PREFACE

First of all, praise and gratitude only to God who has been giving His
guidance, blessing and mercy so the writers and the readers are still in healthy
condition and without any trouble. Therefore, the writers were able to finish this
paper Sociolinguistics, which entitles Speech Communities.
In this paper, the writers give short explanation and description about the
materials based on many resources. The writers also want to give many thanks to
a lecturer, Mr. M. Iqbal Ripo Putra, M.Pd, who has guided the writers in order to
write this paper, so this paper becomes right, with structured arrangement.
The writers have tried to do their best to finish this paper. However, if
something is missing, the writers expect any criticisms and suggestions for both,
the materials and the writing. Hopefully, this paper can be useful for anybody.

Pontianak, October 13th 2014

Writers

TABLE OF CONTENT

PREFACE.................................................................................................................i
TABLE OF CONTENT...........................................................................................ii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION..............................................................................1
A. BACKGROUND..........................................................................................1
B. PROBLEM....................................................................................................2
C. PURPOSE.....................................................................................................2
D. SIGNIFICANCE...........................................................................................3
CHAPTER II DISCUSSION...................................................................................4
A. DEFINITION OF SPEECH COMMUNITIES.............................................4
B. INTERSECTING COMMUNITIES.............................................................5
C. NETWORK AND REPORTOIRES..............................................................8
CHAPTER III CLOSING......................................................................................13
A. CONCLUSION...........................................................................................13
BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................14

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. BACKGROUND
English is an international language. It is used by a lot of people in
many countries. In education, it is learnt by many students of elementary
school, junior high school, senior high school and college students as well.
In English, the students are emphasized to study all English basic skills
such as, listening, speaking, writing and reading. In another hand, there are
some aspects which should be known when the students are studying
about English. In this case, they need to study all about English as good as
possible in order to make them easy in using that language in the real
context, especially for college students who are studying in an English
major. One of the studies is about Linguistics.
Linguistics is a study about language. According to Charles Boberg
(2010), linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Based on that
statement, linguistics can be called as a study which is about language.
This study has some branches, such as, Phonology, Morphology, Syntax,
Semantics, Sociolinguistics and Psycolinguistics. This paper is focus on
one of the branches. The branch which is meant is Sociolinguistics.

Sociolinguistics is a study about the relations of language and

society. It studies how both support each other in the real context that
commonly happens in all over the world. There have been a lot of opinions
about the definition of sociolinguistics that were stated by experts. One of
them is the opinion of Florian Coulmas. According to Florian Coulmas
(1998:5), studies of the relations between language and society have

coalesced to form the field of academic research known as

sociolinguistics.
There are so many parts of learning of sociolinguistics. They are
Language and Society, Dialects and Varieties, Choosing a Code, Speech
Communities, Language Change, Language and Culture, Ethnography,
Language and Sex, Solidarity and Politeness, Acting and Conversing,
Style of Speech, Language Planning, and Sociolinguistics and Language
Teaching. In the next chapter, sociolinguistics is going to be discussed
more deeply, especially about Speech Communities.

B. PROBLEM
Based on the background above, the writers have found some
problems. They all are related about Speech Communities, they are:
1. What is the definition of Speech Communities?
2. What is meant by Intersecting Communities?
3. What are Network and Reportoires?

C. PURPOSE
Based on the background and the problems which have been found
above. The writers have been able to know the purposes of this paper, such
as:
1. to know the definition of Speech Communities,
2. to know about Intersecting Communities,
3. to know about Network and Reportoires.

D. SIGNIFICANCE

As one of the learning parts of sociolinguistics, studying about

Speech Communities is very good for students because it is one of the
branches of linguistics, which it is a study about language. It is very
important and useful for college students, especially who are studying in
an English major.

CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION

A. DEFINITION OF SPEECH COMMUNITIES

There are many definitions for speech community which are all
different: too simple or too complex. According to Ronald Wardaugh
(2006:119), we will indeed discover that just as it is difficult to define such
terms as language, dialect, and variety, it is also difficult to define speech
community, and for many of the same reasons .The definition of speech
community tends to involve varying degrees of emphasis on the following:
- Shared community membership
- Shared linguistic communication
Early definitions have tended to see speech communities as
bounded and localized groups of people who live together and come to
share the same linguistic norms because they belong to the same local
community. It has also been assumed that within a community a
homogeneous set of norms should exist. Speech community is a group of
people in a broad or narrow scope that interact with a specific language.
Based on the opinion of experts and sociolinguistics language, it can be
concluded that the speech community is a group of people or individuals
who have the same or use the same linguistic system, and have the same
assessment of the norms of the language usage.
With the recognition of the fact that speakers actively use language to
construct and manipulate social identities by signaling membership in
particular speech communities, the idea of the bounded speech community
with homogeneous speech norms has become largely abandoned for a
model based on the speech community as a fluid community of practice.
A speech community comes to share a specific set of norms for
language use through living and interacting together, and speech

communities may therefore emerge among all groups that interact

frequently and share certain norms and ideologies. Such groups can be
villages, countries, political or professional communities, communities
with shared interests, hobbies, or lifestyles, or even just groups of friends.
Speech communities may share both particular sets of vocabulary and
grammatical conventions, as well as speech styles and genres, and also
norms for how and when to speak in particular ways. There are three kinds
of speech community, among other:
- One language and understand one another.
- One language but do not understand one another.
- Different language but mutually understood one another.
By the note that they are do not understand each other but within
one language is very probably that at the beginning is 'one language' and
both languages can be regarded as a variant which is already have
independence. Then within a different language but understand one
another, we can consider as one of 'speech community' because they have
mutual intelligibility, which is within socialization is a guarantee for the
creation of speech community and communication. If they understand one
another even though different languages, it can be said as interaction. Two
these different languages can be considered as two dialects or variant
(variety of language) the same language.

B. INTERSECTING COMMUNITIES
Many people use their expressions that shows that their typical
ways of speaking based on their own areas, such as London speech, New
York speech or South African speech. It indicates that they are the
members of a certain community in that community. They can be judged
and said as a typical person by seeing the norms that they show when they
are speaking in a community. An area or city nowadays is hard to be
5

known the characteristics because of the norms have been intersected by

some other areas or cities. The fact is when some people in a community
have a talk, they might combine and blur their difference in language,
including dialect in boundaries that seems creating a new community.
In the other hand, the concept of speech community is complex to
be related with the boundaries and norms in a commnity, such as London
as a city which is not too different in linguistics with other cities in the
whole of the world. The case that describes this is like when a man and a
women who are from different communities and have their own
uniqueness that have got married will have multilingualism in some new
ways. They will bring them out in that family/community. As the
consequence, a person actually may belong to one or more than one
communities.
In some cases, they might be distinguished based on their social
classes, religions or even etnics that extremely affect their dialects of a
language that they use. Here are some lingustics items which have been
identified variants:
-

fishin/fishing/fishen
car/cah
with/wit/wif
thirty/thirdy
coffee/cowfee

Social class involves grouping people together and according them

status within society according to the groups they belong to. A number of
modern thinkers have tried to define what makes a particular social
class. Here are some determiners of social class:
-

Personal performance: education, occupation, income, awards and

achievements.
- Wealth: amount and source.

There is no a clear way on how to define how individuals can

classify themselves and speakers are creating and recreating social
identities. So it is impossible to predict the group or community he or she
will consider itself to belong in a particular moment. This group will
change according to situation.
According to Ronald Wardhaugh (2006:128), each individual
therefore is a member of many different groups. It is in the best interests of
most people to be able to identify themselves on one occasion as members
of one group and on another as members of another group. Each person
speaks their own typical way according to its place of origin or specific
speech community. A person can belong to many different groups anytime
depending on the particular situation.
It can be said that each individual is a member of many different
group. People get interested to be identified as members in a group and
others next. Therefore, here some the possibilities in intersecting
communities:
-

A great deal of bilingualism in the modern world.

Most speech communities are fairly fluid.
Individuals shift identities, speech and languages freely.

C. NETWORK AND REPORTOIRES

Another way of viewing how an individual relates to other
individuals in society is to ask what networks he or she participates in. In
this case, a social network is another way of describing a particular speech
community in terms of relations between individual members in a

community. In spite of that, network can be differentiated on the basis of

whether they are dense or loose. In that case, someone is said to be
involved in a dense network if the people know and interact with also
know and interact with one another. Meanwhile, if not all members know
each other so it is called as loose network.
According to Miriam Meyerhoff (2011:197) networks can also be
distinguished in terms of the quality of the ties between individuals. It
means that, if the network ties between two people are based only on one
relationship such as, two people work together or teacher and student at
school, then this tie is called a uniplex tie. On the other hand, it is possible
that the same interaction would become multiplex, if the same people
interacted because of member, the same family, club, religious, group,
neighborhood and so on.
In this case, the interactions have a transactional value, such as
exchange of information, goods or services. Network relationships and
social relationship is a reflection of the relationship between statuses and
roles in the community. Social networks in complex societies are more
complicated than a simple or primitive society. Therefore, if two people
are best friend and take the same courses at university, and work in the
same place as well, then their tie would be called as multiplex tie.
Speech community based on the network and verbal repertoire:
- Speech community based on the network
- Speech community based on the verbal repertoire
Verbal repertoire is all languages, along with diversity owned or
controlled by a speaker. Based on the broad and the narrow verbal
8

repertoire of a speech community is divided into two, namely:

-

Verbal repertoire that belongs to speech community as a whole,

showing the whole of verbal devices that exist in the speech community
and the norms to determine variations according to the function option

and the situation.

Verbal repertoire possessed by each speaker individually, showing the
whole of verbal devices which are controlled by each speaker, election
forms and norms of languages according to the function and situation.
In sociolinguistics, it explicitly distinguish between language as a

system and speech as the skills. Both are called as communicative

capabilities (communicative competence). Communicative capabilities
include language skills possessed by speakers of the language along with
the skills express, in accordance with the functions and situation and the
norm in usage in the social context.
Communicative capabilities include structural capabilities to
distinguish grammatical sentences and non-grammatical and the skills, to
choose the form of language according to the situation, adjust the
expression with every behavior, not only interpret the referential meaning,
but rather consider the social norms and affective value.
The entire communicative capabilities are accounted in the granting
of language as a whole, rounded, and intact, because all aspects are
interconnected. These communicative capabilities possessed by every
member of the community and belong to the group. Communicative
abilities of the individual or group are called verbal repertoire. It can be
said also as the total range, linguistic resources of someone which is
possessed by them called verbal vocabulary. It can become another
language, or it can become a region dialect or social. Another definition of
verbal repertoire is the totality of linguistic forms employed in a socially
significant interaction (vocabulary, grammar).
While based on the verbal repertoire which is possessed by
community, speech community can be divided into three, namely:
9

Monolingual community (one language)

A bilingual community (two languages)
A multilingual community (more than two languages)
Average of Indonesian people who ever occupy school benches

master his mother and Indonesian language also. In addition, they may
master one or more languages in another area and also the foreign
language, English, or another language if they have been have senior
secondary education or higher education.
All of the language along with its variety possessed or mastered by a
speaker can be said as the term the language repertoire or verbal repertoire
from that person. In every communication using the language, speakers
convey the information that occurred within event speech, because the
speech interaction involves the speaker and hearer with a main speech in
time, place, and specific situations.
Therefore, occurred the linguistics interaction to mutually convey the
information between the speaker and hearer about a topic or the main
subject at the time, place, and specific situations is called the events
speech. Hymes formulated speech that an event must fulfill speech of eight
components, namely speaking.
-

Settings relate to time of and place of substitutions take place and

scene substitutions refer to the situation. Time, place, and different
situations can cause the usage of different language variations. For
example, conversation in the soccer yard when there is a match in a
crowded situation would be different from conversation that would be
done in the library at time of a lot of people who are reading within
quiet situations. The differences setting and scene result language

variation.
Participant is a speech participant, namely speaker, hearer with his
social status. For example, a prosecutor in the trial will be different
variety of language which is used when talking with their children at

10

home.
Ends refer to the intent and purpose of speech. For example, within
seminar room the presenter will try to explain the intention which is
made by him, while the listener or participant, as the hearer attempt to

ask the papers which is presented.

Sequences Act, relating to the form and content of utterance.
Key relating with the tone of voice/ tone, inspiration/ spirit, attitude or
way / manner when an uttered speech. For example with a happy,

relaxed and serious.

Instrumentalities relating with channel/ channels and forms the

language (the form of speech) that are used within speech.

Norms of Interaction and Interpretation are norm or rule that must be

understood in their interaction.

- The genre referring to the form of submission, such as poetry, proverb,
prose. There is distinguishing which distinguish the genre into three
types, namely conversation inside the building, outside the building,
and through the media. Overall component and speech component role
within an event is called event speech.
Now, any speaker of a language/ code chooses the words he needs, or just
likes, from his verbal repertoire.
For example:
For someone who is multilingual, one language might be better for one
thing and another for something else. Maybe someone speaks Russian at
home and on the street, but he do a lot of business in English. Later, when
he discusses politics with a friend, you switch to Ukrainian. Maybe he uses
a particular language with a different relative. This is an example of how
someone might use his verbal repertoire. The point is someone chooses
when to use a particular language, and when not to.

11

CHAPTER III
CLOSING
A. CONCLUSION
There have been many perceptions and opinions about what speech
community is. Linguists and people have argued year by year. But
eventhough speech community is actually difficult to define. It still can be
simply concluded that speech community is a group of people that steadily
in communication with one another that all the members make, know, and
follow the patterns and norms in it where every member can belong to any
other communities freely.

12

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Boberg, Charles. 2010. What is Linguistics?. The Linguistics Society of America.

Retrieved

in

October

17,

2014

from:

http://www.mcgill.ca/files/linguistics/What_is_Linguistics.pdf
Coulmas, Florian. 1998. The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Blackwell publishing.
Meyerhoff, M. 2011. Multiplex and Uniplex ties within network: Introducing
Sociolinguistics. Canada
Nordquist, Richard. 2014.
Education.

Speech Community (Sociolinguistics). About

Retrieved

in

October

17,

2014

from:

http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/speechcommunityterm.htm
Ugurger. 2014. Speech Community. Author Stream. Retrieved in October 17, 2014
from:

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/ugurger-1623229-

speech-community/
Wardhaugh, Ronald. 2006. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. The United
Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing. 119,128.

13