IMPACT OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS IN SOCIETY AND LANGUAGE

 

Introduction:

We all know language is a system to communicate and also a phenomenon of social scope. We will define sociolinguistics as:

“It is the interpretation of language in broader social context” (Hudson, 1999).

The basic purpose of this discipline is to show that how language is influenced by above factors.

• Ø    Social class
• Ø    Gender
• Ø    Race
• Ø    Creed
• Ø    Economy
• Ø    Culture

Now let’s proceed towards our main issue. I.e. how Sociolinguistics influences our understanding of society and language.

Language and Social classes:

In order to endorse this concept, let’s discuss an example. The following example is different discourse patterns of two individuals (Yule, 2014)

Ø  Speaker A        “I done it yesterday”

Ø  Speaker B         “I did it yesterday”

If you will find a chance to hear the conversation between two individuals then you would conclude that ‘Speaker B’ is off high social status. Now the question arises that what is the reason for this? The answer to this question is hidden varieties of language or different social class’s dialects. The discourse analysis of the above statement gives us an insight about the social background of the individual. i.e.  Upper, middle, and lower class.

Now let’s discuss an example of two residents of Rawalpindi city. One from upper class (A) and other from lower class (B).

Ø  Speaker A             “I am going to transit camp”

Ø  Speaker B              “I am going to trouser camp”

This mispronunciation will give us an idea about the social standing of an individual.

Education and Occupation:

It is a common observation that we tend to speak like other, whom we share the same educational background or occupation. For example mostly university graduates have same accent, vocabulary, and intonation level. (Hudson 1999).Well! The language of an individual who left education at primary level will be very much different from that of well learned man. The discourse of illiterate individual would involve a lot of jokes, slangs, boosting about his qualities than a learned person.

Our occupation is also an outcome of our education and gives us explanation about social status (Anderson, 2020). For example, we can notice a difference between the language of bus conductor and a Lecturer of NUML.

Social Markers:

Social markers are the characteristic pronunciation feature that corresponds to a particular class or group. The above example from Britishers clarifies this concept.

Ø  An important social marker in British community is [h] dropping and it creates confusion in distinguishing (at) and (hat)(Yule,2014)

We do have such social markers in our Urdu language as well. Well a large segment of people pronounces (distance) as:

Ø        Faisla not Fasla

This shows the confusion regarding the [a] sound and [ æ] sound.

Register:

A register basically put language in a broader social context. E.g.

• Ø     Situational (Mosque)
• Ø     Occupational ( Among colleagues)
• Ø     Intimate (Among lovers)

Slangs:

These are the words or phrases which are mostly used in different social settings. They represent an informal use of language. In Urdu language we have slangs like:

• Ø     Scene on ha
• Ø     Meter ghoom  raha
• Ø     Burger bacha

Language and culture:

Culture refers to that part of society created by man. Culture has a very deep impact upon the usage of language.  E.g. a one year old child would perceive a dog and a horse as same entities. Afterwards, it is through the culture that he begins to interpret between the two animals (Trudgil, 1974)

Relationship Terms:

Kinship terms are the clearest examples of lexicalized categories. We know that usually all languages have kinship terms. I.e. brother, mother and grandmother. These terms are distinct from one another in term of their usage. In our culture and language now a word father can be used for maternal grandfather and father’s cousin. In British social setup we have uncle for female parent brothers.

Dialects and Accents:

These terms are related to cultural and geographical aspects. In order to further proceed, lets differentiate between the two terms

Ø  Accent:

Accent basically deals with the pronunciation of language. We have different accents of Punjabi i.e. pahari, potohari, majhi etc (Yule2014).

Ø  Dialect:

A dialect basically corresponds to geographical varieties of language (Yule, 2014).In Pakistan we have different dialects spoken in different regions of the country. I.e. Sindhi, Punjabi, Baluchi (Dawn, 2020). Further endorsement will give us a comprehensive idea about this concept. It is an interesting fact that we can recognize the region or locality of a person by speaking to him or her. For example if you were involved in a discourse with a Pathan in Urdu language, then you will immediately know the geographical background of that person.

Gender and Language:

Gendered Words:

In Sidamo language which is mostly spoken in Ethiopia, there are words that are strictly attached to gender. E.g. the translation of milk would be ado by man and gurda by women(Yule,2014).. In our society we often heard (uff!) being used by males and females mostly used (Ouch!) in the similar context.

Influence of Gender:

It is an important fact that our language does get influenced by the gender speaking. It is a well-known scientific phenomenon that male’s voice has lower pitch (80-200Hz) than female (120-400Hz) (Trudgil, 1974). So usually males have a grave and deep voice and females have a shrill voice. The way males and female used their voice is also very much different. The communication of female is usually gentle, recessive and polite whereas males usually speak up in very authoritative and dominating manner (Tribune 2020). Well this point is specifically applicable to third world countries like Pakistan.

Language and economy:

Economy runs the wheels of the country. If a country is economically strong then it will have an excessive amount to invest in the development of language. Language now a day is a tool to ensure the economic progress and stability of the country. The US department of English language acquisition is continuously working to promote their language. Countries like China are also doing efforts in this regard. We know that English is one of the most widely spoken languages of the world (20%) (Anderson, 2020). So this dominance of the language is directly influencing the economic setup of the world. Unfortunately our state is no paying due consideration to this matter because of lack of resources.