Lecture 5 Functional Typologies of Languages. English Language Varieties

According to famous American linguist D. Hymes, languages are classified in the following way:

1. according to the features descended from a common ancestor (genetic classification)

2. features diffused within a common area (areal classification)

3. features manifesting a common structure or structures, irrespective of origin or area (typological classification)

4. features of common use and social role (functional classification).

Another classification was suggested by W. Stewart. He classifies languages according to four variables:

1. the degree of standartization (whether or not the language has a set of codified norms)

2. the degree of vitality (whether it has a speech language community of its own)

3. the degree of language tradition (historicity – whether the language development results in its use by some ethnic or social groups)

4. homogeneity (whether its structure and vocabulary can be deduced from its previous stages of development).

According to the Stewart’s classification there are such types of languages:

• standard (e.g. Literary English)

• classic (Latin)

• local (Spoken Arabic)

• Creole (Creo)

• Pidgin (Neomalanesian)

• Artificial (Esperanto)

• Marginal (‘home languages)

J. Fishman has further developed W. Stewart’s classification revising the nature of the variable ‘historicity’ and adding three more variables:

• Standard (Leterary English)

• Classical (Latin, Language of the Bible)

• Vernacular (Black American English)

• Dialect (Cockney)

• Creole

• Pidgin

• Artificial

R. Bell adds three other variables to Stewart’s scheme. One he calls ‘X-ized’ language (e.g. English of India, or English of Hong Kong), another ‘interlanguage’ (language of a person A), the third type is ‘foreigner talk’ (language of foreign speakers of a language).

Ch. Ferguson made an attempt to express a language situation in sociolinguistic profile, classifying languages into MAJOR, MINOR and LANGUAGES OF SPECIAL STATUS. Thus, for instance, he described the language situation in Ethiopia in the sociolinguistic formula:

2 L mj + 6 L mn + XX L spec

All the above-mentioned classifications are not ultimate and are open for further investigation.

The interaction of languages with social life is viewed as a matter of human action, based on knowledge, conscious or unconscious, that enables people to use language. In ordinary language use the speaker’s choice may be governed by any of the three main elements of the speech situation (his own social and communicative role, the number and status of his hearers, and the particular circumstances).

Modern english and its varieties

English may serve the best example of varieties diversity.

English is a part of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family.

No understanding of the English language can be very satisfactory without a notion of the history of the language. It is customary to divide the history of the English language into three periods – Old English, Middle English, and Modern English.

In vocabulary and grammar Old English is quite different from Modern English.

We have no time to look at the language change in lots of detail, but we still have to mention the fact that the most important factor in the development of English in the modern period has been tremendous expansion of English-speaking peoples throughout the world.

The number and nature of varieties of English have caused much controversy. Nevertheless at least seven varieties of the English language can be distinguished, namely:

1. Standard English

2. Substandard English

3. Pidgin English

4. Creole

5. Classical English

6. Artificial Englsih

7. Interlanguage