Standard languages and de-limitation of language

Standard Languages and De-limitation

of Languages
Submitted To:

Madam Misbah Rizwan

Submitted By:

Nabeel Riasat S2F18BSEN0029

Azeem Shoukat S2F18BSEN0025
Sheharyar Yosaf S2F18BSEN0017
Shaan Ali S2F18BSEN0008

Group: 01

What is a language:

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 Standard languages and de-limitation of language

The method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the

use of words in a structured and conventional way. (Oxford Dictionary).

Noam Chomsky’s definition:

Language is the result of the unfolding of a genetically determined program. Noam
Chomsky is a famous linguist and researcher who developed a well-known theory
of language, which argues that the basis for grammar and language is an innate
ability humans have. This system was later laid out in his "Principles and
Parameters" or "P&P." Noam Chomsky believes that children are born with an
inherited ability to learn any human language. He claims that
certain linguistic structures which children use so accurately must be already
imprinted on the child's mind.

Sapir’s definition:
Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas,
emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols ( Sapir 1921).
Sapir characterizes language as purely human and non-instinctive, consisting of a
conventional system of arbitrary sound symbols that are produced voluntarily. ...
Every language enables its speakers to express whatever they want to express,
only the technical meansare different.

David Crystal’s definition:

The systematic, conventional use of sounds, signs or written symbols in a human
society for communication and self-expression. It was the first who proposed first
language dictionary.

Characteristics of language:
• Language is Arbitrary

• Language is social

• Language is symbolic

• Language is systematic

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• Language is Vocal

• Language is non-instinctive, conventional

• Language is productive and creative

Arbbitrary:
Language is arbitrary in terms of how certain sounds represent certain meanings in
a society. Except for onomatopoeia (and even these forms are culturally accepted
approximations of the real world sounds they represent), most words are simply a
set of sounds used as a symbol to represent an agreed upon meaning. The
grammatical
structures of language are also arbitrary in that there is no single pattern for clauses
or noun phrases, etc. that all languages must follow.

Language as social:
Man is a social being who always needs another’s help. It is hardly imagined that
he is able to live alone in a forest without being accompanied by another. In reality,
he lives together and cooperates between one and another. Thus, we may agree that
human being is a social creature because he has to live a community.
In the effort to fulfill his daily need, he has to work together between one and
another. This cooperation can only be conducted in a community. When he needs
rice, for instance, he is not necessary to plant in a field by himself. Rice planting is
the farmers’ business. Someone who needs rice, he can buy it.

Language as Symbolic:

Language is symbolic in more ways than can be summarized in a sentence or

paragraph, but generally we are talking about how symbols can stand for
something else, how they can be used to communicate, and how they can be
imbued with meaning. For a simple example of symbolic language: the word cat is
symbolic of the idea of a cat, a dollar is a symbol of $1 of economic value, the
word yes or a nod is a symbol of confirmation, a grimace is a symbol of
disapproval, and a smiley face emoji is a symbol of happiness.

Language is systematic:

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A language is a systematic means of communication by the use of sounds or

conventional symbols. It is the code we all use to express ourselves and
communicate with others. It is a communication by word of month. Language, so
far as we know, in something specific to human, that is to say it is the basic
capacity that distinguishes human from all other living beings. Language therefore
remain potentially a communicate medium capable of expressing ideas and
concepts as well as moods, feelings and attitudes. The word language itself means
speech. Speech is thus, a unique possession of man. Out of the multiple languages
discovered by man. English is the most common and popular language. English is
one of the most widely spoken languages across the world.

Language is as Vocal:

A spoken language is a language produced by articulate sounds, as opposed to a

written language. Many languages have no written form and so are only spoken.
An oral language or vocal language is a language produced with the vocal tract,
as opposed to a sign language, which is produced with the hands and face.

Language is non-instinctive, conventional:

No language was created in a day out of a mutually agreed upon formula by a

group of humans. Language is the outcome of evolution and convention. Each
generation transmits this convention on to the next. Like all human institutions
languages also change and die, grow and expand. Every language then is a
convention in a community. It is non-instinctive because it is acquired by
human beings. No body gets a language in heritage; he acquires it because he an
innate ability.

Language is productive and creative:

Language has creativity and productivity. The structural elements of human language
can be combined to produce new utterances, which neither the speaker nor his hearers
may ever have made or heard before any, listener, yet which both sides understand
without difficulty. Language changes according to the needs of society. 
Finally, language has other characteristics such as Duality referring to the two systems
of sound and meaning, Displacement which means the ability to talk across time and

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space, Humanness which means that animals cannot acquire it, Universality which

refers to the equilibrium across humanity on linguistic
grounds, Competence and Performance which means that language is innate and
produced is society and furthermore, language is culturally transmitted. It is learnt by
an individual from his elders, and is transmitted from one generation to another.  Thus
using J. Firth’s term, language is a ‘polysystametic’. It is also open to be studied from
multifaceted angles.

Origin of human language:

The origin of language and its evolutionary emergence in the human species have

been subjects of speculation for several centuries. The topic is difficult to study
because of the lack of direct evidence. Consequently, scholars wishing to study the
origins of language must draw inferences from other kinds of evidence such as
the fossil record, archaeological evidence, contemporary language diversity,
studies of language acquisition and comparisons between human language and
systems of communication existing among animals (particularly other primates).
Many argue that the origins of language probably relate closely to the origins
of modern human behavior, but there is little agreement about the implications and
directionality of this connection.

The Bow-Wow Theory

According to this theory, language began when our ancestors started imitating the
natural sounds around them. The first speech was onomatopoeic—marked
by echoic words such as moo, meow, splash, cuckoo, and bang. 
What's wrong with this theory?
Relatively few words are onomatopoeic, and these words vary from one language
to another. For instance, a dog's bark is heard as au au in Brazil, ham ham in
Albania, and wang, wang in China. In addition, many onomatopoeic words are of
recent origin, and not all are derived from natural sounds.

The Ding-Dong Theory:

This theory, favored by Plato and Pythagoras, maintains that speech arose in
response to the essential qualities of objects in the environment. The original
sounds people made were supposedly in harmony with the world around them.

What's wrong with this theory?

Apart from some rare instances of sound symbolism, there's no persuasive
evidence, in any language, of an innate connection between sound and meaning.

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The La-La Theory:

The Danish linguist Otto Jespersen suggested that language may have developed
from sounds associated with love, play, and (especially) song.

What's wrong with this theory?

As David Crystal notes in How Language Works (Penguin, 2005), this theory still
fails to account for "the gap between the emotional and the rational aspects of
speech expression."

The Pooh-Pooh Theory:

This theory holds that speech began with interjections—spontaneous cries of pain
("Ouch!"), surprise ("Oh!"), and other emotions ("Yabba dabba do!").
What's wrong with this theory?
No language contains very many interjections, and, Crystal points out, "the clicks,
intakes of breath, and other noises which are used in this way bear little
relationship to the vowels and consonants found in phonology."
The Yo-He-Ho Theory:
According to this theory, language evolved from the grunts, groans, and snorts
evoked by heavy physical labor.

What's wrong with this theory?

Though this notion may account for some of the rhythmic features of the language,
it doesn't go very far in explaining where words come from.
Language and variation:
• Languages vary from one place to another, Geographical variation.

• From one social group to another, Social variation.

• From one situation to another, Contextual variation.

Language is varied from society to sciety (social dialect), nation to nantion, region
to region even every nation, every area has its own culture and norms and all these
have their own idalect, accent and style of speaking a language.

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Language variation also depend upon the situation of human this depends on the
mode of the speaker a language. Thus the language cover different varieties of
languages like lingua franca, accent, style, dialect, register, slang etc.

What are dialect?

• A variety of language spoken by a group of people that in a particular
region.

• A form of language spoken in a particular geographical area or by members

of a particular social class on occupational group, distinguished by its
vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation.

• The word dialect was originally borrowed from Greek language.

• An example of dialect is Cantonese to the Chinese

language.
• Example of urdu dialects in Pakistan.
Types of dialect
Regional dialect:
The distinct form of a language spoken in a certain geographical area.
If the form of speech transmitted from a parent to a child is a distinct regional
dialect, that dialect is said to be the child's vernacular.

Studies of the Regional Dialects in North America:

"The investigation of the regional dialects of American English has been a major

concern for dialectologists and sociolinguists since at least the early part of the
twentieth century when The Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada was
launched and dialectologists began conducting large-scale surveys of regional
dialect forms. Although the traditional focus on regional variation took a back seat
to concerns for social and ethnic dialect diversity for a couple of decades, there has
been a resurgent interest in the regional dimension of American dialects. This
revitalization was buoyed by the publication of different volumes of the Dictionary

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of American Regional English (Cassidy 1985; Cassidy and Hall 1991, 1996; Hall
2002), and more recently, by the publication of The Atlas of North American
English (Labov, Ash, and Boberg 2005).

Social Dialect:
In sociolinguistics, social dialect is a variety of speech associated with a
particular social class or occupational group within a society. Also known as
a sociolect, group idiolect, and class dialect.

Examples and Observations:

"Even though we use the term 'social dialect' or 'sociolect' as a label for the
alignment of a set of language structures with the social position of a group in a
status hierarchy, the social demarcation of language does not exist in a vacuum.
Speakers are simultaneously affiliated with a number of different groups that
include region, age, gender, and ethnicity, and some of these other factors may
weigh heavily in the determination of the social stratification of language variation.
For example, among older European-American speakers in Charleston, South
Carolina, the absence of r in words such as bear and court is associated with
aristocratic, high-status groups (McDavid 1948) whereas in New York City the
same pattern of r-lessness is associated with working-class, low-status groups
(Labov 1966). Such opposite social interpretations of the same linguistic trait over
time and space point to the arbitrariness of the linguistic symbols that carry social
meaning. In other words, it is not really the meaning of what you say that counts
socially, but who you are when you say it."

Language and Gender:

"Across all social groups in Western societies, women generally use more standard
grammatical forms than men and so, correspondingly, men use
more vernacular forms than women...

"It is worth noting that although gender generally interacts with other social
factors, such as status, class, the role of the speaker in an interaction, and the
(in)formality of the context, there are cases where the gender of the speaker seems
to be the most influential factor accounting for speech patterns. In some
communities, a woman's social status and her gender interact to reinforce
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differential speech patterns between women and men. In others, different factors
modify one another to produce more complex patterns. But in a number of
communities, for some linguistic forms, gender identity seems to be a primary
factor accounting for speech variation. The gender of the speaker can override
social class differences, for instance, in accounting for speech patterns. In these
communities, expressing masculine or feminine identity seems to be very
important."

(Janet Holmes, In Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 4th ed. Routledge, 2013).

Standard British English as a Sociolect:
"The standard variety of a given language, e.g. British English, tends to be the
upper-class sociolect of a given central area or regiolect. Thus Standard British
English used to be the English of the upper classes (also called the Queen's English
or Public School English) of the Southern, more particularly, London area."
(René Dirven and Marjolyn Verspoor, Cognitive Exploration of Language and
Linguistics. John Benjamins, 2004).
Slang as Social Dialect:
"If your kids are unable to differentiate among a nerd ('social outcast'),
a dork ('clumsy oaf') and a geek ('a real slimeball'), you might want to establish
your expertise by trying these more recent (and in the process of being replaced)
examples of kiduage: thicko (nice play on sicko), knob, spasmo (playground life is
cruel), burgerbrain and dappo.

"Professor Danesi, who is author of Cool: The Signs and Meanings of

Adolescence, treats kids' slang as a social dialect that he calls 'pubilect.' He reports
that one 13-year-old informed him about 'a particular kind of geek known
specifically as a leem in her school who was to be viewed as particularly odious.
He was someone 'who just wastes oxygen.'"

(William Safire, "On Language: Kiduage." The New York Times Magazine, Oct.
8, 1995).

What is a Standard Language?

• The adjective standard means “recognized as correct or acceptable”.
• A standard language (also standard variety, standard dialect) is defined
either as a language variety employed by a population for public

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communications, or as the variety of language that has undergone

codification of grammar and usage.
• A standard language is a variety that in different ways is recognized as more
correct and acceptable than other varieties. In many ways, standard variety is
an equally appropriate designation.

Some Examples of Standard Langages:

• English
• Urdu
• Chinese
• Italian
• Somali

English:
In the United Kingdom, the standard language is British English, which is based
upon the language of the mediaeval court of Chancery of England and Wales.
In the late-seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Standard English became
established as the linguistic norm of the upper class, composed of
the peerage and the gentry. Socially, the accent of the spoken version of the
standard language then indicated that the speaker was a man or a woman
possessed of a good education, and thus of high social prestige. In practise,
speakers of Standard English speak the language with any accent (Australian,
Canadian, American, etc.) although it usually is associated with Received
Pronunciation, "the standard accent of English as spoken in the south of
England.

Urdu:
Pakistan's national language is Urdu, which, along with English, is also the
official language. The country also has several regional languages, including
Punjabi, Saraiki, Pashto, Sindhi, Balochi, Gujari, Kashmiri, Hindko, Brahui, Shina,
Balti, Khowar, Dhatki, Haryanvi, Marwari, Wakhi and Burushaski.

Main: Punjabi (45%), Pashto (15%), Sindhi ...

Official: English, Urdu

Signed: Pakistani Sign Language.

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Two standardised registers of the Hindustani language have legal status in

India: Standard Hindi (one of 23 co-official national languages)
and Urdu (Pakistan’s official tongue), resultantly, Hindustani often called “Hindi-
Urdu".

Chinese:
Chinese consists of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually
intelligible, usually classified into seven to ten major groups,
including Mandarin, Wu, Yue, Hakka and Min. Before the 20th century, most
Chinese spoke only their local variety. For two millennia, formal writing had been
done in Literary Chinese (or Classical Chinese), a style modelled on
the classics and far removed from any contemporary speech. As a practical
measure, officials of the late imperial dynasties carried out the administration of
the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties, known
as Guānhuà (literally "speech of officials").

Italian:

Standard Italian is derived from the Tuscan dialect, specifically from its Florentine

variety—the Florentine influence upon early Italian literature established that
dialect as base for the standard language of Italy. In particular, Italian became the
language of culture for all the people of Italy, thanks to the prestige of the
masterpieces of Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò
Machiavelli, and Francesco Guicciardini. It would later become the official
language of all the Italian states, and after the Italian unification it became
the national language of the Kingdom of Italy.[59] Modern Standard Italian's lexicon
has been deeply influenced by almost all regional languages of Italy while
its received pronunciation (known as Pronuncia Fiorentina Emendata, Amended
Florentine Pronunciation) is based on the accent of Romanesco (Roman dialect);
these are the reasons why Standard Italian differs significantly from the Tuscan
dialect.

Somali:

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In Somalia, Northern Somali (or North-Central Somali) forms the basis

for Standard Somali, particularly the Mudug dialect of the northern Darod clan.
Northern Central Somali has frequently been used by famous Somali poets as well
as the political elite, and thus has the most prestige among other Somali dialects.

Characteristics of Standard Language:

• It is the variety used by the educated people, e.g. those in the professions,
the media, and so on.
• It is variety defined in the dictionaries, grammars and usage guides.
• It is regarded as more correct and socially acceptable than other varieties.
• It enjoys greater prestige than dialects and non-standard varieties, non-
standard languages are felt to be the province of the less educated people.
• It is used in important functions in the society; in the government, the
parliament, courts, bureaucracy, education, literature, trade and industry.
• It is and idealized variety, but exists for most people as the version that is
accepted as the official language of their or country.
• In printed books and newspapers.
• Used in mass media.
• Taught in schools.
• Taught as second language or foreign language.
What is Language Standardization?
• Language standardization is the process by which conventional forms of a
language are established and maintained. Standardization may occur as a
natural development of a language in a speech community or as an effort by
members of a community to impose one dialect or variety as a standard. The
term re-standardization refers to the ways in which a language may be
reshaped by its speakers and writers.
Stages Of Language Standardization:
According to Wolff language standardization involves the following forms:
• Determination
• Codification
• Elaboration
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• Implementation
• Cultivation
Stages In Standardization Unwritten Languages:
According to Haugen (1966) there are four stages that are followed to
standardize yet unwritten languages.
• Selection of the norm
• Codification of the norm
• Elaboration of the norm
• Acceptability of the norm
The Aims Of Language Standardization:
• To contribute in the development of a nation
• To facilitate communication
• To be used as model
• To enhance unification
• To simplify teaching
• To serve a political purpose
Who can standardize a Language:
• Government and non-government organizations
• Linguists
• Politicians
• Religious institutions
• Media and the media people
• Educators
• Universities
De-Limitation of Languages:
The dictionary meaning of the term delimitation is “boundary, limit”. As there
is no limit, no boundary of the languages. There is no such "boundary".
Linguists avoid making a distinction between "language" and "dialect" because
such a distinction is meaningless.

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As an example, the German spoken in Switzerland is nearly

incomprehensible to a German living in, for example, the very north-west of
Germany; in fact, Germans in that area sometimes find the Dutch spoken just
the other side of the border to be easier to understand, even though we consider
"Dutch" and "German" to be different languages, but "Swiss German" to be a
dialect of "German".

De-limitaton of the English Language:

That is, if I'm an English speaker (an American English speaker, to be precise),
while I might have some trouble understanding some slang terms or accents of a
person speaking British English, we can communicate effectively without any
language barriers. Ditto someone who spoke Australian English, or African
American Vernacular English, or Scottish English, or Canadian English, or
Hiberno-English (Irish-English).
This isn't a huge revelation to most English speakers, but these are all distinct
dialects that, due to pop culture being what it is, have cross-pollinated
a lot where, in the past, geographical boundaries would have kept the dialects
from each other.
De-limitation of Spanish and French:
Now, if you take Spanish and French, two languages in the same language
family... there are definite similarities, but if I go up to a Spanish-speaking
person, and ask Excusez-moi, pouvez-vous s'il vous plaît me diriger vers la
bibliothèque la plus proche? they might get that I'm asking something about a
library, because bibliothèque is similar to the Spanish biblioteca, but the rest of
that sentence is nothing like the Spanish equivalent Disculpe, ¿puede dirigirme
a la biblioteca más cercana?.
Model of De-limitation :
the modal De-limitation of a field of study therefore appears to be a fairly
straightforward distinction. What has not always been easy is, first, to relate this
foundational insight to the way that disciplines are actually organised within
academic institutions such as universities, and, second, to clarify that science
indeed studies entities (subjects and objects), but then considered from a
disciplinary angle or perspective, in the sense intended by Strauss (2009).
Moreover, one must not misunderstand this statement to mean that the critically
important question is not “what object” is being studied. Objects, events,

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phenomena and states are indeed being analysed in the special sciences. The philo
-sophical argument here is aimed against those who think they can adequately
define the field of study with reference to an object,phenomenon, process, event or
state. I shall return below to a morethorough consideration of this additional
difficulty, and suggest what might perhaps be an additional, but nevertheless
appropriate way of communicating the distinctions at play, and do so even more
clearly.
The Delimitation Of Languages and Mutual Intelligibility:

Recently, our University changed the policies and guidelines and added a class to
the module of sociolinguistics that is 50% of the whole grade, and in which the
student is supposed to bring the information and present in front of the classroom
and be graded on it.
The title of this post is my actual presentation. I read some books' extracts that are
available at our library, books by Fishman and Hudson, and the second part of the
whole thing is understood, but what I seem to never stumble upon is
the delimitation of languages; all I find is this:
"The delimitation of language and dialect:
1. Size
2. Prestige
3. Mutual intelligibility"

Conclusion:

Standard language is an official form of language. This kind of form language are
always artificially modified at least to some degree. Standard language is the way
to use the language in official and formal situation as Newspaper and public
speakers. This core ideas of standard language is to codified a public, particularly
written language so that it is accessible to every speaker of the language to be used
in the education, media and science.
Language is used to inform others, to ask them to do certain things and to express
feelings, moods, ideas, information, experiences etc. Language undoubtedly has a
very important social purpose because it is mainly used for linguistic
communication.
The authorities that can be standardised the languages are “Government and non-
government organizations, Linguists, Politicians,Religious institutions, Media and
the media people,Educators ,Universities.

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So the language is important in our life to communicate and it is used in every way
of life.z

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