LANGUAGE IN SOCIAL CONTEXT

Our word choice, syntax, and pronunciation reveal us to be members 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 members 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 terms 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 non-
professionals 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 France) 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 user. 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