Language Dialect Nation & Accent!

What is a Langugae?

• exists in a number of varieties
• shared by a community in any number of varieties (show a pattern that can be associated with any number of cultural forces-geography, ethnic group, religion, etc.)
• people apply social evaluation to the variety of speech and who speaks them

• Dialect vs Language
• mutual intelligibility-if we understand each other do we speak the same language?
• single set of norms or group of related norms?
• political implications?

• DIALECT
• variety associated with a literary tradition?
• variety associated with a non(sub)/standard?
• variety associated with differences at all levels of linguistic structure (not just pronunciation)?
• variety associated with social meaning (marked)?

Same Language?---mutually intelligible

• Itialian/Sicilian/Dante Allegari (P)
• Danish/Norwegian/Swedish? (P)
• Serbian/Croatian?---different writing systems (PRS)
• Fanti/Twi? (C)
• Bokmal/Nynorsk (Norway)? (C)
• Kechua/Aimara (Peru)? (C)
• Hindu/Urdu (India/Pakistan)?---different writing systems (PRS)
• Austrian/German? (PC)
• "Chinese" Mandarin/Cantonese (no mutual intelligibility, same writing system)(none)

1. Political Distinctions: "a language is a dialect with an army" (Labov)
2. Religious distinctions
3. script
4. other (socio-economic/subcultural)-POWER

POWER vs SOLIDARITY (interplay and social identity)

• a language is more POWERFUL than any of its dialects
• however, feelings of SOLIDARITY/GROUP IDENTITY will preserve dialectal variation

Norwegians, Danes & Swedes

• claims of mutual intelligibility are based on power relationships
• Denmark long donimated Norway
• Sweden is most powerful country in the region today
• Denmark is least powerful today

Linguistic Claims:

• Danes and Swedes claim to understand Norwegians
• Norwegians claim to have trouble with Danish
• Swedes claim to not understand Danish
• Danes understand Swedes
• Norwegians say they understand Swedish

Thai & Lao

• Laotians understand and read Thai (educated)
• NOT VISA VERSA (prestige is low for Lao and high for Thai)

Italian and Sicilian are the SAME language

• Not really mutually intelligible, but part of the same nation so considered ITALIAN like may other dialects in the nation (important to national unity)

 The problem with ENGLISH:

• many varieties which are not always mutually intelligible
• What is it that UNIFIES English?
• Cockney
• S. African
• Australian
• Ozarks
• Black Vernacular 

How else do we determine the difference between language and dialect?

• STANDARDIZATION
• codification and elaboration
• how do we (a nation) select a NORM of communication to standardize? This may be difficult since varieties are rife with cultural meaning.
• Choices
• ethnic/political/power associations
• choose the elite variety (problems)
• choose lesser variety (problems)?
• THE CASE OF ISRAEL & HEBREW

• What is a standard form and how does it function?
• form with power
• common-ease of communication
• unites people
• form for education (gives standard speakers a higher status from others)
• Case of ACADEMIE FRANCAISE (institutional mechanism)
• eliminates or reduces diversity
• Assertions of Independence:
• Finns (from Swedes & Russians)
• Turks
• Hindi
• Hebrew
• Swahili (Tanzania)

• VITALITY
•  living community of speakers
• alive versus dead
• Latin (dead)
• manx (dead)
• Cornish (revived)
• Hebrew (recreated)
• HISTORICITY
• people find a sense of identity through using a particular language
• AUTONOMY
• language is felt to be unique/separate by the people who speak it
• REDUCTION
• the variety is NOT seen as a separate language because it has low status or limited use (Black English???/ "slangs")
• MIXTURE
• feelings about the degree of purity of the langugae
• DE-FACTO NORMS
• feelings that there are both good and bad speakers, good speakers represent the norms of proper usage 
• Parisian French
• Florentine Italian (Dante Allegari)

LANGUAGES ARE ALL EQUAL STRUCTURALLY, BUT NOT SOCIALLY

DIALECTS

• Regional Dialects (language always varies along a regional continuum)
• social dialects: based on socio-economic status
• styles and registers (developed by people participating in recurrent activities)
• formal
• informal
• social group
• discrete occupation

MULTILINGUALISM: Cultural Groups where more than one language is spoken

• Code Switching 
• Situational: changes according to the situation (no topic change)
• Metaphorical : changes according to the topic (gives an added SENSE)
• Affective: rhetorical effect (emotion, emphasis, etc)

• RULES:
• Intrasentiential Switching (word order remains the same in the languages used)
• Matrix Language Frame: a new language is embedded into the frame of the "matrix" language
• no pattern
• Subconscious constraints with negative values:
• texMex
• Spanglish
• Tuti Fruti (Panjabi English)
• BVE

• DIAGLOSSIA: Where two forms exist side by side and are used in ridgidly defined and separate situation 
• Latin & Italian in the vatican
• Tries to minimize code switching by clearly identifying where it should occur.
• differs from code switching in that code switching is not rigidly defined, but exists on the level of the subconscious to a great extent. Code switchers could not tell you WHY they switch.
• FERGUSON
• stable situations for multilingualism
• tensions between low and high are usually resolved by using an intermediate for (creole mesolect for example)
• High and Low form
• high: prestige form, more beautiful, more logical, better able to express things, special power or ritual value-always seen as superior to low, may make High seem like the only REAL language. Learned in formal education. HAS RULES
• standardized grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary (does not change easily)
• NOT USED as a medium of ordinary conversation
• low: learned through normal acquisition, does not take any special training, language associated with children. NO REAL RULES (perception)
• low levels of standardization leads to great internal variety within low forms.

• Code Mixing: when codes are mixed within the same utterance
• may be motivated by a lack of competence
• MLF