Language Variation is an interesting topic. Being a linguistics Student you must have idea about these variations and changes that occur normally in every language.
Code
A code is an arbitrary pre-arranged set of signals. A language is merely one special variety of code. The total organization of various linguistic components in a language is the code of that language. It is an abstract system which happens to be accepted arbitrarily in the community which uses it.
Dialect and Sociolect
A regional, temporal or social variety within a single language is a dialect; it differs in variety of ways such as speech pronunciation, grammar and words from the standard language, which is in itself called a socially dialect. So a dialect is a variation and change of language sufficiently different to be, considered a separate entity, But not different enough to be classed as a separate language.
Sometimes it is difficult to decide whether a variant constitutes a dialectal sub-division or a different language, since it may be blurred by political boundaries, e.g. between Dutch and some Low German dialects. Regional dialects (or local or geographical or territorial dialects) are spoken by the people of a particular geographical area within a speech community, e.g. Cockney in London, but due to the increase in education and mobility they are receding.
We can say “Dialect is a particular kind of a given language, spoken in a certain particular locality or geographic area, showing particular differences from the literary form of that language, such as pronunciation, grammatical construction and, idiomatic use of words to be considered as a distinct language.
The Ultimate Guide To Language Variation
Sociolects:
Social dialects or class dialects), on the other hand, are spoken by the members of a particular group of stratum of a speech community.
Isogloss
An isogloss is ‘a line indicating the degree of linguistic change’On linguistic maps, a line separating the areas (called isogloss area) in which the language differs with respect to a given feature of features, i.e. a line making the boundaries within which a given linguistic feature or phenomenon can be observed’So an isogloss is a representation of statistical probabilities, a graphic way of expressing a translation in speech characteristics from one area to another, a collection of isoglosses may be interpreted as marking a zone of relative great translation in speech. We may, therefore, think of it as indicating dialect boundary.
It is a term modeled on geographical terms isotherm (a line joining areas of equal temperature) and isobar (a line joining areas of equal atmospheric pressure). It is in contrast to another linguistic term isograph ‘any line on a linguistic map, indicating a consistency in the use of sounds, words, syntax, grammar etc’.
Registers
Whereas dialects are the varieties of language according to users, registers are the varieties of language according to use. Registers are stylistically functional varieties of a dialect or language’.
These may be narrowly’ defined by reference to subject matter (field of discourse, e.g. jargon of fishing, gambling, sports etc.), to medium (mode of discourse e.g. printed material, written, latter, message on tape.), or to level of formality, that is style (manner of discourse).
Registers are, therefore, situational conditioned field-of-discourse oriented varieties of a language. Some well-known definitions of register are cited below
“By register we mean a variety correlated with a performer’s social role on a given occasion. Every normal adult plays a series of different social roles—-one man, for example, may function at different times as head of as family, motorist, cricketer, member of a religious group, professor of big-chemistry and so on, and within his idiolect he has varieties shared by other person and other idiolects appropriate to these roles. When the professor’s wife tell him to ‘stop talking like a professor’ she is protesting at a misuse of register,”
Registers are those “varieties of language which correspond to different situations, different speakers and listeners, or readers and writers, and so on.”
Idiolect:
Idiolect is a variety of language used by one individual speaker, including peculiarities of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, etc. A dialect is made of idiolects of a group of speakers in a social or regional subdivision of a* speech community. Linguists often analyses their own dialect to make general statements about language. So the idiolect is “an identifiable pattern of speech characteristic of an individual.” or “Idiolect is the individual’s personal variety of the community language system”
Diglossia:
Where we do find two or more dialects or languages in regular use in a community we have a situation which Fergusson (1959) has called diglossia. He has observed that in diglossia communities there is a strong tendency to give one of the dialects or language a higher status or prestige, and to reserve it for certain functions in society, such as official government, formal or informal education, the law, politics religion, literature, slogans, press, multimedia radio and television. The prestige dialect’ is often called the standard dialect (the language).
PIDGEN.
A pidgin is a contract language, a smallest unit of different natural languages. Its use is usually recognized to certain odd groups, e.g. traders and seamen. Pidgins are used in some parts of South-West Asia. Chinese pidgin, a combination of items from Chinese and English to serve the limited purpose of trade, is another well-known example. An alternative terms used for the pidgin is contact vernacular.
Creole
When a pidgin becomes a lingua franca, it is called a creole. Thus a pidgin may extend beyond its limited function limited function and permeate through various other activities. Then it may acquire a standardized grammar, vocabulary and sound-system; and it may then be spoken by an increasing number of people as their first language. It has not such history, not much prestige either. But on account of its wider application and first-language status, it has to be distinguished from a pidgin. A Creole or a creolized language is a mixed natural language composed of elements of different languages in areas of intensive contact. Well-known examples are the creoles of the islands of Mauritius and Haiti.
The word language contains a multiplicity of different designations. Two senses have already been distinguished: language as a universal species-specific capability of the human race and languages as the various manifestations of that capability, as with English, French, Latin, Swahili, Malay, and so on. There is, of course, no observable universal language over and above the various languages that have been or are spoken or written, but one may choose to concentrate on the general and even the universal features, characteristics, and components of different languages and on the ways in which the same sets of descriptive procedures and explanatory theories may be applied to different languages. In so doing one may refer to language (in general) as one’s object of study. This is what is done by linguists, or linguistic scientists, persons devoting themselves to the scientific study of languages (as opposed to the popular sense of linguists as polyglots, persons having a command of several different languages). It has already been pointed out that no two persons speak exactly alike, and, within the area of all but the smallest speech communities (groups of people speaking the same language), there are subdivisions of recognizably different types of language, called dialects, that do not, however, render intercommunication impossible or markedly difficult. Because intercomprehensibility lies along a scale, the degree required for two or more forms of speech to qualify as dialects of a single language, instead of being regarded as separate languages, is not easy to quantify or to lay down in advance, and the actual cutoff point must in the last resort be arbitrary. In practice, however, the terms dialect and language can be used with reasonable agreement. One speaks of different dialects of English (Southern British English, Northern British English, Scottish English, Midwest American English, New England American English, Australian English, and so on, with, of course, many more delicately distinguished subdialects within these very general categories), but no one would speak of Welsh and English or of Irish and English as dialects of a single language, although they are spoken within the same areas and often by people living in the same villages as each other. Sometimes, as in the case of criminal argots, part of the function of special languages is deliberately to mislead and obstruct the rest of society and the authorities in particular; they may even become wholly impenetrable to outsiders. But this is not the sole or main purpose of most specialized varieties of language. Professions whose members value their standing in society and are eager to render their services to the public foster their own vocabulary and usage, partly to enhance the dignity of their profession and the skills they represent but partly also to increase their efficiency. An example of this is the language of the law and of lawyers. The cultivation and maintenance of specialized types of language by certain professions should not be regarded as trivially or superficially motivated. In general usage, languages are necessarily imprecise, or they would lack the flexibility and infinite extensibility demanded of them. But for certain purposes in restricted situations, much greater precision is required, and part of the function of the particular style and vocabulary of legal language is the avoidance, so far as may be possible, of all ambiguity and the explicit statement of all necessary distinctions. This is why legal texts, when read out of their context, seem so absurdly pedantic and are an easy target for ridicule. Similar provision for detail and clarity characterizes the specialist jargons of medicine and of the sciences in general and also of philosophy. Indeed, one might regard the formulas of modern symbolic logic as the result of a consciously developed and specialized written language for making precise the relations of implication and inference between statements that, when couched in everyday language, are inexact and open to misinterpretation. Some have gone as far as to say that traditional metaphysics is no more than the result of misunderstanding everyday discourse and that the main purpose of philosophy is to resolve the puzzles that arise from such misunderstandings.
human nervous system: Language
The language area of the brain surrounds the Sylvian fissure in the dominant hemisphere and is divided into two major components...
The use of specialized types of language in fostering unity is also evidenced in the stereotyped forms of vocabulary employed in almost all sports and games. Among traditional sports, for example, tennis scores use the sequence love, 15, 30, 40, and game; cricketers verbally appeal to the umpire when a batsman may be out by calling “How’s that?” and the ways of being out are designated by stereotypes, “run out,” “leg before wicket,” “stumped,” and so forth.
The efficacy of religious worship and of prayers is frequently associated with the strict maintenance of correct forms of language, taught by priests to their successors, lest the ritual become invalid. In ancient India the preservation of the language used in the performance of certain religious rituals (Sanskrit) gave rise to one of the world’s most important schools of linguistics and phonetics. In the Christian churches one can observe the value placed by the Church of England on the formal English of the Authorized Version of the Bible and of The Book of Common Prayer, despite attempts at replacing these ritual forms of language by forms taken from modern spoken vernaculars.