ELTWeekly Vol. 4 Issue#46 | November 12, 2012 | ISSN 0975-3036
** This book review is submitted by Ahmed Al Khateeb.
Introduction to the Book
This book was written essentially to handle the concept of ‘choice’ and its effect on speakers’ linguistic determination. It elaborates upon the perception that language adoption is related to human society and its members and is influenced by space, time variation, age, gender and culture. The author has exhibited the interconnection of the choice of language with how, what, and when people would speak. In addition, it aims to shed light on how, within the environments and communities in which people are living, ‘societal factors’ integrate unconsciously, sometimes compulsorily, with their original language, as they are living in a single unified circle and each factor can affect the other.
The book is designed for an audience that is interested in the field of sociolinguistics, for those who investigate the role of ‘linguistic variation from a wide range of societies and their languages’, for students working in the field of applied linguistics, for training educators, and for those who are learning a second or foreign language.
The Content of the Book
The book has been written in thirteen chapters and split into two main sections: Chapters 2 to 6 comprise a discussion on ‘micro-choices’ while Chapters 7 to 13 address the topic of ‘macro-choices’. The former are related to smaller level options of linguistic varieties for certain language aspects whereas the latter are concerned with the greater linguistic choices of different languages ‘and their functional allocation in society’. Chapter 1, ‘Introduction: notions of language’, handles the basic phenomenon of a language as a shared process that is termed spontaneous ‘natural’ and exchangeable ‘social’. It is an approach to communicate and to act out roles through language ‘diversity’ and ‘migration’, such as language change and variation, as well as the concepts of and differences between ‘desires’ and ‘norms’. The same chapter accepts ‘choice’ as a linguistic fact and considers how speaking a language might become a cooperative process. Thus, the result of cooperation and choice is a new form of language: ‘pidgin’.
Part I
Chapter 2, ‘Standard and dialect: social stratification as a factor of linguistic choice’, demonstrates that our personal linguistic choice could be determined through dialect variation, standard speech, social construction, and speech accommodation. Chapter 3, ‘Gendered speech: sex as a factor of linguistic choice’, presents a rigorous debate on gendered speech, the differences in male and female speech, word options and phonetic variation and asks if these are a result of natural differences or inequality, or symbols of power and ascendancy. The use of frequent choices in some cultures, such as Japanese, is discussed. ‘Communicating across generations: age as a factor of linguistic choice’ is the fourth chapter in this book. It shows how various age classifications, through infancy, adolescence, adulthood and finally, old age, can have dissimilar consequences for language utilisation. Furthermore, it discusses how each age group has its own distinctive beliefs about and attitudes towards linguistic variations. Chapter 5, ‘Choice and change’, is about language changes through standardisation based on the speaker’s gender and age. The concept of politeness as integral to cooperation and social structure, both marked and unmarked, with speakers, expression and metaphor, is investigated in Chapter 6, ‘Politeness: cultural dimensions of linguistic choice’. In addition, how encoded languages, strategies, power and cultures are linked to politeness is discussed.
Part II
Chapter 7 ‘Code-switching: linguistic choices across language boundaries’ discusses issues of who code switches, and how and why code switching takes place. It represents the critical importance of how code-switching affects our choices and raises the distinctions among code-switching and bilingual speech. Both diglossia and bilingualism have restricted usage: the first concept is dominated by writing, standardisation and linguistic ideology whereas the second is exercised and controlled via status, function, domains of language, accommodation and speech styles, and individuals and social networks. All of these are presented in Chapter 8, ‘Diglossia and bilingualism: functional restrictions on language choice’. Chapter 9, ‘Language spread, shift and maintenance: how groups choose their language’, shows how a language spreads due to several variables which make it popular in locations other than its original spoken land. Arguments are presented for the contrasting perceptions of language shift and maintenance, relying on language loyalty, ethnolinguistic vitality, language utility and interactive micro and macro factors. Speakers’ identities and whether they are formed through choices, destiny, or both, as well as language identity, identity change, and multilayered identities are discussed in Chapter 10, ‘Language and identity: individual, social, national’, regarding individuals and societies. Chapter 11, ‘Language planning: communication demands, public choice, utility’, tackles the position of language policy and the connection of language planning from two angles: status planning and corpus planning. In Chapter 12, ‘Select letters: a major divide’, the spotlight is made on the written form of a language and related choices, such as language variety, choice of writing systems and scripts, and choice of spelling conventions. Finally, Chapter 13, the language of choice’, discusses how English as a linguistic option is seen as a ‘pluricentric language’ and a global language which might threaten other native varieties.
Brief Criticism
The author has defined ‘standard’ as a style that is unavoidably adopted by all speakers within a particular society, and comments that regional dialects determine social ranking. It is argued that ‘modern industrialized nation states foster language standardisation… to urban centres and needs a common language’. In contrast, no proof of ‘dialect levelling’ and ‘dialect variation’ is offered (Fromkin and Rodman, 1998). It is appropriate also to include here a section looking at gender and its related socio-psychological factors. Moreover, ethnicity is significant in gendered language as well as language variation and change (Fought, 2002). It is anticipated that a section will be included in either Chapter 2 or Chapter 5 about the responsibility of ethnicity. Stylistics is indeed a critical aspect in language choice among the speakers as ‘intra-speaker variation’ is concerned with variation and altering one’s speech according to one’s register, dialect and genre, while ‘inter-speaker variation’ tackles group speech (Schilling-Estes, 2002).
General Evaluation
This book is valuable in terms of richness of examples, where they are supported with numerous empirical studies from various societies and language varieties akin to how the addressee affects the style of language that is uttered and the responding individual’s speech; this means the arguments in the book can be generalised to many societies and their languages. The evidence provided is also supported by figures, diagrams, tables, statistics, notes, questions for discussion, a glossary of terms, internet resources, and an index. There is a list of suggested further reading material, which contains relevant references with a full bibliography at the end of each chapter besides a comprehensive a list of references at the end of the book.
It is considered one of the very few books that have been written concerning this area of sociolinguistics and illustrating the interaction of inter-personal and intra-personal associations within language and society. It is a traditional as well as a contemporary book in that it was published in 2005, yet the references range from 1929 (e.g., Hermann, 1929) up to 2004 (e.g., Yagmur, 2004). Thus, it provides an overview of the evolution and facets of language over time. Most students and people interested in sociolinguistics will find this textbook provides a reference point for studying language, choice and society in communication among speakers,.
References
Coulmas, F. (2005): Sociolinguistics: The study of speakers’ choices. Cambridge: USA.
Schilling-Estes, N. (2002): Investigating Stylistic Variation. In Chambers, J.K., Peter, T. and Schilling-Estes, N. (ed.), The handbook of language variation and change, Oxford: Blackwell.
Fought, C. (2002): Ethnicity. In Chambers, J.K., Peter, T. and Schilling-Estes, N. (ed.), The handbook of language variation and change, Oxford: Blackwell.
Fromkin, V. & Rodman, R. (1998) An Introduction to Language: Language in Society. USA: Harcourt Brace College publishers, 6th edition.