Sociolinguistics Lesson 4 Lecture Slides

SOCIOLINGUISTICS
LESSON 4
INSTRUCTOR: LE NGUYEN NHU ANH

LESSON 4
LINGUISTIC
VARIETIES AND
MULTILINGUAL
NATIONS
Lesson Contents
Key takeaways:
Vernacular languages
Standard languages
Lingua francas
Pidgins and creoles

Linguistic varieties and multilingual nations
Example 1
Kathiawari: Marathi:
(a dialect of Gujerati) home Local market language
with wife and children Kacchi:
Hindustani: Language of spice trade
working people’s lingua franca
English:
Listening to cricket commentary Patel
on the radio
Linguistic varieties and multilingual nations
Problems facing multilingual nations:
• Should a country use the same language for internal administration and for official
communications with other nations?
• Which language or languages should be used by the government and the courts?
A vernacular language: a language which has not been standardised and which does not
have official status.
• Ex: Buang in Papua New Guinea, Hindustani in India, Bumbar in Vanuatu, etc.
3 components:
• an uncodified or unstandardized variety
• acquired in the home, as a first variety
• used for relatively circumscribed functions.
Extended term
• The first language of a group socially or politically dominated by a group
with a different language.
 A language which is not an official language in a particular context.
• The most colloquial variety in a person’s linguistic repertoire.
• Used for communication in the home, with close friends
• Used between people from the same ethnic group
• In a monolingual community, the most informal and colloquial variety of
a language
• Used to indicate that a language is used for everyday interaction
Standard languages
Example 2
George Puttenham
(1529-1590)
English writer
and literary critic
Standard languages
The case of Standard English
• Emerged in the 15th century
• Used by the English Court & influential merchants of London
Prestigious Influential Useful
• Recognized and learned by people (from other provinces)

coming to London
London: base of the Court, Oxford and

Cambridge universities , hub of international
trade and exports to Calais, centre of
political, social and intellectual life
Standard languages
A standard variety: 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.
Standard languages
Standard varieties are codified varieties.

• Codification: recording and prescribing standard forms of the language through
grammars and dictionaries
• Criteria based on usage of educated and socially prestigious members of the community
3 essential criteria of a standard variety
• It was an influential or prestigious variety
• It was codified and stabilized
• It served H functions
Standard languages
A standard language is always a particular dialect which has gained its special position as
a result of social, economic and political influences.
Standard languages
World Englishes
EXPANDING
EFL: Vietnam,
Italy, Brazil, ESL: India,
Russia, China, OUTER Jamaica,
etc. Philippines, etc.
(1 Billion) (400 million)
INNER
L1: UK, USA,

Australia, etc.
(375 million)
Lingua francas
A lingua franca is a language

used for communication
between people whose first
languages differ.
• Lingua francas often
develop initially as trade
languages
Pidgins and creoles
Pidgins and creoles
Pidgins
A pidgin is a language which has no native speakers, developed
as a means of communication between people who do not have
a common language.
Why do pidgins develop?
1. West African slaves in Caribbean plantations
 separated from those with the same language to avoid escape
or rebel plot
 pidgin developed based on plantation bosses + slaves’
languages
Pidgins and creoles
Pidgins
Why do pidgins develop?
2. sea-coasts in multilingual contexts
 European traders (Portuguese, Spanish, English) communicate with people from other
continents
 pidgins developed as languages of trade, a lingua franca
Pidgins and creoles
Pidgins
Etymology
Originally Chinese mispronunciation of English “business”  pigion
 Chinese Pidgin English
Repeat after Pigeon,
 later used to refer to any pidgin me Pigion,
“BUSINESS” Pidgin
Pidgins and creoles
Pidgins
• Initially developed with limited functions.
• Almost exclusive for referential functions (buy/selling things)
 Simple structure
Pidgin language spoken in Simple sound system:

the Southern Sudan morphology of Arabic
Juba eliminated
Small vocabulary: trade and • Own distinct structure
basic communication, Arabic
• A stable variety
borrows from native • Easier for an Arabic
languages of the Sudan, or person to learn than for
colloquial Arabic an English speaker
Pidgins and creoles
Pidgins
What kind of linguistic structure does a pidgin language have?
• All languages involved may contribute to the sounds, the vocabulary and the grammatical
features, but to different extents, and some additional features may emerge which are
unique to the new variety.
• The prestige language tends to supply more of the vocabulary
lexifier language / superstrate
• Vernacular languages have more influence on the grammar of the developing pidgin
substrate
• Tend to have a simplified structure and a small vocabulary
• Tend to reduce grammatical signals to a minimum
Pidgins and creoles
Pidgins
French English Tok Pisin Cameroon pidgin
je vais I go mi go a go
tu vas you go yu go yu go
elle/il va she/he/it goes em go i go
nous allongs we go yumi go wi go
mipela go
vous allez yupela go wuna go
elles/ils vont they go ol go dem go
Source: From Todd 2005: 2.

Pidgins and creoles
Pidgins
• Tok Pisin
pas  a pass, a letter, a permit, ahead, fast, firmly, to be dense, crowded, or
tight, to be blocked or shut
• Cameroon Pidgin English

water  lake, river, spring, tear or water
Pidgins and creoles
Pidgins
Attitudes
• Pidgins do not have high status or prestige
• Ridiculous languages to outsiders
• Sometimes given negative labels
• Considered a debased form of original languages (to Europeans)
Ending…
• Often have a short life.
• Disappear when the function disappears.
• Disappear when trade between the groups dies out, or one side
begins learning the other’s language
Pidgins and creoles
Pidgins
Summary
• It is used in restricted domains and functions
• It has a simplified structure compared to the source languages
• It generally has low prestige and attracts negative attitudes – especially from outsiders.
In some cases, however, pidgins go on to develop into fully-

fledged languages or creoles.
Pidgins and creoles
Creoles
A creole is a pidgin which has acquired native speakers.
• 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.
• Creolisation: the process by which a pidgin becomes a creole
Example 12 Tok Pisin at different stages
baimbai yu go you will go
bambai yu go you will go
bai yu go you will go
yu bai go you will go
yu bfgo you will go
Pidgins and creoles
Creoles
Comparison of verb forms in four languages
French English Tok Pisin Cameroon pidgin

je vais I go mi go a go
tu vas you go yu go yu go
elle/il va she/he/it goes em go i go
nous allongs we go yumi go wi go
mipela go
vous allez yupela go wuna go
elles/ils vont they go ol go dem go
Source: From Todd 2005: 2.

Pidgins and creoles
Creoles
Tok Pisin forms
Tok Pisin English Tok Pisin English

bik big, large bikim to enlarge, make large
brait wide braitim to make wide, widen
daun low daunim to lower
nogut bad nogutim to spoil, damage
pret afraid pretim to frighten, scare
doti dirty _________ to make dirty
Pidgins and creoles
Creoles
Structural features
• Develop ways of systematically signalling meanings such as verb tenses
 inflections/affixes over time
• Substrate: source of structural complexity for a creole
• Become more structurally regular
• Paraphrases become more compact and concise, less transparent.
Functions
• Once a creole has developed it can be used for all the functions of any
language – politics, education, administration, original literature and so
on.
Pidgins and creoles
Creoles
Attitudes
• Often negative (outsiders)
• Recognized with status and prestige (native speakers)
• Useful means of communication by influential people
• Solidarity language
• Language of emotions
Pidgins and creoles
Origins and endings
• Many similarities are found among pidgins and creoles
 Argument 1: Lexifier language is one of 7 European languages (about 85): English (35),
French (15), Portuguese (14), Spanish (7), German (6), Dutch (5), Italian (3)
• Similarities have been found between pidgins from quite different geographical regions,
and in pidgins where quite different languages have contributed to their development
 Argument 2: all pidgins and creoles had a common origin
Pidgins and creoles
Origins and endings
• Argument 3: each pidgin arises and develops independently.
1. Basic functions: trade, barter, transactional and referentially oriented functions.
2. Structural processes (simplification and reduction) universal to all situations of
language development.
No need to argue for a common origin for all pidgins.
Pidgins and creoles
Origins and endings
• In societies with rigid social divisions, a creole may remain as a stable L variety alongside
an officially sanctioned H variety
• Where social barriers are more fluid, the creole may develop towards the standard
language from which it has derived large amounts of vocabulary (change in the direction
of the standard variety).
 decreolization
Pidgins and creoles
Origins and endings
acrolect
mesolect
standard creole
basilect
Over time a creole

• may be engulfed by the standard language; or
• may be standardised and adopted as an official language; or
• May become a national language.
Activity
What’s wrong in this?
References
• Crystal (2002b, 2003)
• Fasold (1990)
• Holm (2000)
• Romaine (1988, 1989)
• Todd (2005
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SOCIOLINGUISTICS

INSTRUCTOR: LE NGUYEN NHU ANH

Pidgins and creoles

• Recognized and learned by people (from other provinces)

London: base of the Court, Oxford and

Standard varieties are codified varieties.

L1: UK, USA,

A lingua franca is a language

Pidgin language spoken in Simple sound system:

French English Tok Pisin Cameroon pidgin

Source: From Todd 2005: 2.

• Cameroon Pidgin English

In some cases, however, pidgins go on to develop into fully-

French English Tok Pisin Cameroon pidgin

Source: From Todd 2005: 2.

Tok Pisin English Tok Pisin English

Over time a creole

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