Lecture 6 language situation

The term ‘Language situation’ refers to the total configuration of language use at a given time and place including such data as how many and what kind of languages are spoken in the area, by how many people, under what circumstances, and what attitudes and beliefs about languages held by members of the community are (Ferguson).

We can’t possibly discuss the varieties of language situations without a better understanding of the term SPEECH COMMUNITY. This term is widely used by sociolinguists to refer to a community based on language use. The simplest definition of a speech community is the following: speech community is the whole set of people who communicate with each other, either directly or indirectly, via the common language. The members of a speech community may interact by means of one language, or by means of two or more languages. Thus, a speech community can be either a monolingual or multilingual.

Here we approach other important notions we have to discuss today – bilingualism and multilingualism.

Societal multilingualism

The terms bilingualism and multilingualism have been used interchangeably in the literature to refer to the knowledge or use of more than one language by an individual or a community.

Thus, Multilingualism is a sociolinguistic phenomenon when many individuals can speak more than one language with a fair degree of proficiency.

Multilingualism can be studied both as an individual and a societal phenomenon. When it is viewed as an individual phenomenon, the following issues become central:

• How one acquires two or more languages in childhood or later

• How these languages are represented in mind

• How they are accessed for speaking, comprehension and writing.

When it is viewed as a social phenomenon, one is concerned with its institutional dimensions, that it:

• Status and roles of the languages in a given society

• Attitudes toward languages

• Symbolic and practical use of languages

• Correlations between language use and social factors such as ethnicity, religion and class

Bilingualism is a world-wide phenomenon. The vast majority of the nation-states of the world have more than one language. Hundreds of millions of people over the world routinely use two or three languages in their daily lives. Even, so-called monolinguals also switch from one language variety – a regional dialect for instance – to the standard language; or they may also constantly change the register – from formal to informal and so on in the course of their daily interactions.

There are several types of societal multilingualism. The most common type occurs when a country or region consists of several language groups each of which is primarily monolingual. Canada is a good example. In such a case, the nation as a whole is multilingual but not all individuals are necessarily multilingual. This situation is referred to as the TERRITORIAL PRINCIPLE OF MULTILINGUALISM.

On the other hand, multilingualism can be based on the PERSONALITY PRINCIPLE, that is, where bilingualism is the official policy and most individuals are multilingual. India and other countries in Asia and Africa are good examples of this type.

How do societies become multilingual?

1. The most obvious factor leading to multilingualism is MIGRATION (e.g. Spanish in the USA).

2. Cultural contact (importing and assimilating of cultural institutions, such as religion and literature). E.g. the use of English, French and Portuguese in the countries of Africa and Asia.

3. Colonialism (Latin America, Africa, Asia).

4. Commercial, scientific and technological dependence of the speakers of certain languages on the speakers of other languages.