Sociolinguistic Variations - Essay Example

Sociolinguistic Variations Introduction Sociolinguistic variation is a discipline of study that focuses on the way language varies and changes in the speakers’ communities and concentrates specifically on the interaction of social factors like the speakers ethnicity, gender, age, and degree of integration into the community among others factors, and linguistic structures like words, sounds, intonation features, and grammatical forms among others (Crystal, 2007). This paper seeks to discuss aspects of gendered language. Through this, the paper will focus on sociolinguistic variations and the varying aspects employed during conversations. Sociolinguistics is the study of society and language. Sociolinguistics attempts to analyze the social factors which leading to the diversity of human languages, whereas many linguists concentrate on exploring unity under the diversity of human languages. In a nut shell, sociolinguists focus on the differences in languages and variation within a particular society language. As stated earlier, this paper will focus on the aspects of sociolinguistic variations in terms of gender based conversations. For example, television interviews, conversations in professional meetings, and daily readings. Language is particularly a form of social behavior and societies tend to split into groups displaying behavior differences. People react and behave variedly when giving information or involved in a particular conversation especially where a common gender is involved. This is generally due to the fact that language defines group identity because of its deep social function. People of same gender in a particular social group speak like one another. This strengthens the bonds and at the same time divides people from those in other groups speaking differently. This is a result of dialect. Dialect signals there individuals come from. This may be regional dialect and has significant applications to the social background of individuals. In a conversation within a common group of people or gender, they appear distinguished from other groups in their linguistic structure and features such as grammar, accent, pronunciation, and vocabulary. Most often than not, people of different dialects have varied accents, however, speakers of a common dialect may show different accents as well. This has resulted into Standard English; however, people speak differently and uniquely due to their education, life experience, aspiration, and age. This is what is observed in gendered language (Aitchison, 1978). In any particular gender conversation, for example as seen in the daily readings, television watching, and even in a sexiest advert. For example in a conversation I heard in a professional meeting I attended, women were speaking more politely while men were using several swear words. Because the meeting was between people of varying social classes and education background, I noted a lot of variation in speech language. Those from low social classes could hardly contribute, and the people from middle and high social classes dominated the meeting with contributions and laughter. A middle aged American woman used a strong expletive to put emphasis on a point during this meeting. The responsive facial expression of the other people who were present indicated clearly that she challenged one of the norms for a proper language in a professional, white collar, formal context. Although it is very possible that a similar word from a male participant would have elicited a similar reaction, it seemed to me that gender norms contributed to that emphatic effect. This shows how sociolinguistic variations are expected to occur in conversations involving both genders. People of a common dialect understand people of the other dialects living in adjacent areas. However, it becomes significantly difficult to understand speakers living far away. The people in such dialects will not understand each other; however, they are linked by a chain of mutual intelligibility. Aspects of gendered language may differ from different groups majorly due to factors such as: standard or codified language, state of the speakers, verbal conversations which cannot be used in writing, and prestige. Therefore varieties in language are hence referred to as dialects because: they have no codified or standard form, they are never or rarely used in writing, the speakers of the languages do not have their own states, and they lack prestige regarding other standardized, variety or other languages. As I witnessed in a conversation where a matatu driver was harassing a male passenger, a matatu driver continuously screamed at the man to pay additional fare with a unique dialect that could be identified with his geographical origin. It took another passenger from the same origin to translate the statement to the man who eventually paid additional fare. In this case, the most identified feature of linguistic identity pointed to the geographical origin of the people involved. People from a similar community may speak variedly. Regional identification may be established within the wider context as provided by urban or rural dialectology. Particular features of speech may be used to identify someone to be coming from specific part of the world; however, the area involved may extend to several languages, countries, or language families. This may bring about areal linguistics observed in most conversations watched on televisions (Eckert and Rickford, 2001). The differences in dialects are not geographical only. As observed in various conversations, sources of this complexity in dialect differences may originate from geographical mobility. People who move from place to place take their dialects with them and modify them with time in order to fit their surroundings. Other sources of differences in dialect may be drawn from social class, age, and gender. Many conversations we watch on televisions or adverts, for example a male and female governor being interviewed in a social media, answer the questions related to our social classes and our place in the society. Men interviewed on televisions speak more masculinity and often use direct and competitive speech. On the other hand, female speakers are more feminists in their speeches. They use more of collaborative and facilitative way of answering questions. There is also a gender difference in conversations. People acquire different status when they participate in social structure, perform many social roles, and belong to many social groups. The varying gendered language conversations contains aspects of social classes, factors of lineage, family, occupation, rank, material possession, and education. How people talk in the conversation reflects their background greatly. People are also aware acutely of the speech patter differences marking their social classes. This is why forms of language associated with upper class are observed in conversations involving the middle class. The forms and characteristic of upper class are mainly used by the members of the middle class. This reduces the social distance between the social classes. People often learn other languages when they take up a social role (Hudson, 1996). I have noticed that the relationship between gender and language has also hit majority of conversations in the daily readings and watched televisions. This has attracted significant attention in the recent years as public concern of female and male equality. People from different gender groups speak in a common sign of language especially those falling in the same social class. For example, youths talking about college experience. I observed that their language is common as well as the signs of language used to describe various elements within the discussions. They address similar issues the same way and use the same gestures to mean different things. In various nations, an awareness, which was lacking in the past, is now in existence, of the manner in which language can be used to help and reflect social attitudes towards women and men. The differences in use of patterns of language by women and men such as patterns of intonation and quantity of speech, has also been a factor in conversations. The age of the speaker has also emerged to influence the language used especially the complexity of grammar and vocabulary (Bruce, 2002). Gendered language is also characterized by sociolects. This is a social dialect possessed by a particular group such as upper class or working class speech. Sociolect is a language observed in conversations by social class, social group or subculture. There is however a stylistic variation among various social groups. The way in which people use language reveals information as to their social or regional groups. The uniqueness of individuals is reflected in the use of language by the individuals, personal dialect. In social dialect variation, people talk differently due to their different permanent identity as a group such as region of origin, ethnicity, or social class. A stylistic variation in different languages that positions their properties in language context, are used distinctively and belongs to a specified situation, for example, the language of politics, advertising, individual authors, or religion. These stylistics attempts to make principles that are able to explain specific choices that are made by social groups and individuals in their use of language like the production and reception of meaning, socialization, literary criticism, and critical discourse analysis. Other aspects and features of gendered language include the use of dialogue, dialect of the people, the regional accent, the descriptive language, and the use of grammar like the passive and active voice, the use of specific language registers, and the distribution of the length of sentences (Fischer & Carroll, 2002). In most of the gendered language conversations I observed, For example, a distinct difference in gendered language especially when addressing gender differences like the ones shown on television interviews. The interaction styles of different gender links to the sociolinguistic variation and difference. The methodology of the sociolinguistic development has witnessed a continuous tension between varying contextual style approaches: style shifting as an ethnographic phenomenon, naturalistic, and style shifting as a controlled device for dynamics of sociolinguistic variation measurements. Style shifting is one of the keys to the central problem of the language change theory. Style-shifting is the variation in speech within individual speakers. Even though it may vary, each individual displays a significant amount of style shifting in their speech. Style shifting is witnessed in most gendered language conversations as an alternation between styles of speech involved in individual speakers’ linguistic repertoire. Gendered language shifts styles as follows: casual to formal, this kind of shift takes place in particular contexts and is marked by the use of specific features of casual speech, the use of taboo language and slang words, and the elimination of non standard features of speech. Nevertheless, the people may include features that are considerably formal to them; formal to informal, this shift is typical with a decrease in features of formal speech and increased features of casual speech. The use of informal markers is usually used in signaling the informal speech. Hence, the informal speech is widespread shift of speech with selected features. However, the informal and the formal shifts are evident at the level of grammar, phonology, semantics, lexicon, and pragmatics; and shift in dialects, which involves a broad widespread patterns of shifting from one ethnic, regional, or social variety to another. Speakers in conversations may also shift from one speech register to the other (Li, 2002). Style shifting in gendered language in the witnessed conversations has distinctive characteristics. The major engine of the style shifting is the urge of the speaker to gain the approval of the audience. Some of the primary features and characteristics include: styles are often associated with specific situations or groups and carry the association favors; not all the involved audience are important equally, with proportional importance to the degree to which they are recognized by the speakers; individual speakers make slight adjustments of style; style may also be shifted in accordance to the setting or topic of conversation and this gives the shift a social meaning; and finally, the speakers may shift the styles in order to change the existing situation and not in response to the environment themselves through style shifting. Speakers in the gendered language conversations project different roles in different situations (Eckert, 2001). The desire of the interaction of the identity of the project leads to the realization that the differences in audience means that we do not purely see it as an individual phenomenon, but a relational one instead. The speaker choice and role relations are on the focus. The gendered language is hence characterized by their regional dialect as discussed earlier in the paper. It is important to note that learning the register goes a long way towards making individuals acceptable in various social groups. It is however possible to bluff your way into a group through successfully adopting the register. When a register is used in an inappropriate situation or at the wrong time, it stands out as being either humorous or peculiar. Common expressions and common choices of vocabulary reinforce the group and consolidate the common understanding. They also lock out the groups that find the register unfamiliar, which reinforces the unity of the group again (Chambers, 2003). Conclusion In summary, Sociolinguistic variation is the study of the language variability and communities. It majorly concentrates on the interaction of social factors like the speakers ethnicity, gender, age, and degree of integration into the community among others factors, and linguistic structures like words, sounds, intonation features, and grammatical forms among others. This paper has discussed aspects of gendered language through sociolinguistic variations. The social dialect and the sources of differences in language have been highlighted. The paper has also discussed factors that lead to these differences and the aspects of gendered language have also been highlighted in the paper. Sociolinguistic variations and the varying aspects employed during conversations differ with regards to regional background and social class. Sociolinguistics therefore attempts to analyze the social factors which lead to the diversity of human languages, as other linguists concentrate on exploring unity under the diversity of human languages. Briefly, sociolinguists study the differences in languages and variation within a particular society language (Labov, 1972). The paper has also identified that in many gendered language conversation, for example as seen in the daily readings, television watching, and even in a sexiest advert, there is usually a chain of dialects observed throughout. speakers of the same dialect understand those speakers of the other dialects who live in adjacent areas. However, it should also be noted that it is significantly difficult to understand the dialect of people living far away. The people in such dialects will not understand each other; however, they are linked by a chain of mutual intelligibility. This can be witnessed or observed in the watched television conversations and daily readings. Bibliography Aitchison, Jean 1978. Linguistics: An Introduction, 2nd edn. England: Hodder and Stoughton Bruce, J. 2002. Interview.  Lamar University. Chambers, J. 2003. Sociolinguistic Theory. Oxford: Blackwell Crystal, David 2007. How Language Works, 1st edn. England: Penguin Group Eckert, P. 2001. Linguistic variation as social practice. Oxford: Blackwell. Eckert, Penolope and Rickford, John.R. 2001. Style and Sociolinguistic Variation 1st edn Fischer, C.H. & Carroll, C. 2002.  Orchids of the Bayou A Deaf Woman Faces Blindness.  Washington, D.C.: Gallaudet University Press. Hudson, R.A. 1996. Sociolinguistics, 2nd edn.U.K: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Labov, W. 1972. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Oxford: Blackwell. Li, Y. 2002. Interview.  Lamar University. Read More