Sarmad Mughis Tahir

SOCIOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS ESSAY Sociolinguistic deals with the aspects of language that are related to language even if it is the influence of language on the society or the impact of the society over the language. The fact that language is the product of the day to day experiences from the society and it also influences the society a lot is the basic premise of the sociolinguistics. Sociolinguists believe that the study of language in terms of semantic, syntactic and psychological assessment is not enough. Language lives in the society and makes difference in the way it is used. Sociolinguistic analysis of language or of a community actually stresses on the interdependency between the societal and linguistic analysis together (A, 1970). Sociolinguistics uses many different techniques to determine the variations in language and to find out the underlying reasons for those variations. The variations are the basic focus of the study of sociolinguistics that stresses on the importance of the variations and tries to find the reasons for the said variations in the cultural, social, economic, status wise and other differences. It is a unique way of looking at the world of linguistics that does not just look at the obvious but looks deeply into the soul of society to find the meaning and truth of the utterances made. The techniques are adopted differently in every different scenario and hence it is fundamentally important to ponder on the ways to approach every different culture, society and community. Sociolinguistic methodology includes speech events, interviews, observation, natural speech patterns analysis etc. (Wolfson, 1976) Sociolinguistics analyzes the discourse and tries to find discrepancies or changes and patterns that can help the study in finding better ways to understand meaning. As the language is used to forward the meaning sociolinguistics tends to look deeply into the sentence structures with an eye for the deeper meaning that are evident from the social norms and customs. It tries to understand society through language and language through society. It is a comprehensive study of how society and language work together. Capital city of Pakistan; Islamabad’s language In monolingual communities, the variations in language are evident in people’s way of speaking and their choices of words that indicate their position in social hierarchy. The diversity of social groups is reflected within the linguistic attitudes they took up to reflect their social identity (Dicle, 2010). The conditions that apply for the analysis of a monolingual society are not applicable to the bilingual or multilingual groups. The technique in the monolingual society is quite simple in comparison to the ones used for societies with more than one languages. Languages are a collaborative product of their speech communities their effect on each other and their variations within that are different from the others although being the same (Coulmas, 2013). As Pakistan is a multilingual society, where almost the whole population speaks at least 2 and in some instances 4-5 languages, it is not very easy to analyze its language variations. The group that is bound in this margin is considered due to personal experiences with the people of the Islamabad. The fact that the dominant languages can be determined to be only two is the reason for them being marked as a single group. Specifically, the two languages that dominate and can be seen being spoken everywhere in the city are Urdu and English. The whole community knows Urdu and a majority has at least minimal knowledge of English. This society is diverse as people from all over the country come to work and live here. The social structure of the city is not as conservative as the rest of the country but the conservativeness can be seen in abundance. The society runs very smooth and the domestic structures are very excitingly diverse. The reason for taking this one city as a separate community and a test case is that the culture of the whole nation is mingled into one smaller community in this city. People from all over the country have come together and that, gave birth to a community that is very different from any other city or province of Pakistan. Most of the people living there are middle and upper middle class, and have become a part of this Islamabad community entirely. The culture that can be seen here is different from other areas of the state but is very uniform within the city. Islamabad is full of multilinguals that range from, Pashto, Hindko, Pothwari, Punjabi, Saraiki, Balti, Shina, Sindhi, Balochi and many other different languages. But the most important are the two languages that became as important, in this city because English is the official Language of Pakistan and Urdu is the National Language. The language is also quite even as most of the people are from a particular sort of earning ring that makes them an almost uniform community. Uniformity in any community is impossible to find as there are always rich and poor people everywhere, but the fact that people from different areas with different languages and different culture have come together in Islamabad and became one community of almost uniform wealth, social and economic strengths. This community is the most uniform community in a country, full of variations because of geographical, cultural and linguistic differences. Islamabad is the best community to be taken as a case study for analysis because of its uniformity but along with that and important factor is that this uniformity is artificially created by the environment of the city, that mildly dictates the way people live and go on with their routines. Language and Education English in Islamabad and generally in Pakistan is considered funnily enough more important to learn than perhaps it is in countries with English as native Language. The mad love for English in Pakistan is often considered as the paranoia of eastern people to adopt the western culture and those who speak, read, write and understand English language are considered more enlightened and educated. The social structure is also bound to this scenario so badly that people assume, the person who can speak English better than others, as a rich person no matter how poor he/she is. The social definitions of who is educated and who isn’t are very much tied to the outlook, that is supposed to be westernized. The learning of English language as the second language is a very important topic for learners and teacher of English. In case of Pakistan English is very dominantly a language that is considered a prestige for the ones who learn it. Recent study shows that the normal learning techniques of English as a second language are not very useful and suffer a disadvantage because of negligence towards the social aspect of the language. To understand and learn the language the social aspect must be given value and it can lead development of better learning techniques for teaching English as second language (David, 2003). Pakistani education system is very different in different areas within the country but educational institutions in Islamabad are mostly of western style. A few institutions follow the curriculum of Cambridge system of schools with A levels and O levels. And some follow the Federal board of education that is also western education system is a bit different and Pakistani version. A few schools have recently adopted American High School curriculum and a lot of people have started going to that system. In short, generally the education system of Pakistan uses English as the medium of the study and subject of English language is one of the most important courses in this system. English as mentioned earlier has penetrated Islamabad very deeply and a newer generation and community is developing that are more comfortable in English than they are in speaking their own native language. Islamabad has a very different language version that is very much an amalgamation of English and Urdu. It is fascinating how the rules have developed on their own. In the interactions with people from Islamabad unique style of language is weirdly very marked in some ways. Many of the sentences are half Urdu and half English utterances that are not random but are used cautiously as a part of language. This version of language has been criticized by many people in Pakistan as one which demarcates the loss of identity. People say that this kind of language that has developed in Islamabad has to be ousted from the region or else it will cause demise of the originality of the language as it is the territory that inspires many around the country as it is considered one of the hippest communities of Pakistan. This hybrid Language that has developed in Islamabad is a very good example of Jan Blommaert’s thesis that language is like a fluid that keeps changing shape and only possesses meanings according to the ideology of the owner (Blommaert, 2010). The flow of the language and intermingling to the extent it did in the context of the Islamabad’s community is very natural in the world that is growingly interconnected. The concept of trans-lingualism can be seen very much clearly in Islamabad’s society where languages from very different families have mixed with each other quite remarkably. But the mix of languages is not only related to languages, instead it has the dimensions of the cultures and societies from far off and far away places come together in a very easily mixable way. Despite all the differences when languages come in contact with each other it is never just the contact of two languages as the individuals but the individuals that carry these languages along with the cultures, societies and background they come from. Social interactions cannot be considered trivial and easy to judge because they contain too much information and too big of conversed material that gets carried to different places after the interactions (Canagarajah, 2013). Language and Globalization Globalization has made world a lot smaller place then it was before. Technological advancements in the field of communications and means of traveling have created a fast information movement easy that in turn has brought many cultures together and mingled them with each other. The system of the world, as they say, that has the shrinking boundaries and direct communications between the individuals of different states has made the interdependence and need for a Lingua Franca for the globe, and English has taken that role. There are many reasons and many explanations as to why English has the place and respect it has, but the most important and easy to see is, that it is the language mostly used in the countries that are the ambassadors of most modern inventions that have made world a more globalized world. The fact that a lot of these modern inventions can be seen are done by American and European scientists, has a huge impact on the world and has carried their languages to all parts of the world. The language of the makers of the technology that is used everywhere in the world is bound to get its place as it has. In the current era of electronic and print media the interest in knowing about the world has grown very high and due to that the Lingua Franca i.e. has been become a very important language to learn. English has started growing very fast and around 80 % of the people around the globe, who speak English are non-native speakers. This will have a huge impact on the language (Jenkins, 2008). Different societies in world have accepted English as a major language in their cultures because of this aspect. For example, the Use of English has become so important in Sweden that it has become a part of their state policy (Hult, 2012). Some scholars argue that Globalization can cause death of languages and it is proving to be true as many languages have gone extinct because of the cultural invasions and other changes in the modes of living. The fact that almost thousands of languages have already gone extinct is very saddening but the reason seems to be the globalization. Language loss, a global phenomenon, is fast-tracking among native groups in US as well. A lot of Native American dialects are spoken only by elders and the rest are also following their lead, as many children and younger people only prefer and speak English (Crawford, 1995). These circumstances are worrisome for all of the societies. The people in Pakistan are also worried about the future of the regional languages as a lot of people are thinking that due to the appeal in English other languages that are the real culture of the nation are getting wept off the earth. Effect and impact of English in this particular community of Islamabad’s youngsters is very clearly seen to be ruining their own languages. The multilingual society of Pakistan has turned into more of a bilingual community in Islamabad and seems to be in danger in future, as more and more people try to learn and adopt English or at least a mixed version of Urdu that is mainly English. The people who consider this type of behavior a cultural decay have tried to reverse the effects of this fast-tracking demise of Urdu but the future prospects of their struggle seem farfetched. Another reason for English being a language that is spoken and understood in a city in Pakistan is the post-colonialism. Even after the end of colonial era the impact of the colonizers stays in the region it had effected and in this case the colony that was Subcontinent is still under a lot of influence. Along with the reminders through media and importance of English language in that scenario the feeling towards the English language are a remnant effect of English colonization of Subcontinent. The fact that these cultural standardizations still remain, is a very sad truth for a lot of post-colonial writers and thinkers. They believe that these effects are not just in terms of language instead they transform into another type of social complex that takes up the minds of whole generations and make susceptible to weakness in making their own decision in term of their own culture instead look hopelessly toward the west or the colonizer. A lot of studies have shown clear signs of internalization of the problems that related to anxiety in the colonized. The theories about these remaining issues and effects of colonization are at times contested but in reality, are very real. As a recent study on Filipinos in USA has shown the symptoms of internalization of the fears and disturbances (David, 2008). Post-colonialism is in some cases is not considered related to Globalization. But the era of globalization owes a lot to colonization. One would think that the era of Globalization started because of the fact the telecommunications and other means of communication got too fast and advanced and gave way to globalization. World became smaller and smaller with the advancements in the field of science and is on the path of shrinking still. But in reality, it had already started with the colonization. News use to travel way slower but the interactions that happened between the cultures and the trend of going out of the one’s own country to “own” a land far away was the real first step towards globalization. In the era of colonization Language was also transported along with the western civilization’s different other bearings. Language played a very important plan at the time in case of ruling the colonized nations. Language was made the standard that was hard to reach for the locals and hence they got subdued in front of the colonizers. The remnant effect of the worshiping the language can still be seen in the happiness and regard that is given to the people who can speak English. Bibliography 1- Dicle, R. (2010). A sociolinguistic analysis of the language variety taken up by “facebook” users in Turkey as a speech community. Hacettepe University. 2- Wolfson, N. (1976). Speech events and natural speech: Some implications for sociolinguistic methodology. Language in Society, 5(02), 189. doi:10.1017/s-- Hult, F. M. (2012). English as a Transcultural Language in Swedish Policy and Practice. Tesol, 46(2),-- A, F., Joshua. (1970). Sociolinguistics: A brief introduction. Retrieved November 12, 2016, from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED-- Coulmas, F. (2013). Sociolinguistics: The study of speakers’ choices (2nd ed.). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. 6- Jenkins, J. (2008, September). English as Lingua Franca. Retrieved November 12, 2016, from http://www.jacet.org/2008convention/JACET2008_keynote_jenkins.pdf 7- David, E. J. R. (2008). A colonial mentality model of depression for Filipino Americans. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 14(2), 118–127. doi:10.1037/-- Blommaert, J. (2010). The Sociolinguistics of globalization. Cambridge University Press. 9- Canagarajah, S. A. (2013). Literacy as Translingual practice: Between communities and classrooms. Routledge. 10- David, B. (2003, March 1). The social turn in Second language acquisition. Retrieved November 12, 2016, from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED-- Mesthrie, R., Swann, J., Deumert, A., & Leap, W. (2009). Introducing Sociolinguistics (2nd ed.). Edinburgh University Press.