Informal style of Shi
Formal style of Shi
Standar Zairean Swahili
Swahili (lingua franca of the area)
Kingwana (local Swahili)
Indoubil (based on Swahili)
The factors that lead Kalala to choose one code rather than another are the kinds of social factors.
Swahili
Shi
Standard Zairean
Formal style
Local Swahili (Kingwana)
Informal style
Indoubil
Which varieties do you think Kalala will used to a)Talk to his younger brother at home? b) Plan the morning’s activities with his best friend? c) Greet a stranger from a different tribe whom he met in the street?
Which varieties do you think Kalala will used to a)Talk to his younger brother at home? Informal Shi b) Plan the morning‟s activities with his
best friend? Indoubil
c) Greet a stranger from a different tribe whom he met in the street? Kingwana
*the person lived in Bukavu Standar Swahili *From out of town.
A number of such typical interaction have been identified as relevant in describing patterns of code choice in many speech communities. They are known as Domain of language use, a term
Social Who are Factors you talking to
popularized by an American sociolinguistic, Joshua Fishman. A domain involves typical
Social Context
interactions between typical settings.
Function and Topic
Family
Parent
Home
Planning a family party
Friendship
Friend
Beach
How to play beach tennis
Religion
Priest
Church
Choosing the Sunday liturgy
Education
Teacher
School
Solving math problems
Employment
Employer
Workplace
Applying for a promotion
In Paraguay two languages are used: Spanish, the language of the colonizers, and Guaraní, the American Indian indigenous language.
People in Paraguay are proud that they have their own language which distinguishes them from the rest of south America.
Many rural Paraguayans are monolingual in Guaraní, but those who live in the cities are usually bilingual. They read Spanish literature, but they gossip in Guaraní.
Domain Family
Friendship
Religion
Education
Education
Administration
Lecturer
Official
Primary School
University
Office
Telling a story
Solving math problems
Getting an important license
Spanish
Spanish
Addressee Parent
Friend
Priest
Teacher
Setting Home
Café
Church
Topic Planning family party
Funny anecdote
Choosing the Sunday liturgy
Language Guaraní
Guaraní
Spanish
Guaraní
It is useful for capturing broad generalizations about any speech community.
Using the information about the domains of use in a community it is possible to draw a very simple summarizing the norms of language use for the community.
This is often particularly useful for bilingual and multilingual speech communities.
The information provided in the next example identifies four domains and describes the variety or code appropriate to each
Maria is a teenager whose Portuguese parents came to London
Domain
Variety/ code
Home/ Family
Portuguese
Church/ Religion
Portuguese
Work/ Employment
English
School/ Education
English
in the 1960s. She uses mainly Portuguese at home and to older people at the Portuguese Catholic church and community centre, but English is the appropriate variety or code for her to use at school. She uses mostly English at her afterschool job serving in a local café, though occasionally older customers greet her in Portuguese.
The same person may be spoken to in a different code depending on whether they are acting as a teacher, as a father or as a customer in the market place.
The social distance The status relationship The dimension of formality The function or goal
In Eggenwil, a town in the Aargau canton of Switzerland,
Silvia, a bank teller, knows two very distinct varieties of Swiss German. One is the local Swiss German dialect of her canton which she uses in her everyday interactions with other Swiss Germans. The other is standard which she learnt at school, and though she understands it very well indeed, she rarely uses it in speech. Newspapers are written in standard German, and she occasionally goes to hear a lecture at the university, it may be in standard German. The sermons her mother listens to in church are generally in standard German too, though more radical clerics use Swiss German dialect. The novels Silvia reads also uses Standard German.
A situation in which two languages (or two varieties of the same language) are used under different conditions within a community, often by the same speakers.
Two distinct varieties of the same language, with one regarded as a high (H) variety and the other a low (L) variety.
Each variety is used for quite distinct functions; H & L complement each other.
No one uses the H variety in every day conversation.
Diglossic situations
Arabic-speaking countries
classical Arabic (H)
regional colloquial varieties (L)
Greece
Medieval Europe
Katharévousa
Latin (H)
Dhimotiki
French Spanish Italian
In diglossic communities while the two varieties are (or were) linguistically related, the relationship is closer is some cases than others.
Degree of difference
Pronunciation
Grammar
Vocabulary
H and L varies from place to place.
H is morphologically more complicated
H and L is the same
H≠L
H-L
H – Formal domains L – everyday objects
Exercise: fill in the following table when H will be used and when L will be used in diglossic communities
H/L Religion (sermon, prayers) Literature Newspaper Broadcasting: TV news Education (written material, lectures) Education (lesson discussion) Broadcasting: Radio Shopping
Exercise: fill in the following table when H will be used and when L will be used in diglossic communities
H/L Religion (sermon, prayers)
H
Literature
H
Newspaper
H
Broadcasting: TV news
H
Education (written material, lectures)
H
Education (lesson discussion)
L
Broadcasting: Radio
L
Shopping
L
Attitudes towards the two codes in a diglossia situation are complicated People generally admire the H variety even when they can't understand it. Attitudes to it are very respectful These attitudes are reinforced by the fact that the H variety is the one which is described as “fixed” or
standardized, in grammar book and dictionaries. People generally do not think of the L variety as worth describing.
Attitudes to the L variety are varied and often ambivalent.
Exercise: Answer the following questions, summarize what you now know about the differences between H & L in diglossic communities
1) How are the H&L Varieties linguistically related? Are they distinct languages or varieties of the same language? 2) How are they used in the community? 3) Which is used in conversations with family and friends? 4) How is each variety learned? 5) Which has most prestige? 6) Which is codified in grammar books and dictionaries? 7) In which variety is literature written?
In countries where the H variety is a language used in another country as a normal means of communication, and the L variety is only used locally, people may rate L very low indeed. In Haiti, although both French and the Creole were declare national languages in the 1983 constitution, many people still regard French(H),as the only language of the country. They ignore the existence of the Haitian Creole, which in fact everyone uses at home and with friends for all their everyday interactions.
The term polyglossia has been used for situations where a community regularly used more than two languages.
Diglossia has been described as a stable situation. It is possible for two varieties to continue to exist side by side from centuries. Alternatively one variety may gradually displace another.
h s i l g n E
ox sheep calf pig
h c n e r F
bœuf
mouton veau porc
h s i l g n E
beef mutton veal pork
Code switching or code mixing is a term in linguistics referring to alternation between 2 or more languages. Sometimes the switch is founded in sentences or even in a single phrase.
People sometimes switch code within a domain, when there is some obvious change in the situation, such as the arrival of a new person
Involves status as high as low depending the relationship
When a bilingual speaker utilizes more than one language in a single utterance or in a conversation
Speakers who aren‟t very proficient in a second language may use brief
phrases for this purpose.
Moi, j‟peux pas parler
avec leur enfants.
The switches are often very short and they are made primarily for social reasons.
CASES : The communities in Canada with both francophone and Anglophone populations, where the phenomenon is called “Franglais”.
J‟parle pas en anglais pis eusses I‟parlont pas
francais. Quand il app‟lont icitte pour Chrissmusse, I‟m disont: - Bonjour, Grom‟mom comment Et moi, vou‟ est? tout j‟peux yeux repond ‟c‟est: -Hallo cher, gramma‟s fine an‟y‟all?
Robin, get up’, said Mrs. Bird. The
sun was coming up. Era una fresca mañana en primavera. Robin escucho
el canto de unos
pajarillos que celebraban the arrival of spring. Vió lots of birds jumping from
place to place mientras cantaban alegremente. ‘If only I could sing’, Robin said,
with tears en sus ojos.
Example 1
Code switching or code mixing
Status
Participants
Solidarity
Tamati uses a Maori tag at the beginning of his utterance while the Cantonese speaker uses a final tag.
The switch is simply an interjection, a tag, or a sentence filler in the other language which serves as an ethnic identify marker.
2 Sarah: I think everyone’s here except Mere e l p John: She said she might be a bit late but actually I think that s her arriving now. m Sarah: You`re right. Kia ora Mere. Haere mai. Kei te pehea koe? ( HI MERE. COME IN. a HOW ARE YOU?) x E Mere : Kia ora e hoa. Kei te pai. Have you started yet?
Example 3 A) Well I`m glad I met
you. OK? M) àndale pues (OK WELL), and do come again. Mm?
The tag served as a solidarity marker between two minority ethnic group members whose previous conversation has been entirely in English.
(Switch between Spanish and English)Two Mexican Americans or Chicanos in the United States
Example 4
( BOKMAIL IS IN SMALL CAPITAL LETTERS. Ranamal is not) Jan: Hello Pette. How is your wife now? Petter: Oh she’s much better thank you Jan. She`s out of hospital and convalescing well. Jan: That’s good I ´m pleased to hear it. DO YOU THINK YOU COULD HELP ME WITH THIS PESKY FORM? I AM HAVING A GREAT DEAL OF DIFFICULTY WITH IT. Petter : OF COURSE. GIVE IT HERE…
When people switch from one code to another for reasons which can be identified, it is sometimes called situational switching.
Example: • A Hemnesberge resident
chatting to a friend in the queue at the community administration office gets to the counter and speaks to the clerk.
Example 5 illustrated that people may switch code within a speech event to discuss a particular topic.
Bilinguals often find it easer to discuss particular topics in one code rather than another.
A group of Chinese students are discussing Chinese customs.
Li: People here get divorce too
easily. Like exchanging faulty
In this example, the switches not only emphasize the precise
goods. In Chine it`s not the same. Jiá gou súi goò, jià ji sùi ji. (IF
message content, they
YOU HAVE MARRIED A DOG,
also signal ethnic identity.
YOU FOLLOW A DOG, IF YOU `VE MARRIED A CHICKEN, YOU FOLLOW A CHICKEN)
•In the town of Oberwart two little Hungarian-speaking children were playing in the woodshed and knocked over a carefully stacked pile of firewood. Their grandfather walked in and said in Hungarian, the language he usually used to them:
•‘ Szo! Ide dzuni! Jeszt jeramunyi mind e kettuotok, no hát akkor! ( WELL COME HERE ! PUT ALL THIS AWAY, BOTH
OF YOU, WELL NOW)
•When they did not respond quickly enough he switched to German ‘ Kum her’ (COME HERE)
Identify the linguistic features in this example which signal that Robbie`s father has switched code between his first and second utterance.
Father. Tea‟s ready Robbie (Robbie ignores him and carries
on skate-boarding)
Father: Mr. Robert Harris if you do not come immediately there will be consequences which you will regret.
Alf is 55 and overweight. He is talking to a fellow Samoan at work about his attempt to go on a diet. • My doctor told me to go on a diet. She said I was
overweight. So I tried. BUT IT WAS SO HARD. I'D KEEP THINKING ABOUT FOOD ALL THE TIME. Even when I was at work. And in bed at night I'D GET DESPERATE. I COULDN'T GET TO SLEEP. So I'd get up and RAID THE FRIDGE. THEN I'D FEEL GUILTY AND SICK AND WHEN I WOKE UP NEXT DAY I WOULD BE SO DEPRESSED because I had to start the diet all over again the doctor wasn't sympathetic. She just shrugged and said 'well it's your funeral!'
Some people call this kind of rapid switching illustrated in this example „code mixing‟, but I prefer the term „metaphorical switching‟
It is obviously important to distinguish this kind of switching from switches which reflect lack of vocabulary in a language . For example; when people speaking a second language such as people will often use a term from their first language because they don't know how to say it in their second language. People may also borrow words from another language to express a concept or describe an object for which there is no obvious word available in the language they are using.
Linguistic constraint is another factor of code-switching. It means that people may just switch between an adjective and a noun if both languages utilize the same order for that adjective and noun such as the following example;
English
Red boat
Big house
French
Bateau rouge
Grande maison
No
YES: i.e. "big maison" or "grande house"
possible switch point?
In Hemnesberget, two linguists recorded university students home on vacation. The students unconsciously switched between the local dialect and standard Norwegian according to the topic. When they later heard the tapes some were appalled and promised they would not switch in this way in the future. B) 'When I switch, I usually realize soon afterwards and correct myself, but it is still embarrassing'. C) 'Code switching is not very pure.' D) 'My attitude towards code-switching is a very relaxed one'.
The term Tex Mex is used to described rapid code switching between Spanish and English. A SHORT SPANGLISH CONVERSATION:
Anita:” hola, good morning , como estas?” Mark : “ well , y tu?” Anita: “ todo bien. Pero tuve problemas parqueando morning”
mi carro this
Mark: “ si, i know. Siempre hay problemas parqueando in el area at this time.”
