Language and Linguistic Diversity
1 – Language and Language Diversity
Language = human power through words to communicate. It is
what distinguishes us from other living beings.
• Linguistic Family, Language, and Dialect
All languages proceed from a mother language.
Languages that proceed from the same mother language have affinities
and form linguistic families. For example, Spanish, Latin, French, and Italian are related.
Tongue:
A system of verbal signs used to communicate and express oneself within a community
of speakers. It is characterized by having stable norms that originate among its users
and are disseminated through education and personal interaction.
Dialect:
A language variant with precise regional limits.
Dialect has no pejorative connotations. It does not imply a hierarchy.
2 – Variety in Europe
- Indo-European: Welsh / Irish / Galician
- Germanic: English / German
- Slavic: Polish / Russian
- Romance: Spanish / Portuguese / French / Italian / Romanian / Catalan / Galician / Sardinian / Provençal
• Multilingualism, Bilingualism, Diglossia
Countries with more than one language.
Bilingualism:
Two languages with the same cultural, economic, and social importance.
Diglossia:
One language is more important than the other (international organizations promote bilingualism).
3 – Spain’s Linguistic Reality
The Spanish Constitution recognizes 4 official languages: Castilian, Catalan, Galician, and Basque.
Dialects are variants of a language. Murcian, Canarian, and Castilian are dialects of Spanish.
Valencian is closely related to Catalan.
Asturian or Bable and Aragonese are historical dialects of Spanish.
• Origin and Dialects of Spanish Languages
The origin of the Spanish language is Latin. Latin was spoken in the Iberian Peninsula until the arrival of the Arabs in the 8th century.
The Reconquista was not uniform, so different kingdoms emerged where Latin had evolved differently.
4 – Vulgar Language
Vulgar language is language that does not conform to the standard due to carelessness or
ignorance. These incorrect forms are called
slang. Characteristics:
• Phonetic Level
- Commuting accent (ex: experto – expérto)
- Changes in vowels (ex: según – sigún)
- Reduction of diphthongs to a single vowel (ex: bueno – beno)
- Suppression of sounds (ex: perdido – perdío)
- Confusion of consonants (ex: abuelo – agüelo)
- Development of a ‘g’ sound before ‘ue’ (ex: hueso – gueso)
- Shifting of consonants (ex: croqueta – cocreta)
• Morphosyntactic Level
- Changes in verbal forms (ex: cantaste – cantastes)
- Incorrect verb forms (ex: *haiga)
- Using determiners with proper nouns (ex: mi Pepe)
- Changing the gender of determiners (ex: *del este agua)
- Laismo, Loísmo, Leismo
- Alteration in the order of pronouns (ex: *te se ha caído)
- Dequeismo (ex: *pienso de que)
- Misuse of prepositions and conjunctions
- Tendency to conflate words (ex: ven para acá – vente pa’ca)
• Lexical Level
- Archaic verb forms (ex: somos – semos)
- Use of archaic particles (ex: cuántas – cuantimas)
- Confusion about the meaning of particles
1 – Variety of Language Use
Factors that influence language use:
- Education, books, and media tend towards linguistic unity. This gives rise to a model of common or standard language.
- Other factors contribute to linguistic diversity. These can be grouped as follows:
Historical Varieties:
The evolution of Castilian through time.
Spatial Varieties:
Dialects and variations according to the area where they are spoken.
Social Varieties:
Within a region, factors such as age, sex, education, and social class can lead to different sociolects.
Each person has their own idiolect, or individual way of using language.
Register Varieties:
Register refers to the way language is used in a particular situation. The speaker chooses the appropriate register based on:
- Relationship between speaker and listener (e.g., talking to a family member vs. a boss)
- Social and spatial context (e.g., at work vs. in a leisure setting)
- Written vs. spoken channel
- Topic and intention (e.g., a scientific presentation vs. a political rally)
2 – The Standard and Diversity of Standards
Among the different uses of language, there are correct and incorrect forms. The standard is related to the set of norms used by educated speakers. The process of adjusting language to the standard is called language standardization.
Standard Features:
- Fixes language use and contributes to linguistic unity.
- Diffused through media, schools, and cultural institutions.
- There is no single standard. Each speech community has its own norms (e.g., seseo vs. yeismo, use of specific words or expressions).
- The communication situation determines the level of adherence to the standard.
- Provides a framework for other varieties: popular, vulgar, rural, etc.
3 – The Educated Class and Colloquial Speech
Cultured speech is used by educated people, while colloquial speech is more informal and used in everyday situations.
4 – Ultracorrection
Sometimes, speakers try too hard to use cultured expressions and end up making mistakes. This is called ultracorrection (e.g., using”autonomasi” instead of”excelenci”).
5 – Language Taboos
Speakers may avoid using certain words, known as taboo words, and replace them with more socially acceptable alternatives called euphemisms.
Examples:”pass awa” instead of”die””restroo” instead of”toilet”