**Please look at your hand out

Bell’s 7 categories are:

1. Standardization: A language that has been standardized.

2. Vitality: Whether a language is alive or dead.

3. Historicity: A language that has a long historical bond with its speakers.

4. Autonomy: A language must be felt by its speakers to be different from other languages.

5. Reduction: Reduction is when the speakers of a particular variety of a language regard it as a sub-variety or a dialect.

6. Mixture: Mixture refers to how “mixed” a language’s speakers feel their language has become.

7. Norms: Norms refers to the feeling that many speakers have that there are both good speakers and poor speakers, and that the good speakers represent the norms of proper usage.

Let’s look at an example:

An example of how these categories work is Serbian and Croatian, I have taken this from a paper entitled Sociolinguistic Analysis of "Serbo-Croatian" published in 1996 by a scholar named Sean McLennan, according to him:

From a linguistic standpoint, we must come to the conclusion that Serbo-Croation are simply dialects of the same language. There are no more variations between Serbian and Croatian than there are between Canadian English and any other dialect of English, indeed, perhaps even fewer in some cases.

Syntactic and morphological constructions remain the same and the languages are mutually intelligible.

But, regardless of the linguistic facts presented, on the whole, the speakers of the language perceive the variants as being different languages

If we compare them:

1) Standardization: Both Serbian and Croatian are standardized. There are different standardized spellings for the same words. As well, media and literature use both variants.

2) Vitality: Obviously, both variants have a living community of speakers.

3) Historicity: Although Serbian and Croatian have shared very similar histories and

at times, language was a basis for unity, this is not true now. In fact, historical differences are

being emphasized (primarily by Croats). For example the influence of Turkish on Serbian

4) Autonomy: Croats certainly feel that they speak a different language.

5) Reduction: It cannot be claimed that either variant is seen as a sub-variety of the other. If anything, the feeling is that they have nothing to do with each other at all (Personal Consultation).

6) Mixture: In neither case do the speakers feel that their language is impure or is a

marginal variety of some other language.

7) Presence of De Facto Norms: Both Croatian and Serbian have a continuum of

"good" and "poor" speakers. Unsurprisingly, the poorest speakers of Croatian are those

with a variant closest to Serbian.

So, therefore, according to these criteria the author finds that, at least from the perspective of

those involved, Serbian and Croatian can be considered different languages.

DIFFERENT LANGUAGES!!!

Now, some linguists rely only on the single category of Standardization to differentiate one language from another—if both have a standard form then they are both languages. Remember this is the first of Bell’s criteria. Therefore, the chosen STANDARDIZED DIALECT becomes the STANDARD LANGUAGE and every other dialect is considered a dialect of the language only. This is the description in you book. For a language to be considered Standardized it must fulfill the following requirements:

PUT ON BOARD

Standardization:

1. Selection: A particular variety is selected as the one to be developed into the standard.

2. Codification: Some agency such as the academy creates dictionaries and grammar books to fix the language variety so that everyone agrees on how to use it and what is correct.

3. Elaboration of function: You can use this variety of the language for all the functions you need it for. For example government documents, education, literature etc.

4. Acceptance: Acceptance means that the RELEVANT population accepts this variety of language as the community’s language.

The best example of this is French which has a governing body, called the Academie Francaise, that was established in 1635 and still creates rules about usage, as well as new words for things originating in other languages.

STANDARD ENGLISH

One more example of a standardized language is Standard English.

Standard English is a controversial term used to denote a form of written and spoken English that is thought to be normative for educated users. There are no set rules or vocabulary for "Standard English" created by a governing body like French. In fact it has been tried in both American and Britain, but all attempts have failed. However, it does have very well defined grammar rules written down in grammar books that you have all studied, and as well, any number of dictionaries that define the languages words and are published all over the world.

However, there are, as usual complications. Many contend that one should rather speak of "standard Englishes", or "standard English dialects", given that there are large, distinct English language communities with distinct standards—such as American English and British English.

Another complication is that English has become the most widely used second language in the world, and as such it is subject to the most alteration by non-native speakers, and numerous "non-native dialects" are developing their own standards (those, for example, of English language publications published in countries where English is generally learned as a foreign language). All the English publications printed in Ukraine are an example of this. You are in a sense, creating your own English as well.

Anyway, let’s see how Standardized English fits the categories for a standard language.

Selection: At the end of the 15th century the London dialect had established itself as the dominant one and existed in two versions: a spoken one and a written one. The latter was called Chancery Standard and developed quickly into the dialect which was to become Standard English. Standard English has changed a great deal since then, but it remains the known standard dialect.

Acceptance: The acceptance of the London dialect as the standard, however, is not so much a result of the economic influence of the London merchants, but that of the students who came from all over England to study in Oxford and Cambridge and here adapted the fashionable dialect. This helped the variety to increase its social and geographical mobility. Its employment by the court, as well as its political usefulness in the wake of growing a national consciousness, led to its final adoption as the standard.

Elaboration: As the new standard began to spread into the domains of administration, government and the Church, it became necessary to expand the linguistic means by which this was to be carried out. As a result the vocabulary of Standard English was also expanded.

Codification: The variety of Standard English became increasingly complex and as more people aspired to use this particular variety, there emerged an enormous need to know of what it consisted. Of the early dictionaries probably the best known is that of Samuel Johnson, whose two volume Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755 and stands at the beginning of a long tradition of dictionaries.

**ASK STUDENTS: Now, how does Standard English fit into BELL’S categories for a language?

• Standardization: Highly standardized.

• Vitality: Living

• Historicity: Historical bond with most of its speakers but not all of them

• Autonomy: People who speak it feel it is different.

• Reduction: People view it has the language.

• Mixture: People do not feel it is mixed

• Norms: There are certainly good and bad speakers. The good speakers definitely represent the norm.

So, it looks like language and usually does represent what the English language is. Anyway, it is an interesting topic. Maybe one of you wants to write a paper about this?

As we have seen, one way to characterize certain variations is to say that speakers of a particular language speak different dialects of that language. Although we have noted how difficult it is to define dialect, it is still a useful term. We can talk now about dialects being regional, societal or class based, and or even very individual.