SOSIOLINGUISTIC

Sociolinguistics

National language and language planning

By :

                           

FourthGroup / PBI 3 B

NelaFitria                                             2313.050

Nisa Amelia                                         2313.051

Nova Anggrainy                                  2313.053

Lecture Consellor :

Irwandi, S.S.,M.Pd.

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTEMENT

SEKOLAH TINGGI AGAMA ISLAM NEGERI ( STAIN )

SJECH M.DJAMIL DJAMBEK BUKITTINGGI

2014/2015

Chapter I

Preface

A.    Background

There are many different social reason for choosing a particular code or variety in a multilingual community. A choice is there for those who speak lesserused a languange in a community where the people in power used a word language such as English? How do the economic and political factors influence language choice? The various constrains or language choice face by different communities are explore, as well as the potential a longer term affects of these choice a language shift or language death.

           

Formula of Problem

1.      What isPlanning National and Official Language?

2.      What is for a National Official Language?

3.      What is Developing a Standard Variety in Norway?

4.      What is the Linguist’s Role in Language Planning?

B.     Purpose Of The Complilation

1.      To knowNational and Official Language.

2.      To know Planning for a National Official Language.

3.      To knowDeveloping a Standard Variety in Norway.

4.      To know the Linguist’s Role in Language Planning.

ii

Chapter 1

National Language and Language Planning

A.    National and Official Languages

In sociolinguistics the distinction between a national language and an official language is generally made along the affective -referential dimension, or more precisely in this context, the ideological -instrumental dimension. A national language is the language of a political, cultural and social unit. It is generally developed and used as a symbol of national unity. Its functions are to identify the nation and unite the people of the nation. An official language, by contrast, is simply a language, which may be used for government business. Its function is primary utilitarian rather than symbolic. It is possible, of course, for one language to serve both functions.

In multilingual countries, the government often declares a particular language to be national language for political reasons. The declarations may be a step in the process of asserting the nationhood of a newly independent or established nation, for instance, as in the case of Swahili in Tanzania, Hebrew in Israel, Malay in Malaysia, and Indonesia. Where this national language cannot serve all the internal and external functions of government business, however, it has then been necessary to identify one or more official languages as well. So French is an official language in many countries, such as Zaire, the Ivory Coast and Chad, where France war previously a colonial power, and Arabic is an official language in Israel alongside Hebrew.

In many countries there is no one languages which can adequately serve as the only official language. A world languages such as English is often used as an official language for external official functions, alongside a local language which serves internal official functions (e.g. Philippines, Tanzania, Paraguay). In some countries, giving more than one language the status of official languages is a recognition of the linguistic and culture diversity within the country (e.g. India, Papua New Guinea, Singapore).

a.       Official Status and Minority Languages

Official status with an indigenous language such as Malay in Malaysia, Swahili in Tanzania and Gilbertese in Kiribati. But interestingly, English is not legally an official language of England, the United States of America, or New Zealand. In these countries it has not: been considered necessary to legislate that the language of the majority is an official language. In New Zealand, ironically,although English is in fact the official language of government and education, Maori is the only language which has been legally declared an official language.Maori was declared an official language of New Zealand in 1987. Maori activists campaigned for many years for the right to use Maori in official and administrative contexts. Most used peaceful means but minority groups have often taken very radical action in order to get official recognition for their languages. Many minority would like to gain official status for their languages, but because cost in terms of providing services and information in all official language are considerable and most government count them carefully.

b.      What Price a National Languages?

  Many countries have regarded development of a single national language as a way of symbolising the unity of a nation. ‘One nation, one language’ has been a popular and affective slogan. In earlier centuries the national language of a political entity often emerged naturally and relatively unselfconsciously over a period of time.

B.     Planning for a National Official  Language

a.       Forms, Functions, and Attitudes

There are generally four interrelated steps:

1.      Selection: choosing the variety or code to be  developed

2.      Codification: standardizing its structural or linguistic  features this kind of linguistic processing is sometimes called corpus planning

3.      Elaboration: extending its functions for use in new domains, this involves developing the necessary linguistic resources for handling new concept and contexts

4.      Securing its acceptance: the status of the new variety in important and so people’s attitudes to the variety being developed must be considered, step may be needed to enhance is prestige, for instance and so encourage people to develop pride in the language or loyalty towards it.

b.      Tanzania

1.      Selecting the code

Tanzania face the dilemma of which language to choose  as its  official national language, choosing  one language from over a  hundred  indigenous language, each associated with a particular tribe, would have simply provoked discontent, if not intertribal warfare.

2.      Codifying and elaborating Swahili

  The fact that it was being used in primary education and for administration meant standardization was essential. Its codification involved developing a standard spelling system, describing the grammar of variety selected as the new standard, and  writing the dictionary to record its vocabulary. In 1961, Swahili was used in more and more context foe education, administration, politics and law. Its vocabulary was expanded to meet the demands of new context by borrowing freely from Arabic and English as appropriate.

c.       Attitudes to Swahili

The role of Swahili, in unifying the people in Tanzania to work for independence guaranteed it prestige and positive attitudes. The story of the acceptance of Swahili as nations language of Tanzania its therefore an interesting one, Swahili as serves as lingua franca in a county with hundreds of different tribal vernaculars.  It provides an economical solution to the problem of which language to use for local administrations and primary education, it provides a culturally acceptable symbol of unity.  Linguistic diversity   can seem problematic to those working for political unification, it is potentially divisive, Swahili has provided a very convenient compromise in Tanzania. But finally it is important to remember that the story of how Swahili became the national language of Tanzania might be told rather differently by a group whose tribal vernacular was a competing lingua franca.

C.     Developing a Standard Variety in Norway

 In 1814 Norway became independent after being ruled by Denmark for four centuries. The government was then faced with a diglossia situation with Danish as the H language and a range of Norwegian dialect as the L varieties, but no standard Norwegian language. Upper-class people spoke Danish with Norwegian pronunciation in formal situation, and a compromise between that and local Norwegian dialect in informal contexts. Lower-class and rural people used Norwegian dialect, with some Danish influence evident in the speech of townspeople.

1.       Selecting Code

             Essentially the Norwegian government had the choice of developing a national language from standard Danish or from local Norwegian dialect. choosing a variety from among the regional Norwegian dialects raised problems relating to the form and new functions required of a standard language. Any dialect selected would need codifying and would require extensive functional elaboration. And the problem of which dialect to select raised obvious headaches in relation to people’s attitudes.  Two different attempt were made to solve the problem. One attempt involved a variety based on Danish with some modification in the direction of Norwegian pronunciation. The eventually developed into Bokmal. The other approach created a new Norwegian standard by drawing on a range of rural Norwegian dialects. It was first called Lansmal (language of the country), and later Nynorsk (new Norwegian).

2.       Codification and Elaboration

The Nynorsk solution, which involved amalgamating features from several dialects, is the most intriguing from a linguistic point of view. Rural dialects resource also solved the problem of functional elaboration, or extending the use of Norwegian into domains where Danish had previously been the only appropriate code. New words were needed for many concepts which had previously been discussed only in Danish so Aasen used dialect forms as his main resource for creating new words.

  Since the late nineteenth century then, Norway has had these two competing official written varieties. Language planners have been trying to bring the two closer together (into samnorsk or ‘united Norwegian’) through continued codification efforts. the two varieties are now very close. They are certainly mutually comprehensible. Their sound systems are identical (that is, they have the same number of contrasting sounds), though particular pronunciation differ. Their syntax is almost identical. The differ mainly in the  form of particular words (e.gheimligevsheimlege), and in spelling (e.gfravsfra). So the arguments are essentially about the appropriate form of a written Norwegian standard.

3.       Acepptance

Though Norwegian nationalists enthusiastically welcomed Nynorsk, the Norwegian-based variety, and rejected the modified Danish alternative, the influential educated city-dwellers did not. They regarded a standard based on rural dialects as rustic and uncivilized. If Nynorsk was to be accepted at all, government support was essential. And it was also necessary to persuade influential public figures to endorse and to use the new variety in public contexts.  In some countries a standard dialect of a language, suitable for official uses and acceptable as a national symbol, has emerged naturally, with little or no help from government agencies or linguistic experts. In Norway, as in many more recently developing nations, thing have not been so simple. It has been necessary to make deliberate choices, to accelerate the process of language standardization, and to legislate on the status of particular varieties. It is clear that language planning is a fascinating mixture of political and social considerations, as well as linguistic ones.

D.    The linguist’s role in language planning

Language academics have for centuries, but it is also true that individuals have often had an enormous influence on language planning, and especially on the standardisation or codification of a particular variety.

1.      Codification of orthography

A century earlier in New Zealand, Thomas kendall, the first resident missionary, produced a rough attempt at an orthography for maori in 1815.Missionaries were often good linguists who produced a spelling system which closely reflected the pronunciation of the language. Inevitably there were problems, however. In samoan, for instance, the sound [ɧ] represent in English as ngwas accurately identified as a single sound rather than two separable sound.Samoan therefore write laga (‘weave’) but say something which sounds to English ears like langa. The write galu but say something which sounds like ngalu. Consequently English speakers generally mispronounce words likemogamoga when they first see samoan written down. In maori, however, where [ɧ] also occurs, this single sound was written as two letters,ng. as a result maori words like tangi (‘weep’) which are almost identical in pronunciation to samoantagi, are nevertheless spelt differently. However, the samoanorhography is strictly a more precise reflection of its sound system-one symbol is used for one sound. This illustrate the influence a missionary could have on the codification process.A recent problem in standardizing the spelling of maori is the choice between a macron over the top of a vowel letter marking its length ā vs a double vowel, aa.

2.      Developing vocabulary

A specific example of the kinds of choice which faced the maori language commission in this area is illustrated by the problem of providing maori names for government institution, including themselves. They were called at first tekōmihanamote reo māori. Te reo is a widely known maori phrase meaning ‘the language’, but the title also includes the word komihana which simply borrows the English word commission and adapts it to the maori sound system. The transliteration is quite predictable, with k substituting for c, h substituting for s (since maori has no [s] and [h] is the usual fricative substitution), and a final vowel, since maori is language in which all syllables end in vowels. The commission changed its name , however, to tetaurawhiri o te reo māori (literally ‘the rope binding together (the many strands of) the maori language’ ). This is a maori name for the commission- not one borrowed from English. The commissioners felt that such a label had greater linguistic and cultural integrity, and this provides an insight into how they see their task. In advising others on usage, they are often faced with the dilemma of which of these options to recommend:

a.       A word borrowed from English

b.      An equivalent maori word which is perhaps not well known or with a slightly different meaning which could be adapted.

c.       A word newly created from maori resource.

The commission takes the view that its task is not simply a mechanical one of making maori a suitable instrument for official communication. It recognizes another more symbolic and less instrumental dimension to its task. Consequently where possible the commission uses native resource, trying to ‘remain true to the spirit of the language’: but of course this is not always achievable.Coining words is another solution. The term reo irirangi literally ‘spirit voice’ uses native resource to label a modern object, the radio.

3.      Acceptance

The maori language commission can recommend that certain linguistic forms be adopted, just as the Norwegian government regularly publishes its lists of approved words. But people determine have to use them. What people accept and use will finally determine whether a proposed form succeeds or not, and this applies as much to an individual word as to a new code selected to serve as a standard official language.Nevertheless it is generally true that government support plays an important part in gaining acceptance for a code. In China, Putonghua (or mandarin) has been promoted by the chinese government as the standard variety of chinese since 1949 when the people’s republic was established. The government’s unwavering attitude and deliberate efforts to promote its use in a wide variety of contexts have led to its gaining wide acceptance among the 1100 million or so chinese who make up the republic. Putonghua uses the pronunciation Northern Chinese dialects, and the vocabulary of modern colloquial Chinese. These choice have also helped people to accept it. A variety begins which some status always has a useful headstart.

Chapter III

Conclusion

Language planning is defined most simply as deliberate language change. This covers a wide variety of activities including the introduction of the new labels for fruit, the reform of spelling systems, and the provision of advice on non-sexist terminology such as Ms and chairperson. It also includes the development of national language and standard dialect.

Language planner generally focus on specific language problems. Their role is to developed a policy of language use which will solve the problems appropriately in particular speech communities. A few specific cases of language planning in order to exemplify some of the issues which have to be resolved by language planners, and some of the ways which have been used to resolved them. We have seen for instance that language planners may need to developed a variety upwards into new H domains, as with Swahili, tokpisin and Indonesian, and Nynorsk, or alternatively downwards into new L domains as in the case of Hebrew, Bokmāl, and to some extent Mandarin Chinese.

This chapter has been concerned mainly with the language policies of countries and states rather than the language behaviour of individuals. Yet it has been clear that ultimately it is the patterns of linguistic behaviour of individual language users that determine whether a national policy will succeed or not. If people do not use an official language then it will simply wither away. If recommendations about approved or preferred spellings are ignore, they will become defunct. The reasons why people adopt one form and not another are complicated. Language expresses identity and membership of particular groups as well as notionhood.

Multilingualism highlight linguistic diversity and makes it easier to perceive, as we have been in the first  part of this book. But it is clear that there is rich linguistic diversity within languages too. Members of monolingual speech communities use this diversity to signal their attitudes and allegiances, just as multilingual people use their different languages for these purposes. Kalala signaled his ethnic group membership when he used Shi. He signaled his friendship group and age when he used Indoubil. His variety of Swahili reflected his regional and social background.