Norhan Saad Ali

Sociolinguistics MAE 754

Nov 18th , 2024

BENGHAZI OPEN UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF GRADUATE STUDIES
APPLIED LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT
SOCIOLINGUISTICS (SUMMARY-CHAPTER 4)

LINGUISTIC VARIETIES AND MULTILINGUAL NATIONS

Over half the world's population is bilingual and many

people are multilingual. one language was his ethnic or
tribal language , another was the language of his
education .the labels and the criteria that sociolinguists
distinguish between different varieties or odes in
multilingual communities. The India one of the most
.multilingual nations in the world

Vernacular language
refers to a language which has not been standardised and
which does not have official status. There are hundreds
of vernacular languages, such as Buang in Papua New
Guinea, many of which have never been written down or
described.Vanuatu, many of which have never been written
Multilingual speech community, the many different
ethnic or tribal languages used by different groups are
referred to as vernacular languages. Vernaculars are
usually the first languages learned by people in
multilingual communities, and they are often used for a
.relatively narrow range of informal functions
There are three components of the meaning of the term
vernacular, then. The most basic refers to the fact that a
vernacular is an unmodified or unstandardised variety.
The second refers to the way it is acquired - in the home,
as a first variety. The third is the fact that it is used for
relatively circumscribed functions. The first component
has been most widely used as the defining criterion.
Vernacular means which is not the official language in
. particular context

standard language
Standardized Form 1
Linguistic Authority 2
They are typically established and maintained
by language authorities, such as academies or
.government bodies
3
Standard languages are the officially
recognized, formal, and codified forms of a
language, often used in official and academic
.settings
Widespread Use
Standard languages are widely used for
education, media, and administrative purposes,
.ensuring broad accessibility and comprehension

Characteristics of Standard Languages

Formality
Standard languages are characterized by a
higher level of formality, adhering to strict
.grammatical and linguistic rules
Standardization
They are standardized, with consistent spelling,
pronunciation, and vocabulary, ensuring clear
.and universal communication
Prestige
Standard languages often hold a prestigious
status, associated with education, social status,
.and professional settings

Advantages of Standard Languages

Accessibility
Standard languages facilitate broad
accessibility, enabling effective communication
.and understanding across diverse groups
Institutional Legitimacy
They are often used in official, academic, and
institutional contexts, granting them a sense of
.legitimacy and authority
Linguistic Unification
Standard languages can help unify linguistic
communities, promoting national or regional
.cohesion and identity
Educational Benefits
The standardized nature of these languages can
simplify language learning and teaching,
.especially in educational settings
world Englishes
Once a standard dialect develops or is developed, it generally
provides a very useful means of communication across areas of
.dialect diversity
Standard English has served as a useful variety for
communication between areas of dialect diversity, not only
within Britain but also in countries where the British
Local varieties of English, with distinctive linguistic features,
have developed in many multilingual countries such as
Malaysia, Singapore ,Hong Kong ,India and many African
countries, where English has served as a valuable language of
.wider communication in a multilingual context

The terms 'World Englishes' and 'New Englishes' have been

used to emphasize the range of different varieties of English that
.have developed
"Kachru Model “The Three Circles of English

Throughout the history of England and the British Empire,

experts have proposed many models to try to classify English
:speakers. Kachru's model classifies speakers as

ENL: English as a native language, these are native speakers

born in an English-speaking country ,having then this language
.as their mother tongue or first tongue
ESL: English as a second language, these are the non-native
speakers who have learnt English almost at the same time as
.their mother tongue
EFL: English as a foreign language, these are the non-native
speakers who learnt English in a country where English is not
.usually spoken
The Inner Circle is made up the traditional bases of English .1
and its speakers are the ones in charge of providing the norms.
These places are where the norms are created and from which
they spread to the other circles. Some of the countries that
conform the Inner Circle are USA,UK and Canada

The Outer Circle represents the places where they speak .2

official non-native varieties of English because of their colonial
history. The speakers of these places are the ones who challenge
the norms and develop them. They are mainly ESL. Some of the
countries that belong to this circle are India, and Pakistan

The Expanding Circle is made up by EFL speakers where .3

English is not usually spoken. In this circle the speakers have to
follow the rules established by the Inner Circle and developed or
challenged by the Outer one. Some examples of countries that
.belong to this circle are China ,Russia and Brazil
Lingua Francas
A lingua franca (or working language, bridge language,
vehicular language) is a language systematically used to
make communication possible between people not
sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third
language, distinct from both mother tongues.[1]
Lingua franca” is a functionally defined term, “
independent of the linguistic history or structure of the
language:[2] though pidgins and creoles often function as
lingua francas, many such languages are neither pidgins
nor creoles. Whereas a vernacular language is used as a
native language in a single speaker community, a lingua
franca goes beyond the boundaries of its original
community, and is used as a second language for
communication between communities. For example,
English is a vernacular in the United Kingdom, but is
used as a vehicular language (that is, a lingua franca) in
.the Philippines
International auxiliary languages such as Esperanto have
historically had such a low level of adoption and use that
they can only be described as potential rather than
.functioning lingua francas
The original Lingua Franca was a mixed language
composed mostly (80%) of Italian with a broad
vocabulary drawn from Turkish, French, Greek, Arabic,
Portuguese and Spanish. It was in use throughout the
eastern Mediterranean as the language of commerce and
diplomacy in and around the Renaissance era. At that
time, Italian speakers dominated seaborne commerce in
the port cities of the Ottoman empire. Franca was the
Italian word for Frankish. Its usage in the term lingua
franca originated from its meaning in Arabic and Greek,
dating from before the Crusades and during the
Middle Ages, whereby all Western Europeans were
called “Franks” or Faranji in Arabic and Phrankoi in
Greek during the times of the late Eastern Roman
Empire. The term lingua franca is first recorded in
English in 1678.[4]
Examples of lingua francas are numerous, and exist on
every continent. The most obvious example today is
English. There are many other lingua francas centralized
on particular regions, such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian,
French and Spanish
The popularity of languages changes over time, and there
are many lingua francas that are of historical importance.
For example, French was the language of European
diplomacy from the 17th century until the mid-20th
century. Until the early 20th century, Classical Chinese
served as both the written lingua franca and the
diplomatic language in Far East Asia including China,
Mongolia, Korea, Japan, the Ryūkyū Kingdom, and
Vietnam. Arabic became the “lingua franca” of the
Arab/Islamic Empire (from CE 733 – 1492), which at a
certain point spread from the borders of China and
Northern India `through Central Asia, Persia, Asia
Minor, Middle East, North Africa all the way to Spain
.and Portugal in the west
Pidgins and creoles
A pidgin is a language which has NO native
speakers
Pidgins develop as_a means of communication
between people who do not have a common
language.(compare to lingua franca
So a pidgin isno one's native language. Pidgins
seem particularly likely to arise when_two
groups with different langulages are
communicating in a situation where there is
also_a third dominant language
Root: On Caribbean slave plantations in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, West
African people were deliberately separated from
others who used the same language so as to
reduce the risk of their plotting to escape or
rebel
In order to communicate with each other, as
well as with their bosses, they developed pidgins
based on the language of the plantation bosses
as well as their own languages
On sea-coasts in multilingual contexts, pidgins
developed as languages of trade between the
traders-who used a colonial language such as
Portuguese, or Spanish or English-and the
Indians,Chinese,Africans or American Indians
....that they were trading with
A pidgin language, is a grammatically
simplified means of communication that
develops between two or more groups that do
not have a language in common: typically, its
vocabulary and grammar are limited and often
drawn from several languages. It is most
,commonly employed in situations such as trade
or where both groups speak languages different
from the language of the country in which they
reside (but where there is no common language
.)between the groups
Fundamentally, a pidgin is a simplified means
of linguistic communication, as it is
,constructed impromptu, or by convention
between individuals or groups of people. A
pidgin is not the native language of any
speech community, but is instead learned as
a second language
A pidgin may be built from words, sounds, or
body language from a multitude of languages
as well as onomatopoeia. As the lexicon of
,any pidgin will be limited to core vocabulary
words with only a specific meaning
in lexifier language may acquire a completely
.new (or additional) meaning in the pidgin
Pidgins have historically been considered a
form of patois , unsophisticated simplified
versions of their lexifiers, and as such usually
have low prestige with respect to other
languages. However, not all simplified or
unsophisticated" forms of a language are"
pidgins. Each pidgin has its own norms of
usage which must be learned for proficiency
in the pidgin. The term “Pidginization” is used
.to refer to the process of forming pidgins
A pidgin differs from a creole, which is
the first language of a speech community
of native speakers that at one point arose
from a pidgin. Unlike pidgins, creoles have
fully developed vocabulary and patterned
grammar. Most linguists believe that a creole
develops through a process of nativization of
-a pidgin when children of acquired pidgin
speakers learn and use it as their native
.language
?Why do pidgins develop
Pidgin is a language system that developed among
people that don‟t have
common language to share, it is a language of
contact situation where there is no common
.language to use
What kind of linguistic structure does a pidgin
? language have
Pidgin languages are created from the ·
combined efforts of people who speak different
.languages
All languages involved may contribute to
the_sounds, the vocabulary_and
.the_grammatica features
When one group speaks a prestigious world
language and the other groups use local
vernaculars, the prestige language tends to
supply more of_the vocabulary,while vernacular
languages have more influence on_the grammar
.of the developing pidgin
The language which supplies most of_the
vocabulary_is known as the lexifier (or
sometimes superstrate) language,while the
languages which influence the grammatical
.structure are called the substrate
Because pidgins develop to serve a very narrow·
range of functions in a very restricted set of
Etymology of the word: In fact, many of the
meanings which have been suggested for the
word pidgin reflect its use as a means of
communication between trade may derive from
the word "business' as pronounced in the pidgin
,English which developed in China
or perhaps from Hebrew pidjom ers. It meaning
,''trade or exchange
or perhaps from the combination of two Chinese
characters péi and tsCn meaning 'paying money
Functions:pidgins develop with a narrow
.range_of functions
Those who use them speak other languages, so
the pidgin is an addition to their linguistic
repertoire used for a specific purpose, such as
.trade_or perhaps_administration
In terms of the dimensions identified in chapter
1, pidgins are used almost exclusively for
referential rather than_affective functions. They
are typically used for quite specific functions
like buying and selling grain, or animal hides,
rather than to signal social distinctions or
.express politeness
E.g.Pacific pidgin languages have only five
vowels, for example: [a,e,i,o,u] compared to
around twenty in most varieties of English.
Consonant clusters tend to be simplified (e.g.pes
for 'paste'), or vowels are inserted to break them
into two syllables (e.g. silip for 'sleep').Affixes
are dispensed with
So words generally_do not have inflections, as in
English, to mark the plural, or to signal the
tense of the verb. Nor are affixes used to mark
gender, as in Spanish and Italian. Often the
information affixes convey is signaled more
specifically elsewhere in the sentence, or it can
be deduced from the context, or it is
.referentially redundant
The discussion of inflections has illustrated that
pidgin languages tend to reduce grammatical
signals to a minimum. This makes them easier to
learn and to use for the speaker, although it puts
a greater burden on the listener because they
.tend to be full of structural irregularities
The vocabulary needed for a trade language is
very small compared to the vocabulary of a fully
fledged language. In Cameroon Pidgin English,
the word water can mean lake, river; spring,tear
or water. This linguistic feature (polysemy) is
particularly characteristic of the vocabulary of
:pidgin languages. Every form earns its place

Attitudes.
Example
Young visitor to Papua New Guinea
When I first heard Pidgin English I just thought
it was baby-talk (humorous or babyish).I
thought anyone can do that. It had words like
liklik for 'little' and cranky for wrong and nogut
for 'bad'. It just made me laugh. Then I began
to realize it wasn't as easy as I'd thought. People
kept correcting mne when I tried, and they got
annoyed if I didn't take it seriously. I soon
.learned better
Pidgin languages do not have high status or
prestige and, to those who do not speak
.them,they often seem ridiculous languages
They have been described as mongrel jargons ·
and macaroni lingos, and given_negative labels
such as Broken English and Kitchen Kaffir (i.e.
.Fanagalo, a South African pidgin)
Because of the large number of pidgin words
which derive from a European language in a
pidgin such as Tok Pisin, many Europeans
consider pidgins to be a debased form of their
own language. They assume they can guess the
meanings. This can lead to misunderstandings
.which can be very serious
Pidgins often have a short life
If they develop for a_restricted function, they
disappear when the function disappears
E.g. In Vietnam, a pidgin English developed for
use between the American troops and the
.Vietnamese, but it subsequently died out
A trading pidgin usually disappears_when trade
.between the groups dies out
Alternatively, if trade grows, then more contact
will generally lead to at least one side learning
.the other's language
In some cases,however, pidgins go on to develop
.into fully-fledged languages or creoles
To sum up, a pidgin language has three
:identifying characteristics
It is used in restricted domains and functions .1
It has a simplified structure compared to the .2
source languages
It generally has low prestige and attracts .3
..negative attitudes-especially from outsiders

Creoles
A creole is a pidgin which has acquired native
.speakers
Many of the languages which are called pidgins
are in fact now creole languages. They are
learned by children as their first language and
.used in a wide range of domains
Tok Pisin is one obvious example of a pidgin
.which has developed into a creole language
Despite its name, Tok Pisinis a creole because it
has been learned as a first language by a large
number of speakers, and has developed
.accordingly to meet their linguistic needs
Creoles also differ from pidgins in their range
of_functions, in their_structure_and in some
.cases in the_attitudes_expressed towards them
A creole is a pidgin which has_expanded in
structure and vocabulary_to express the range
of meanings and serve the range of functions
.required of a first language
Structure features
The linguistic complexity of creole languages is
.often not appreciated by outsiders
I mentioned above that pidgin languages do not
use affixes to signal meanings such as the tense
of a verb or the number of a noun. Creole
languages, however, do develop ways of
systematically signaling meanings such as_verb
tenses, and these may develop into_inflections
.or_affixes_over time
creolization
Pidgins become more structurally regular as
they undergo creolisation, theprocess by which a
pidgin becomes a creole. The lists in illustrate a
linguistic strategy which regularizes the
structure of words with related meanings, and
so makes the forms easier to learn and easier to
.understand
Funcction
Many present-day creoles are spoken by
descendants of the African slaves in the USA
and the Caribbean
The common language of the plantation was
generally a pidgin, and children naturally
.acquired the pidgin as a first language
As the families' communicative needs ·
expanded, so did the resources of the language
.they used. The pidgin developed into a creole
Alternatively, a pidgin can become so useful as a
lingua franca that it may be expanded and used
.even by people who share a tribal language
In multilingual speech communities, parents
may use a pidgin so extensively during the
day,in the market, at church, in offices and on
public transport that it becomes normal for
.them to use it at home too
In this case, too, children will often acquire it as
their first language and it will develop into a
creole.Tok Pisin is the first language of many
.children in Papua New Guinea
Once a creole has developed, it can be used
for_all the functions of any language-
politics,education,administration, original
.literature, and so on
Tok Pisin is frequently used as the language of
debate in the Papua New Guinea
Parliament,and it is used for the first three years
.of education in many schools
Creoles have become accepted standard and
even national and official languages,as
illustrated in the next chapter. Once developed
there is no evidence in their linguistic structure
.to reveal their pidgin origins
It suggests that the processes of pidginization
and creolization may be universal processes
which reveal a great deal about the origins of
language and the ways in which languages
.develop
Attitudes
Though outsiders' attitudes to creoles are
often_as negative as their attitudes to pidgins,
this is not always the case for those who speak
.the language
Tok Pisin has status and prestige for people in
Papua New Guinea who recognize its usefulness
as a means of communication_with a wide range
of influential people as well as in getting
.a_decent job
Its use as a language_signaling the speaker's
community status, even though it was not
.strictly necessary for communication purposes
It is also a language of solidarity between Papua
New Guineans with different
vernaculars.Though Haitian Creole is the L
language alongside prestigious French in Haiti,
nevertheless the majority of the people who are
monolingual in the creole express strong loyalty
to it as the language which best expresses their
.feelings
Origins and endings
he origin of creole languages, all of which attempt to explain the similarities among them.
Arends, Muysken & Smith (1995) outline a fourfold classification of explanations regarding
:creole genesis
Theories focusing on European input •
Theories focusing on non-European input •
Gradualist and developmental hypotheses •
Universalist approaches •