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LANGUAGE and SOCIETY

Yesicha A1B011041

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WHAT IS LANGUAGE??

A. Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication. The scientific study of language in

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WHAT IS LANGUAGE??
B. Language is a system of

conventional spoken or written symbols by means of which human beings, as members of a social group and participants in its culture, express themselves. The functions of language include communication, the expression of identity, play, imaginative

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WHAT IS SOCIETY??

A society or a human society is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural

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RELATION BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY

What features of society affect language? How do they do so?

Any important aspect of social structure and function is likely to have a distinctive linguistic counterpart. People belong to different social classes, perform different social rles, and carry on different occupations

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RELATION BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY

Features of society affecting language use and response may be (more or less): Static: e.g. ethnicity, gender, class background Changing: e.g. education, age, social environment, attitudes and fashions Situational/contextual: e.g. immediate social situation (workplace, home, recreation, peer group, perceived formality of situation)

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RELATION BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY

Language incorporates social values. What is of value to society is incorporated into language to produce standards, ideals and goals. Society changes when that which is of value to society changes. Social changes produce changes in language.

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RELATION BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY

In times of stability the dynamic structure of consciousness is put on hold, so linguistic values and social values are one. Language contains traditional values this is what is implied in the ideas of social conditioning and social learning.

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Ronald Wardhaugh (1986)in his book An Introduction to Sociolonguistics presents the hypotheses involved in the study of the relationship between language and society :
Society influences the linguistic phenomenon. Linguistic phenomenon influences the society Society and language together dialectically influence the linguistic phenomenon. The process is reciprocal: language use is both cause and effect of things in society.

RELATION BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY

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CHARACTERISTICS OF LANGUAGE

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1. Language is a system: it has different linguistic levels (phonological, related to phonemes, intonation and rhythm; lexical semantic, which have to do with lexis, that is, the words, and their meaning (semantics); syntactical, that is, the rules of grammar; discourse, written language; conversation, that is, the characteristics of spoken discourse (turn-taking, use of words, etc.); sociolinguistic (social factors, such as educational level, age, ethnic, sex, etc.);

CHARACTERISTICS OF LANGUAGE

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2. language is dynamic: it changes constantly; words and meanings may even vary from one generation to the other (cf. "cool" and "hot");
3. dialects (language regional variation): varieties of the same language (such as English) are spoken in the same country (Southern English vs. Northern English); there are also differences between countries (USA, UK, New Zealand, Australia, etc.) and different dialects as well (India, etc.);

CHARACTERISTICS OF LANGUAGE

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CHARACTERISTICS OF LANGUAGE

4. sociolect (language social variations): language may vary depending on the speaker's social class;

5. idiolect (individual language characteristics): it is like the language DNA, that is, no two people speak exactly in the same way; there are variations such as voice quality, pitch and speech rhythm; there are also variations such as choice of words, use of grammar, etc.