Introduction to Linguistics (2) B211520

Ch7 Study Companion

Ver. 20240604
Ch7 Language in Society: Sociolinguistics (part 7)

Power and Language Change (skip this)

1.1 When a dialect becomes the standard, it is often linked to power: Those who speak the standard
language are usually upper-class and thus tend to be more powerful, more able to control, or to have
an impact on, the society.
1.2 In such societies, for lower-class people, being able to speak the standard language may bring good
chances for them to touch the upper-class world.
1.3 In such cases, language change may occur in the following scenario.
 Some working-class people (hereafter WCP) successfully get themselves into higher classes,
and they all speak the standard language to the upper-class people (hereafter UCP) around
them.
 Then some UCP (upper-class) find out the WCP’s background and due to social bias, start to
feel uncomfortable with the fact that they speak the same dialect.
 To make distinction, some UCP gradually change their way of speaking towards other
non-standard dialects, including the WCP’s home dialect.
 Consequently, the dialects mixed up through time. The standard language gradually loses its
native speakers because UCP’s speech starts to show more and more non-standard features.
1.4 This is actually what happened to the Received Pronunciation, the standard British English (native
only to less than 5% of the population of England).
1.5 See the example of U-speakers and non-U speakers on p.279.

2. Language in Contact

Lingua Franca
2.1 Lingua Franca, a language for speakers of diverse languages to communicate, is one of the possible
products of language contact situations.
2.2 When languages come into contact, and if there is a need to communicate, a lingua franca is necessary.
2.2.1 Many lingua francas result from political needs; in other words, they are the standard(ized)
languages (see language standardization above). Examples include:
 Taiwan Mandarin and Putonghua in China
 Russian in the former Soviet Union
 Latin in the Roman Empire
 …
2.2.2 Some lingua francas develop naturally, without human manipulation, for example, today’s English.

Pidgin
2.3 Like lingua franca, Pidgin is also a common language used by speakers of diverse languages.
2.4 However, unlike lingua franca, which is meant to be used in a vast area and for a long time, pidgin is
created to meet temporary needs and to be used by a small number of people in a small area.
2.5 In such contexts, pidgins are created by mixing two or more languages, that is, taking elements (e.g.
phonemes, vocabularies, phrases, sentence structures, etc.) from different languages to form a simplified
 Introduction to Linguistics (2) B211520
Ch7 Study Companion
Ver. 20240604
language for contemporary use.
2.6 Therefore, pidgins are mixed languages simpler in many aspects, and they are NOT full-fledged
languages. Moreover, because they are created, they are not native to anyone.
2.7 The process of pidgin creation is referred to as pidginization.
2.8 Pidgins are commonly found in situations where speakers of different languages temporarily need to
communicate, co-operate, collaborate, etc., such as …
 Trading contexts: Pidgins developed during the 17th, 18th, 19th centuries in trade colonies along
the coasts of China, Africa, and some other places.
 Chinese Pidgin English, developed mainly in Shanghai (once a well-known trade colony in
China), is one example.
 Slave-owner relationship: Pidgins developed for the owner and the slave to communicate.
 Some scholars hold the position that African American English was originally a pidgin of
this kind. (still under debate)
 Between employers and foreign employees: Pidgins developed for communication between
employers and foreign workers.
 Hawaiian Pidgin English developed on the pineapple plantations of Hawaii among
immigrant workers from Japan, China, Portugal, and the Philippines.
 In wars: Pidgins were needed for foreign and local soldiers to co-operate.
 Various pidgins developed during the Korean and Vietnam Wars for communication
between foreign soldiers and local people.

Superstrate and Substrate

2.9 In the cases above and other similar contexts, there is, among the languages that participating in the
mixing, usually a dominant language (spoken by the dominant group).
2.9.1 Such a language is called the superstrate (or the superstrate language), and since it has been found
that most lexical items of a pidgin come from the superstrate, the language is also referred to as the
lexifier language.
2.10 The other languages are called substrates (or substrate languages).
2.11 For example, for Chinese Pidgin English, English was the superstrate, and the Jin dialects (晉語,
including the Shanghai dialect) were substrates.

※ For the simplification of pidgins, see the introduction on p. 293-295. (This is just to give you a taste; you
don’t have to memorize them.)

Creole
2.12 Generally, pidgins die soon. Nonetheless, when the needs to communicate are no longer temporary,
pidgins may undergo further development. They may become more and more linguistically complex
and finally have their own native speakers.
2.13 When a pidgin has native speakers, it becomes a creole. A creole is still mixed, but no longer
simplified; it is an ordinary, full-fledged language.
2.13.1 For example, when the trade markets between national borders are successful and continue to operate
for a very long time, the merchants (speakers of different languages) may decide to live around.
 Introduction to Linguistics (2) B211520
Ch7 Study Companion
Ver. 20240604
2.13.2 As a result, the need to use the pidgin for daily conversation increases. Through time, the pidgin
becomes more and more complex, evolving towards what is sometimes called a stabilized pidgin.
2.13.3 If next generations start to acquire the pidgin as their first language, the pidgin becomes a creole.
2.14 The development from a pidgin to a creole is called creolization.
2.15 We can say that it is a pidgin’s success (in uniting diverse groups of people) that brings its own death.
Q: Read again the part on Hawaiian Pidgin English above, and think about what you see in the video. Do
you think that the language is a pidgin or a creole now? Why?

2.16 Tok Pisin is a famous creole spoken throughout Papua New Guinea.

Code-switching
2.17 Code-switching is a speech style unique to bilinguals/multilinguals in which speakers switch
languages between or within sentences, for example,

Sometimes I’ll start a sentence in English and termino en español. (p. 299)
‘Sometimes I’ll start a sentence in English and finish it in Spanish.’

※ A bilingual is a person who can use two languages fluently (not necessarily with native abilities).

2.18 It is a universal language-contact phenomenon that reflects the grammars of both languages working
simultaneously.
 One video example: Code-switching in bilingual development
2.19 See page 300 for more examples.