LANGU AGE V ARI ATION

AND V ARI ETI ES

by
Dyah Rochmawati
(NIM. 08 745 006)

This paper is presented to fulfill the assignment

of
the Sociolinguistics course
by Prof. Dr. Soekemi, M.A

SURABAYA STATE UNIVERSITY

POST- GRADUATE PROGRAM
LANGUAGE AND LITERARY EDUCATION
DEPARTMENT (S2)
April, 2009
 LANGUAGE VARIATION AND VARIETIES
A. INTRODUCTION

In the past few decades, linguistics- the systematic study of language

has expanded dramatically. Its findings are now of interest to
psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, anthropologists, teachers, speech
therapists and many others who have realized that language is of crucial
importance in their life and work. A branch of linguistics which studies
properties of language and languages which require reference to social,
including contextual, factors in their explanation is called Sociolinguistics.
One of such properties is variation (Downes, 1998: 9, 16). The study of
language variation and change is the core of the sociolinguistics enterprise
(Chamber, et.al., 2004)
Variation is recognized as we have many different ‘ways of speaking’
the same language (ibid.: 16). We recognize speakers with different
dialects or accents. Sometimes we find variation within the same
community. Speech is always uttered by individuals who are members of
social groups which are both separated from and related to other social
groups in space and time (ibid.: 18).
A variety is a neutral term which simply means any particular ‘way of
speaking’. Thus, when we observe an utterance it is always in a particular
language, in a particular dialect of that language, and pronounced with a
particular accent. A dialect varies from other dialects of the same language
simultaneously on all three linguistic levels: phonologically,
grammatically, and in terms of its vocabulary or lexically (ibid.: 17).

B. LANGUAGE VARIATION AND VARIETIES

 People do, indeed, differ in language and custom (Goodenough, 1981:
1). Language is closely linked with the members of the society in which it
is spoken, and social factors are inevitably reflected in their speech.
Language can be studied as a social phenomenon. This has brought about
language variation and the variation runs along ‘fault lines in social
factors’, such as divisions between social classes, the sexes and different
ethnic groups (Downes, 1998: iii). Accordingly, language differs so much.
The part of sociolinguistics, the descriptive sociolinguistics is to
disclose the general or normative patterns of language use within a speech
network or speech community so as to show the systematic nature of the
alternations between one variety and another among individuals who share
a repertoire of varieties. The description of societal patterns of language
variety use- a variety being either a different language or a different social
‘dialect’, or a different occupational ‘dialect’ or a different regional
‘dialect’- whenever any two varieties are present in the linguistic repertoire
of a social network- commonly utilizes the concept of situation (Fishman
in Giglioli, 1972: 48).
A situation is defined by the co-occurrence of two (more) interlocutors
related to each other in a particular way, communicating about a particular
topic, in a particular setting. Thus a social network or community may
define a beer-party between university people as a quite different from a
lecture involving the same people. The topics of the talk in the two
situations are likely to be different; their locales and times are likely to be
different; and the relationships or roles of the interlocutors vis-à-vis each
other are likely to be different. Any one of these differences may be
sufficient for the situation to be defined
By a language we mean a body of standards for speech behavior, a
body of organizing principles for giving order to such behavior. The
standards comprising every known human language may be seen as
ordered into several systems or levels of organization: the phonological,
morphological, syntactic, semantic, and symbolic (Goodenough, 1981: 5)
C. CONCLUSION

REFERENCES
Chambers, J.K. 2004. Studying Language Variation: An Informal Epistemology. In
Chambers, J.K., Trudgill, Peter, and Schilling-Estes.(eds.). 2004. Handbook of
Language Variation and Change. Malden, MA.: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Downes, William. 1998. Language and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

Giglioli, Pier Paolo (Ed.). 1972. Language and Social Context: Selected Readings.
Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd.

Goodenough, Ward H. 1981. Culture, Language, and Society. California: The

Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company, Inc.