An Introduction to Sociolinguistics - Ronald Wardhaugh

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the lines drawn between languages are not based on linguistic criteria.

      The third problem with using mutual intelligibility as the criterion for status as a dialect or a language is that even without a dialect continuum, there are many examples of named, distinct languages that are mutually intelligible. Hindi and Urdu are considered by linguists to be the same language in its spoken form, but one in which certain differences are becoming more and more magnified for political and religious reasons in the quest to establish different national identities. Hindi is written left to right in the Devanagari script, whereas Urdu is written right to left in the Perso‐Arabic script. Hindi incorporates more words from Sanskrit, while Urdu draws on Arabic and Persian sources. Large religious and political differences make much of small linguistic differences. The written forms of the two varieties, particularly those favored by the elites, also emphasize these differences. They have become highly symbolic of the growing differences between India and Pakistan (see King 2001 for more details on this historical development). As far as everyday use is concerned, it appears that the boundary between the spoken varieties of Hindi and Urdu is somewhat flexible and one that changes with circumstances. This is exactly what we would expect: there is considerable variety in everyday use but somewhere in the background there is an ideal that can be appealed to, ‘proper’ Hindi or ‘proper’ Urdu. This ideal is based on a sociopolitical ideology of the language, and on different social identifications of the speakers, not on any clear and objective linguistic difference.

      Another example showing the sociopolitical division of language is the story of the rise and fall of Serbo‐Croatian. In what was once Yugoslavia, now divided by the instruments of ethnicity, language, and religion, the language called Serbo‐Croatian was described by Brozović (1992) as a pluricentric language, meaning that it had more than one codified form. After the country of Yugoslavia disintegrated in the 1990s, the different varieties ceased to identify with the previously imposed umbrella term Serbo‐Croatian, and the different centers have become recognized as languages: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin, spoken in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro, respectively (Jordan 2018). The varieties are written in different scripts; Croatian is written in Roman script, Serbian in Cyrillic, Bosnian in both writing systems, and in Montenegro ‘Montenegrin Latin’ (which has 32 instead of 30 symbols) and Cyrillic writing systems are both used. These differences are very much the result of sociopolitical, religious, and ethnic divides between these groups; the different varieties were not the source of the social differences but the result.

      The fourth reason that mutual intelligibility cannot be used as the sole means of distinguishing dialect versus language status is that there are sometimes unintelligible dialects which are identified by their users as being the same language. As a user of English, you may be aware of varieties of English you cannot understand, for instance. A particularly interesting instance of unintelligibility of dialects occurs with what we call Chinese, which is generally accepted to include two main sub‐categories of varieties, Cantonese and Mandarin. Although they share a writing system, Mandarin and Cantonese are not mutually intelligible in spoken discourse; written characters are pronounced differently in these varieties although they maintain the same meaning. Yet speakers of Mandarin and Cantonese consider themselves speakers of different dialects of the same language, for to the Chinese a shared writing system and a strong tradition of political, social, and cultural unity form essential parts of their definition of language (Kurpaska 2010).

      Likewise, speakers of different regional varieties of Arabic often cannot understand one another’s dialects but are all oriented toward common standardized forms (Modern Standard Arabic, with its basis in Classical Arabic). Although some native speakers of some varieties of Arabic might not understand a radio broadcast in Modern Standard Arabic (Kaye 2001), no one questions the categorization of these disparate dialects as one language, because of the religious, social, historical, and political ties between the cultures in which they are spoken.

      The role of social identity

      Sociolinguists claim that the defining factor in determining whether two varieties are considered distinct languages or dialects of the same language is sociopolitical identity, not linguistic similarity or difference. Orientation toward a particular standardized language and, often, an associated national identity is what makes people identify as speakers of language X or Y.

      In direct contrast to the above situation, we can observe that the loyalty of a group of people need not necessarily be determined by the language they speak. Although Alsatian, the dialect of German spoken in Alsace (France), is now in decline, for many generations the majority of the people in Alsace spoke their German tongue in the home and local community. However, they generally identified as French (Vajta 2013); speaking a Germanic dialect did not mean they identified with Germany. However, everyday use of Alsatian has been a strong marker of local identity, and for a long time was an important part of being Alsatian in France (Vassberg 1993; Gardner‐Chloros 2013).

      Exploration 2.1 Dialects

      How would you describe the dialect(s) you speak? Do you speak more than one dialect of a language? If so, can you name specific features which distinguish the dialects?

      If you don’t identify as a speaker of a particular dialect, are there features of your speech that allow you to be identified as coming from a certain region? If so, what are these features?

      What intra‐speaker variation is there in your speech – that is, how do you choose to use different dialects or features? Give specific examples.

      One of the defining characteristics mentioned above about the distinction between ‘dialect’ and ‘language’ has to do with standardization. If you see yourself as a speaker of German, you orient to Standard German, not Standard Dutch, even if Standard Dutch might be linguistically more similar to your native dialect. Thus the process of standardization and the ideology involved in the recognition of a standard are key aspects of how we tend to think of language and languages in general. People tend to think of a language as a legitimate and fixed system which can be objectively described and regard dialects as deviations from this norm. This is the standard language ideology but, as we will see, it is only one way that we can think about a language and its varieties.

      Standardization refers to the process by which a language has been codified in some way. That process usually involves the development of such things as grammars, spelling books, and dictionaries, and possibly literature (see chapter 13 for further discussion of language planning processes). We can often associate specific items or events with standardization, for example, Wycliffe’s and Luther’s translations of the Bible into English and German, respectively, Caxton’s establishment of printing in England, and Dr. Johnson’s dictionary of English published in 1755. Standardization requires that a measure of agreement be achieved about what is considered standard language

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