Sociolinguistic

Group 4 :
-Dinda Pahira
-Dinda Safitri
-Syntia Rolensa
Table of
Contents
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

-Standard Language

-Vernacular Language

-Lingua Francas

-Pidgins

-Creoles
Vernacular
Languages
The term vernacular is used in a number of ways in
sociolinguistics. It gen- erally refers to a language
which has not been standardised and which does
not have official status. There are hundreds if not
thousands of vernacular languages, such as
Buang in Papua New Guinea, Hindustani in India,
Tapiete in Argentina, Mapuche in Chile, and
Bumbar in Vanuatu, many of which have never
been written down or described. In a multilingual
speech community, the many different ethnic or
tribal languages used by different groups are
referred to as vernacular languages. Vernaculars
are usually the first languages learned by people in
multilingual communities, and they are often used
for a relatively narrow range of informal functions.
There are three components to the meaning of the
term vernacular, then. The most basic refers to
the fact that a vernacular is an uncodified or
unstandardised variety. The second refers to the
way it is acquired – in the home, as a first variety.
The third is the fact that it is used for relatively
circumscribed functions. The first component has
been most widely used as the defining criterion,
but emphasis on one or other of the components
has led to the use of the term vernacular
with somewhat different meanings.
Some have extended the term to refer to any
language which is not the official language of a
country. An influential 1951 Unesco report, for
instance, defined a vernacular language as the
first language of a group socially or politically
dominated by a group with a different language.
So, in countries such as the USA where English is
the language of the dominant group, a language
like Spanish is referred to as a Chicano child’s
vernacular. But Spanish would not be regarded as
a vernacular language in Spain, Uruguay or Chile,
where it is an official language. In this sense,
Greek is a vernacular language in Australia and
New Zealand, but not in Greece or Cyprus.
The term vernacular here simply means a language
which is not an official language in a particular
context. When people talk about education in a
vernacular language, for instance, they are usually
referring to education in an ethnic minority language
in a particular country. The term vernacular generally
refers to the most colloquial variety in a person’s
linguistic repertoire. In a multilingual community, this
variety will often be an unstandardised ethnic or
tribal language. The vernacular is the variety used
for communication in the home and with close
friends. It is the language of solidarity between
people from the same ethnic group. By extension,
the term has been used to refer in a monolingual
community to the most informal and colloquial
variety of a language which may also have a
standardised variety.
Standard Language
The term standard is even more slippery than
vernacular because it too is used in many
different ways by linguists. Here is one
definition which can serve as a useful
starting point: A standard variety is generally
one which is written, and which has
undergone some degree of regularisation or
codification (for example, in a grammar and a
dictionary); it is recognised as a prestigious
variety or code by a community, and it is used
for H functions alongside a diversity of L
varieties.
EXAMPLE
Do not take the termes of Northern-men,
such as they use in dayly talke, whether they
be noblemen or gentlemen, or of their best
clarkes all is a matter; nor in effect any
speach used beyond the river Trent, though
no man can deny but that theirs is the purer
English Saxon at this day, yet it is not so
Courtly nor so currant as our Southern
English is, no more is the far Westerne mans
speach; ye shall therefore take the usuall
speach of the Court, and that of London and
the shires lying about London within LX
myles, and not much above.
This is a very general definition and it
immediately excludes most of the world’s
four or five thousand languages. Only a
minority of the world’s languages are written,
and an even smaller minority are
standardised in the sense of codi- fied and
accepted by the community as suitable for
formal functions. It will be useful to look at an
example to illustrate what the definition
means in a particular context.
Standard languages developed in similar
ways in many European countries during the
fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. In Italy, Spain, France and Romania,
for example, there were a variety of dialects
of the vernacular languages (which all
derived from varieties of colloquial Latin)
which served the L functions of their
communities, alongside classical Latin, the H
language. From these dialects there
gradually emerged a standard, generally
based on the dialect of the political,
economic and social centre of the country.
Lingua Francas
In this particular encounter, Latin functioned as a lingua
franca – a language of communication between two
people. In the meeting Sister Dominic was attending
between nuns from South America, Africa, Ireland and
France, the language of wider communication or lingua
franca was English. When academics and experts meet
at international conferences, or when politicians
arrange summit meetings, a world language such as
English, French or Spanish is often used as the lingua
franca. In these examples, a particular language serves
as a lingua franca in a particular situation. More
generally, however, the term lingua franca describes a
language serving as a regular means of communication
between different lin- guistic groups in a multilingual
speech community.
A lingua franca is a language used for communication
between people whose first languages differ. Between
the Colombian Indians, Tukano is the main lingua franca,
and it can be used with Indians who live in the Vaupés
area of the north- west Amazon on both sides of the
border between Colombia and Brazil. If Indians want to
communicate with non-Indians in the area they need a
second lingua franca, since non-Indians rarely learn
Tukano. Colombians use Spanish, and Brazilians use
Portuguese.
Pidgins and Creoles
PIDGINS
a reduced language that results from
extended contact between groups of
people with no language in common; it
evolves when they need some means of
verbal communication, perhaps for trade,
but no group learns the native social
reasons that may include lack of trust or
of close contact. (Holm, 1988)
CREOLES
creoles arise when pidgins become
mother tongues. (Aitchison, 1994)
a creole, therefore, is a 'normal' language
in almost every sense.
a creole is a pidgin which has expanded in
structure and vocabulary to express the
range of meanings and serve the range of
functions required of a first language.
(Holmes, 1992)
ATTITUDES TOWARDS
PIDGINS AND CREOLES
They existed since time immemorial, but
we know comparatively little about them.
Before 1930s:
Ignored: Marginal language
They have been viewed as
uninteresting linguistic phenomena
Associated with poorer and darker
members of a society
Recent years:
Gained attention
fundamental issues in all languages
invaluable to their uses (identity)
IMPORTANCE OF PIDGINS AND
CREOLES IN SOCIOLINGUISTICS
With pidgins and creoles we can:
See processes of language origin and change
going on aroud us.
Witness how people are attracted to languages,
how they exploit what linguistic resources they
have, and how they forge new identities.
See how a language changes in short period of
time; a few generations suffice.
To some extent, the speakers of such languages
have benefited as they have come to recognize
that what they speak is not just a 'bad' variety of
this language, but a variety of a language with its
own legitimacy, i.e., its own history, structure,
array of functions, and the possibility of winning
eventuak recognition as a 'proper' language.
PIDGINS

Reduce variety of a normal language

Multi-linguistic situations
Language with no native speakers

CREOLES

Expanding
Normal language
Mother tongue
Creole that became the first language
CHARACTERISTICS

In describing the characteristics of a

pidgin or creole it is difficult to resist the
temptation to compare it with the
standard language with which it is
associated.
some such comparisons will be made, but
they are not meant to be invidious to the
pidgin or creole.
the sounds of a pidgin or creole are likely
to be fewer and lkess complicated in their
possible arrangements than those of the
corresponding standart language.
CHARACTERISTICS

Syntactically, sentences are likely to be

uncomplicated in clausal structure.
The vocabulary of a pidgin or a creole has
a great many similarities to that of the
standard language with which it is
associated. However, it will be much more
limited, and phonological and
morphological simplification oftem leads
to words assuming somewhat different
shapes.
Thank you!
:)