Language In Social Context 52s2i

LANGUAGE IN SOCIAL CONTEXT Our word choice, syntax, and pronunciation reveal us to be of a particular speech community, a group of people who share social conventions about language use. Some features are noticeable (salient) and are recognized within the community as having a particular social meaning. Other features are sociolinguistic indicators that can be associated with certain social characteristics. Different speech communities may reflect subsets of the same language called dialects. A. SOCIOLINGUISTICS The subdiscipline of linguistics which investigates social aspects of language. It aims to look at language in social context. It tries to examine how and why people use language as they interact with other of their society. Sociolinguistics also examines variety in language and has shown that language is not merely used to communicate our opinions of others and ourselves. B. LANGUAGE Language is not simply a means of communicating information. It is very important means of establishing and maintaining relationships with other people. Probably, the most important thing about the conversation between two people is not the words they are using, but the fact that they are talking. C. CONCEPT IN SOCIOLINGUISTICS Despite the fact that there are number of ways of approaching the study of language in social context, there are nevertheless certain and concepts that are common to most of them. D. OCCUPATIONAL DIALECT Occupational dialect cut across all other types of dialects. The lexicon that comes with particular job will be pretty much the same from region to region, regardless of any other linguistics factors like ethnic background, age or gender. All participants in a particular occupation will have much in common linguistically as far as the job is concerned. Regional pronunciation may shape the way the sounds come out, but the lexicon will be the same throughout the profession.

When occupational is designed to convey specialized information in a rapid and condensed from one member of the occupation to another it is called jargon. Jargon is a loan word from French. It first appeared in print in the thirteenth century with the meaning ‘unintelligible language’. It is now used in English to denote ‘obscure, specialized language’ or vocabulary peculiar to some filed. In some cases, a profession’s jargon may be intentionally obscure, designed to keep nonprofessionals from understanding. This intentional obscurity is called cant or argot. The term cant appeared in English in the early sixteenth century and originally referred to the singing style of beggars. It is assumed to have arisen (probably in medieval ) as a verb describing the chanting of mendicant (begging) monks. It later came to be used in an overlapping sense with both jargon and argot. The term argot was borrowed from French. It first appeared in print in the early seventeenth century when it was used as the label for the secret language of beggars and street merchants. As the original argot developed, it came to include some words borrowed from Romany, the language of the Gypsies. Later still, it became the secret language of the French underworld.

E. SLANG Slang is a label that is frequently used to denote certain informal usages of nearly anyone in the speech community. The term was first attested in English in the mid-eighteenth century, used in reference to ‘special vocabulary used by any set of persons of a low or disreputable character; language of a low and vulgar type. In the twentieth century, it is often applied to aspects of the language of adolescents e.g. neato, super, cool, groovy.

F. LANGUAGE AND GENDER Language use may vary depending on the sex of the . There may be differences in language use associated with the sex of the speaker or the person spoken to. There may be differences in language use associated with the sex of the person spoken about.

Researchers in sociolinguistics have identified two

ways in which language is differentiated according to the sex of the speaker: 1. Sex - Exclusive Differentiation Sex-exclusive differentiation refers to the radically different speech varieties men and women possess in a particular society. In some societies, a woman or man may not normally be allowed to speak the variety of the other sex. It is in this sense that the varieties are sex-exclusive. 2. Sex--Preferential Differentiation Sex preferential differentiation is much more common in the languages of the world than is sex exclusivity. This phenomenon is reflected in the relative frequency with which men and women use the same lexical items or other linguistic features. Differences in language use can also depend on one’s gender role. For example, when the language in a community is stable, women will often use the more standard form of the language whereas men will use nonstandard forms more often. These differences may be attributed to linguistic insecurity or gender expectations.

References Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT press