Language

1
Language Identity in Multilingual Environments

• Adapted from Representations Self-Representation
  s
• Laura A. Janda

2
Overview

• National identity linked to language
• History of nationalism
• What is a language?
• Why is it a core factor of identity?
• How many languages countries are there?
• Matrix vs. embedded languages
• Colonialism post-colonialism
• Group vs. individual interests

3
Nation, Nationality, and Nationalism

• Are innovative, recent concepts, artifacts
  created in late 18th century in W. Europe
  (Anderson 1991)
• Prior to the advent of nationality, and in the
  absence of technologies such as print, railroads,
  automobiles, how were human societies organized?

4
Local communities
Dynastic realms
Religious communities
5

• Local Community
• Defined by place people who are close enough
  for face-to-face contact
• Can be multilingual
• Religious Community
• Defined by faith, but could potentially reach all
  mankind
• Often used a sacred language, superior to
  vernaculars
• Dynastic Realm
• Defined by loyalty to royal leader
• Eventually took on nationalist features in W.
  Europe

6
Nationalism A product of W. European Romanticism

• Three German philosophers

Johann Gottfried Herder
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
7
Nationalism A product of W. European Romanticism

• Three German philosophers

Johann Gottfried Herder
Has a nation anything more precious than the
language of its fathers?
8
Nationalism A product of W. European Romanticism

• Three German philosophers

Wilhelm von Humboldt
Language is the spiritual exhalation of the
nation
9
Nationalism A product of West European
Romanticism

• Three German philosophers

Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Men are formed by language far more than
language is formed by men German nation and
language are superior
10
A modern definition of nation (Anderson 1991)

• An imagined political community that is both
  limited and sovereign
• Imagined because members cannot all know each
  other
• Limited because no nation encompasses all of
  mankind, nor even aspires to
• Sovereign because nations came into being during
  Enlightenment and strive for freedom
• Community because a nation is conceived of as a
  horizontal comradeship of equals

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What do the people of a nation share?

• A name
• A language
• A territory
• Myths memories
• A culture
• An economy
• Rights and duties

An ideal nation-state assumes ONE nation
ONE state
Q Which are necessary? Which are un/chosen?
Which are objective/discrete?
12
Language (Andersen 1991)

• A language is a powerful means to root a nation
  to a past because a language looms up from the
  past without any birthdate of its own, and
  suggests a community between a contemporary
  society and its dead ancestors
• Poetry, songs, national anthems create a
  simultaneous community of selfless voices

13
Why is language a key factor in identity? (Janda
forthc)

• Vehicle for culture (both C and c)
• Vehicle of transmission for wordless media
  (dance, cuisine, handicrafts)
• If language is lost, access to culture is also
  lost
• Cultural concepts are embedded in language
• Language and culture co-evolve, are continuously
  tailored to each other

14
What is a language? A dialect?

• Mutual comprehensibility?
• This works for some situations, but are there
  counterexamples?
• It doesnt work for
• German (incomprehensible dialects)
• Norwegian,Swedish,Danish (comprehensible)
• Slavic (both situations)
• Chinese

Q Whats going on?
A IMAGINATION
15
Problem with the ideal nation-state

• Q How many countries are there in the world?
• A 192.
• Q How many languages are there in the world?
• A At least 6912.

16
Why are languages important? (Harrison 2006,
Janda forthc)

• They contain information about culture and human
  interaction
• They contain information about sustainable use of
  niche environments
• They contain information about the human brain

Languages are repositories of human knowledge
Most languages of the world belong to indigenous
nations
Most of human knowledge is in the hands/mouths of
indigenous peoples
17
Matrix and Embedded Languages

• Matrix a language that is connected to
  political structures, that serves purposes of
  national or regional communication
• Embedded a language that is used within a
  single ethnic group, that is under pressure from
  a matrix language

Nearly all indigenous languages are embedded
languages
18
Colonialism Post-Colonialism

• Colonialism has
• Created new boundaries and identities that
  persist in post-colonial era
• Treated indigenous peoples and their languages in
  different ways
• Sometimes shifted the identity of languages as
  matrix vs. embedded

19
Group vs. Individual Interests for Indigenous
Languages

• Group Interests
• Preserve indigenous language
• Have monolingual speakers, transmission to young
  generation
• Have education in native language
• Individual Interests
• Social and economic upward mobility
• Fluency in (one or more) matrix language

20
Language and Identity

• Culture embodies those moral, ethical and
  aesthetic values, the set of spiritual
  eyeglasses, through which (people) come to view
  themselves and their place in the universe.
  Values are the basis of a peoples identity,
  their sense of particularity as members of the
  human race (Ngugi wa Thiongo).

21
The story so far

• We classify people in terms of general
  person-types
• E.g. Man, Brit, Londoner, Educated
• We apply the same classification to ourselves as
  we search for a social identity.
• Our identity varies according to
• Who we are interacting with
• The situation (e.g. formal/casual)

22
Who am I?
23
Variable is a

• Membership of a category is usually a matter of
  degree,
• E.g. a chair is a better item of furniture than
  an ash-tray.
• Similarly for our social self-classification,
• E.g. my daughters are better Londoners than I
  am.
• Degrees of membership can be shown as percentages.

24
Language

• We signal our social identity in various ways,
  e.g. clothing, behaviour.
• Perhaps the most important signal is language
  because
• Its learned socially.
• It allows many distinctions (e.g. one per
  phoneme).
• Each token (instance) can be chosen
  independently, which allows fine-tuning.

25
Acts of identity

• Every word is an act of identity in a
  multi-dimensional social space (Le Page).
• This is different from (simple) accommodation
  because were following
• Abstract social prototypes (person-types)
• Not the people in front of us.
• Acts of identity fine-tune our face ( public
  self-image)

26
Who are they?
27
New York

• How do you study the language of a complex city
  such as New York?
• William Labovs answer (PhD, 1962-66) study
  sociolinguistic variables.
• E.g. (r) r Ø (e.g. car k?r k?)
• He tested this idea with a brilliant pilot study.

28
Background

• Labov (a New Yorker) observed that (r) was
  variable.
• The old standard in NYC was (r)Ø.
• The new educated standard seemed to be (r)r
• For example,

29
Hypotheses

• Use of (r) varies with social class and age.
• Maybe sex matters too.
• And style (attention to language).
• And phonological context (before C or word-final).

30
Method speaker selection

• Select an easy measure of education
• wealth.
• Select places which cater for people of differing
  wealth
• department stores.
• Three stores qualified
• Saks for the very rich
• Macys for the comfortably off
• Klein for the poor

31
Method choice of words

• Select some words containing (r), e.g. fourth,
  floor.
• Get assistants in those places to say those
  words
• Ask where to find some item known to be on the
  fourth floor.
• Then pretend not to have heard the answer.
• Record their answers out of sight.

32
Results

• In this way he collected data from 264 subjects
  in just over six hours.
• He counted (r)r as of all (r).
• He distinguished
• Saks, Macys, Klein
• First and second utterance
• Fourth and floor

33
(r) by store, word and utterance
34
So

• Use of (r) does indeed vary with
• Education/wealth/social class
• Evidence differences among stores
• Style/attention to language
• Evidence first versus second utterance
• But less so in Saks
• Phonological context
• Evidence fourth versus floor

35
Main findings

• Different sociolinguistic variables are sensitive
  to different social variables.
• Variable scores show variable allegiance to
  alternative person-types.
• Education is always important
• education/social class is always relevant (in
  America as much as in UK).
• Women are always more standard than men
  (provided they have access to education).
• Formal speech (e.g. reading lists) is always more
  standard (as defined by education) than casual.

36
Bibliography

• Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities.
  London/New York Verso.
• Edwards, John. 1985. Language, Society and
  Identity. Oxford Blackwell.
• Harrison, K. David. 2006. When Languages Die The
  extinction of the world's languagesand the
  erosion of human knowledge. Oxford Oxford
  University Press.
• Janda, Laura A. Forthcoming. "From Cognitive
  Linguistics to Cultural Linguistics", to appear
  in Slovo a smysl/Word and Sense.