Module : Sociolinguistics

Lecturer : Dr Moulaye KONE

Level : Licence 3 LMD

Content

1. Definition and Concept of Sociolinguistics..................................................................................2

1.1. Definition.................................................................................................................................2
1.2. Background Concept of sociolinguistics...............................................................................2
1.3. Social Factors influencing the communication....................................................................3
2. Language versus Dialect, Accent, Idiolect....................................................................................3
2.1. Language versus Dialect........................................................................................................3
2.2. Dialect vs Accent.....................................................................................................................5
I. Sociolinguistic Situation of Mali....................................................................................................6
3. Diglossia...........................................................................................................................................7
3.1. Di-Tri or Polyglossia Situation of African countries...........................................................7
4. Bilingualism.....................................................................................................................................8
I.1. Overview of Bilingualism and Multilingualism...................................................................8
4.1. Sequential and Simultaneous Bi/multilingualism................................................................8
4.2. Causes to Bi-Multilingualism.............................................................................................9
5. Code-switching/ Mixing.................................................................................................................9
6. Creoles and Pidgins......................................................................................................................10
6.1. Pidgins....................................................................................................................................10
6.2. Creoles...................................................................................................................................10

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 1. Definition and Concept of Sociolinguistics
1.1. Definition
The most appropriate definition of modern sociolinguistics is a dual one: the study of
language in its social contexts and the study of social life through linguistics. This reflects
the vast array of topics and methods open to analysis in this wide and interdisciplinary field.
Sociolinguistics clearly lies at the intersection of linguistics and sociology, but also,
nowadays, social theory, social psychology, cultural criticism, anthropology and human
communication studies, Malmkjær (2002).

 Some Of The Main Questions Asked By Sociolinguists are:

 How are forms of speech and patterns of communication distributed across time and
space?
 How do individuals and social groups define themselves in and through language?
 How do communities differ in the ‘ways of speaking’ they have adopted?
 What are typical patterns in multilingual people’s use of languages?
 How is language involved in social conflicts and tensions?
 Do our attitudes to language reflect and perpetuate social divisions and discrimination,
and could a better understanding of language in society alleviate these problems?
 What are the most efficient, and defensible, ways of collecting language data?
 What are the implications of qualitative and quantitative methods of linguistic
research?
 What are the relationships between researchers, their informants and language data?

This course, we are indicating some of the most general answers that sociolinguists have
provided to these questions.

1.2. Background Concept of sociolinguistics

William Labov is the father of sociolinguistics; he pioneered ways of investigating

speech variation within speech communities, and of doing so through highly systematic
survey techniques, mainly in urban settings. Labov’s ‘department stores’ study, part of an
extended program of study in the eastern USA (Labov 1966, 1972a, 1972b), was highly
influential and it set in motion a wave of quantitative sociolinguistic research.

The procedure used was rapid and anonymous interviewing, simply repeating the same
request for information to 264 different sales assistants spread across three well-known New
York City department stores: Excuse me, where are the women ’s shoes? Labov then noted

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the occasions when store assistants used or did not use /r/ in their pronunciation of fourth and
floor (which was, conveniently, where the women’s shoes were to be found). By aggregating
these results, he was able to show that assistants in higher-status stores showed higher
frequencies of /r/ in their speech, and also that all assistants used more /r/ when speaking
more carefully.

In the late 1960s, therefore, /r/ could be called a ‘socially diagnostic ’ feature in the New
York City speech community. It was a classic sociolinguistic variable, which marked social
and situational differences.
Labov highlighted how this sort of survey and the far more elaborate and extensive surveys
which followed could track dialectal sound changes in speech communities, identifying which
social groups were leading these changes and which were following them (Labov 1994;
Wolfram and Schiffrin 1989).

1.3. The Social Factors impacting the communication

Apart from Labov’s research which showed that social classes influence the communication,
there are other factors doing so, such as:

 The social background between the speaker and the listener (ethnical background)

 The degree of integration and relationship between the speaker and the listener
(friends, student-teacher, grandmother-grandson)

 The context of the interaction (in classroom, in the mosque, church, market)

2. Language versus Dialect, Accent, Idiolect

2.1. Language versus Dialect

We need to clear cut between the term’s ‘language’ and ‘dialect”.

 In sociolinguistics, Language: is considered as a collection of its different varieties

(Dialects). Example: Bamanankan is the language, but the Bamanankan dialects are
spoken in Mali, RCI, B Faso, Guinea C, Senegal, Gambia.

 On the other hand, a Dialect: is considered as a subdivision (a variety) of a language.

Example, the Bamanankan spoken in Mali is one dialect of the Bamanankan language
spoken.

Hence, the term ‘language’ is the central object of linguistics, but it covers several different
concepts which need to be carefully distinguished. So, the question of language and dialect
definition and differentiation has always been problematic, and many researchers have

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tried to answer it by giving explanations (Deumert 2011). The question is whether a
particular form of speech should be classified as a separate language or dialect, see
below (Mutual Intelligibility and Language Delimitation).

2.2. Mutual Intelligibility and Language Delimitation

The famous hypothetical criteria of Mutual Intelligibility:

1. If speakers of dialects A and B can understand each other then, dialects A, B, are
varieties of the same language.

2. If speakers of dialects A and D are unable to comprehend each other, then dialects A
and D do not belong to the same language.

Many researchers and research groups have described the criteria used to distinguish
language from dialect. Hence, as the research objectives are not the same, due to the nature
of language and some perspectives brought to their studies, a number of definitions prove
controversial. The definition of language one chooses depends on the purpose one has in
identifying a language. Some base their definition on purely linguistic grounds. Others
recognize that social, cultural, or political factors must also be taken into account (Simon and
Gordon 2004:2). With this regard, it is important to realize first, that everybody speaks some
dialect or other. It is not possible for someone to speak a language without using some of
its dialects (Stockwell, 2007). By this sociolinguistic view point (Stockwell, 2007) is
attempting to clarify the difference between the two terms.
In fact, some sociolinguists might say that dialects exist but language is merely an
abstract term for a collection of dialects. So, in non-formal domains people think that, the
term dialect is another variant of speech different from what they currently use and which is
not well organized and not accepted in the academic field. Besides all, there is also a standard
language which is a special dialect of some language. It is the one, which is codified
(standardized in dictionaries and published grammars, and used in the education system and
for prestigious texts) and elaborated for use in a wide variety of domains, (Kone, 2020).

 Some Failures Of Mutual Intelligibility In Language Delimitation

Still in the sociolinguistic context, the term criteria of language delimitation such as
structural similarity and mutual intelligibility have been useful at times by many
sociolinguists. However, they are only of limited use in the case of dialect chains or
continuum, where adjacent varieties are similar and mutually understandable, but varieties at
the extremes of the chain are not. A well-known example of this is the Mamara–Syénara/

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Germany-Dutch dialect continuum (Deumert 2011:261). In other words, the dialect
continuum complicates most of the time language delimitation, when based on the
hypothetical language with dialects A, B, C and D. For example, when speakers of near
dialects A and B can understand each other, but speakers of dialects A and D at either end of
the continuum are unable to comprehend each other (Canvin 1996:15; Skutnabb 2000; and
canvin 2003:5).
There, are also political and geographical boundaries which break down the criteria of
structural affinity or mutual intelligibility. Thus, many of the so-called dialects of Chinese
such as Pekingese (Mandarin), Cantonese, and Wu (Shanghai), are mutually unintelligible in
their spoken form. By the same token, Swedes and Norwegians are generally able to
understand each other though their distinct cultures and literatures warrant their designation as
different languages. Hence, the term ‘dialect’ being used to refer to a subordinate variety of a
language, then the English language has many dialects. For instance, the Yorkshire dialect in
England is a ‘regional variety associated with a place or the Bavarian dialect in Germany. The
variants of a language are different from one another, if both dialects are geographically
distant from one another (Romaine, 1994, 2000).At first glance, the distinction between
“dialect” and “language” seems fairly straightforward dialects are subdivisions of language.
However, on closer inspection, the boundary between dialects and languages may become
blurry as simple criteria such as structural affinity or mutual intelligibility break down
(Wolfram, 1998: 2) in (Kone, 2020).

2.3. Dialect vs Accent

In the formal domain such as in linguistics, Stockwell (2007) mentioned that British usage
for the term dialect includes grammatical features and vocabularies, while the phonological
feature (pronunciation) are reserved for the accent.
So, dialect is a matter of grammatical features, vocabularies and phonological features
while accent is only a matter of only phonological features.
Idiolect: is just one individual way of speaking within a speech community.
2.4. Sociolinguistic Situation of Mali
The concept of nation and nation state is only a few hundred years old and has become
worldwide applicable only in the wake of decolonization and modernization from the middle
of the 20th century, (Marti, 2005:22) in (Kone , 2020). The idea that political units and states
should be inhabited by a culturally and linguistically homogenous population is an idea that is
developed during the French Revolution (ibid.). The argument often put forward by Isayev

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(1977) is that the powerful countries in Europe, Asia and America while forging their political
unification were also developing a unifying ideology wrapped in one and a single
language. In addition, Bamgbose (I991) summarizes the argument in the following terms:
“language is a nation’s most obvious and most important attribute. There is no such thing as a
nation without a common linguistic basis. So, the Europeans system promotes one nation
one language.
Contrary to the European system, the African countries promote linguistic diversity since
independence, hence Sow (1971) in Ouedraogo (2000: 45) argues that all African countries
are made of several nationals with their specific languages and cultural identities, the “one
nation, one language” policy cannot apply to the African countries. There are obviously
African indigenous languages spoken by millions of people within and beyond the boundaries
of countries such as Swahili in East Africa, Haoussa, Fulfulde, Bamanankan/Jula, Akan-Twi,
Moore, Wolof, etc., in West Africa.
As the rest of African countries, Mali also is in favour of giving more values to the
national languages. However, in Mali there are no clear boundaries between ethnic groups
due to the mixing and assimilation of populations. There have been three population censuses
in Mali (1976, 1987, and 1998). These censes revealed that there is no one-to-one link
between ethnicity and language, because it is not necessary that a person’s ethnic group is
identified by the language he speaks (skattum, 2008).
In addition to the above factors, as in multilingual countries the language and dialect
delimitation causes problem. As a result, based on various principles, the estimate number of
Mali’s languages varies from one researcher to another.
Hence, the Ethnologue (Gordon, 2005) identified 50 languages, the Ethnologue
(2009) identified 55 languages and more recent study of Ethnologue (Simons, Charles: 2017)
recorded ‘between 50 and 66 languages. The Africanist Maho (2001) estimated 27
languages; also, Canut and Dumestre (1993) and Calvet (1992), all have a number of around
20 languages. These estimates confirm the linguistic diversity of the country, and for more
clarification these languages are going to be detailed below in accordance to their linguistic
families below.

3. Diglossia
Charles Ferguson is the father of diglossia. Diglossia is a linguistic phenomenon in
which two distinct varieties of the same language co-exist and are used by a community or
population in different social contexts or for different purposes. Typically, one variety, known
as the "high" or "prestige" variety, is used in formal, official, or educated contexts such as

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literature, education, formal speeches, and writing. The other variety, known as the "low" or
"vernacular" variety, is used in informal, everyday communication among the community's
members (Ferguson 1962).
Ferguson found three types of diglossia:
1. Standard Diglossia:
 In standard diglossia, the community or society has two distinct varieties of the
same language, just like in regular diglossia. However, one of these varieties
is typically a prestigious, standardized form used in formal contexts, such as
education, literature, media, and official communication (academic French in
RCI).
 The other variety, which is often a spoken dialect or colloquial form, is used in
informal, everyday communication among community members, (like street
French in RCI)
There is a clear division of functions and domains between the two varieties, with
the high variety reserved for formal settings and the low variety used for informal
interactions.
2. Total Diglossia:
 Total diglossia, on the other hand, is a more extreme form of diglossia. In this
situation, the two varieties are so distinct that they are effectively treated as
separate languages rather than different registers or dialects.
 The high variety is typically a prestigious literary or classical language
(French in Mali), while the low variety is the spoken language used for
everyday communication (National langues).
 Total diglossia can result in a significant linguistic gap between the high and
low varieties, with differences in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation so
substantial that speakers may struggle to understand the high variety without
specialized education or training.

3. Partial Diglossia:

 It is a linguistic situation where two varieties of a language coexist within a

society, but unlike total diglossia.

 There is a high or prestige variety is used in formal contexts, such as education,

literature, and official documents. This high variety is typically associated with
prestige and is used in situations that require a more formal or standardized form

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 of the language.

 There is also a low variety, which is used in informal, everyday communication

among the community's members. This low variety may be spoken dialects,
colloquial forms, or regional variants of the language.

 Speakers of the high variety can generally understand the low variety, and vice
versa, although there may be some differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, and
grammar.

4. Homogeneous diglossia and heterogeneous diglossia

are two variations of diglossic language situations that describe the degree of linguistic
similarity or dissimilarity between the high and low varieties of a language within a
society:
A. Homogeneous Diglossia:
 In a homogeneous diglossic situation, the high and low varieties of the
language are relatively similar in terms of vocabulary, grammar, and
pronunciation. There may be differences, but they are not extreme.
 Speakers of the high variety can generally understand the low variety, and vice
versa, without significant difficulty.
 The high variety is often used in formal contexts, such as education and
literature, while the low variety is used in informal, everyday communication.
 Homogeneous diglossia is often associated with languages where the
distinctions between the high and low varieties are not as pronounced.
B. Heterogeneous Diglossia:
 In a heterogeneous diglossic situation, the high and low varieties of the
language are significantly different from each other in terms of vocabulary,
grammar, and pronunciation.
 Speakers of the high variety may have difficulty understanding the low variety,
and vice versa, without specialized education or training.
 The high variety is typically used in formal contexts, while the low variety is
used in informal communication.
 Heterogeneous diglossia is often associated with languages where the
distinctions between the high and low varieties are more pronounced,
approaching the level of total diglossia.

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 3.1. Di-Tri or Polyglossia Situation of African countries

The table below provides a better understanding of that situation of languages used in

African countries including Mali.

Table 1:Typical triglossia structure of language use in an African country

H Ex-colonial Languages

H
L Dominant indigenous Languages

Minority languages L

Source:Table adapted from Batibo (2005) in Kone(2020).

As shown on table 9 above from Batibo (2005) above, what are common to most
African countries are the dominant languages that are not only demographically superior but
also socio-economically prestigious. These languages are also considered as lingua francas of
the countries used by a large number of the population as first and second language. Those
dominant languages of the African countries may be in the centre between an ex-colonial
language and local minority languages, creating a kind of triglossia.
For more support, the majority of Africans and their communities tend to live and

function well in multilingual settings that are characterized by a di- or triglossic

communication landscape. Within that context, languages with higher prestige (French)

provides access to the ranks of the “elites”, restricted to only few sections of the population.

On the other hand, the low prestige languages (Bamanankan....) are spoken by the vast

majority of the populations. The communication landscape is further characterized by lingua

francas for inter-ethnic communication at various levels of distribution in the regional areas

(syénara, songhay, fulfuldé....).

4. Bilingualism
4.1. Overview of Bilingualism and Multilingualism.
The unifying focus in research onto multilingualism is an interest in individuals and
communities that use a number of languages.

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 As last (Aronin, Hufeisen, 2009) are conveying some definitions of the terms
bilingualism and multilingualism based on the dictionary. Hence, they think that bilingualism
is ‘the ability to speak two languages’ or ‘the habitual use of two languages colloquially’
(Oxford English Dictionary. Most researchers in language research use the term ‘bilingual’
for users of two languages, and ‘multilingual’ for three or more, but this is not universal.
Some definitions of multilingualism do not use a numeric scale but make a binary distinction
between monolinguals, who know one language, and multilinguals, who know more than one
language. Occasionally this same binary distinction is drawn using the terms ‘monolingual’
and ‘bilingual’ with bilingual defined as knowing two or more languages. These definitions
assume that there is no meaningful difference between users who can use two communicative
codes with two speech communities and users who can communicate with three or more
communities (in circumstances where these communities also exist separately.

4.2. Sequential and Simultaneous Bi/multilingualism

Simultaneous bilingual children are those whose dual language learning

experiences began at birth or at least before the age of 3 years old (de Houwer, 1995;
McLaughlin 1978). The process of simultaneous bilingualism is commonly referred to as
bilingual first language acquisition (BFLA). Sequential bilingualism is distinct from
simultaneous bilingualism in that one language is introduced after the other language has
become somewhat established, e.g., after the age of 3;0. Sequential bilingual children
typically speak their first language (L1) language at home with both parents, and their second
language (L2) at school (Paradis, 2007) in Kone (2020).

4.3. Causes to Bi-Multilingualism

As a general picture of cause underlying Bi-multilingualism development, first,

it is impossible to speak of language contact without really talking about people using
different languages coming into contact with one another. The reasons for social contact of
different language users may be of their own choice. Sometimes, it may be caused by some
circumstances such as political and military acts. These acts are colonization, annexation,
resettlement, or federation. People may learn other languages of their new environment by
being refugees in a new place or in their homeland. After a successful military invasion, the
indigenous population may have to learn the invader’s language in order to prosper. That
cause may lead people in that environment to be bi-multilingual, as the case of most African
countries’ colonization. A similarly situation may raise with a desire to identify with a

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particular ethnic, cultural, or social group which leads one to learn that group’s language.
Also, the government may promote a language different from what the minority ethnic and
cultural groups wish to maintain (Wei, 2013). Arguably, the reasons fostering bilingualism
when languages are into contact are economic, educational, political, religious migrations,
nationalism and federalism, education and culture, trade/commerce and intermarriage, etc.
The most common way is that individual multilingualism arises is either by social contact or
necessity by communication (Crystal, 1987; Edwards, 1994, 2013; Batibo, 2005 etc..).
Precisely, among the factors contributing to the visibility of multilingualism for the time
being are the globalization, transnational mobility of the population, and the spread of new
technologies are highly influential in different political, social, and educational contexts
(Cenoz, 2013). Some of the causes of individual multilingualism are well detailed below in
the following passages, extracted from Kone (2020).

5. Code-switching/ Mixing
Bilingual children’s sensitivity to their interlocutors’ linguistic preferences and needs
is displayed by their language choice overall; within the broad concept of language choice,
there are different types of language mixing. The first is inter-utterance code-switching
consisting of shifting from one language to another between utterances. The second is the
intra-utterance code-switching consists in producing elements from both languages in one
utterance, e.g., where’s the mitaine go? ‘mitten’, and we bring saucisses à la garderie
yesterday, ‘sausages to the daycare’ (Paradis 2007).
Wardhaugh (2006), had already conveyed a similar point of view stated by Paradis
(2007). Any particular dialect or language that a person chooses to use on any occasion is a
code, a system used for communication between two or more parties. It is unusual for a
speaker to have command of, or use, only one such code or system. Most speakers command
several varieties of any language they speak, and bilingualism, even multilingualism, is the
norm for many people throughout the world rather than unilingualism (Wardhaugh, 2006).
Hence, People, then, are usually required to select a particular code whenever they choose to
speak, and they may also decide to switch from one code to another or to mix codes even
within sometimes very short utterances and thereby create a new code in a process known as
code-switching.
Code-switching (also called code-mixing) can occur in conversation between
speakers’ turns or within a single speaker’s turn. In the latter case it can occur between
sentences (inter-sententially) or within a single sentence (intra-sententially) (Wardhaugh,
2006).

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 6. Creoles and Pidgins

6.1. Pidgins

A pidgin is a language which has arisen by a process of mixing a simplified form of a

language spoken by people who travelled and colonized extensively (such as English, French,
Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch), with a simplified form of a language of the people with
whom they interacted repeatedly. Such languages often develop near main shipping and
trading routes (Trudgill1974b: 166, 169 –70): English-based pidgins were formerly found in
North America, at both ends of the slave trade in Africa and the Caribbean, in New Zealand
and in China. They are still found in Australia, West Africa, the Solomon Islands . . . and in
New Guinea. . . . (Not all pidgin languages have arisen in this way, though. Kituba, which is
derived from Kikongo, a Bantu language, is a pidgin widely used in western Zaire and
adjoining areas. And Fanagolo, which is based on Zulu, is a pidgin spoken in South Africa
and adjoining countries, particularly in the mines. There are several other indigenous pidgins
in Africa and elsewhere.

6.2. Creoles

Pidgins also arose when Africans who did not share a language were working together
on plantations and chose to communicate using what they could glean of the colonizer/slave-
owner’s language, to which they added elements of their own native languages.
For second and subsequent generation users, pidgins may become a mother tongue, a creole;
(Holm 1988: 6) ‘a language which has a jargon or a pidgin in its ancestry; it is spoken
natively by an entire speech community, often one whose ancestors were displaced
geographically so that their ties with their original language and socio-cultural identity were
partly broken’. Examples of creoles include Sranan, an English-based creole spoken in coastal
areas of Surinam (Trudgill 1974b: 170), and the English-
based West Indian creoles used mainly by people of African origin in the Caribbean (Sutcliffe
1984: 219). Non-English-based creoles derived from other European languages include
French-based creoles spoken in, among other places, Haiti, Trinidad Grenada, French Guiana,
Mauritius, the Seychelles, and some parts of Louisiana.
There are also creoles based on Portuguese and Spanish (Trudgill 1974b: 170). A pidgin may
become creolized at any stage of its development (see below).

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 Malmkjær kirsten (2002):

References
Malmkjær kirsten (2002): THE LINGUISTICS ENCYCLOPEDIA, SECOND EDITION, imultaneously published in the
USA and Canada by Routledge
Kone, M (2020). Exploring the Multilingual’s linguistic repertoire use in Bamako, in revue Djibul, Rci

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