The Issue of Bilingualism and Diglossia - Assignment Example

I will incorporate critical opinions of distinguished researchers within the framework of the discussion to provide consistency and comprehensiveness of the analysis and illustrate the differences and similarities between diglossia and bilingualism with a number of examples of the way people interact within communities in such countries as Switzerland, Germany, Italy or New Zealand.

Whether diglossia is really a kind of bilingualism is disputed. While a number of researchers categorize diglossia exclusively within the framework of bilingualism, others, on the contrary, treat diglossia and bilingualism as two separate linguistic phenomena in their own right, which tend to overlap each other. In this essay, I will touch upon some aspects of diglossia within the context of its relation to bilingualism referring to the studies of the researchers who stress both similarities and differences between diglossia and bilingualism. According to Charles Ferguson, who first introduced the notion of diglossia into linguistic discourse in 1959, diglossia and bilingualism are closely related notions (Ferguson, 1959). Diglossia is a widespread sociolinguistic phenomenon that applies to a situation within the framework of one speech community when speakers use two or more language varieties depending on the communicative context switching from either local dialect to the literary standard language or vice versa (Ferguson, 1959). For instance, a speaker may use a local dialect of the Italian language when communicating to his/her family members at home or with friends in an informal atmosphere and switch to the literary standard Italian during a public speech in a formal atmosphere or during a conversation with compatriots from other regions of Italy. It must be noted that according to Ferguson, diglossia is a type of bilingualism in a society with so-called high and low variants of a standard language involved in communication patterns between speakers when a high variant (a standard language with high prestige, for instance) and a low variant of language (a local dialect with low prestige, for example) are closely interrelated depending on the circle of speakers and their communicative needs (Ferguson 1959).

               Thus, diglossia is a bright illustration of the coexistence of two or more varieties of a language within the same community, which are used by speakers depending on the different societal contexts in order to meet certain communication needs. This is an intralingual case of diglossia, or classic diglossia when speakers apply various subsystems of one language. There also exists another type of diglossia, a so-called extended diglossia, when different language varieties of unrelated standard languages are involved in a specific area of communication depending on certain circumstances. Joshua Fishman, for instance, illustrated this kind of diglossia with an example of the use of the French language and Alsatian language in Alsace, which is one of the most populated regions of France. In this case, the French language has high prestige, while the Alsatian language has low prestige among speakers of Alsace (Fishman, 1967). However, unlike bilingualism, such a case of diglossia may not imply clear functional distribution between the varieties of two different standard languages used.

               An important condition of diglossia is a conscious choice of a speaker between different communication tools and the use of such a tool that is able to ensure the successful process of communication depending on certain societal ends and communicative needs within the context of either formal or informal communication. While bilingualism is referred to the ability of an individual to speak two different literary standard languages like English and Arabic, for example, diglossia is a phenomenon that usually implies the use of one standard language and its variety, which might have a lower social status within a speech community and is used according to circumstances depending on the formal or informal tone of communication, for instance. All standard languages ​​are fundamentally heterogeneous and exist in many of their varieties, the formation and functioning of which depend on a certain social differentiation of society and the diversity of its communication needs. Whether a standard language or its variety has low or high prestige in a speech community is defined by the attitude of a group of people and not an individual. Diglossia as a sociolinguistic phenomenon always implies the use of low prestige variety and high prestige variety within a society. Nevertheless, the dominant variety, which speakers tend to use more often, might as well play the role of a low prestige variant, while the standard language might not be a dominant communication tool within a certain speech group but play the role of a high prestige variant.

Classic and Extended Diglossia

               Let us look closely at the differences between classic diglossia and extended diglossia. The discrepancies identified in classic and extended diglossia result from the peculiarities of various speech communities.