Sociolinguistics: Language, Society, and Linguistic Communities
Sociolinguistics: Language and Society
The Linguistic Community
Refers to groups of people who share a language.
Terms of Use
Living in society means accepting a set of rules governing social life. Any transgression is punished with social rejection. Obviously, this is very effective, but prejudice is absurd.
Autoodi (Self-Hatred)
Prejudices that distort the functioning of language, community rejection, and considering it appropriate to current social stereotypes.
Bilingualism
Maybe:
- Single: Someone who is able to use two linguistic codes, differing depending on the degree of knowledge (domain can be symmetric or asymmetric, achieving good oral competence but having severe deficits in writing) or motivation and form of acquisition (the desire to learn a language to integrate or expectations of social and economic advancement).
- Place: A place where it presents a political unit, but there are two areas where different languages are used.
- Social: Language choice is not influenced by free will but by society.
Myth of bilingualism: There is a bilingual society, but only for the speakers of the recessive language. For speakers of the dominant language, it is a matter of desire; they can practice monolingualism seamlessly.
Diglossia
Two variants of a language (A/B) with a clear and relatively stable distribution of language functions. A and B are learned in school, family, or society.
Minorization
The process of loss that a language suffers when it has taken the path towards language shift.
Standardization
Consists of functions to reorganize the language of a society to make possible the recovery of a language that hitherto had undergone a process of minority (contrary to language shift).
It has four basic aspects:
- Existence of legislation: The existence of fundamental rules and a model for delivering the various uses of languages that emerge in society.
- Creating a conducive framework for the recovery of the minority language: Legal coverage is essential for language standardization, as one of the causes of minority status is the imposition of legislation that restricts its use.
- Recovery of a political structure and power: Enabling the community to recover the ability to make decisions; without a governance structure, normalization is not feasible.
- Involvement of society: This is key to success. If its speakers live only in the language, any change in rules that will govern the language in society is to change the attitudes of language users.
Language Shift
The last stage where language B will try to supplant the areas of language A.
Replacement process A: Two actions:
- Linguistic structure:
- In the first stage, loans are included in bulk from other languages, which means the impoverishment of the lexicon and weakening of the linguistic system.
- In the second phase, erosion affects the core of the language, grammar, and phonetics.
- Social body:
- In the first phase, bilingualisation of society occurs, where linguistic behavior involves the hierarchization of one language over another.
- In the second phase, the young contrast the recessive language with questions of the dominant language.
- In the third phase, without speaking youth, the future community, language ceases to be one of the axes around which society is organized. This phase leads to language shift.
Chancery: Strengthen the link between language and power
The Chancery is the organization responsible for clearing all the bureaucracy related to the Crown of Aragon. It had a pope from Latin, a decision in conflict with the vulgar languages.