Understanding Language Varieties: Cultural and Social Influences
Item 6. The Cultural Varieties and Records, Classes, and Types
For communication to occur successfully, the speakers of a language must know the common code of that language and use it properly.
In practice, we can see a number of factors (geographical, cultural, or situational) that contribute to the diversity seen in the use of a language. These factors are:
- Location: The particularities in the use of a language result in different dialects. Example: Castilian (Murcia, Extremadura, Andalusia, and the Canary Islands). These are varieties of a language diatopic.
- Cultural Diversity and Age of the Speaker: Different groups in society develop ways of talking that differ appreciably from others. A young teenager does not speak like an old man. These are the varieties diastratic.
- Usage Scenarios: Depending on the situation in which we use the language or what we want to achieve with it, different registers of speech emerge. These different uses are the varieties diaphasic indications.
Diastratic Varieties
These are studied by the sociolect. There are three social strata associated with this variation:
- Cult Level: Individuals with profound intellectual training and social belonging to a prominent position.
This level is characterized by the use of an elaborate code that has the following features:
- Phonological Level: Respect for the rules of pronunciation and intonation that avoids slang.
- Morphosyntactic Level: Proper use of derivatives and mechanisms of all verb forms, with strength in its syntactic structure (subordinate structures).
- Lexical-Semantic Level: Breadth of vocabulary (lexical richness, use of cultism, and technicalities).
Common Level: Individuals with an average degree of education from the social middle class. This level is characterized by means of expression with more speakers, employed by the media, while always respecting linguistic rules.
This level has the following features:
- Phonological Level: Neutral language is set for the understanding of all speakers.
- Morphosyntactic Level: Use of less complex sentences.
- Lexical-Semantic Level: Reduction of vocabulary, with less lexical wealth. Using apheresis (removal of the beginning of a word), syncope (removal of a part in the middle of a word), and short versions (removing part of a final word, e.g., na-no).
Vulgar Level: Individuals with basic or no training and few economic resources.
This level presents a restricted code characterized by the following features:
- Phonological Level: Confusion in the pronunciation of vowels and consonants (conversion of hiatus to diphthong, confusion of the phonemes /b/ and /g/ before o, u, and relaxation in the pronunciation of the phoneme /d/). Use of crutches (e.g., eh, or …). Monodiptongación. Ultracorrección. Tautology (climbing up).
- Morphosyntactic Level: Incorrect use of analog forms, laísmo, leísmo, loísmo, dequeísmo, queísmo, and errors in the construction of impersonal sentences. Use of simple sentences and trunk words (e.g., thing).
- Lexical-Semantic Level: General poverty of vocabulary and use of popular phraseology. Slang.
Another type of variation within this class is jargon, which is a particular language and plot of a profession or science.
Related to slang is jargon, which pertains to marginal groups, including prison slang and drug-related language.
Diaphasic Indications Varieties
A record becomes one of the modes of expression appropriate to a communicative situation. According to the communicative situation, there are two registers: formal and informal.
- Formal Record: This has a cult-level approach and corresponds to situations marked by a lack of confidence.
It uses more correct and precise language, with complete consistency and cohesion, elaborate syntax, and the use of synonyms, cultism, and expressive resources.
- Informal Record: This appears in situations that allow for a relaxed tone. Resources used at the vulgar language level include:
- Phonological Level: Joint relaxed (e.g., *enfadao, *Madrí).
- Morphosyntactic Level: Use of short sentences, freedom of placement of sentence elements, and use of popular phraseology. Use of crutches and gestures.
- Lexical-Semantic Level: Low care in the use of vocabulary and an expressive tendency to use metaphors.