Language and Dialect

Abstract: Degrees of listening to each other freely, common identity of native language, historical origination, customs and common writing system, the standard of language structure itself and social political factors are major standards we can depend on to distinguish language from dialect, but what will determine our decision just rely on our temporary statues and different goals. The same speech system will has opposite status in the eyes of a tourist and a linguist.

Key words: language; dialect

When we travel around the world, we will hear different languages from different national people; in the same way, when we have a journey round one country, we will find different people in different regions speak differently more or less. But we also can encounter this situation that people of the same language cannot understand with each other, and people from different languages can communicate with each other freely. What can we explain about this phenomenon? In this paper, I want to say some thing about this issue through the distinction between language and dialect.   

What are language and dialect?

It is difficult to give answers to questions of what is language and what is dialect, though they are extremely familiar phenomena. Different scholars from different times and areas would give their own definitions. However, considering their remarkable characteristics, we can define them like this: language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication; dialect is a variety of certain language, spoken in one part of a country (regional dialect), which is different in some words, grammar, and/or pronunciation from other forms of the same language.①

Why should we distinguish language and dialect?

It is the need of scientific linguistic research that requires the distinction of language and dialect. We can, based on some basic concepts and distinctions of languages and dialects, construct the pedigrees of the world languages diachronically and study the language/dialect system synchronically.

What’s more, as we can find as the paper goes, differentiating language and dialect is the need of some social political reasons. For example, some groups who want to achieve certain aims may be willing to give a dialect independent language status.

And sometimes it is just the matter of a tourist who wants to know whether he has come in to another country or not.

These various statuses determine directly the standards used to distinguish language and dialect.

How to differ them from each other?

But how to differ them from each other?  There have been a lot of researches on this topic. But in my opinion, the line between them is not clear and the most critical standards of differentiating them rely on the social facts as well as the linguistic facts itself.

The situation of the ancient times when one language group separated into different regions and constituted various regional dialects cannot be reorganized; if we do this, “it is like reconstructing a brontosaur from half an eye socket and a basket full of bones.……One method is to color and glue as you build”. ②As a result, we have to rely on the synchronic facts to do the job.

The standards scholars using often to distinguish language and dialect can be seen from two different levels. The first one is the level of language structure system; the second one is the level of social psychology. We can establish the independent status of the languages coming from different pedigrees for their differentia in structure. Chinese, coming from the Sino-Tibetan Language Family, and Russian, a Slavic language, are overt cases. Those languages, though originating from same ancient language, because of their big differences in language system, can be also distinguished into different language easily, such as English and German, which both come from Indo-European Language Family. In these cases, the standard of pure language structure plays central role. However, the reality is not so simple. In most cases, it is very difficult in determining whether the speech system we encounter is a language or just a dialect belonging to certain language. And in the end, we may find that the social facts and the linguistic factors both have functions in our determination.

The two standard level of differing language from dialect contain following aspects:

Firstly, degrees of listening to each other freely. According to this standard, if speakers, who speak more or less differently, can understand each other’s speech without special training, then what they say can be seen as dialects of a language; if they cannot understand with each other, they will be seen as belong to different language groups. Perhaps this is the easiest criterion everyone can give, because the most outstanding feature of language relies on its sound, and if the sounds are different, they should belong to different languages. But in fact, many speech systems which can be used to communicate with each other are fallen under different languages. For example, those who use Welsh, Irish and Gaelic can communicate freely with each other, but their native tongues are divided into three different languages. In contrast, two speech forms, which cannot understand with each other wholly, may be fallen under two dialects of one language, such as north dialect and cantonese dialect of Chinese.

Secondly, common identity of native language. That is the native speaker group of a speech form. consider the form. as a language or a dialect of certain language. This standard is more blurry than the first one, because understanding or not has a formal accordance (sound), while the identity feeling is just a mental condition. Some people in a group may think that they speak in a language, while others may say that they just use one dialect of a language. Language identity is a term which is determined only by people’s emotion bias and cannot become a good criterion for language and dialect distinction.

Thirdly, historical origination, customs and common writing system. Language and culture are related closely with each other. Same language often corresponds to the same customs and culture heritage of a nation. For example, Chinese, though its various regional dialects, is considered an independent language. One of the reasons is that people living in different regions have the same history and customs. However, Sapir, as well as some other anthropological linguists, pointed out that “races, languages, and cultures are not distributed in parallel fashion, that their areas of distribution intercross in the bewildering fashion, and that the history of each is apt to follow a distinctive course” and “that a group of languages need not in the least correspond to a racial group or a culture area is easily demonstrated”.③ Two speech forms sharing common historical cultural origination will be often attributed to different languages. For example, many minority tribes in American continent have experienced common history, but they speak in very different languages. And as far as common writing system is concerned, we should keep in mind that characters are just the writing form. of language, but not the language itself. For example, French and English are both use Latin characters, but they belong to different languages.

Fourthly, the standard of language structure itself. It means considering the degree of differences between the subsystem of language, such as phonetic, lexicon and syntax, as a standard. When we use this standard in practices, we will find that it can operate critical functions just in the two simple situations discussed above. As for distinguishing language and dialect, this standard is subject to social political factors. The independent language established relying on the pure linguistic standard must correspond to the social political factors, or else the later will be more often used as the standard of determining whether the form. is a language or not. For example, on linguistic structures, Hochdeutsch and Dutch are similar; however, Hochdeutsch is just a dialect of German, while Dutch is an independent language. And when we consider the condition that two different language were becoming more and more similar with each other for a long time contact, the situation will become more complex.

Fifthly, social political factors. Looking through any list of world languages, we can find easily the relationship between independent language and the dividing line among social political entity. Many forms which can be understood with each other or have similar linguistic structure are often considered as different languages just for subjecting to different social political entity. Most cases of our dividing languages of the world rely on this standard. Yuanren Zhao has pointed out that “in general, we often say that dialect is a geographical branch of certain language. However, to what extent these dialects can be seen as different languages always rely on the political branches, and it is not the same thing with language itself”. ④ However, there are also cases that a language is used in different nations. For example, English, which has become a international/global language, is the official language in many countries, such as India, Singapore, America etc.

From the discussion above, we can see that situation is very complex in our determination of whether a speech system is a language or not. In some cases, it is the comprehensive strength of these factors which play the role; in some others, it is just one or two criteria which determine the result.

Conclusion

Different people may have their own aims of distinguishing language and dialect. However, whatever aims they nay have, the five factors we mentioned above are the ones they have to depend on.

And so far, we can say something about the baffle in the beginning of the paper. If one is a traveler, moving from one place to another, then he can consider the speech system of a place is a language or not depending on his own common knowledge, such as whether they can listen to each other freely or to what extent its linguistic structure has differences with others around it. However, if one is a linguist who wants to know the organization and the rule of certain language/dialect, then he, using the standards wholly, should consider the speech system comprehensively.

How to distinguish language and dialect just rely on who you are and what goals you want to achieve. 

Notes:

1.     Dialect can be divided into two types according to the different goals of researches. Besides regional dialects, there is social dialect which is also a variety of certain language, spoken by people belonging to a particular social class. In this paper, we will just consider the relationship between language and regional dialect, but not concern social dialect.

2.     Anthony Lane. An Englishman Abroad. The New Yorker May 22(2006):59-67.

3.     Edward Sapir. 1921. Language: An introduction to the study of speech. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 172.

4.     Yuanren, Zhao. 1980. Issues on Language. Beijing: The Commercial Press.

References

Anthony Lane. An Englishman Abroad. The New Yorker May 22(2006):59-67.

Edward Sapir. 1921. Language: An introduction to the study of speech. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

马学良 瞿霭堂.1997. 普通语言学. 北京：中央民族大学出版社.

[美]肯尼斯·卡兹纳. 1980. 世界的语言. 黄长著 林书武译. 北京：北京出版社.

[美]王士元. 2000. 语言的探索——王士元语言学论文选译. 石锋等译. 北京：北京语言文化大学出版社

Yuanren, Zhao. 1980. Issues on Language. Beijing: The Commercial Press.

Finally, the term dialect, particularly when it is used in reference to regional variation, should not be confused with the term accent. Standard English, for example, is spoken in a variety of accents, often with clear regional and social associations: there are accents associated with North America, Singapore, India, Liverpool (Scouse), Tyneside (Geordie), Boston, New York, and so on. However, many people who live in such places show a remarkable uniformity to one another in their grammar and vocabulary because they speak Standard English and the differences are merely those of accent, i.e., how they pronounce what they say.

One English accent has achieved a certain eminence, the accent known as Received Pronunciation (or RP), the accent of perhaps as few as three percent of those who live in England. This accent is of fairly recent origin becoming established as prestigious only in the late nineteenth century and not even given its current label until the 1920s. In the United Kingdom at least, this accent is ‘usually associated with a higher social or educational background, with the BBC and the professions, and [is] most commonly taught to students learning English as a foreign language’ (Wakelin, 1977, p. 5). For many such students it is the only accent they are prepared to learn, and a teacher who does not use it may have difficulty in finding a position as a teacher of English in certain non-English-speaking countries. Other names for this accent are the Queen’s English, Oxford English, and BBC English. However, there is no unanimous agreement that the Queen does in fact use RP, a wide variety of accents can be found among the staff and students at Oxford University, and regional accents are now widely used in the various BBC services. As Bauer (1994, pp. 115-21) also shows, RP continues to change. One of its most recent manifestations has been labeled ‘Estuary English’ (Rosewarne, 1994). Trudgill (1983b, p. 19) has pointed out what he considers to be the most interesting characteristics of RP: ‘the relatively very small numbers of speakers who use it do not identify themselves as coming from any particular geographical region’; ‘RP is largely confined to England’ and there it is a ‘non-localized accent’; and ‘it is . . . not necessary to speak RP to speak standard English’ because ‘standard English can be spoken with any regional accent, and in the vast majority of cases normally is.’

The most generalized accent in North America is sometimes referred to as network English. Other languages often have no equivalent to RP: for example, German is spoken in a variety of accents, none of which is deemed inherently any better than any other. Educated regional varieties are preferred rather than some exclusive upper-class accent that has no clear relationship to personal achievement.

As a final observation I should add that it is impossible to speak English without an accent. There is no such thing, therefore, as an ‘unaccented English.’ RP is an accent, a social one rather than a regional one. However, we must note that there are different evaluations of the different accents, evaluations arising from social factors not linguistic ones.

Ronald Wardhaugh, 1998, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 43, Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

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