UNIT 1 VARIATION AND VARIETIES

Structure

Introduction
The Indo-European family of languages
English: Its origin and development
International varieties of English
Pidgins and Creoles
Social varieties of language
Variation studies
Let us sum up
K Gwords
~
Reading list
Questions

1.0 OBJECTIVES

The aim of this unit is to make you aware that

e Language is a dynamic entity subject to variation and change.

Variation and language change occurs through a period of time.
English has emerged from a tribal language to an international language.
There is continution in which we can see the development of English from a
pidgin to a 'standardized' variety.

1.1 INTRODUCTION

It must be quite clear by now that language by its nature is dynamic and variable.
There is no such thmg as uniformity in language. Not only does the speech of ene
community differ from that of another, bct the speech of different individuals of a
single community, even members of the same family, is marked by individual
peculiarities. These individual pecurarities are known as the 'idiolect'.

Where constant~communic~tion takes place among the people speaking a language,

individual differences become merged in the general speech of the comin~lnity,and a
certain conformity prevails. The differences may be slight if the separation is slight
and we may have merely local dialects. On the other hand, they may become so
considerable as to render the language of one district unintelligible to the speakers of
another. In this case we may have the development of separate languages. bvex
where the differentiation has gone this far, it is usually possible to recognise a
sufficient number of common features which the resalting languages still retain in
common to indicate that at one time they were one.

1.2 , THE INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY OF LANGUAGES

Tjle languages thus brought into relationhp by descent or progressive differentiation

from a parent speech are conveniently called afamily of languages. Various names
have been used to designate this family. A century ago the term Aryan \,-as
The Spread of commonly employed which has now been generally abandoned. A more common
English term is Indo-Germanic which however is also objected to as giving undue emphasis
to the Germanic languages. The term now most widely employed is Indo-European
suggesting more clearly the geographical extent of the family. The parent tongue
from which the Indo -European languages have sprung had already become divided
and scattered before the dawn of history. There is moreover no written record of the
common Indo-European language.

The surviving languages show various degrees of similarity to one another, bearing
a more or less direct relationship to their geographical distribution. They accordingl>
fall into eleven groups: Indian, Iranian, Armenian, Hellenic, Albanian, Italic, Balto-
Slavic, Germanic, Celtic, Hittite, and Tocharian. Germanic is of special interest to
us, as it is from West Germanic that English originates.
P

The descent of Modem English and its relation to the other members of the family
can be shown in tabular form.:

Indo-European

Classical

Modern Greek

r-4
Scandinavian

I
Old Low German Anglo Saxon
\L

Middle English
 The evidence within the surviving languages also suggests a common ancestry. The Variation and
resemblance within the languages are quite striking as is evident from the following Varieties
comparisons of the word father and the verb to be across five languages:

Old English Gothic Latin Greek Sanskrit

f ~ d e r(father) fadar pater pater pitar
neta (nephew) - nepos n&pat
feor (far) fairra pera paras
faron (go, fare) faran (ex) perior perao P'-
full (full) fulls plenu. pleres purna
fearh (pig) porcus -
Feper (feather) - penna pleron patra-
fell (skin) Jll pellis pella

To be
r Old English Gothic Latin Greek Sanskrit
eom (am) im sum eimi asmi
eart (art) is es ei asi
is (is) ist est esti asti
sjndom (are) sijum sumus esmen smas
sindom (are) sijup estis este stha
sindom (are) sind sunt eisi santi

$11
t 1.3 ENGLISH: ITS ORIGIN AND DEVLOPMENT

This topic has been dealt with in Block 2. We recapitulate it here to delineate for you
9
the spread of English all over the world. After this brief discussion about the family
history of English, we can proceed to the English language proper. We are so
accustomed to thinking of English as an inseparable adjunct to the English people
that we tend to forget that it has been the language of England only for a short period
of its history. Since its introduction into Britain in about the middle of the fifth
century it has had a career of only about 1500 years. Yet this part of the world has
been inhabited for thousands of years. During this long stretch of time the presence of
a number of cultures with individual languages of their own, can be detected. But
unfortunately little can be said about the early languages of England. About the
Paleolithic and Neolithic humans not much is known and their language has also not
survived. The first people in England about whose language we have definite
knowledge are the Celts. Celtic was probably the first Indo-European tongue spoken
in England and was divided into two branches --Gaelic and Brythonic. The
language in England before English was Latin which was the result of the
Romanisation of the island.

The Germanic Conquest. About 449 an event occurred that profoundly affected the
course of history - the invasion of Britain by some Germanic tribes. Bede's
Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731) tells as that the Germanic tribes
which conquered England were the Jutes, Saxons and Angels. In the beginning the
Celts called their Germanic conquerors Saxons indiscriminately. From the beginning
however writers never called their language anything but Englisc (English) The word
is derived from the name of the Angels (Old English Engle) but is used
indiscriminately for the language of all the invading tribes. In a like manner the land
and its people are called Anglecynn (Angle-kin). From about the year 1000 England
(Land of the Angels) begins to take its place. English is thus older than England.

The origin and position of English. The English language as it is spoken today has
risen from the dialects spoken by the Germanic tribes who invaded England. The
evolution of English in the 1500 years of its existence has been an unbroken one.
~h~spread of Within this development however it is possible to recognise three main periods .- from
English 450 to 1150 is the Old English Period; from 1150 to 1500 the Middle English
period; the language since 1500 is called Modern English. (See Block 2)

The dialects of Old English: Old English was not an entirely uniform.,language. Not
only were the earliest written texts different but the language differed somewhat from
one locality to another. In all, we can identify four dialects in Old English:
Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon and Kentish. Of these Northumbrian and
Mercian were spoken in the region spoken north of the Thames and inhabited by the
Angels. They possess certain features in common and are sometimes collectively
known as h g l i a n . Little is known of Kentish which was the dialect of the Jutes in
the southeast. The only dialect in which there is an extensive collection of texts is
West Saxon which was the dialect of the Jutes in the south west. Nearly all of Old
English literature still preserved today is in this dialect. with the ascendancy of the
West Saxon Kingdom, the West Saxon dialect attained something of the position of a
literary standard. The Norman conquest however cut short this movement and when
in the late Middle ~ n ~ l i period
s h a standard English once again began to develop, it
was on the basis of a new dialect, East Midland, which in turn was a descendent of
Old Mercian.

The dialects of Middle English: Middle English was a period of momentous

changes (already discussed in Block 2). One striking characteristic of Middle English
was its great variety, not only in the spoken forms of the language but also in written
literature. In the absence of a standard medium, the writers naturally wrote in the
dialects of that part of the country to which they belonged. The language differed
from county to county and sometimes between different parts of the same county.
The features characteristic of a given dialect did not cover the whole territory; some
extended into adjoining districts or may be were characteristic of another dialect as
well. Consequently it is rather difficult to mark dialectal divisions or dialectal
boundaries. It is however customary to distinguish four principal dialects of Middle .
English: Northern, East Midland, West Midland and Southern. Generally speaking
the Northern dialect extended as far south as the Humber; East and West Midland .
together covered the area between the Hurnber and the Thames; and Southern
occupied the districts south of the Thames including the West Saxon and Kentish
districts of Old English. The peculiarities that distinguished these dialects were partly
matters of pronunciation, partly of vocabulary and partly of inflection. Dialectical
differences were more pronounced ktween the Northern and Southern divisions; the
Midland dialects often occupied an intermediate position tending towards one or the
other in those districts lying nearer to the adjacent dialects.

The rise of Standard English: Opt of this variety of local dialects there emerged
toward the end of the fourteenth century a written language, that in the course of the
fifteenth century won general recognition and has since become the recognised
standard in both speech and writing. It was the East Midland type of speech,
particulwly the dialect of the metropolis London that became the basis for the
formation of 'this standard. Several causes contributed to this result. In the first place
the Midland dialect of English occupied a middle position between the extreme
divergenqes of the north and the south. Secondly, the East Midland district was the
largest and the most populous of the major dialectal areas. A thjrd factor was the
presence of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge in this region. But by far the
most influential factor in the rise of standard English was the importance of London
as the capital of England. It was the social, commercial, political, intellectual and
religious centre of England and witnessed a steady exchange of ideas and idioms. By
the fifteenth century London speech was accepted as the standard in writing though
considerable diversity still existed in the spoken dialects.

Modern English: The survey of the English language in the Modern era gets
complicated not only because of the addition of an international angle, but also
because of the radical changes in vocabulary, meaning, pronunciation and grammar
 under pressure from different factors. Chief among these is the tremendous g~owthof Variation and
science wh~chhas added a new range of words to the English vocabulary. The Varieties
influences of films, broadcasting, automobile, computers, the two World Wars have
been as intensive as it has been extensive. However, it is to widespread penetration of
the language in the various parts of the former British Empire, as well as in the
United States that attracts the most attention. Differences of culture, locale and utility
have produced different varieties of English in different parts of the world, which are
distinct from the language of England. In many areas English has become a second
language, used alongside one or more local language for public purposes,
communication, entertainment, etc. In India, for example, English is one of the
official languages along with Hindi and eighteen recognised national languages. A
distinction is usually made between English as a second language and English as a
foreign language. A German or a Norwegian learning English learns it as a foreign
language, uses it for communicating with foreigners and rarely with their own
countrymen. An Indian however learns English as a second language and uses it to
communicate with other Indians. The distinction between a second language and a
foreign language is not sharp and the distinction gets fuzzy in most cases.

1.4 INTERNATIONAL VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

The world-wide expansion of English means that it is one of the most widely spoken
languages in the world today. The English speaking world can be broadly divided
into the following areas :

North America: The English of the United States and Canada has major differences
with standard British English. The original inhabitants being outnumbered and
dominated by the English speakers exerted little or no influence on the language. In
the United States the language shows great dialectal differentiation, with differences
in the West being less sharp than on the Atlantic Coast. Three main dialect areas are
usually recognised - Northern, Midland and Southern. As would be expected
Canadian English has much in common with American English while retaining a few
features of British pronunciation and spelling.

Australia and New Zealand: Here also the native language had hardly exerted any
influence on the language of the settlers. The language here shows little regional
variation, though there are social variations in Australia in term of accent. Australian
English is not only characterised by interesting differences of vocabulary but varies
strikingly in pronunciation fiom the received standard of British English. Australian
hay might register to Americans as high or basin as bison. Some words from
aboriginal languages like Kangaroo and boomerang have become general English but
wambat (an animal) is still typically Australian as is larrikan (rowdy loafer), bush
i (back country), swag (tramp's bundle). The distinctive characteristics of Australian
pronunciation and the uniformity of the language throughout the continent are
attributed to the fact that the early settlers were chiefly prisoners and adventurers
drawn from the lower classes of England
!
South Asia: The region includes India. Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
The problems'and prospects of Indian English were summarised by Raja Rao exactly
i fifty years ago "One has to convey in a language, usage that is not one's own the
spirit that is one's own. One has to convey in a language that is not one's own the
various shades and omissions of a certain thought movement that looks maltreated in
an alien language. I use the word 'alien', yet English is not really an alien language to
us. It is the language of our intellectual make-up, but not of our emotional make-up.
We are all instinctively bi-lingual.. ...". Peculiarities of syntax, vocabulary,
pronunciation which the British regarded with condescension during the days of the
Raj have now been widely accepted. Certain pronunciation result from the influence
The Sprea'd of of Indian languages. Speakers of Hindi habitually pronounce words like station with
English an initial vowel [iste: en]. Words and phrases that strike British and American
speakers as strange are natural expressions of cultural contexts absent in the West -
expression such as these bow my forehead, fall at your feet, policewala, mother of my
daughter. It follows logically that the varieties of English spoken in Nepal,
Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, etc. will be conditioned by the culture and
native languages of their own countries.

Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong: The development of English in these regions is

interesting because of the influence of Chinese, Malay, Tamil and the language
policies of the various governments. In Malaysia, Bhasa Malay was promoted as the
official language but political gains were offset by growing alienation in international
commerce, science, etc. This has led to a quiet re-emphasis on English. In Singapore
the relationship between English and the Asian languagts has been the reverse of that
in Malaysia. English being one the four official languages, it has become the medurn
of social, political, commercial, educational interaction.

In Hong Kong English is much less used for oral communication than in Singapore.
English in Singapore and Malaysia is marked by the omission of be both as a copula
(This coffee house-very cheap) and auxiliary (my brother-wbrking), differences of
syntax in the word order of questions (May I ask where is the counter?) and
difference of stress.

The Caribbean: The countries of the Caribbean also face multilingual situations
which makes the solution to social problems involving language appear more
difficult. The question of whether Jamaican Creole is a separate language or a point
on a continuum that includes Jamaican English is a politically charged issue with
implications for educational policy, legal system and mass media. Any survey of the
history of English in the Caribbean would have to take into account the arrival of
settlers in James Town, Virginia in 1607 and in Bermuda two years later; the Spanish
presence in the Caribbean has left its heritage in Puerto ?AGO, Belize Panama and
Guyana where Spanish and English survive side by side. For most of the anglophone
Caribbean (Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, the Leeward Islands, Windward
Islands) the most relevant languages in' contact are those of the West Coast of Afnca
- Ewe, Twi, Efik, Yoruba, Ibo, Hausa and other African languages spoken by the
slaves brought to the islands in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century.
Loan words and trarlslations of African metaphors enrich the vocabulwy. Na:ma
(meat),juk (poke), door-mouth (a doorway), strong-eye (determined), reggae. In
addition to syllable timed rhythm, final syllables in Jamaican English have rising tone
reflecting the West African tone language spoken by the slaves who carried their own
phonology into their interpretation of a Germanic Language with light and heavy
stress.

South Africa: The present Republic of South Afiica has been occupied successively
by Bushmen, Hottentots, Bantus, Portuguese, the Dutch and the English. From these
sources and especially from Dutch and its South African development, Aflikaans, the
English language has acquired several features. While apartheid and veldt have
become a part of the English vocabulary, billong (meat), lekker (nice), goggrr (insect),
donga (ravine), kopje (hill) remain uniquely South African with little international
appeal. In pronunciation, South African English has been influenced by Afrikaans
and to a lesser extent by numerous Scottish school masters. To Afrikaans it owes the
modification of certain vowels [pen] forpin, [kgb] for cab etc, the high pitch and the
tendency to omit one or more consonants at the end of a word - tex for text.

West and East Africa: West African English is remarkable for its variety. With as
yet no identifiable standard, it is difficult to draw the line between an incorrect usage
and a local variant. In Nigeria, English exists alongside Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba and
scores of smaller langauges. The distinctive accent of Nigerian English has been
influenced by the first language of the people - Yoruba and Igbo in the South and
Hausa in the North. Follow is pronounced as Val31 due to vowel harmony in Igbo, Variation and
while Hausa speakers tend to breakup clusters by inserting vowels so that screw Varieties
becomes [sukuru],beat and bit have the same tense vowel. This produces a large
number of homophones in Nigerian and other African varieties - leave-live, seen-sin,
Don 't sleep on thepoor-Don 't slip on thefloor. Typical lexical items in Nigerian
English reflect aspects of the cultural background by way of borrowings head-tie
(woman's headdress),juju music (a type of dance music). Extension and narrowing
of meaning occur in corner (bend in the road), globe (bulb), environment
(neighbourhood). Some words and expressions have wide currency throughout West
African English - balance (change), bata (shoe), give kola (offer bribe), have long
legs (have influence), and sometimes it becomes difficult to distinguish between
general West African usage and a national variety - Nigerian English, Ghanian
English, etc. One may also note the formation with plural suffix of words that are not
normally count nouns - equipments, aircrafts, deadwoods,etc; after some verbs to is
dropped from the following infinitive - enable him do it; standard English transitive
verbs gain particles and become phrasal verbs - voice out (I am going to voice out
my opinion), discuss about (we will discuss about that later).

In East Africa the most important African language is the Bantu Kiswahili due to
which the East African variety of English has acquired some of its characteristic
phonological patterns - for example the lack of [aand [d as in thislthing which is
pronounced as zis si . Some verbs that are phrasal in standard English lose the
?
adverbial particle bu keep the meaning of the phrasal verb - Her name cropped in
the conversation for cropped up, Ipicked him outside his house instead ofpicked him
up. Some nouns in Kenyan and Tanzanian speech have a plural form but are treated
as singular:- behaviours, laps, mint&, noses, popcorns. In My noses are stuffed up, the
influence of Bantu is clear since there is no single word for nostril in Bantu.

The above survey of the varieties of English describe language variation not only
through time but also across space. As has already been mentioned, dialects are
varieties of English co-related to particular spatial points. If the geojgaphical
barriers between regions are slight, then dialectical variations between regions are
also negligible and the speech of one region is largely comprehensible to the
inhabitants of the neighbouring regions. But if geographical barriers are significantly
large, then with time dialects develop into separate independent languages and a great
deal of comprehensibility between varieties is lost. As for instance Swedish and
Danish which today are independent languages have both originated from
Scandinavian. Within a particular geographical area (country), at apy given point of
time, there are many dialects in existence. One of these dialects due to social,
political, economic or intellectual reasons wins predominance over the others dialects
and becomes the received standard language of the country. Grammars of the variety
are written, it is used for all scholarly and written purposes. In short, it becomes the
language of the educated class. So it is interesting to note that the standard language
of a country gets its exalted status for purely political or social reasons. There is
nothing intrinsic in the language variety which makes it qualitatively superior to the
other prevailing dialects. In Britain standard speech is best exemplified by the speech
of those educated in the public schools. It is class rather than a regional variety. The
standard variety of Britain in not the same as the standard variety of USA, Canada,
Australia or India. Due to the spread of English to many parts of the world, the
speech of Britain is no longer considered the norm by which others must be judged.
Indian English or Canadian English is just as "standard" as that of London and
Oxford. In countries where English is a first language there is a solid core of
common usage which makes "Standard World English" plausible. Regional varieties
are marked in spoken speech, many of them being matters of accent. But if we
examine the more formal uses of language, especially the style of written language
the differences become very small, There is therefore a standard literary language
throughout the English speaking communities and it is this, if anything, which
deserves the title Standard English.
The Spread of 1.5 PIDGINS AND CREOLES
English
This brings us to two interesting varieties of language which despite their origin as a
social variety progress further to become established as geographical or regional
varieties. Pidgins and Creoles are results of extreme forms of language contact
situations. p e r e happen numerous situations in life when due to certain reasons
(mainly economic) speakers of different languages come together but have no
common language between them to communicate with each other. For instance,
situations which arose when slaves from different parts of Africa, speaking different
languages were brought to America, or the situations which arose when sailors from
different linguistic backgrounds met on a ship to live and work together. In such
situations the necessities of communication require the birth of a new code. This new ~

code which is no one's mother tongue and contains elements from numerous
languages is calledpidgin and the process by which it happens is calledpidginisation.
Reduction and Simplification are the two process by which pidiginisation proceeds.
In English-based pidgins the main features taken over are lexical; but the new
language draws on English only minimally for phonology and grammar. A pidgin
preserves the absolutely minimal grammatical structures needed for effective
communication and reduces redundancy to almost nil. n e various pidgins spoken all
over the world often resemble one another in structure, rather than the dominant
languages from which they are derived. One result of this typical pidgin structure is
that an English-based pidgin is generally not considered to be a dialect of English, but
to be a different language in its own right, though there is an area of overlap - e.g. in
Jamaica with its continium of usage from creole to standard English, the intermediary
'mesolects ' are thought of as dialects of English.
The great simplification of pidgin structures is seen in both phonology and grammar. .
The number of phonemes is reduced--for example in Jamaican pidgins block and
black become identical, as do beer and bear, pour and poor, farm and form. The
morphological system is also much simplified. Both nouns and verbs have only one
form - there is no distinction between singular and plural. English-based pidgins draw
most of their vocabulary from English, but also make changes to it. Words are often
used with new meaning like West African chop means to eat and bifmeans animal,
meat.
Pidgins fulfill a wide range of functions: in West Africa, English based pidgins are
used for all normal language functions along with standard English and the local
languages and some speakers use pidgins more frequently than their native language.
Initially a pidgin is nobody's mother tongue. But since this is the only language of
communication and interaction among a diverse group of people. the frequency of its
use slowly increases as does the number of its speakers. The pidgin no longer
remains only the language of the work place but also becomes the language of the
home. It is then passed on to the newer generations who learn the pidgin as their
mother-tongue. A functional switch of languages takes place, and when this happens,
a pidgin becomes a Creole.
The process of Creolisation is the reverse of the process of pidginisation. A pidgin is
a highly reduced language, strictly confined to the work place. But when it develops
into a Creole, a functional expansion of the language takes place and it becomes the
language of the home, of the market, of personal and informal interaction. Because of
increased demands on the language, its vocabulary expands, grammatical structures
become more elaborate, and elaboration and expansion take place - possessive
markers, markers of intensity, tense markers, pronominal forms all come in, but in an
altered form from that of the parent pidgin.
The next stage in the development of the language may be called de-creolisation -
when the language acquires a standard form, is tiiight in educational institutions, is
officially institutiopalised, or it approaches the standard forms of an already existing
standard language. This produces a very fluid linguistic scene in the country where Variation and
speakers have varying degrees of proficiency in the various languages. The languages Varieties
at the top of the hierarchy (the Standard forms) are called Acrolect, those at the
bottom are called Basilect, while those inbetween are called Mesolect. The general
movement in society is upward. The majority speak the basilect. But with increase in
education, the community as a whole makes deliberate efforts to move towards the
acrolect. Therefore there is a usage continuum in society. As this happens, the
process of decreolisation gains momentum and the language moves towards the
structures ofa standard language.
Of the approximately 125 pidgins and creoles spoken throughout the world, more
than thlrty five are English based. Historical settlement and colonization produced
two major groups of English based pidgins--creole@he Atlantic group and the
Pacific group. The Atlantic creoles were established in West Africa and the
Caribbean and the Pacific varieties are those of the South Sea Islands, Papua New
Guinea, Australia, Hawaii and the coasts of South-East Asia.

1.6 SOCIAL VARIETIES OF LANGUAGE

Till now we have confined our discussion to varieties and variations which arise in
language due to geographical reasons. But language is not a phenomena which exists
in a vacuum. It is an essential element of the social fabric and the primary medium of
soctal interaction and communication. An indiv~dualliving in society has different
roles at different times in hidher life. These roles are of two types - actualised and
ideologised which together constitute the Role Repertoire of an individual. To
perform the various roles in life an individual takes recourse to different codes.
Verbal Repertoire is the sum total of all codes the speaker has acquired experientially
and symbolically. As in Role Repertoire, so in Verbal Repertoire there are some
codes which we actually use while there are others which we aspire to use. Here the
question of access comes in. Those who have access to a larger variety of roles have
access to a greater variety of verbal codes. The relationship between social life and
actual language use has been the subject of varied and extensive debate.

Role-relationship is another aspect of life which determines social use of language. In

all role-relationships there is a tacit agreement on approved codes of behaviour. In
transactional interaction (e.g. between a customer and a seller) the roles are rigidily
defined with very little scope for flexibility in the use of language. But in the role-
relationship between a father and a son there is an element of informality. In such
personal interactions language use in more fluid and there is less emphasis on mutual
rights and obligations.

These interactions are further categorized in terms of situation. Malinowski and Firth
provided a detailed analysis of situation. Firth uses the term context of situatioq
which has the flowing components:

Participants
Locale
Topic
Attitude (of the participants)

Analysing participants is not merely a matter of naming them but analysis of them in
terms of their age, gender, education, social status, etc.

Locale may either be a classroom, a playing field, a rai!way platform. Locale together
with topic define setting.which can either be formal or informal. Depending on the
degree of formality the use of language varies. The.context of situation is not static
and therefore language use also remains fluid.
The Spread of To amve at a higher level of social analysis another term commonly used is Domain.
English It is a typical sphere of activity and can be divided into many sub-spheres. These
include family, neighbourhood, school, work place, commerce and trade, government
and administration. These sub-spheres are then further divided according to the
context of situation, role relationship, etc. The division continues till we arrive at the
individual user of language.

Apart from domain, role-relationship, situation etc. social reality can be analysed
through the concepts of speech act and speech event. A speech act is a minimal
speech unit which is socially meaningful in a given interaction, for example, a polite
question. A speech event can be seen as a bundle of speech acts. In other words it is
a substantial amount of speech which covers a particular event, a specific situation or
a special role- relationship.

An important notion in the social use of language is that of Function. Each time we
use language in any kind of situation, in any kind of interaction, that particular use of
language is meant to perform some communicative function. The classic model of
language function was given by Roman Jakobson, who suggested seven functions of
language, later reduced to three by M. Halliday (1) Identional(2) Indexical (3)
Interaction management. Naming segments of reality to enable us to constitute and
talk about the world around us is the ideational function of language. When our use
of language reflects our personality and conveys information about us (eg.
educational, social status, etc.) then this is indexical use of language. Each person
when in interaction with others uses language to indicate, establish or maintain social
relationships-in short to manage our affairs in social life.

The next important concept is that of the forms of language determined by use.
These forms are also called Registers. Halliday stipulates that any discourse can be
analysed in terms of (a)field of discourse (subject), (b) mode of discourse
(writtenlspoken) (c) Syle (formallinformal). In recent years the term functional
variery is preferred by scholar instead of the term register. Functional variations of
language lead to what is known as interpersonal variation, that is, the same
individual using different codes at different times, in different situations. Language
use here is determined by thefield of discourse, what function the speaker has to
perform, role relationship with the hearer and so on. In the case of multilingual
speakers the case becomes even more complicated.

Interpersonal variation of language stipulates that no two individuals speak in the

same way. If this kind of variation is taken to its extreme limit it leads to what is
called ideolect, that is, the view that any use of language is highly idiosyncractic.
Inter and intra personal variation is by and large systematic and context bound, and
can therefore be studied and analysed.

1.7 VARIATION STUDIES

Using norms like social class and contextual styles, sociolinguistics determine the co-
relation between langgage use and social structures. Social classes are constructed on
the basis of several parameters like income, profession, education, area of residence,
age, gender, etc. Social classes like upper class (UC) - upper middle class (UMC),
lower working class (LWC) are identified but this classification can vary from one
community to another.

In 1958 Fischer studied the variable -ing. He found that this variable has two variants
[irJ and [In). He conducted a study on a small sample of twelve boys and twelve
girls in a school. His independent variables were gender, model vs typical students
!
and the degree of formality. He worked on casual verbs like singing and jumping and Variation and
formal verbs like learning and educating. His findings were as follows: (1) boys use Varieties
[In] more than girls; (2) typical students use the [In] form more than model students;
(3) [In] is associated with situations of informality; (4) casual verbs are more prone
to taking the [In] form. These four conclusions were inter-related and higher levels of

gs
generalisations were arrived at on the basis of these conclusions, i.e [i
standard form and girls tend to be more correct in their pronunciation. is the very
small study however drew attention to some important facts-that correlation can be ,
established between dependent and independent variables; that higher order of
generalisations are possible fkom small statistical studies. This study also focussed
attention on the fact that the formality of situation has a great beking on speech. 'Ah
increase in formality produces a movement towards the standard form, but this
standard form itself is dynamic as discussed earlier. Earlier the [In] form was

I
@
considered more prestigious and was written as in ' instead of (ing) in poetry. The
standardisation of the vanant ing is the result of changes in ideology and socio-
political structures-for instance the spread of English and the democratisation of
the English speaking world.

In 1966 Labov studied the variable r and its variants (See Block 7). In his research in
New York Labov observed the realisation of r to be ascendent and asociated with the
speech of the UMC. He also observed that more and more young people were using
the [r] because of the spread of standard American pronunciation through education.
Other studies correlating languages patterns with social class have been conducted by
Trudgill, Gumperz, Jehangiri, Bickerton and Bailey, Wardaugh and others.

1.8 LET US SUM UP

The above discussions have made it clear that language is a heterogeneous and
dynamic phenomena. Its forms and variation depend not only on geographical factors
but also on social structure and behaviour. Each user of language in hisher own way
is a creative user of language, varying linguistic codes according to situation, context,
hearer, norms of acceptability and propriety, etc. This constant interaction between
social reality and language use produces a dynamic, fluid environment where
language and language use become complex and challenging objects of study.

1.9 KEY WORDS

Variable a linguistic item which has various forms (variants). The

different forms of the variable may be related to differences
in style or to differences in the socio-economicbackground,
education, age, or gender of the speaker. There are
variables in phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon.

Idiolect the language system of an individual as expressed by the way

sfhe speaks or writes within the over all system of a
particular language.

Family of languages a 'family of languages' is a set of languages deriving from a

common ancestory or parent, e.g. Indo-European family
consists of 'daughter' languagedanskrit, Greek, Latin.

Pidgin a language which develops as a contact language when

groups of people who speak different languages come into
contact and communlzate with one another, as when foreign
 traders communicate with the local population or workers on
The Spread plantations or in factories communicate with one another or
English with their bosses. A pidgin usually has a limited vocabulary
and a very reduced grammatical structure which may expand
when a pidgin is used for a long period of time.

Creole a pidgin language which has become the natural language of

a group of speakers, being used for all or many of their daily
communicative needs. Usually, the sentence structures and
vocabulary range of a creole are far more complex than those
of a pidgin. Creoles are usually classified according to the
language from which most of their vocabulary comes, eg.
English-based, French-based, Portuguese-based, and
Swahili-based creoles.

Mesolect a term used by some in the study of the development of

CREOLE languages, to refer to intermediate linguistic
varieties (or tects) which fall between acrolect and basilect.

Acrolect a term used in the study of creole languages to refer to a

prestige or standard variety. Basilects are remote from the
prestige variety and can be contrasted with the mesolect.
I

Verbal repertoire the speech varieties (languages, dialects, sociolects, styles,

register) which an individual knows.

Role-relationship the relationship which people have to each other in an act of

communication and which influences the way they speak to
each other. For example a junior colleague will use more
deferential language towards hisher boss.

Domain . an area of human activity in which one particular speech

variety or a combination of several speech varieties is
regularly used. For example, situations in which the persons
talking to one another are members of the family would
belong to the family domain.

Speech act an analysis of the role of utterances in relation to the

behaviour of the speaker and hearer in interpersonal
communication.

Speech event the basic unit for the analysis of spoken interaction. Speech
events are governed by rules and norms for the use of
speech, which may be different in different communities.

Register a variety of language defined according to its use in social

situations.

1.10 READING LIST

Bell, R.T. 1976. Sociolinguistics: Goals, Approaches, Problems. London: Batsford

Chambers,J.K and Peter Trudgill. 1980 Dialectology, Cambridge Textbooks in
linguistics. Cambridge University Press.
Cheshire, J. ed. 1991. English Around the World. Cambridge, Cambridge Variation and
University Press. Varieties

Hudson, R.A. 1980. Sociolonguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kachru, B.B.1986. The Alchemy of English: The Spread, Functions and Models
of Non-Native Englishes: Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Trudgill, P.ed. 1984. Applied SocioIinguistics. New York: Academic Press.

1.11 QUESTIONS

1. What is the difference between dialect and ideolect? Explain with examples.
2. What is the process that leads to pidginization and creolization?
3. In studies of language variation, a large geographical barrier is often seen as a
factor in the development of different varieties of a language. Which area,
i.e. phonology, lexicon, syntax would vary the most? Why? Give examples
to substantiate your answer.
4. What is standard Eilglish? What gives rise to a standard language?