Informal style of Shi

Formal style of Shi Standar Zairean Swahili

Swahili (lingua franca of the area)

Kingwana (local Swahili)

Indoubil (based on Swahili)

The factors that lead Kalala to choose one code rather than another are the kinds of social factors.

Swahili
Standard Zairean
Local Swahili

Shi
Formal style
Informal style

(Kingwana)
Indoubil

Which varieties do you think Kalala will used to a)Talk to his younger brother at home? b) Plan the mornings activities with his best friend? c) Greet a stranger from a different tribe whom he met in the street?

Which varieties do you think Kalala will used to a)Talk to his younger brother at home? Informal Shi b) Plan the mornings activities with his best friend? Indoubil c) Greet a stranger from a different tribe whom he met in the street? Kingwana *the person lived in Bukavu Standar Swahili *From out of town.

A number of such typical interaction have been identified as relevant in describing patterns of code choice in many speech communities. They are known as Domain of language use, a term popularized by an American sociolinguistic, Joshua Fishman. A domain involves typical interactions between typical settings.
Function and Topic Social Context Social Who are Factors you talking to

Family Friendship Religion Education

Parent Friend Priest Teacher

Home Beach Church School

Planning a family party How to play beach tennis Choosing the Sunday liturgy Solving math problems Applying for a promotion

Employment

Employer

Workplace

In Paraguay two languages are used: Spanish, the language of the colonizers, and Guaran, the American Indian indigenous language.

People in Paraguay are proud that they have their own language which distinguishes them from the rest of south America.

Many rural Paraguayans are monolingual in Guaran, but those who live in the cities are usually bilingual. They read Spanish literature, but they gossip in Guaran.

Domain
Family Friendship Religion Education Education Administration

Addressee
Parent Friend Priest Teacher Lecturer Official

Setting
Home Caf Church Primary School University Office

Topic
Planning family party Funny anecdote Choosing the Sunday liturgy Telling a story Solving math problems Getting an important license

Language
Guaran Guaran Spanish Guaran Spanish Spanish

It is useful for capturing broad generalizations about any speech community.

Using the information about the domains of use in a community it is possible to draw a very simple summarizing the norms of language use for the community.

This is often particularly useful for bilingual and multilingual speech communities.

The information provided in the next example identifies four domains and describes the variety or code appropriate to each

Maria is a teenager whose Portuguese parents came to London in the 1960s. She uses mainly Portuguese at home and to older people at the Portuguese Catholic church and community centre, but English is the appropriate variety or code for her to use at school. She

Domain
Home/ Family
Church/

Variety/ code
Portuguese
Portuguese English English

Religion
Work/ Employment School/ Education

uses mostly English at her afterschool job serving in a local caf, though occasionally older customers greet her in Portuguese.

The same person may be spoken to in a different code depending on whether they are acting as a teacher, as a father or as a customer in the market place.

The social distance The status relationship The dimension of formality The function or goal

In Eggenwil, a town in the Aargau canton of Switzerland, Silvia, a bank teller, knows two very distinct varieties of Swiss German. One is the local Swiss German dialect of her canton which she uses in her everyday interactions with other Swiss Germans. The other is standard which she learnt at school, and though she understands it very well indeed, she rarely uses it in speech. Newspapers are written in standard German, and she occasionally goes to hear a lecture at the university, it may be in standard German. The sermons her mother listens to in church are generally in standard German too, though more radical clerics use Swiss German dialect. The novels Silvia reads also uses Standard German.

A situation in which two languages (or two varieties of the same language) are used under different conditions within a community, often by the same speakers.

Two distinct varieties of the same language, with one regarded as a high (H) variety and the other a low (L) variety.

Each variety is used for quite distinct functions; H & L complement each other.

No one uses the H variety in every day conversation.

Diglossic situations

Arabic-speaking countries

Greece

Medieval Europe

classical Arabic (H)

Katharvousa

Latin (H)

regional colloquial varieties (L)

French Dhimotiki Spanish Italian

In diglossic communities while the two varieties are (or were) linguistically related, the relationship is closer is some cases than others.

Degree of difference

Pronunciation

Grammar

Vocabulary

H and L varies from place to place.

H is morphologically more complicated

H and L is the same

HL H-L

H Formal domains L everyday objects

Exercise: fill in the following table when H will be used and when L will be used in diglossic communities

H/L
Religion (sermon, prayers) Literature

Newspaper
Broadcasting: TV news Education (written material, lectures) Education (lesson discussion) Broadcasting: Radio Shopping gossiping

Exercise: fill in the following table when H will be used and when L will be used in diglossic communities

H/L
Religion (sermon, prayers) Literature H H

Newspaper
Broadcasting: TV news Education (written material, lectures) Education (lesson discussion) Broadcasting: Radio Shopping gossiping

H
H H L L L L

Attitudes towards the two codes in a diglossia situation are complicated People generally admire the H variety even when they can't understand it. Attitudes to it are very respectful These attitudes are reinforced by the fact that the H variety is the one which is described as fixed or standardized, in grammar book and dictionaries. People generally do not think of the L variety as worth describing.

Attitudes to the L variety are varied and often ambivalent.

Exercise: Answer the following questions, summarize what you now know about the differences between H & L in diglossic communities

1) How are the H&L Varieties linguistically related? Are they distinct languages or varieties of the same language? 2) How are they used in the community? 3) Which is used in conversations with family and friends? 4) How is each variety learned? 5) Which has most prestige? 6) Which is codified in grammar books and dictionaries? 7) In which variety is literature written?

In countries where the H variety is a language used in another country as a normal means of communication, and the L variety is only used locally, people may rate L very low indeed. In Haiti,

although both French and the Creole were declare national

languages in the 1983 constitution, many people still regard French(H),as the only language of the country. They ignore the existence of the Haitian Creole, which in fact everyone uses at home and with friends for all their everyday interactions.

The term polyglossia has been used for situations where a community regularly used more than two languages.

Diglossia has been described as a stable situation. It is possible for two varieties to continue to exist side by side from centuries. Alternatively one variety may gradually displace another.

sheep calf

mouton veau

English

English

French

ox

buf

beef mutton veal

pig

porc

pork

Code switching or code mixing is a term in linguistics referring to alternation between 2 or more languages. Sometimes the switch is founded in sentences or even in a single phrase.

People sometimes switch code within a domain, when there is some obvious change in the situation, such as the arrival of a new person

Involves status as high as low depending the relationship

When a bilingual speaker utilizes more than one language in a single utterance or in a conversation

Speakers who arent very proficient in a second language may use brief phrases for this purpose.

The switches are often very short and they are made primarily for social reasons.

CASES : The communities in Canada with both francophone and Anglophone populations, where the phenomenon is called Franglais.

Moi, jpeux pas parler avec leur enfants. Jparle pas en anglais pis eusses Iparlont pas francais. Quand il applont icitte pour Chrissmusse, Im disont: - Bonjour, Grommom comment vou est? Et moi, tout jpeux yeux repond cest: -Hallo cher, grammas fine anyall?

Robin, get up, said Mrs. Bird. The sun was coming up. Era una fresca maana en primavera. Robin escucho el canto de unos pajarillos que celebraban the arrival of spring. Vi lots of birds jumping from place to place mientras cantaban alegremente. If only I could sing, Robin said, with tears en sus ojos.
Example 1

Code switching or code mixing

Participants

Status

Solidarity

Tamati uses a Maori tag at the beginning of his utterance while the Cantonese speaker uses a final tag.

The switch is simply an interjection, a tag, or a sentence filler in the other language which serves as an ethnic identify marker.

Example 2

Sarah: I think everyones here except Mere John: She said she might be a bit late but actually I think that s her arriving now. Sarah: You`re right. Kia ora Mere. Haere mai. Kei te pehea koe? ( HI MERE. COME IN. HOW ARE YOU?) Mere : Kia ora e hoa. Kei te pai. Have you started yet?

Example 3
A) Well I`m glad I met you. OK? M) ndale pues (OK WELL), and do come again. Mm?

The tag served as a solidarity marker between two minority ethnic group members whose previous conversation has been entirely in English.

(Switch between Spanish and English)Two Mexican Americans or Chicanos in the United States

Example 4
( BOKMAIL IS IN SMALL CAPITAL LETTERS. Ranamal is not) Jan: Hello Pette. How is your wife now? Petter: Oh shes much better thank you Jan. She`s out of hospital and convalescing well.

Jan: Thats good Im pleased to hear it. DO YOU THINK YOU COULD HELP ME WITH THIS PESKY FORM? I AM HAVING A GREAT DEAL OF DIFFICULTY WITH IT. Petter: OF COURSE. GIVE IT HERE

When people switch from one code to another for reasons which can be identified, it is sometimes called situational switching.

Example:
A Hemnesberge resident chatting to a friend in the queue at the community administration office gets to the counter and speaks to the clerk.

Example 5 illustrated that people may switch code within a speech event to discuss a particular topic.

Bilinguals often find it easer to discuss particular topics in one code rather than another.

A group of Chinese students are discussing Chinese customs.

In this example, the switches not only emphasize the precise message content, they also signal ethnic identity.

Li: People here get divorce too easily. Like exchanging faulty goods. In Chine it`s not the same. Ji gou si go, ji ji si ji. (IF YOU HAVE MARRIED A DOG,

YOU FOLLOW A DOG, IF YOU `VE

MARRIED A CHICKEN, YOU FOLLOW A CHICKEN)

In the town of Oberwart two little Hungarian-speaking

children were playing in the woodshed and knocked over a carefully stacked pile of firewood. Their grandfather walked in and said in Hungarian, the language he usually used to them: Szo! Ide dzuni! Jeszt jeramunyi mind e kettuotok, no ht akkor! ( WELL COME HERE ! PUT ALL THIS AWAY, BOTH

OF YOU, WELL NOW)

When they did not respond quickly enough he switched to German Kum her (COME HERE)

Identify the linguistic features in this example which signal that Robbie`s father has switched code between his first and second utterance.

Father. Teas ready Robbie (Robbie ignores him and carries on skate-boarding) Father: Mr. Robert Harris if you do not come immediately there will be consequences which you will regret.

Alf is 55 and overweight. He is talking to a fellow Samoan at work about his attempt to go on a diet. My doctor told me to go on a diet. She said I was overweight. So I tried. BUT IT WAS SO HARD. I'D KEEP THINKING ABOUT FOOD ALL THE TIME. Even when I was at work. And in bed at night I'D GET DESPERATE. I COULDN'T GET TO SLEEP. So I'd get up and RAID THE FRIDGE. THEN I'D FEEL GUILTY AND SICK AND WHEN I WOKE UP NEXT DAY I WOULD BE SO DEPRESSED because I had to start the diet all over again the doctor wasn't sympathetic. She just shrugged and said 'well it's your funeral!'

Some people call this kind of rapid switching illustrated in this example code mixing, but I prefer the term metaphorical switching

It is obviously important to distinguish this kind of switching

from switches which reflect lack of vocabulary in a language . For example; when people speaking a second language such as

people will often use a term from their first language because
they don't know how to say it in their second language. People may also borrow words from another language to express a concept or describe an object for which there is no obvious word available in the language they are using.

Linguistic constraint is another factor of code-switching. It means that people may just switch between an adjective and a noun if both languages utilize the same order for that adjective and noun such as the following example;

English

Red boat

Big house

French
possible switch point?

Bateau rouge

Grande maison
YES: i.e. "big maison" or "grande house"

No

In Hemnesberget, two linguists recorded university students

home on vacation. The students unconsciously switched between the local dialect and standard Norwegian according to the topic. When they later heard the tapes some were appalled and promised they would not switch in this way in the future. B) 'When I switch, I usually realize soon afterwards and correct myself, but it is still embarrassing'. C) 'Code switching is not very pure.' D) 'My attitude towards code-switching is a very relaxed one'.

The term Tex Mex is used to described rapid code switching between Spanish and English.
A SHORT SPANGLISH CONVERSATION:

Anita: hola, good morning, como estas? Mark: well, y tu? Anita: todo bien. Pero tuve problemas parqueando mi carro this morning Mark: si, i know. Siempre hay problemas parqueando in el area at this time.