Knowledge
of Language
When
two or more people communicate with each other in speech, we can call the
system of communication that they employ a code. In most cases that code will
be something we may also want to call a language. The last principle accounts
for what Labov has called the ‘observer’s paradox.’ He points out (1972b, pp.
209–10) that the aim of linguistic research is to find out how people talk when
they are not being systematically observed, but the data are available only through
systematic observation. Sociolinguistics brings together linguists and
sociologists to investigate matters of joint concern but they are not the only
researchers involved in studies of language in society.
Languages, Dialects, and Varieties 25
A language
is what the members of a particular society speak.
A dialect
is a subordinate variety of a language, Haugen (1966a) has pointed out that language
and dialect are ambiguous terms. Ordinary people use these terms
quite freely in speech; for them a dialect is almost certainly no more than a
local non-prestigious (therefore powerless) variety of a real language.
Register is another complicating factor in any study of
language varieties. Registers are sets of language items associated with
discrete occupational or social groups. Surgeons, airline pilots, bank
managers, sales clerks, jazz fans, and pimps employ different registers.
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