LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY

LANGUAGE AND STYLE

 LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY

Language is not an abstract construction of the learned,

or of dictionary-makers, but is something arising out of
the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes, of long
generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and
low, close to the ground.

W A LT W H I T M A N , “SLANG IN AMERICA,” 1885

LANGUAGE
 Very basic and primary tool for communication.
 Language is a primarily human and non- instinctive method of
communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of
voluntarily produced symbols. (Sapir)
 Language is a set of infinite number sentences, each finite in
length and constructed out of a finite set of elements. (Noam
Chomsky)
 A language is a system of meaning- a semiotic system (Michael
Halliday)
LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY
 Language in society forms an intrinsic aspect of what it means to be human.
 Meaning, while language is principally used for communication purposes,it is also
used to establish and maintain social relationships .
 Users of same language often speak differently from each other.
 The kind of language each individual chooses to use is in part determined by their
social background.
 Thus, language,in turn, reveals information about its speaker.
 So when we talk about relationship between language and society, it is an exploration
of a bi-directional relationship between language and the society its users inhabit.
 When we study language in relation to society, it is called Sociolinguistics
LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL CLASS
 Sociolect: a socially distinct variety
 I seen it yesterday vs. I saw it yesterday
 social class accents: grammatical, phonetic and phonological differences
carry clues of the speaker’s social background.
Why do we have these language differences in society?
 Physical barriers and distance : regional dialect boundaries coincide with
geographical barriers, swamps, mountains, rivers
 Social barriers and distance: transfer of linguistic features through a society
is halted by social factors including social class.
 Linguistic innovation that originates in upper social class reaches lower
middle class last , if at all.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
 Any hierarchical ordering of groups within a society in terms of power, wealth
and status.
 Social stratification in the industrialized western nations takes the form of
stratification into social classes which gives rise linguistically to social dialects.
 Social class is a controversial concept as there exists no general agreement as
to the exact nature of its definition, or is its existence.
 Social class stratification is not universal: in India, caste system is
hereditary. Society is rigidly separated into distinct groups, hence social
distance is more differentiating than geographical distance.
 Unlike in India, class societies in the English speaking world, the linguistic
situation is more complex.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
 Social classes are not defined clearly : it is an aggregate of people with
similar social and economic characteristics.
 Social mobility is possible: people can move up or down the social hierarchy.
William Labov’s 1962 survey on social stratification of English in New York City.
 Goal : to show systematic variation based on social class, attention paid to
speech.
 Hypothesis: salespeople in high-end stores will pronounce rhotic /r/ in speech.
 Results: higher use of rhoticity in high-end stores vs omission of /r/ in mid-
rank and lower ranked stores.
 Higher use of rhoticity in all social classes when reading from word lists .
SOCIAL AND REGIONAL DIALECT
VARIATION
SOCIAL VARIATION
HIGHEST CLASS: STANDARD DIALECT

LOWEST CLASS: MOST LOCALIZED NON-

STANDARD

REGIONAL VARIATION
 APPROACHES TO SOCIOLINGUISTIC
STUDIES

 MACRO-SOCIOLINGUISTICS : Look at society as a

whole and consider how language functions in it and
how it reflects the social differentiations (a bird's-eye
view).
 MICRO-SOCIOLINGUISTICS : Look at society from
the point of view of an individual member within it (a
worm's-eye view).
SOCIAL FACTORS IN LANGUAGE USE
The language people use is determined by social factors:
 Theparticipants: age, senior to junior; rank, boss-
secretary;relationships,husband-wife.
 The setting: at home,in a formal meeting, in the street etc.
 The topic: what to order for dinner, my cooking
skills,employment opportunities etc.
 Thefunction/aim: convince to provide a loan,asking
permission to leave the room, request for babysitting.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND
SOCIETY
 Socio-linguistics studies who speaks to whom what when where why
and how
 Sociolinguists are interested in explaining why we speak differently in
different social contexts, and they are concerned with identifying the social
functions of language and the ways it is used to convey social meaning.
 The way people talk is influenced by the social context in which they are
talking. It matters who can hear us and where we are talking as well as
how we are feeling. We use different styles in different social contexts.
 As a social phenomenon language is closely related to the structure of the
society in which it is used, and the evaluation of a linguistic form is entirely
social.
LANGUAGE AND STYLE
LANGUAGE AND STYLE
 Nietzsche writes that language is a consequence of collective living,
which instigates a need for communication.
 Most speakers of a language speak one way with friends, another on a
job interview or presenting a report in class, another talking to small
children, another with their parents, and so on. These “situation dialects”
are called styles .
 Social situations affect the details of language usage, but the core
grammar remains intact, with a few superficial variations that lend a
particular flavor to the speech.
 Style—the way in which something is said or written, its rhythm, tone,
polysemy, tempo, phrasing, temporal order and so on—constitutes the
meaning of what is expressed through language.
STYLE IN LANGUAGE
 A social identity
 Variation in language
 the choice of words used by a specific group of people when
they speak.
 Thinking of style as an essential part of meaning rejects the
idea that style is merely an elaboration overlaid on a stable
meaning or content.

2 basic objects of style in language:

 Figures of speech and stylistic devices
 Functional styles
FIGURES OF SPEECH/STYLISTIC DEVICE
 Simile : The poster is like a work of art
 Metaphor: The poster is a work of art.
 Alliteration : Pink and purple colours really pop out.
 Rhetorical device : If you poison me, will I not die?
 Onomatopoeia : The motorbike vroomed into the night.
 Repetition: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, understood like a child
and thought like a child.
 Rule of three : Blood, sweat and tears.
 Personification: The writing glares at you.
 Hyperbole : The writing is so bright I need sunglasses to look at it.
FUNCTIONAL STYLE
SYSTEM OF INTERRELATED LANGUAGE MEANS WHICH SERVES A
DEFINITE AIM IN COMMUNICATION
 The belle-lettres style : language of poetry, emotive prose, the
language of drama.
 The publicist style: oratory and speeches, essays .
 The newspaper style: brief news items, headlines, advertisements,
editorials.
 Scientific prose style: language of exact science ,describes
concepts.
 The style of official documents: language of legal documents,
diplomatic reports, business and military documents.
 CLASSIFICATION OF FUNCTIONAL STYLES
(ARNOLD)

 Formal /literary bookish style  Non-formal/colloquial style

 Poetic diction/belle-lettres style  Literary colloquial: Has loose sentence

 Publicist style structure, relative coherence and
uniformity of form and content
 Newspaper style
 Familiar Colloquial: use of deviant
 Scientific prose style
language. Infrequent coherence and
 Official documents style lacks adherence to topic.
 Low colloquial: slang words
 LITERARY COLLOQUIAL
 Use of socially accepted contracted forms and abbreviations: Fridge ice for ice-
cream, TV, CD, etc.
 Use of etiquette language and conversational formulas: nice to see you, my
pleasure, on behalf of, etc.
 Extensive use of intensifiers and gap-fillers: Absolutely, definitely, awfully, kind
of, so to speak, I mean, if I may say so.
 Use of interjections and exclamations: Dear me, my god, goodness, well, why,
now, oh.
 Extensive use of phrasal verbs: let sb down, put up with, stand sb up.
 Use of words of indefinite meaning like thing, stuff.
 Avoidance of slang, vulgarisms, dialect words, jargon.
 Use of phraseological expressions, idioms and figures of speech.
FAMILIAR COLLOQUIAL
 Use of echo questions, parallel structures, repetitions of various kinds.
 Extensive use of ellipsis, including the subject of the sentence: Can't say
anything.
 Abundance of gap-fillers and parenthetical elements: sure, indeed, to be
more exact, okay, well.
 Combination of neutral, familiar and low colloquial vocabulary, including
slang, vulgar and taboo words.
 Extensive use of words of general meaning, specified in meaning by the
situation: guy, job, get, do, fix, affair.
 Limited vocabulary resources, use of the same word in different meanings
it may not possess: 'Some' meaning good: some guy! Some game!
 'Nice' meaning impressive, fascinating, high quality: nice music.
REFERENCES

 An Introduction to Language, Victoria Fromkin, Robert Roadman, Nina

Hyams,9th edition, (Wadsworth 2010),Chapter 10: Language in Society
 Erika Kerruish: From vulgar words to lightening bolts: Nietzsche on
style, language and experience