2. The use of one language

1. National language and standard language.

National language is a language which is considered to be the chief language of a nation state. A national language is grounded on the respective ethnic language; however, they are not identical. A nation is a large community of people united geographically, politically, economically, culturally, and linguistically (they speak one common language). An ethnos is a community of people united only culturally and linguistically. The major differences between a national language and an ethnic language:

1. a national language exists in its spoken and written forms, while an ethnic language may exist only in its spoken form and use another language in writing;

2. the lexical and grammatical systems of a national language are more elaborated;

3. a national language has its standard, or norm;

4. a national language is polifunctional: it is used in various spheres of life, where it has stylistic variations.

A national language (as well as a language that has no national status) may have its varieties governed by regional, occupational, social, personal, and situational factors. Such varieties are also called lects. The latter include dialects (regional, or geographical, varieties of language), sociolects (social varieties demonstrated by a social class or occupational group), and idiolects (varieties demonstrated by an individual speaker). A prestige variety of language used within a speech community is called a standard language. A standard language provides an institutional norm for such purposes as the media and language teaching. Linguistic forms that do not conform to this norm are often called nonstandard.

2. Geographical variations. Accents and dialects. (See Aitchison, p. 104; Lexicology: Colloquium).

3. Social variations.

• Phonological variations. (See Aitchison, pp. 111 – 114).

• Lexical variations. Jargons. (See Lexicology: Colloquium)

• Social networks. (See Aitchison, p. 114 – 116).

• Language and gender. (See Aitchison, pp. 116 –117).

4. Stylistic variations.

• High and low styles (See Aitchison, pp. 104 – 105).

• Change in language styles: power and solidarity.(See Aitchison, pp.110-111).

• Speech versus writing. (See Aitchison, pp. 106 – 108).

• The topic under discussion. (See Aitchison, p. 108).

• Manipulative power of language. (See Aitchison, pp. 108 – 110).

2. THE USE OF SEVERAL LANGUAGES.

1. Bilingualism and diglossia.

Bilingualism is a speech situation where an individual community controls two (or more) languages, e.g. English and French spoken in Canada, English and Hindi spoken in India, Dutch and French spoken in Belgium, Ukrainian and Russian spoken in Ukraine. In simultaneous bilingualism, the languages are learned at the same time; in sequential bilingualism, the second language is acquired after the first one. The term ‘multilingualism’ may substitute the term ‘bilingualism’, but is often contrasted with it, by emphasizing the use of more than two languages by a speech community (or an individual). E.g. German, French, Italian, and Rhaetian / ri: n/ (Rhaeto-Romance) spoken in Switzerland. Bilingualism should be distinguished from diglossia.

Diglossia /dai glosi / is a sociolinguistic situation where two very different varieties of a language co-occur throughout a speech community, each performing an individual range of functions, and each having acquired some degree of status as a standard. The varieties are usually described as high (H) and low (L), corresponding broadly to difference in formality. High is used in such contexts as sermons, lectures, speeches, news broadcasts, and newspaper editorials, and is learned at school. Low is used in everyday conversation, radio soaps, folk literature, and other informal contexts. Diglossic languages are widespread; among them are Arabic, Modern Greek, Swiss German, and the languages of the Dravidian family.

2. Language planning and language policy.

Language planning is a deliberate, systematic, and theory-based attempt to solve the communication problems of a multi-lingual community by studying its various languages or dialects, and developing an official language policy concerning their selection and use. Corpus planning deals with the selection and codification of norms, as in the writing grammars and the standardization of spelling. Status planning deals with the initial choice of language, including attitudes towards alternative languages and the political implications of various choices. Status planning determines the choice of the country’s national and official languages. (See Aitchison, p. 117).

A national language is the chief language of a nation state used for both domestic and international purposes. An official language is the language which is used only domestically in such public domains as the law courts, government, and broadcasting. In many countries (especially those where a particular ethnos considerably prevails over the other ethnic groups, e.g. France), there is no difference between the national and the official language. However, in a multilingual speech community, such as Belgium, Singapore, or Ghana, there may be no uncontroversial candidate for a national language, and one or more of the languages used in the area may be designated official. Several countries have two or more official languages representing the interests of their chief population groupings. E.g. Switzerland, where Swiss German (spoken by 65% of the population), French (19%), Italian (12%), and Rhaetian (1%) are official languages; Canada, where English and French are considered to be official languages; English is used for international purposes, and French is the official regional language of Quebec. The choice of national and official languages is often grounded on the language dominance.

Language dominance is a situation in a multilingual community where one language is held to be more important than the others. This situation may arise because the language has more speakers, has a more prestigious history, or has been given an influential role by the government. The attempts of the government or educational authorities to manipulate a linguistic situation in a particular direction should be careful, since the sudden imposition of a particular language by decree may well result in failure. Similarly, within a bilingual individual, we may speak of one language being the dominant language – the person knows it better or uses it more often. This is usually the person’s mother tongue. However, it need not always be so: many of the people who left continental Europe for the USA in the 1930s ended up with English as their dominant language.