The Relationship between Language and Society
Language is not just the words said by people every day, it is both a scientific system and a social activity. It is the major bond of people’s communication in society.
Although 2 people from the same place, their languages aren’t the same. One’s language reflects one’s social statues and his or her speech community. A speech community is a group of people who share a set of norms, rules and expectation regarding the use of language. Investigating language from this perspective is known as sociolinguistics. It deals with the inter relationship between language and society. Language can be regarded as a social activity. The internal authority refers to the acquisition of a language or dialect by an individual when mixed with his fellow speakers of the same speech community. External authority means that society, through language teachers, institutions, mass media, textbooks and dictionaries, imparts the knowledge of language to learners at schools or in controlled environment.
Language as a social activity has its own planning. Language planning refers to the systematic attempt to solve communication problems by studying the various language or dialects people use in the same one community and by developing a realistic policy concerning the proper selection and appropriate use of these languages and varieties. A standers language is usually a prestige dialect/language widely accepted. A national language is the language to be used nationwide in a newly
liberated country or a multinational one. An official language, similar to a standard or national language, is used in formal, official situations.
As a major bond of people’s communication, language is closely connected with society. Many factors lead to the differences in language. Even though from the same social class, people’s language also have their own characters for the differences in ages and sex. For example, in some cultures, there are much more marked differences between male and female speech. Female speakers tend to use more prestigious forms than male speakers with the same general social background. That is, forms such as I done it, it growed and he ain’t can be found more often in the speech of males, and I did it, it grew and he isn’t in the speech of females. The different ethnic backgrounds also cause the variation of language. When a group of people have low social statues, their language may be regarded as the bad language. For example, when black people use the double negative constructions knowing nothing , they are often criticized.
Differences in society and location may form one’s language characters. At the same time , the situation of using the language also cause the variation of language. Different situation requires us use different writing style and forms different register, such as the words used only for a special group of people, which known as jargon. All dialects and registers are regarded, or ought to be deemed, as grammatically welled-formed by their speech communities, i.e. each community has its own sub-grammar. But a particular variety or language sometimes enjoys an established reputation in society. The relative reputation of a variety of speech depends upon the social and economic status of professions and regions that use it.
Code-switching means that a speaker does not have to follow a certain variety or dialect all the time but that he can turn from the standard language to the sub-standard one, from one dialect to another, from one accent to another, from formality to informality, from politeness to impoliteness, even from one language to another in a bilingual or multilingual community.
As a member in society, it is important for us to know situation of using a language. When we contact with others, we must know clearly our role, such as father, son, husband or boss, only in this way , can we perform well in our work and daily life.
(完整版)TheRelationshipbetweenLanguageandSociety语言和社会的关系
