The Reasons of Social Variations Importance.docx

1、The Reasons of Social Variations ImportanceThe Reasons of Social Variations ImportanceAbstract:The intricate social relationship lead all kinds of variation in the language,and produce many speech variation.The speech variation has a great effect in humans social activites.This paper mainly talk abo

2、ut the factors of social variation and why it is important to our social life.Key words:Language;Social variation;Speech;Difference .IntroductionLanguage is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas,emotions,and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.Thes

3、e symbols are,in the first instance,auditory;thus language is primarily a matter of speech as oppose to,say,sign language.Edward SapirSpeech has allowed human beings to develop in a completely different way from other animals.Language is generally considered to be a form of communication between hum

4、an beings,while the faculty of speech is considered to be inherited,the system that we use,the specific language,is determined by the society in which we grow up,and being culturally transmitted.Communicating by speech requires people to speak orally in order to show the relationship between them. T

5、he form of speech will be affected by geography,socioeconomic status,ethnicity/race,age,occupation,religion,gender and so on.We may speak to express our emotions,feelings,with different utterance to reinforce a relationship with somebody.For example,you would say”Good morning,sir.”when you see your

6、boss in the office,while you whould say”Hey,man.”when you meet your best friend in the street.Of course,you can choose the later sentence depending on the close relationship with your boss.This kind of”dialect”which change after the changing of social facts,called”social variation”.There are many fa

7、ctors of this social variation,so before study the reasons of social variations importance,we should discuss its factors first. .DifiningThe standard languageOnes social standing is higher,then,he is less likely to use a regional dialect,and he is more likely to use a more standardised variety.This

8、is partly due to the greater mobility of those on the higher social levels;Ones social and geographical horizons are wider,then,more his speech and his children will lose regional features.Another major factor is the prestige,which is associated with the more standardised varieties.A person who has

9、high prestige would not speak vulgar language and use informal words in the public.A standard language is setted apart by this prestige.It is just another dialect and its origins are usually as humble as those of the other dialect.But socially it has been elevated.According to R.A.Hudson(1996,p.33),

10、there are four characteristics of a standard language:first,it has been selected from among the varieties of the language;second,it has been codified;third,it is suitable for us as an official,written medium,and fourth,it has been accepted by”the relevant population”.After reading these four charact

11、eristics,we may naturally conclude that,as it is codified,as it is using as a literary language,the standard language is going to be more conservative and it can be used as a yardstick for assessing a persons “correctness”;moreover,it can also serve as a symbol of nationhood.The social dimension“Hel

12、lo,its me again.”you may find that a friend who is phoing you for a second time whould say that,because it would be more natural for him to say”Good moring,this is me once more.”people might consider it more approprate to use the latter sentence.In these examples,there is a difference of vocabulary(

13、again is less formal than once more)and morphology(Its is more likely in informal speech).The imformal style is more likely to be spoken with a regional pronunciation.What people say and how they say it varies in accordance with who they are,who they are speaking to and the context of the conversati

14、on.Such variation forms part of the field of study of socioliguistics.Are wealth,occupation and education all relevant factors?Are there others?What is their relative signigicance?Where do you rank a succussful “self-made”entrepreneur relative to a doctor or the son of a rich landowner?One of the av

15、ailable marks for measuring is the socio-economic groupings used by planners.Generally,people in higher socio-economic groups,or people who desire to be in such groups,have an idiolect that is less influnced by the region in which they grew up,that is more closely to a standard variety.This is likel

16、y to be a variety that they were exposed by their parents and friends.In addition,it may have been consolidated by a public school education.their profession may require the use of a standard form of speech and they have been a lot of other places.The urban vanguardAs just say,a standard language is

17、 just another dialect and it becomes accepted by most people after setting as formal language.This standard language generally would choose a dialect used by the political,cultural and economic city centre.Such factors tend to affect urban areas rather than rural areas.This complicates yet further t

18、he attempt to represent on a map bounaries between features,for rather than advancing by pushing forward a front,stansardisation often establishes itself in urban centres and then spreads from them into the surrounding area.Thus may show urban islands surrounded by unaffected rural areas.Trudgill(19

19、95,p.149)illustrates this state of affairs by comparing the speech of London,Manchester and Hyde.The city of Manchester exhibits the vowel /u/ where London has /,the word “such”being pronounced /sut/ in the former as opposed to /st/ in the latter,but the differences are systematic;in Hyde,which lies

20、 immediately to the south-east of Manchester,there was not the same influence from London,and the forms were less predictable.(An Introduction to Linguistics,P112.last line)From this,we can find that the ubran vanguard is one of the important factors to the social variation.Men and womenWe have disc

21、ussed that a persons speech tends to relate to his social class,to his education and occupation.City-dwellers may speak differently compared to those who live in the surrounding rural areas.Next,weer going to see whether a persons speech relates to we are a men or a women.Many studies have shown tha

22、t women generally use forms which approximate more closely to those of the standard language than those of the standard language than do men of the same social background,age,and so on.For example,women were more likely to use the standard form /i/ than men were(Trudgill,1995,p.70).Moreover,women we

23、re more likely to believe that they use forms closer to the standard language than those they actually use.This has been explained in terms of a greater consciousness of status on the part of women.The status of men,it has been argued,has been traditionally defined by their occupation and wealth,whi

24、le women have had to find other ways of establishing their position and one of these has been their speech.Women are in employment much more,one can argue that they tend to work in service industries where a high standard of communication is particularly important.On the other hand,perhaps women are

25、 increasingly feeling that they do not have the same need to impressmto judtify themselves.If so,they might move towards the less formal style of speech that has been more associated with men.Men,may associate masculinity with the physical labour of the working class.According to Hudson,this correla

26、tion between sex and style of speech must be regarded as “one of the most robust findings of socio-linguistics”(Hudson,1996,p.114)Power and solidarity When you speak to a passer-by or a person who has higher status than you,you should use formal language;when you speak to your families or best frien

27、ds,then use informal language.The formal language concerns about the social relationship,that is power;which the informal language pays attention to the relationship of the same status-solidarity.Women,then,tend to want to give an impression of high status more than men do.Women are more concerned t

28、han men are with a vertical social dimension,men setting greater store than women by a horizontal social dimension by group identity. Whether it is power or solidarity that is more significant in a particular social relationship depends not only on who is speaking but also on whom the speaking to.”H

29、ello,Lizzie”is an appropriate way of greeting a sister of friend called Elizabeth;if you were talking to the Queen of the United Kingdom,it would be more appropriate to say “Good morning,Your Highness”.Saying “Hello,Lizzie”to the Queen would be considered extremely disrespectful.If you said “Good mo

30、rning,Elizabeth”to your sister,she might wonder that what she had done to upset you.In a conversation with the Queen,it is the rules associated with power that are the most relevant,there being a substantial difference in social status.In a conversation with your sister,it is the rules of solidarity

31、 that apply.The former requires a more formal speech variety than the latter do.If we use formal speech to speak our equals,they might have the impression that we consider ourselves better than them or,as we have just said,that they have done something to upset us.If we wish to use a persons name wh

32、en talking to them or talking about them,when need to decide whether it is appropriate to use their given name(e.g. Elizabeth)or their surname(e.g. Miss Green).For example,you can say “Mr.Hu or Mr.Hu Jingtao came to Guangzhou last week.” instead of saying “Hu Jingtao came to Guangzhou last week.”in

33、reporting this news no matter through the TV set or the radieo.Of course,you can called your mother Mrs.Li when you are playing joy with her. Our relationship with somebody may affect not only how we address him ,but also what we say.If somebody rings you on the telephone you may feel an obligation to ask him or her who he