Unit 5: Language & Linguistics

What is Language?
▪ The word “Language” is derived from the Latin word “lingue”
which means “produced with the tongue”.
▪ “A set of arbitrary vocal symbols through which an individual
operates, expresses and communicates in a society.”
▪ “A system of signs”

Characteristics of language

➢ Language Is A Symbolic System

Language signifies a symbolic system consisting of different
sound symbols for concepts, things, ideas, objects, etc.
➢ Language Is Arbitrary
There is no inherent relationship between the nature of the
things or concepts the language interacts with, which proves
that language is arbitrary. There is no inherent relationship

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 between how a word is said or written and its signified
meaning.
➢ Language Is Systematic
Although the language is symbolic, its symbols are arranged in
specific systems. All languages have their arrangement of plans,
and each language is an arrangement of systems. Furthermore,
all languages have phonological and syntactic systems; within a
system, there are several sub-systems.
➢ Language Is A Social Phenomenon
In a sense, language should be considered a social
phenomenon. Language is social in our human society; it is a
means of nourishing and developing culture and establishing
human relations.
Language exists in the public arena, is a method for feeding and
creating a society, and sets up human relations. As a member of
the community, we acquire a language permanently.
➢ Language Is Non-Instinctive, Conventional
No language was created over the course of several days using
a formula that everyone agreed upon. Every generation passes
on this convention to the one after them as a result of evolution
and convention, which gave rise to language.
Languages can evolve, spread, and change just like any other
human organization. Every language is spoken in a specific
community somewhere in the world. But since language is
something we naturally learn, we may say that it is not
instinctual.
Language Is Human And Structurally Complex

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 Unlike animal language, human language is open-minded,
extendable, and adaptable. Language should be modifiable
from time to time.
➢ Language Is Unique, Complex, And Modifiable
Language is indeed a unique phenomenon in the world. Every
language has its characteristics and distinctive features.
Furthermore, each language has its creativity and productivity
to deliver the best communication methods.

Definition Of Language By Different Scholars

• Aristotle- Speech is the representation of the experience of the

mind. According to Aristotle, language is a speech sound
produced by human beings to express their ideas, emotions,
thoughts, desires, and feelings.
• Saussure- Language is an arbitrary system of signs constituted
of the signifier and signified. In other words, language is first a
system based on no logic or reason, and Secondly, the system
covers both objects and expressions used for objects. Thirdly
objects and expressions are arbitrarily linked. And finally,
expressions include sounds and graphemes used by humans for
generating speech and writing, respectively, for communication.
• Sapir- According to Sapir, language is a purely human and non-
instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and
desires through a system of voluntarily produced sounds. The
definition of Sapir expresses that language is mainly concerned
with only human beings and constitutes a system of sounds
produced by them for communication.

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• Leonard Bloomfield- The totality of the utterances that can be
made in a speech community is the language of that speech
community. Bloomfield’s definition of language focuses on the
utterances produced by all the community’s people and hence
overlooks writing. Besides, he stresses form, not meaning, as
the basis of language.
• Bloch And Trager- According to Bloch and Trager, a language is
a system of arbitrary vocal sounds through a social group that
cooperates. Their definition of language points out that
language is an arbitrary system, vocal sounds, a way of
communication, and collectivity.
• Noam Chomsky- Noam Chomsky says that language is the
inherent capability of native speakers to understand and form
grammatical sentences. A language is a set of (finite or infinite)
sentences, each finite length constructed out of a limited set of
elements. This definition of language considers sentences as
the basis of a language. Sentences may be limited or unlimited
and are made up of only minor components.
• Desmond C. Derbyshire- Derbyshire says that language is
undoubtedly a kind of communication among human beings. It
consists primarily of vocal sounds, articulatory, systematic,
symbolic, and arbitrary. This definition of Derbyshire clearly
utters, language is the best source of communication, and it
also portrays how human language is formed and the
fundamental principles of language.
• John Lyons- According to Lyons, languages are the principal
communication systems used by particular groups of human
beings within the specific society of which they are members.
• Ronald Wardhaugh- A language is a system of arbitrary vocal
sounds used for human communication. This definition of

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 language by Wardhaugh mainly insists on arbitrariness, vocal
sounds, humans, and communication.
• Patanjali- Indian linguist Patanjali utters that language is a
human expression produced by different speech organs of
human beings. Through speech organs, humans produce
several expressions converted to language.

What is Linguistics?

• Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The primary goal

of Linguists is to understand the nature of language.
• The goal of study in Linguistics is to increase our knowledge and
understanding of the world.
• Since language is universal and fundamental to all human
interactions, the knowledge attained in linguistics has many
practical applications.

Components of Linguistics

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Phonetics- The study of speech sounds.
Phoneticians study both the production of speech sounds by the
human speech organs (articulatory phonetics) and the properties of
the sounds themselves (acoustic phonetics).
Phonology- The study of language sound systems in its abstract form
as it exists in the speaker’s mind.
Phonologists study what sounds contrast in one language but not
another, what sounds of a language can or cannot occur one after
the other (for example, why can words begin in st– in English but not
in Spanish), how do poets or writers or song lyrics intuitively know
how to match the rhythm of speech to the abstract rhythmic pattern
of a poetic or musical meter, etc.
Morphology- The study of word structure.
Morphologists examine such questions as the processes that govern
the formation of new words and transformation of old words into
new; the roots and prefixes/suffixes; application of morphology in
computer technology; etc.
Syntax- The study of how linguistic units larger than the word are
constructed. It encompasses-
✓ Sentence construction
✓ Sentence comprehension
✓ The infinite scope of sentence formation
✓ Ambiguity in understanding sentences
Semantics- The study of meaning. Semanticists answer such
questions as:
✓ How do speakers know what words mean
✓ What is the basis of metaphors

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 ✓ How many meanings can be found in a sentence
Semiotics- The study of signs. It investigates the relationship
between signs and what they signify.
Charles Morris in Foundations of a Theory of Signs (1938) divided
semiotics into three branches: syntax, semantics and pragmatics.
Historical linguistics- The study of how languages change over time,
addressing such questions as why modern English is different form
Old English and Middle English or what it means to say that English
and German are “more closely related” to each other than English
and French.
Sociolinguistics- The study of how language is used in society,
addressing such questions as what makes some dialects more
“prestigious” than others, where slang comes from and why it arises,
or what happens when two languages come together in “bilingual”
communities.
Psycholinguistics- The study of how language is processed in the
mind, addressing such questions as how we can hear a string of
language noises and make sense of them, how children can learn to
speak and understand the language of their environment as quickly
and effortlessly as they do, or how people with pathological language
problems differ from people who have “normal” language.
Neurolinguistics- The study of the actual encoding of language in the
brain, addressing such questions as what parts of the brain different
aspects of language are stored in, how language is actually stored,
what goes on physically in the brain when language is processed, or
how the brain compensates when certain areas are damaged.

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 Socio-cultural
approaches
Humanistic
Structural
Linguistics
Approaches
Cognitive
Linguistics
Biological
Generative
Grammar

Ferdinand de Saussure & Structural Linguistics

❑ Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) born in Geneva

❑ “Father of Modern Linguistics”
❑ He disregarded Philology (study of historical development of
language) in favour of structural approach to studying language.
❑ Published his first essay “Note on Primitive System of the Indo-
European Vowels” (1878) at the age of 21 which made him a
renowned scholar. He also included his research on Sanskrit
language in it.
❑ His students, Charles Bally and Albert Sechaye, compiled their
notes of Saussure’s lectures delivered at the University of
Geneva to produce Course in General Linguistics (1916) in
French that will become the foundation of modern Linguistics.
❑ Its English translation came out in 1959 by Wade Baskin and in
1986 by Roy Harris.
❑ These lectures were delivered from 1906-1911.
❑ The Book is composed in 5 sections-
➢ Appendix titled “Principles of Phonology”
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➢ 1. General Principles
➢ 2. Synchronic Linguistics
➢ 3. Diachronic Linguistics
➢ 4. Geographical Linguistics
➢ 5. Concerning Retrospective Linguistics
❑ Ferdinand de Saussure views language as having an inner duality
which is manifested by the interaction of the synchronic and
diachronic, the syntagmatic and associative, and the signifier and
signified.

What is a Sign?

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The Synchronic System is further composed of 2 essential
components- Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic Relations.

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 • The human capacity
to evolve sign system.
• Constitutes of
“langue” & “parole”.

• The system of
language.
• The rules and
conventions that
govern it.

• Individual’s use of
language.
• The actual utterance.

❑ Influenced by the sociological theories of Emile Durkheim (French

Sociologist), Saussure considered language to be an abstract body
of knowledge shared by individuals that belong to a specific social
group.
❑ This common shared knowledge was then used uniquely by an
individual based on his personal preferences or individual
occasion.
❑ Hence, he considered Langue to be concern of Linguistics and not
Parole.

Language Acquisition
❑ The process by which we acquire the competence to perceive,
produce and use language skills to understand and
communicate in an effective way.
❑ It is majorly acquired through speech.

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 ❑ It involves knowledge of vocabulary, syntax & phonetics.
❑ Language acquisition is primarily concerned with how native
language is acquired by an infant.

Natural Order of Language Acquisition

Approaches to Language Acquisition

Innatism
• The innate ability in a human infant to acquire language
knowledge. It was first pointed out by Greek philosopher Plato.
• “Innateness Hypothesis” was proposed by Noam Chomsky that
states that humans are pre-wired to acquire language.
• It was antithetical to John Locke’s theory of “Tabula Rasa”.

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 • Egyptian Pharaoh Psammetichus in 7th BCE also supported the
hypothesis.
• King James I of England also performed experiments to support
the hypothesis.
Social Interactionism
• It suggests that infants acquire language not only by some
innate skills but also by social interactions with other members
of the speech community that they are born in.
• George Herbert Mead is considered to be the “father of
Interactionism”.
• Herbert Blumer expanded on the theory and coined the term
“symbolic interactionism”.
Behaviourism
• Proposed by American Psychologist B.F. Skinner.
• The theory believes that language is acquired and developed by
means of environmental influence.
• Language acquisition Behaviourist Enforcement.
• Correct utterances are positively reinforced by reward and
incorrect utterances are paired with corrective measures.
Generativism
• Chomsky in his 1980 “Lectures on Government Binding”
postulated the theory of Generative Grammar.
• It proposes that language acquisition is guided by an innate
language-specific learning device (Universal Grammar).
• He believed that language acquisition is free from stimulus
control.

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• A child acquires language by the age of 3. By 5 he picks up on
Grammar.
• Hence, he proposes that it should be called “Language Growth”.
• It is a rejection of Skinner’s Behaviourism.

Stages of Language Acquisition

Second Language Acquisition

❑ An individual born in a bi-lingual or multi-lingual environment

has to acquire the competence to acquire a language other
than his mother language. The reasons can be-
❑ Academic
❑ Professional
❑ Ethnicity
❑ Migration
❑ The stages/challenges in SLA are quite different from the
ones faced in FLA.

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 Barriers in SLA
❑ Penfield and Lenneberg opined that L2 is acquired between the
age of 2 to Puberty.
❑ It is generally acquired in an institutionalized manner, hence the
learner comes in touch with it for a fewer number of hours.
❑ Because there are not many speakers in the L2, the learner
finds it difficult to habituate to L2.
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 ❑ Rote method of learning makes the process all the more
monotonous and outdated.

✓ Age- It is believed that children are better at language acquisition

than adults because their brains are still developing.
• LA becomes more difficult particularly after puberty.
• Selinger opined that children acquire phonological system much
faster than adults.
✓ Sex- Several studies suggest that girls acquire L2 better than boys.
• Rama Kant Agnihotri says that girls are better at L2 in order to
compensate for their social subjugation in a patriarchal
society/setup.
• Hence, they are more proficient at acquiring the prestigious
forms of L2 over their stigmatized/vulgar forms.

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✓ Intelligence- Though it is debated, some studies suggest that
Intelligence and SLA have a direct corelation.
✓ Aptitude- “Knack”
There are 2 known measures of SLA aptitude-
• Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT): developed by
Caroll & Sapon in 1959.
• Phonemic Coding Ability
• Grammatical Sensibility
• Inductive Language Learning Ability- student’s ability
too generalize patterns from 1 example.
• Rote Learning
• The Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery (PLAB):
developed by Dr. Paul Pimsleur in 1966- intelligence,
verbal ability, pitch discrimination, order of language
study and bilingualism, study habits, motivation and
attitudes, and personality factors.
✓ Personality-
• Social behaviour
• Extrovertness
• Flexibility
• Independence
• Self-confidence
• Meticulousness
• Comfort with Ambiguity
• Self-motivation
✓ Attitude-
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 • Towards learning
• Towards the second language
• Towards Teachers
• Towards the group that speaks the language
• Motivation- The learner’s drive to learn a language and not just
the favourabe attitude towards it.
• E.g. an Indian would have a favourable view of English language
but might not have the necessary drive to acquire it as her/his
second language.
• “The extent to which an individual works or strives to learn the
language because of a desire to do so and the satisfaction
experienced in this activity” – Gardner (1985).

Approaches to Second Language Acquisition

Traditional/Grammar Translation Method

• Began in 16th century due to widespread importance of Latin.
• This method focuses on the teaching of the second language
grammar chiefly through the grammatical rules and list of
vocabulary along with translations into the mother tongue.
• Principle-
• More focus on the study and reading portion than
speaking.
• Translation oriented.
• Primary authority comes from the teacher; student-
teacher interaction.

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 • Focus on Grammatical rules and its understanding-
“Accuracy”
• Medium of instruction- student’s native language.
Direct/Natural Method
• Evolved at the end of 19th century.
• It was evolved with the idea that the speaker must be able to
think in L2. Hence, it involved more discussion & conversation,
and L2 was taught in L2 (Germany & France; known as “Berlitz
Method” in USA)
• Principles-
• More focus on the spoken form of language (grammar &
pronunciation).
• Focus on everyday vocabulary, which is taught through
real-life objects, mimes, visuals (association).
• Curriculum- Question-Answer Pattern; Inductive Method
• Native-speaker like pronunciation to give a sense of
belongingness to the speaker.
The West’s Method
• Michael Philip West developed a theory on English as a foreign
language in India as a response to the direct method.
• He focused on Silent Learning to promote reading
comprehension skills in English- Reading; Selected/Graded
Vocab; Well-judged use of L1
• He proposed a reading book with selected texts and vocabulary.
• This vocabulary composed of 2280 words classified as-
• General words- beautiful, fast, tall short, light, heavy, dark
• Essential words- to, that, will, shall, be
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 • Common Environmental words- bed, table, chair, plate
• Specific Environmental words- plant, hill, slope, beach
Bilingual Method
• Also called “Sandwich Method”.
• C.J. Dodson was its main proponent.
• Medium- Both L1 & L2 (Teaching begins bilingual then shifts to
monolingual approach).
• Principle- Presentation/Practice/Production.
• The lesson starts with the teacher reading out a basic dialogue;
the students then repeat the lines (reproduction/performance);
at last the students learn to produce their own sentences with
variations and extended application.
• Syntax is its basic unit of teaching.
Audio-lingual Method
• Term was coined by Nelson Brooks in 1964.
• Main principle- “speech is primary”
• Popular in the US in 1960s.
• Focus on-
• Oral drill
• Pronunciation
• Grammatical structures- “formal properties of language”
• Based on behaviourism- listening, speaking, audio-visual
aids
• Disadvantage- Communicative competence and meaning is not
given importance; form is given more importance.

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Total Physical Response
• Introduced by James Asher.
• Three Hypotheses-
• Language learning should be free from stress and
• Language learning engages the right hemisphere of the
brain
• Language is learnt by listening
• Teachers are advised to treat learner’s mistakes emphatically
like a parent.
• Initially students learn in L1 and stress is laid upon listening &
not speaking (initially). Teachers decide the listening input.
• Focus on Verb- meaning is at the heart of the lesson.
• Better for Beginner level as it takes a lot of time to move to
Communication English.

Suggestopedia
• Advocated by Dr. Georgi Loznov, a Bulgarian psychiatrist and
parapsychologist.
• Suggestion + Pedagogy
• The main idea is that learning can be accelerated by de-
suggestion of psychological barriers and positive suggestions.
The method is developed because of the argument that
students naturally face psychological barriers to learning.
• Light music and pleasing, dim lights are used to facilitate
learning.
• Errors made are overlooked initially.
• No formal tests are given and evaluation is done during the
normal class performance.

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The Structural-Oral-Situational Approach
• Developed by British linguists Firth and Halliday. It was popular
in 1930s-1960s.
• It believed that there are some 2000 words that are core in
English language. One could master these words and become
proficient in English.
• Moreover, an analysis of English and a classification of its
principal grammatical structures into syntactical patterns could
be used to assist learners to internalize syntactical rules.
• Uses Behaviourism- receiving knowledge, repeating it and
learning it.
• LSRW skills are developed- focus on both grammar and
vocabulary.
• Drills are an important part of the lesson.

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

• It is a functional approach to language learning.
• It arose out of Chomsky’s focus on Competence and
Performance in language learning.
• Michael Halliday and Dell Hymes developed CLT in 1970s.
• It focuses on developing oral skills first and moving to reading
and writing later- developing communicative competency.
• Problem-solving tasks, participation and interaction are
facilitated in order to develop LSRW.
• Six activities are used- group work, role-play, interviews,
information gap, opinion sharing and scavenger hunt.

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Michael B. Preen and Christopher N. Candlin introduced the roles
teacher assume in a CLT class.
Facilitator
Independent Participant
Needs Analyst
Counsellor
Group Processes Manager

Natural Approach
• Stephen Krashen and Tracy Terrel developed this approach in
1970s. They published the results of their research in The
Natural Approach (1983).
• Intended for learners at the beginning level. Language is
acquired in a natural way.
• More importance is laid on vocabulary, communication,
exposure to English input, error-correction, etc.
• Sub-conscious language acquisition is facilitated through-
o Content Activities
o Affective Humanistic Activities- helps learners to learn
from own ideas, opinions and experiences.
o Personalized Language Activities- through language
gamed
o Problem-solving Activities

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The Silent Method
• Founded in the early 1970s by the Egyptian Mathematician
Caleb Gattegno.
• It lays focus on discovery, creativity, problem-solving and the
use of accompanying materials.
• Learner plays an active role in learning.
• TLM is introduced to facilitate learning.
• The teacher is silent for the most part with minimum repetition.

Important Projects in ELT

Basic English Project
• It was introduced by linguist and philosopher Charles Kay
Ogden in his book Basic English: A General Introduction with
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 Rules and Grammar (1930). Here he introduced 850 words and
intended them as medium of international communication.
• These 850 words are only root words.
• BASIC is a backronym of British American Scientific International
Commercial (English). George Orwell propounded it and even
used New Speak in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
The New Bolt Report
• It was a report on ELT in England and Wales, presented to the
Board of Education in 1921 by a committee chaired by Sir Henry
Newbolt.
• It argued that English was largely overlooked in English and
Welsh school curriculum and should be focused on.
The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
• Also called Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis. It was developed by
Sapir in 1929 and expanded by Whorf’s writing in the 1950s.
• It argues that language is “not merely a reproducing instrument
for voicing ideas, but is itself a shaper of ideas, the programme
and guide for the individual’s meaningful activity”. In other
words, language determines or shapes our reality.
• It further adds that if a word is not available in one’s language,
the perception of reality will be different as of one’s in whose
language that word exists.

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 Interaction Hypothesis Theory
• This theory is chiefly linked to Second Language Acquisition
which states that the development of language proficiency is
promoted by face-to-face interaction and communication.
• Introduced by Michael Long in his 1996 paper “The role of
the linguistic environment in Second Language Acquisition”.

Some Important Concepts

Syllabic verse- A poetic form having a fixed number of syllables per
line. The focus on stress or tone is secondary, or not important at all.
It is common in languages like French, Japanese, etc. Such languages
are called syllable-timed languages as opposed to stress-timed
languages, like English.
Phoneme- the fundamental unit of Phonology. All languages can be
broken down into simple sound units or phonemes- perceptibly
distinct units of sound that distinguish one word from another. Each
language has a fixed number of phonemes. English has 44 and Hindi
has 46 phonemes in their respective sound systems. E.g. p, t, b in pat,
tat, bat etc.
Allophone- the linguistically non-significant variants of a phoneme is
called allophones. E.g. “r” phoneme is used in “ray” and “tray” but
there are 2 allophone here because the “r” in “ray” is voiced and
non-fricative and the “r” in “tray” is voiceless and fricative (a type
of consonant made by the friction of breath in a narrow opening,
producing a turbulent air flow).
Syllable- vowel sounds in a word or the part of a word with a single
vowel sound.

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Morpheme- a minimal unit of a language which either has a meaning
or a grammatical function. E.g. “dancing” is a word that contains 2
morphemes- “dance” and “ing”. The word “nationalization” has 4
morphemes- “nation”, “al”, “ize” and “tion”. They are of 2 kinds
➢ Free- can exist independently with a meaning
➢ Bound- only serve a grammatical function; doesn’t have a
meaning of its own; only occurs as attached to free
morphemes.
Hence, the word “nationalization” has 1 Free Morpheme and 3
Bound Morphemes.
Free Morphemes further divide into 2 categories-
➢ Lexical- Ordinary nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc. that carry
the “content” of the message”. They are called open class
of words because new lexical morphemes are created
every now and then.
➢ Functional- Conjunction, pronouns, prepositions, etc. that
serve functional or additional role in conveying a message.
They are not often changed/added; hence they are called
closed class of words.
The affixes- prefixes and suffixes- that form the bound morphemes
are divided into 2 parts-
➢ Inflectional Morpheme- An inflectional morpheme is
a suffix that’s added to a word to assign a particular
grammatical property to that word, such as its number,
mood, tense, or possession. However, an inflectional
morphology can never change the grammatical category
of a word. You can add an inflectional morphology to a
verb, noun, adjective, or an adverb. For example, adding a
‘-s’ to the verb plural verb ‘run’ can make this verb

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 singular. Similarly, adding ‘-ed’ to the verb dance creates
the past tense of the verb (danced).
➢ Derivational Morpheme- it is an affix we add to a word in
order to create a new word or a new form of a word.
Moreover, a derivational morpheme can either change
the meaning or the grammatical category of the word. For
example, ‘pure’ turns to ‘impure’, ‘help’ turns to ‘helper’,
‘logic’ turns to ‘logical’ or ‘illogical’.
Another phenomenon is Zero Derivation, where no affix is added to a
word of a unique grammatical category. It is shifted as it is to another
grammatical category e.g. comb, paint, butter, etc.
Compounding- 2 or more than 2 free morphemes are added to
create a new word. E.g. “ice+cream”, “black+board”, “water-proof”,
etc.
Blending- Parts of 2 words are combined to create a new word e.g.
“lunch” and “breakfast” make “brunch”.
Deep Structure and Surface Structure- Developed and popularized
by Noam Chomsky in the 1960s. Deep Structure refers to the
central/underlying idea being conveyed and Surface Structure refers
to the slight modifications in its representation. E.g.
He writes a letter.
A letter is being written by him.
The Deep Structure if both the sentences is the same but they are
represented in different forms (Active-Passive) on a surface level.
Hence, it can be said that DS provides the Semantic component of
the sentence while the SS provides the necessary phonological
representation of the sentence.
Cardinal Vowels- a set of reference vowels used by phoneticians in
describing the sounds of languages. They are classified based on their

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position in the mouth- extreme front back, top or bottom- or the
shape of the lip-rounded or unrounded. Hence, in other words, these
are the vowel sounds produced when tongue is in an extreme
position.
The original idea is credited to Ellis and Bell but the current system
was systemized by Daniel Jones in the early 20th century.
Three of the cardinal vowels—[i], [ɑ] and [u]—have articulatory
definitions. The vowel [i] is produced with the tongue as far forward
and as high in the mouth as is possible (without producing friction),
with spread lips. The vowel [u] is produced with the tongue as far
back and as high in the mouth as is possible, with protruded lips. This
sound can be approximated by adopting the posture to whistle a very
low note, or to blow out a candle. And [ɑ] is produced with the
tongue as low and as far back in the mouth as possible.

Language in Use

Language has many variations. The central idea behind these

variations can be understood better with Chomsky’s distinction
between Competence and Performance- Competence is the
knowledge that a native speaker has. While Performance refers to
their actual linguistic behaviour.
Standard language- A variety of language used by people in general
public discourse. Standardization in language occurs through the
development of grammar, dictionaries, vocabulary books, literature,
etc. It is important for the development of scientific research,
dissemination of knowledge, creation of public discourse, education
and literary purposes, law and governance, for a sense of unity, etc.

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Einar Haugen (1966) proposed 4 stages of Standardization of
language-
➢ Selection
➢ Codification
➢ Elaboration of Function
➢ Acceptance
Idiolect- coined by Bernard Bloch from the Greek word “idio”
meaning personal and “lect” meaning the variation of a language.
Hence, Idiolect refers to the unique dialect of an individual. It is a
person’s individual speech pattern.
Dialect- derived from the Greek word “dialektos”, which means
variation in language. A language can have multiple dialects without
any change in its script. When a dialect is associated with a social
class, it is known as Sociolect. When it is associated with an area, it is
called Regiolect or Topolect.
Register- was first used by Linguist Thomas Bertram Reid in 1956. It is
defined as the way a speaker uses language differently in different
circumstances. Michael Halliday and R. Hassan identified 3 factors
that affect register-
➢ Tenor- the set of relevant social relations e.g. the relationship of
respect between an employer and an employee.
➢ Field- the subject of the discourse e.g. serious or funny.
➢ Mode- the medium of communication e.g. a formal letter, an
informal letter, SMS, etc.
Pidgin- originally, a language that typically developed out of sporadic
and limited contacts between Europeans and non-Europeans in
locations other than Europe from the 16th through the early 19th
century and often in association with activities such as trade,
plantation agriculture, and mining.

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Typical pidgins function as lingua francas, or means for
intergroup communication, but not as vernaculars, which are usually
defined as language varieties used for ordinary interactions that
occur outside a business context.
Pidgins have no native speakers, as the populations that use them
during occasional trade contacts maintain their own vernaculars for
intragroup communication.
Creole- vernacular languages that developed in colonial
European plantation settlements in the 17th and 18th centuries as a
result of contact between groups that spoke mutually unintelligible
languages. Creole languages most often emerged in colonies located
near the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean or the Indian Ocean.
Like any language, creoles are characterized by a consistent system
of grammar, possess large stable vocabularies, and are acquired by
children as their native language. These three features distinguish a
creole language from a pidgin.
The pidgin-creole life cycle was studied by American linguist Robert
Hall in the 1960s.
Jargon- Jargon refers to the specialized language of a professional or
occupational group. While this language is often useful or necessary
for those within the group, it is usually meaningless to outsiders.
Some professions have so much jargon of their own that it has its
own name; for example, lawyers use legalese, while academics
use academese. Jargon is also sometimes known as lingo or argot. A
passage of text that is full of jargon is said to be jargony.
Jargon should not be confused with Slang, which is informal,
colloquial language sometimes used by a group (or groups) of
people. The main difference is one of register; jargon is formal
language unique to a specific discipline or field, while slang is

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common, informal language that is more likely to be spoken than
written.

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