What counts as a language?

Speakers of "languages" may have linguistic rights to use their language. Speakers of "dialects" almost never have similar rights.

Two linguistic theories of the definition of "language"

📚 The Invariant System Hypothesis

Assume that a language should be taken to be the combination of a set of vocabulary and grammatical rules shared and used in the same way by a particular community

Problem: no two individuals make use of an identical set of rules and vocab when they speak.
We all have different, idiosyncratic ways of speaking -> idiolect

📢 The Mutual Intelligibility Hypothesis (MIH)

Speakers don't need to share identical rule systems and vocabularies to be viewed as speakers of a single language, but they must be speakers of varieties which are mutually intelligible.

Problem: Counter-examples
- Type 1: 2+ varieties of speech are mutually intelligible, but are classified as different languages
- Hindi and Urdu
- Type 2: 2+ varieties are mutually unintelligible, but are classified as varieties (dialects) of the same language.
- Chinese: Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese, Shanghainese…

Socio-political factors matter

"A language is a dialect with an army and a navy. -Max Weinreich"

Dialects

📍 Property 1:

A dialect is a variety that is NOT recognized as a distinct language, but is related to some officially-recognized language – dialects are both similar to and different from some languages.

📍 Property 2:

Differences between dialects and standard forms of language occur in:

Accent - pronunciation
Vocabulary
Grammar

📍 Property 3:

Dialects are commonly associated with a single geographical area/region.

📍 Property 4:

Linguists assume that the dialects of a language are all mutually intelligible, to a large degree.

Isoglosses: Boundary lines marking the distribution of dialect variables
Dialect continuum: Dialects blend into each other, and it's hard to identify where one ends and another begins.

Three kinds of non-regional dialects

Religious dialects
Social dialects
Ethnic dialects

📣 Styles and Registers

All speakers use their language in different ways -formal and informal styles of speaking.
Register: a type of speech used in a specific activity/job

🎨 Factors influencing shifts in style

The participants
The setting
The topic
Relationship between participants
- Solidarity
- Power

A range of factors trigger different ways of speaking.

Languages with special roles

🗃 Official Languages

OLs are established for pragmatic reasons. Official languages are specified for:

Area of life/activity
Geographical area - either all of a country or a sub-part

🌏 National Languages

NLs are symbolic and intended to represent the nation and its projected national identity.

Language Planning

When developing a national or official language, language planning must be carried out.

📍 [Step 1] Status Planning

Giving special roles to certain language/varieties (selecting new NLs and OLs).

📍 [Step 2] Corpus Planning

Further developing the languages selcected in Step 1.

Develop vocab
Create dictionaries
Decided pronunciation
Decide how the language should be written (graphization)

📍 [Step 3] Promotion of new NLs/OLs

Mass education
Mass media
Positive incentives

📍 [Step 4] Winning acceptance

Encourage people to use and be proud of the new NL/OL.
Emphasize the practical value

🛠 NLs should fulfill four special functions:

Unifying
Separatist (distinguish its speakers from those of other nations)
Prestige
Frame-of-reference (be well-standardized)

Language purification and Linguistic protectionism

🧼 Language purification

Borrowed words (loanwords) are replaced with new native/internally-sourced words.

🥽 Linguistic protectionism

Policy that new words should only be created from internal resources
Old borrowed words are not eliminated

Languages under pressure: minority groups and language loss

What causes people not to use or learn their Heritage Languages?

Political factors
Social pressures
Economic factors
Social status
Inter-marriage
The influence of school
Children's lack of motivation to learn/use the HL.

Capacity-Opportunity-Desire / COD

A framework for assessing prospects for HL maintenance to be successful.

Capacity: abilities that individuals develop in the HL
Opportunity: the chances that speakers have to use the HL outside the home in daily life
Desire: the eagerness that individuals have to use the HL

📉 Language endangerment and language death

Languages all over the world are becoming moribund.

If a language is not being transmitted well to younger generations, it is "moribund".

Large languages and small languages

There are 8 languages with 100+ million L1 speakers.
- English, Mandarin, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Hindi, Bengali
- 96% of the world's languages are spoken by only 4% of the world's population.
- If a language with 20,000 speakers or less should be characterized as endangered, then:
  - 2/3 of the world's languages are currently endangered, and may completely disappear during the course of the 21stC.

👿 Causes of language endangerment

Economic factors
Social factors
The growth of larger languages
Globalization
Urbanization
Invasion and colonization
Physical causes

Positive reactions to language endangerment

📑 Language documentation

The goal is establishing good descriptions and records of endangered languages before they disappear.

☀️ Language revitalization

Bilingual education
Pre-school "language nests"

Speakers of endangered languages don't need to abandon their heritage languages to acquire another major language.

Diglossia and Code-switching

Diglossia

Diglossia: Switching between two different varieties of the same language in different areas of life.

Two distinct varieties of the same language are used by speakers in a population
High and Low varieties each have different functions - used in different areas of life.
H and L are learned at different times and in different environments.
The H variety is never used in informal conversation.
The H variety my often be standardized.
Literature/writing is predominantly in H.

🎤 Domains of H/L use

Religious activities are carried out in H (not L).
Newspapers and technical/academic writing are regularly in H.
TV soap operas are in L.

🪢 Extended diglossia

Two distinct languages patterning in the typical H and L ways.

Code-switching

Code-switching: Switching between two (or more) different languages in a single conversation.

🎛 Levels of code-switching

Sentence-boundary CS
Extra-sentential CS (tag-insertion)
Clause-boundary CS
Intra-sentential CS (code-mixing)

Insertional CS: words from L2 are inserted into the L1 base.
Alternational CS: both L1 and L2 appear in equal amounts.

💡 What causes people to CS?

Imbalanced in the knowledge of L1 and L2.
Stylistic reasons
- "For fun"
- To emphasize what they are saying
Identity-related reasons
- Convergence
  - To stress solidarity/closeness with others
  - Downwards shifting: to stress solidarity
- Divergence
  - To signal unfriendliness and social distance
  - "Linguistic dueling"
  - Upward shifting: to show education
- Unmarked language: The language that is conventionally used in a situation X.
- Marked language: The language that is not usually used in a situation X.