funeral!’
Code-switching or code-mixing
Metaphorical switching
• Rapid switch
• Drawing on the associations of both codes.
• Each of the codes represents or symbolises a set of social meanings
=> to represent complex meanings.
• Involving rhetorical skill
=> to enrich the communication.
Code-switching or code-mixing
Metaphorical switching
Example 19

Sometimes sociolinguists can’t explain language choices in situations

where the participants are all multilingual…
Code-switching or code-mixing
Code-mixing
• Speakers mixing up codes indiscriminately
• Incompetence
• Fused lect: a relatively stable mixture of two or more languages
(conversational style by bilinguals and multilinguals)
Code-switching or code-mixing
Attitudes to code-switching
• Reactions to code-switching styles are negative in many monolingual
communities.
• Where multilingualism is the norm, attitudes to proficient code-
switching are much more positive.

😊 😒
Code-switching or code-mixing
Lexical borrowing
• Caused by a lack of vocabulary in a language
• Different from code-switching
• Purpose
• Form: borrowed words usually adapted to the speaker’s first
language
Code-switching or code-mixing
Lexical borrowing
• Caused by a lack of vocabulary in a language
• Different from code-switching
• Purpose
• Form: borrowed words usually adapted to the speaker’s first
language
Code-switching or code-mixing
Lexical borrowing
• Caused by a lack of vocabulary in a language
• Different from code-switching
• Purpose
• Form: borrowed words usually adapted to the speaker’s first
language
Code-switching or code-mixing
Linguistic constraints

universal social
linguistic stylistic
constraints contextual
Code-switching or code-mixing
Linguistic constraints
• Intra-sentential switching
• Inter-sentential switching
• Equivalence constraint (matched grammar)
• Matrix language frame (MLF) & embedded language

universal social
linguistic stylistic
constraints contextual
Code-switching or code-mixing
Reasons for code-switching
Change in a feature of the domain or Aspect of the function or purpose of
social situation interaction
• Setting • Add emphasis
• Participant features • Add authority
• Addressee specification • Express feelings (vs describing facts)
• Ethnic identity marker
• Express solidarity
• Express social distance
• Assert social status
• Topic
• Quoting someone
• Proverb
 References
• Ferguson (1959) reprinted in Coupland and Jaworski (2009)
• Fishman (1971, 1972, 2003)
• Gumperz (1971, 1977)
• Michael-Luna and Canagarajah (2007) discuss code meshing
in relation to literacy development
• Myers-Scotton (1993, 1997, 2009)
• Platt (1977)

Resources •
•
•
Poplack (1980)
Rampton (1995)
Thomason (2001)
• Winford (2003) for those who are ready for a more advanced
discussion

Additional reading
• Fasold (1984) Chs 1 and 2
• Mesthrie et al. (2009) Ch. 5
• Mahootian (2006)
• Meyerhoff (2011) Ch. 6
• Myers-Scotton (2006) Ch. 6
• Romaine (2000) Ch. 2
• Saville-Troike (2003) Ch. 3
• Thomason (2001)
• Wardhaugh and Fuller (2015) Ch. 4