Linguistic Coding of Social Information and Mechanism by which social categories affect the communication process

• Main Author: Dr. Nilu Choudhary
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Lasting Impressions Press 2015-03-01
• Series: International Journal of English Language and Translation Studies
• Subjects: Bilingual; Diglossia; Linguistic coding; Language; Monolingual; Regional Dialect
• Online Access: http://www.eltsjournal.org/pdf_files/Linguistic%20Coding%20of%20Social%20Information%20and%20Mechanism%20by%20which%20social%20categories%20affect%20the%20communication%20process.pdf

In many communities, two or more varieties of the same language are used by some speakers in different conditions. Perhaps the most familiar example is the use of the standard language and regional dialect when many speakers speak their local dialect at home or among family or friend of the same dialect area but use the standard language in communicating with speakers of other dialects on public occasions. Charles A. Ferguson (1964) in his famous work on ‘Diglossia’finds that in all the defining languages the speakers regard superposed variety as superior to regional dialects in number of respects. Sometimes the feeling is so strong that the superposed variety alone is regarded as real and the regional dialect is reported ‘not to exist’. This attitude cannot be called deliberate attempt to deceive the questioner, but seems almost a self-deception. Even the feeling of the reality and superiority of the superposed variety is not so strong there is usually a belief that this variety is somehow more beautiful, more logical, better able to express important thoughts, and the like. And this belief is held also by speakers whose command of the said variety is quite limited.