1Language and social man(Part 1)\

1 Languag and the enYironment

If we ever come to look back on the ideology of the 1970s, as suggested bythe write of an imaginary 'retrospect from 1980' published, inThe Observerin the first issue ofthe decade, we are likely to see one theme clearly standingout, the theme of 'social man'. Not social man in opposition to individualman, but rather the individual in his social enyironment. What the write wasforecasting

- and he seems likely to be proved accurate

- was, in effect, that

while we should continue to be preoccupied with man in relation to hissurroundings, as we were in the 1960s, the 1970s would show a change ofcnrrhasis from the purely physical environment to the social environment.'l his is not lr ncw concern, but it has tended up to now to take second place;rvt. hrvc hccn nrorc involved over the past twenty years with town planningirrrrl rrhirrr l'cncwul. with the flow of traffic around us and above our heads,irr(l llr,,st lcecntly with the pollution and destruction ol our materialr( \our( c\. 'l his irrcvittrbly hs distracted us from thinking about the otherl)rr I ( )l or! r'rrvilorrllrc rr t. t hitl which consists of people

- not people as mere

(lur,rtr ol hrrrrrirrrily. so t|ltny lo thc squarc mile, but other individuals withu,lronr wc hirve r.lcirlings ()l t nlorc ol lcss personal kind.

'lhc 'errvilorrnrcnl' is social as wcll as physical, and a state of wellbeing,which rlepcnds on hirrnrony with thc environment, demands harmony ofboth kinds. Thc raturc of this state of wellbeing is what environmentalstudies are about, Ten years ago we first came to hear of 'ergonomics', thestudy and control of the environment in which people work; many willremembe London Transport's advertising slogan 'How big is a bus driver?',announcing the design of new buses'on ergonomic principles'. This wascharacteristic of the conception of thc environment at that time. Today wewould tind more emphasis laid on thc sooial aspects of wellbeing. No onewould assert that the shapc of the bus driver's seat is unimportant; but it noIonger seems to be thc wholc story. There are other aspects of environ-mental design which sccm at least as significant, and which are considcrablymore difficult to adjust.

Consider for example the problem of pollution, thc tlclcnsivc irspcct ofenvironmental design. The rubhish crccr, lhe ( ( ) l r I r r r r r i r r r r I i ( ) | I ol lrir andwltcr,cvcnthcnrosllclhitl proccssesol rlrysicirl l)()llulior irl)l.:tI to l)c nl)rctl.itcliblc lltrn lhe rollrrliorr irr llr,..srxrrl r . I I \ r I r I I r I I I r ' I I I tlr.rt ir t:rrrsr.,rl hy

Language and social man (Part 1) 9rrejudicc and animosity of race, culture and class. These cannot betngineered away. One of the more dangerous of the terms that have beent'oined in this area is 'social engineering'; dangerous not so much because it\rrggests manipulating people for evil ends

- most people are alert to that

rlirnger -

but because it implies that the social environment can be fashionedlikc the physical one, by methods of demolition and construction, if only thepllns and the machines arc big enough and complicated enough. Some of therl li)rtunate effects of this kind of thinking have been seen ftom time to timerrr t he field of language and education. But social wellbeing is not definable,,,r irttainable, in these terms.

'l]ducation'may sound less exciting than social engineering, but it is an,,1(lcI concept and one that is more relevant to our needs. If the engineers,r r(l the town planners can mould the physical environmenl, it is the teachers\r lro cxert the most influence on the social environment. They do so not byrrr;r rr ipulating the social structure (which would be the engineering,r1rrloach) but by playing a major part in the process whereby a human beingl,, t orrres social man. The school is the main line of defence against pollutionrr rlrc human environment; and we should not perhaps dismiss the notion of(l( l(nce'too lightly, because defensive action is often precisely what isn, , rlctl. Preventive medicine, after al[, is defensive medicine; and what the., lrool has failed to prevent is left to society to cure.

ln I hc development of the child as a social being, language has the centralr, ,l( . Llnguage is the main channel through which the patterns of living arer r ,rr\nr itted to him, through which he leans to act as a member of a 'society'

rrr rrrrtl through the various social groups, the family, the neighbourhood,,rr,l so on

- and to adopt its 'culture', its modes of thought and action, its

I ,, lr( l\ ir nd its values. This does not happen by instruction, at least not in theI'r, rclrrol yearsi nobody teaches him the principles on which social groups.rr,,,rgrrnized,ortheirsystemsofbeliefs,norwouldheunderstanditiftheyrr r, 1. Il happens indirectly, through the accumulated experience of numer-,,u,, srlrll events, insignificant in themselves, in which his behaviour is| r,l( (l irnd controlled, and in the course of which he contracts and develops, r '.r rrrirl rclationships of all kinds. All this takes place through the medium,

'l Lr n,lugc. And it is not from the language of the classroom, still less that of, ,,rrrr ol law, of moral tracts or of textbooks of sociology, that the childl, r r\ irlx)ut thc culture he was born into. The striking fact is that it is therrr,

" l r r tlinlry cvcryday uses of language, with parents, brothes and sisters,

rr, r,lrlrorr lhood children, in the home, in the street and the park, in the shops.r rr,l tl. I lirins and thc buscs, that scrve to transmit, to the child, the essential,rr rlrlics ol socicty and thc naturc of social being.

I lr rs, rr hlie l, is whirt this chaptcr is about. It is a general discussion of lher,l,rtrrrrr ol lilrgurAc 1() social nran, irntl in rarticular language asitimpinges,,rrtlrr oI ol lllr. tcit(ll('r irs ir crcirl()r ol social man-oratleastasamidwiferr tlr( ( r( ir l ioI l)l()(css.'lllrl lhis (l()cs [()t rnean sintply language in school is, r l r , , r l y 1 l ll rrrr'rrrs. r'lrlher'. llrrrgrrirge in thc t()(irl c()rrtcxt ofthc interac-tr,'rr lrr.t\\'rt. lur irrrlivirlrrrl irrrrl lris hrrnrrl trtvitortllcnl: lretwccn onc irdi-

10 The sociolinguistic perspectivevidual and others, in fact. But thc point of view to be adopted will be aneducational one, emphasizing those aspects of language and social man thatarc most relevant to the teacher in the classroom.

It might seem that one could hardty begin to consider language at allwithout taking account of social man, since language is the means wherebypeople interact. How else can one loo k atlanguage excepl in a social context?In the last resort, it istrue that the existence oflanguage implies the existenceofsocial man; but this does not by itselfdetermine the point of vantage fromwhich language is being approached. Let us think for a moment of anindividual human being, considered as a single organism. Being human, it isalso articulate: it can spea!and understand language, and perliaps read andwrite as well. Now the abiiity to speak and undetand aiises, ind makessense, only because there are other such organisms around, and it is naturalto think of it as an inter-organism phenomenon to be studied fom aninter-organism point of view. But it is also possible to investigate languageftom the standpoint of the internal make-up of that organiim: the bralnstructure, and the cerebral processes that are involved in its speaking andunderstanding, and also in its learning to speak and to understand. So thereisn intra-organism perspective on language as well as an inter_organism one.The two standpoints are complementary; but there tend to e shifts ofemphasis between them, tends and fashions in scholarship which lead toconcentration on one, for a time, at the expense ofthe other. in the 1960s themajor emphasis was on what we are calling intra-organism studies, on theinvestigation of language as knowledge, of .what the speaker knows', run-ning parallel to, and probably occasioned by, the relative neglect of man,ssocial enyironment. Thete has now been a move back towards a greaterconcern with the social aspects of language, a restoring of the balance inlinguistic studies, with account once more being taken of the inter-organismfactor-that oflanguage as social behaviour, or language in relation to socialman.

A diagrammatic representation of the nature of linguistic studies and theirrelation to other fields ofscholarship will serve as a point ofreference for thcsubsequert discussion (figure 1). The diagram shows the domain oflanguagestudy

- of Iinguistics, to give it its subject title

- by a broken line; everyihing

within that line is an aspect or a branch of linguistic studies.In the centre is a triangle, shown by a solid tine, which maks offwhat is the

central area of language study, that of language as a system. One way ofsaying what is meant by 'central' here is that if a student is taking linguisticsas a university subject he will have to cover this area as a compulsory part ofhis course, whatever other aspects he may choose to take up. There are thencertain projections from thc triangle, representing special sub-disciplineswithin this central area: phonetics, historical linguistics and dialectology

-

the last of these best thought of in broader terms, as the study of languagevarieties. These sometimes get excluded from thc ccntral rcion, bul prob-ably most linguists would agrcc in placing thc nr willrin it I il onc coultl givc athrcc-dinrcnsirnal rcl)rcscrttliotr thcy w0tr lrol l0ol lilr. r.\( t(.sccnccs.

I

Ilanguage

linsuastics),tl

"..,',, '"

ogv lanthropo ogy

culture humanbiologY

tlu I

I lr.rr. outside this triangle, are the principal perspectives on language thatr,rl, rrs beyrnd a consideration solely of language as a system, and, in sorlrrrrr,. 'i,rr" on other disciplines. Any study of language involves some,rr rr r rr r( rr l() ()ther disciplines; one cannot draw a boundary round the subjectr rr I rrrrr litc it fiom others. The question is whether the aims go beyond the, lrrr rrlrtiorr of language itself; and once one goes outside the central area,,,r, r,, rr(lriring not only into language but into language iIL relation to.,,rrr, tlrrrrg c lsc. Thc diagram summarizes these wider fields unde the threelr, ,r,lrrris. 'languagc as knowledge', 'language as behaviour', 'language as'rt I

I lr( lrsl ol tlrcsc takes us into the realm ofliterature. which is all too oftenrr' ,l( (l rs il il wirs sonrcthing insulated frtm and even opposed to language:\\, rr)n(( rtr'rle rnirirrlyorr litcrature hclc

-wc don't do muchon language',,rr rl r orrr'crrlrrting ()n lile[lrrc'nradc it .rossihle to ignore the fact thatl

' r,rrllrl' is rrrirtlc 0l lrrnrrirge, Sinlilirrly (hc untlcrgraduatc is invited to

, lrr x rrl lrclu ccrt lirrtg. rttttl lil.'. ltt lltct lllc .listittct ion t hat is bcing irrrrlictl isrr Ir'r lr'( llv rrr(. ir rt itt,,lttl ottc lrc l wcc tt I wr t tlillt r'(. tll c tll l)lltscs ot ol'ie lll lll i, 'tts.

language languagetypology universals /)

linguistics)\

-I- _f---

M\Z-=,--sbsrace; phonic/

-

Language and social man (Part 1) 11

\\\ IlhilosophY

logic and

for: grammar and

stutionaL/ \cocept,al

" nallation

12 Thc sociolinguistic perspectrveone in which the centre of attcntion is the linguistic system and the othcrhaving a focus elsewhere; but it is wrongly named, and thcrefore, perhaps,liable to be misinterpreted. One can hardly take literature seriously withouttaking language scriously; but language here is being looked at from aspecial point of view.

The other two headings derive from the distinction we have just beendrawing between the intra-organism perspective, language as knowledge,and the inter-organism perspective, language as behaviour. These both leadus outward from language as a system, the former into the region of psy-chological studies, the lattet into sociology and related fields. So in puttinglanguage into the context of'language and social man,, we are taking up oneof the options that are open foq the relating of language study to other aieldsof inq uiry. This. broadly, is rhe ociolinguistic option; and the new subject ofsociolinguistics that has come into prominence latety is a recognition of thefact that language and society

- or, as we prefer to think of it, language and

social man -

is a unified conception, and needs to be understood andinvestigated as a whole. Neither of these exists without the other: there canbe no social man without language, and no language without social man. Torecognize this is no mere academic exercise; the whole theory and practice ofeducation depends on it, and it is no exaggeration to suggest that much ofourfailure in recent years

- the failure ofthe schools to come to grips with social

pollution -

can be traced to a lack of insight into the nature of the rela-tionships between language and society: specifically of the processes, whichare very largely linguistic processes, whereby a human organism turns into asocial being.

2 Inter-organism and intra-organism perspectivesThe diagram in section 1 suggests a context for language study, placing it inthe environment of other fields of investigation. It also suggests where'language and social man' fits into the total picture of language study. Thediscussion of the diagram will perhaps have made it clear (and this harksback to what was said at the beginning) that whe n we talk of.social man'thecontrast we are making is not that of social versus individual. The contrast israther that of social versus psychophysiological, the distinction which wehave attempted to draw in terms of intet-organism and intra-organismperspectives.

When we refer to social man, we mean the individual considered as asingle entity, rathcr than as an assemblage of parts. The distinction we aredrawing here is that bctween the behaviour of that individual, his actions andinteractions with his cnvironment (especially that part of his environmentwhich consists of other individuals), on the one hand, and on the othe handhis biological nature, and in particular the internal structure of his brain. Inthe first of these perspectives we are regarding the indivitlral as irn intcgralwhole, and looking at him frtr the outsi(lcl in thc secorrtl wr. irlc Iircusingour altcntion ol] thc pilrts. antl ltxrking or tltc iltsirh.. illr tlrc works.

Language and social man (Part 1) 13I irlguage can be considered from cither of these points of view; the fist isrr hrrt wc called on the diagram 'language as behaviour', the second 'languagers knowledge'. 'Language and social man'means languagc as a function ofI lr( whole man; hence language man to man (inter-organism), or language aslr rrrtn behaviour.

l'lrcse are two complcmentary orientations. Thc distinction between themr., rrrt a difficult one to make; in itself it is rather obvious and simple. But itIrrrr lrccome complicated by the fact that it is possible to embed one perspec-rr\( insidetheother: to tteat language behaviour as if it were an aspect of ourL rrl)wlcdge of language (and hence to see it in terms of the capacity of thelrrrrrrirn brain), and also, though in a rather different sense, to treat therr r,lrvidual's knowledge of language as a form of behaviour. In other words\\r' ( irn look at social facts from a biological point of view, or at biologicall,r( l\ I}om a social point of view.

I lre study oflanguage as knowledge is an attempt to find out what goesonrrr',rli lhc individual's head. The questions being asked are, what are the,rr, r lrrrrisms of the brain that are involved in speaking and understanding,r r rr I rr lrlt must the structure of the brain be like in oder for the individual tol,,,rlrle 1() speak and understand language, and to be able to learn to do so?

No\\ ()ne important fact about speaking and understanding language isrlr rr rt rlways takes place in a context. We do not simply 'know' our motherr',r,,r( 'rs an abstract system of vocal signals, or as if itwassomesortof a,r,rrrrrrrr book with a dictionary attached. We know it in the sense ofI rr,rs rrr lxrw to use it; we know how to communicate with other people,lr,,rr r clrotse forms oflanguage that are appropriate to the type ofsituation',, lrrrt ourselves in, and so on. All this can be expressed as a form oflrr,,rrltrhc' we know how to behave linguistically.

llri rt lorc it is possible, and is in fact quite usual in what is nowadays, ,rll, ,l sociolinguistics', to look at language behaviour as a type of knowl-, rl,, . so lhat although one's attention is focused on the social aspects ofI rrr,rrr,.r' on language as communication between organisms - one is stillr,,l rn1 rr llrt is essentially an intra-organism kind of question: how does therrllrr rrlrrrl know how o behave in this way? We might refer to this ast , r , l, , soe irlinguistics: it is the exte rnal behaviour of the organism looked atlr,,rr rlr( l)()int of view of the internal mechanisms which control it.\\, \iri(l irbovc that the two perspectives were complementary, and it,r,,rrlrl lrl reirsonable to conclude that they are really insepalable one fromilr,,rlr(!.ltu(ifsothcinscparabilityholdsinbothdirections. It istrue thattlr, r rrr lrv itlrllrl's potcntial for linguistic interaction with others implies certaintlllllt,,, rrl)ul thc irrlcrnal makc-up of the individual himself. But the con-\ L,' r\ irlso lllrc. l hc lircl that thc brain has the capacity to store languagerrrrl fi.,r' il lo e llcctivc corrrnttnicittion implics that communication takes'l r, , tlrrrt lhc irtlividutl ltits it 'hchaviour potcntial'which characterizes histrtr r.r( tirr rrillr olhel itrlivirltirls ol his srccics.

',Irr r' rr) r[)lrl)l llt'ltrtttittt Irtitttt r.v(llvcrl ill its Plcsclrt li)rm through thel'r,'r, \\ (rl ltttttlttt l|(itt1s ( orllrlllllti( illillA wilh oltc iln()thcl'. tlrc lilllcr

14 The sociolinguistic perspectrveperspcctive is likely to be highly significant from an evolutionary point ofview. But that is not our main point of departurc here. There is a moreimmediate scnse in which the individuat, considered as one who can spcakand undestand and read and write, who has a.mother tongue,, needs to beseen in a social pcrspective. This conccrns the part that Ianguage has playedin his own development as an individual. Let us start with the notion of theindividual human organism, the human being as a biological specimen. Likethe individual in many other species, he is destined to become one of agroup; but unlike those of all other species, he achieves this

- not wholly, but

critically -

through language. It is by means of language that the ,humanbeing' becomes one of a group of'people'. But ,people,, in turn, consist of'persons'; by virtue of his participation in a group the individual is no longersimply a biological specimen of humflnity

- he is a person. Again languag is

the essential element in the process, since it is largely the linguistic inter-change with the group that determines the status of the individuals andshapes them as persons. The picture is as in figure 2:

INDIVIDUAL

ig. 2

ln other words, instead of looking at the group as a derivation from andextension of the biologically endowed mental power of the individual, weexplain the nature of the individual as a deriyation from and extension of hisparticipation in the group. Instead of starting inside the organism andlooking outwards, we can adopt a Durkheimian perspective an start fromoutside the organism in order to look inwards.

But when we do adopt this perspective it becomes apparent that we cantake the dialectic one stage lurther, and that when we do so language will stillremain the crucial factor. The individual as a.person, is now a potential'member': he has thc capacity to function within society, and once more it isthrough language that hc achieves this status. How does a society differ froma group, as we conceivc it hee? A group is a simple structure, a set ofparticipants among whom thcre are no special relations, only the simplecoexistencc that is implied by participation in the group. A society, on iheother hand, does not consist of participants but of relations; and theserelations define social roles. Being a member of society mcans occupying asocial nrlc; and it is again hy mcans ol languagc lhlrl ir .pelson, bcconlcsp()lcnliillly lhc occrpillrl ol ir socitrl r.lllc.

Languagc and social man (Part 1) 15Strcial oles are combinablc, and the individual, as a member of a society,

( )ccupies not just one role but many at a timc, always through the medium oflrnguage. Language is again a necessaly condition for this final elemcnt inrl)c process of thc development of thc individual, from human being tol)r'rson to what we may call 'personality', a personality being intcrpreted as ar, rlc complex. Here the individual is seen as the configuration of a number ofr,,les definetl by the social relationships in which he enters; from these roleslr( synthesizes a personality. Our model now looks like figure 3:INI)IVIDUAL

ll0 3

I ( t US now interpret this in terms of a perspective on language. We have,,"0( \()me way round in order to reach this particular angle of vision,r , r r in Iy ove rsimplifying the picture and perhaps seeming to exaggerate thell r I', )r I nce of language in the total process. The justification for this is that'r, lrrvc been trying to achieve a perspective that will be most releYant in an,,lr(irli()nrl context. From this point of view, language is the mediumt lrr,, rllh which a human being becomes a personality, in consequence of hisrrr, rrrl,r'r'ship of society and his occupancy of social roles. The concept ofl,,rr,s.

"ti behaviour, as a form of interaction between man and man, is

rrrr((l irlound, as it were, so that it throws light on the individual: thel,,r rr ir li()n of the personality is itself a social process, or a complex of socialIrr , 1 \\( s. r nd language - by virtue of its social functions - plays the key partrr rr I l( ncc i ust as the view of language as knowledge, which is essentially anrrrlrr rlrllrl orientation, can be used to direct attention outwards, through,.ll, lr ( onccpts as the speech act, towards language in society, so the essen-rr rll\ \o( iirl intcrpretation of language as behaviour can be used to direct,rlh r rri )n ()nt() thc irdividual, placing him in the human environment, as we, r , r , rt rl it e a rlic r, a ntl cxplaining his linguistic potential, as speaker-hearer,rrrrl s r itcr-rcrrtlcr, in thcsc tcrms. This does not presuppose, or preclude,,llr\ |irlieulrr thcoly ilbotlt thc nature of the mental processes that arellr llr r'r I irr his rrtstc ry ol langttitgc, cithcr in how he speaks and understandsrrr rrr lw hc lcirrrrl l() (lo s() in thc lirst place. There are conflictingl,'r, lr,,t,,liiert lltc()ries()rt lltcsr: (ttcslirtns.;tswc shilll scc in the ncxtsection;lrrt orr l)rr\( lll l)('tsl)((liv(' is tetl(l'tl ilt lllis rcspcct.

I lrl rrlrilitv lo \l)( irL rtt(l trrr(lt.l'sllll(1, illl(l llle (levcl(lPtl)clrl ol lhisilbility ir

16 The sociotinguistic perspectivethe child, are esscntial ingredients in the lifc of social man. To approachthese from the outsidc, as inter-organism phenomena, is to take a functionalview of language. The social aspect of language bccomes the reference pointtor the biological aspect, rather than the other way round. In the next twosections we shall consider bricfly what this means.

3 A functional approach to language and language developmentIn the preceding section we outlined a general perspcctive on language andlanguage learning in which society rather than the individual is at the centreof the picture, and the individual's language potential is interpreted as themeans whereby the various social relationships into which he enters areestablished, developed and maintained. This means lhat we are taking afunctional view of language, in the sense that we are interested in whatIanguage can do, or rather in what thepeaker, child or adult, can do with it;and that we try to explain the nature of language, irs internal organizationand patterning, in tems of the functions that it has evolved to selve.

First ofall, therefore, we should look briefly into the question oflinguislicfunction, and say a Iittle about it in regard both to what language is and tohow it is learnt by a child. Let us take the latter point first, and consider afunctional approach to the question of how the child learns his motherIonguc. This process, the learning of the mother tongue, is often referred toas'languagc acquisition', This seems rather an unfortunate term because itsuggcsts that language is some kind of a commodity to be acquired, and,irllhough thc nrctaphor is innocent enough in itsell if it is taken too literallyIhc conscq ucncr:s can bc rather harmful. The use of this metaphor has led tothc helicl ir what is known as a 'deficit theory' of language learning, as amcans ol cxplaining how children come to fail in school: the suggestion thatccrtain childrcn, pcrhaps because of their social background, have notacquired enough ol this commodity called language, and in order to helpthem we must send reliefsupplies. The implication is that there is a gap to befilled, and from this derive various compensatory practices that may belargely irrelevant to the children's needs. Now this is a false and misteadingview oflanguage and ofeducational failure;and while one should not maketoo much of one item of terminology, we prefer to avoid the term ,languageacquisition' and return to the earlier and entirely appropriate designationf'language development'.

In the psychological sphere, there have recently been two alternative linesof approach to the question of language devclopment. These have bcenrcferred to as the 'nativist' and the 'environmentatist' positions. Everyoneagrees, of course, that human beings are biologically endowed with theability to learn language, and that this is a uniquely human attribute

- no

other specics has it, however much a chimpanzee or a dolphin may betrained to operate with words or symbols. But thc nativist vicw holds thatthere is a specific language-learning faculty, tlislircl li.orl otlrcr lcrrningfacultics. arrd that lhis providcs thc hrrulrrr itlltrrrt rvitlr r rr,:rrtvlrrtle lrntl

Language and social man (Part 1) 17r rrthcr dctailcd blueprint of thc structurc of language. l,earning his mothertorrguc consists in fitting the patterns ofwhatever language hc hcas aroundlrur intr thc famcwork which hc alrcady posscsses. The environmentalist\ r( w considcrs that languagc lcarning is not fundamentally distinct from,t lrt r kinds of learning; it depends on thosc samc mental faculties that arerrrvolvcd in all aspects of the child's learning proccsscs. Rather than havingI'rrll into his genetic makeup a set of concrete univcrsals of language, whattl, r'hild has is the ability to process certain highly abstract types ofcogniriver, lrrtion which underlie (among other things) thc linguistic system; the very. ,, r il ic properties of language are not innate, and therefore the child is more

,1, rcrrdenl on his environment - on the language he hears around him,t, ,,, ( I llc r with f he contexts in which it is uttered

- for the successful learning

,,1 lrs rother tongue. In a sense, therefore, the difference of views is ar, ( r,cnce of the old controversy of nature and nurture, or heredity and, r\ rlr)ntlcnt, in a new guise.

I ,rt h of these views can be criticized, although the criticisms that arer, trr,rlly made often relate to particular models of the learning process thatlr.rr, o e]ss5y connection with a nativist or enyironmentalist position.1,, , rrnrpl, it is sometimes assumed that an environmentalist interpre-rrrr,'r inrplies some form of behaviourist theory, an essentially stimulus-r,',',,rrsc view of learning; but this is totally untrue. Equally, the nativistr r, ,r rs lry no means dependent on the notion that learning proceeds bylrttrrr, 5 into the marked slots which nature provided and running the,,, ,, lrrr(, l() tcst whether the match is appropriate. The differences betweenrrrr\r,,r irnd environmentalist are differences of emphasis, among othertlrrrrl., rrr tlrcir ideas concerning the essential character of language, whichrr rrr lr.rrr two rather different traditions. Broadly speaking. the nativist

,,,,,,1, I r( llects the philosophical-logical strand in the history of thinking,l,,,rr lllrAutge, with its sharp distinction between the ideal and the real(,\lr, lr ( homsky calls 'competence' and 'performance') and its view oflllr,r.rt[ irs rlrs

- essentially rules of syntax. The environmentalist rep-

,,,rt,,tlr(cthnographictradition,whichrejectsthedistinctionofidealandr, rl ,l, lirts what is grammatical as, by and large, what is acceptable, and, , . Lurltrrgc i\s resource resource fot meaning, with meaning defined in

r. r ll r'. ,,1 lll nct oD. To this extent the two interpretations are complementary,,,rlr, r rlrillr e()ntradictory; but they havc tcnded to become associated with,,,rlllr, rrr,i rsychological theories and thus to be strongly counterposed.ll|l(,,tu l(.nt ()ltcn put firrward in supportof anativist approachmustbe'lr rr .',r'r I rrs lrrllircious; this is thc theory of the unstructured input, accordingt,,

'rlrr lr tlrt elriltl cnrrot bc dcpcndent on what he hears around him1,,, rrr , rrlrrl llr. hcrrs is no rl()c than bits and pieces

- unfinished or

rrt'r rrrn rtr( 'rl sL nlcnces, lrrll ol hcsitirtions, backtracking, unrelated frag-rr, lll . ,rrl tlr(. likL. 'llris itlcir scenrs to havc ariscn because the earliestI'rln r, r'lrrl'\ ol torrrrctltrI tliseorr'se ll)rl linguists analyscd were usuallyr,,,rl'1 ol rrIt IIr'r'IrrrrI (ottv( rsrl()ns. wlritlr rkr lt'rd lo bc vcry scrappy,ilr,, llrr' \l irIL r\ llc lurvinl'. l() |llirr r\ llrt,y 1r rrkrrrg rrrrrl llre l)rcnliscs itrc

18 The sociolinguistic perspectiveconstantly shifting, and which are also largely insulated from the immediatesituation, so that there are no contextual clues. But it is not in fact true of theordinary everyday speech that typically surrounds thc small child, which isfluent, highty structured, and closely related to the non-verbal context ofsituation. Moreover it tends to have very few deviations in it; I found mysclfwhen observing the language spoken to, and in the presence of, a small childthat almost all the sequences were well formed and whole, acccptablc cvento the sternest grammatical lawgiver. Of course, the fact that thc notion ofunstructured input is unsound does not disprove the nativist theory; itmerely removes one of the arguments that has been used to support it.

More important than the grammatical shape of what the child hears,however, is the fact that it is functionally related to observable features ofthe situation around him. This consideration allows us to give anotheraccount of language development that is not dependent on any particularpsycholinguistic theory, an account that is functional and sociological ratherthan structural and psychological. The two are not in competition; they areabout different things. A functional theory is not a theory about the mentalprocesses involved in the learning of the mother tongue; it is a theory aboutthe social processes involved. As we expressed it in the first section, it isconcerned with [anguage between people (inter-organism), and thereforelearning to speak is interpreted as the individual's mastery of a behaviourpotential. In this perspective, language is a form of inteaction, and it islearnt through interaction; this, essentially, is what makes it possible for aculture to be transmitted from one generation to the next.

In a functional approach to language development the first question to beasked is, 'what are the functions that language serves in the life ofan infant?'This might seem self-contradictory, if an infant is one who does not yetspeak; but the paradox is intentional

- before he has mastered any rec-

ognizable form of his mother tongue the child already has a linguistic system,in the sense that he can express certain meanings through the consistent useof vocal sounds. There are, perhaps, four main reasons for putting thequestion in this form.

1. We can ask the same question at any stage in the tife of the individual,up to and including adulthood; there have in fact been a number of func-tional theories of adult and adolescent language.

2. It is much easier to answer the question in respect of a very youngchild; the earlier one starts, the more clearcut the functions are (whereaswith an approach based on structure, the opposite is the case; it is ingeneral harder to analyse the structure of children's speech than that ofadults).

3. We can reasonably assume that the child is functionally motivated; ifIanguage is for the child a means of attaining social ends

-

that is, cnds whichare important to him as a social being-we need lottk no litrthcr than this forthe rcrsons why hc lcarns it.

4. A llnctionirl ir-rpr-olch t() llnglrirll('. il it irrllrrlrr rr rlt vcirrtttr. ttlttl

Languagc and social man (Part 1) 19Ir( r spective. can throw a great deal of light on the nature of language itself.I iurguage is as it is because of what it has to do.

li) these we might add a fifth, though this is not so much a reason for.r.,1ing thc question as an incidental bonus for having done so. One of thel,r, rblcms in studying the language of a very young child is that of knowingu lrrrl is language and what is not. We can answer that, in a functional context,I

'

\ \r ry ing that any vocal sound (and any ge sture, if thc dcfinition is made torr, lrrtlc gesture) which is intcrpretable by reference to a recognized function, ,l lr n rruage is language

- provided always that the relationship of sound to

rrr, rr rrirrg is regular and consistent. The production of a sound for the purpose,

'l rr;rctising that sound is a meats of learning language, but is not itself anll r,,lir cc of language. The production of a sound for the purpose of attracting,rll rlion Ls language, once we have reason to assert that'attracting atten-tr,,r ir :r meaning that fits in with the functional potential of language at this.t,rt\' ('l dcvelopment.

I ooking at the early stages of language development from a functionali r, rr roint. we can follow the process whereby the child gradually 'learnslr' ,\r' r( ) rroan'

- for this is what first-language learning is. If there is anything

'rlrrlrthcchildcanbesaidtobeacquiring,itisarangeofpotential,whichwe,,'rlrlrcle r to as his'meaning potential'. This consists in the mastery of a smalllrnlx r ol clementary functions of language, and of a range of choices inmr .rrrrA within each one. The choices are very few at first, but they expand,rl,r,llr rrs thc functional potential of the system is reinforced by success: the, , rr rr,l., t hirt the child makes do in fact achieve the desired results, at least on a,r'r rlh ir rl number of occasions, and this provides the impetus for taking the

t,,,,,,..\ lrrrlher. As an example, Nigel, whose language I studied in suc-,, rr, \ix-wcekly stages from the age of nine months onwards, startedt,l',r, rrtlv with just two functions and oneortwo meanings ineach. At 10$lr,,rrtlrs, rlhcn he first had a recognizable linguistic system, he could express,r r,,r.rl i)l twclvc different meanings; these were derived from four clearlyr,l' rrrlr,rl)le linctions (the first four in the list below) and included, among,,rlrr', lrirl wc might translate as 'do that right now!', 'I want my toy birdrl,,,r 1 ,11 'rlicc to see you; shall we look at this picture together?' By 16{r"rtlr., \\'l)en hc was

20

67

The sociolinguistic perspectivc

Imaginative ('lct's pretend'): creating a world of one's ownInformative ('I've got something to tell you'): communicating newinformation.

These headings served as a useful basis for folowing the developmentalprogress of an infant whosc early speech sounds, although still prelinguisric inthe sense that thcy were not modelled on the English language, were usedto convey these kinds of intention

- to obtain goods or services that he

required (instrumental), to influence rhe behaviour of those closest to him(regulatory), to maintain his emotional ties with them (interactional), and soon. The meanings that he can express at this stage

- the number of different

things that he can ask for, for example -

are naturally very restricted; but hehas internalized the fact that language serves these purposes, and it issignificant that for each of them he has one generalized expression, meaningsimply, 'I want that'or'do that!'etc., uhere the interpretation is given by thsituation (e.g. 'I want that spoon'or'go on singing'), as well as a number ofspecific expessions, very few at first but soon growing, and soon becomingindependent of the presence of the object or other visible sign of his intent.

So by adopting a functional standpoint we can go back to the beginning ofthe child's language development, reaching beyond the point where he hasstarted to master structures, beyond even his first wods, if by ,words' wemean items derived from the adult language; and taking as the foundationsof language those early utterances which are not yet English or French orSwahili or Urdu but which every parent recognizes as being meaningful,quite distinct from crying and sneezing and the other nonlinguistic noises thechild makes. At this stage, the child's utterances cannot readity be ,trans-lated'into the adult language. Just as we cannot adequately represent thesounds he makes by spelling them, either in the orthography of the mothertongue or even in phonetic script, because the system which these symbolsimpose is too detailed and specific, so also we cannot adequately representthe meanings the child expresses in terms of adult grammar and vocabulary.The child's experience differs so widely from that of the adult that there isonly a very partial correspondence between his meanings and those that theadult is predisposed to recognize. But if his utterances are interpreted in thetight of particular functions, which are recognizable to the adult as plausibleways of using language, it bccomes possible to bridge thi: gap between them-

and in this way to show why the infant's linguistic system ultimately evolvesand develops into that of the adult, which is otherwise the most puzzlingaspect ofthe language devclopment process. By the time he reache the agof l8 months, Nigel could use language effectively in thc instrumental,regulatory, intractional and personal functions, and was beginning to use itfor pretend-play (the 'imaginative' function), and also heuristically, tbr thepurposc of exploring the environment. Now for the first timc hc launchedinto English, making rapid strides in vocabulary itnd glrrnnrirr; rntl it wasvery clear from a study of his spccch thilt his prirrt irrrl rtrotivt, lirr tkrirg qrwirs lhc tse ol lirngtrirgc irs lr lclrlning rlr..vilc

Language and social man (Part 1) 21ln order for language to be a mcans of lcarning, it is essential for the child

r. l,c able to encode in language, through words and structures, his !'xperi-, ll( L of processes of the external world and of tht) pcople and things thatl,,r licipate in them.

,l l.nnguage and social structurelr ..t r'l itln 3, we considered the process of [earning the mother tongue from alllr(rional point of view, interpreting it as the progressive mastery of arrrrrrlrcr of basic functions of language and the building up of a 'meaningt , r( r r l ill' in respect of each. Here we are adopting a sociolinguistic perspec-tr\, ,)n language

-or rather a perspective which in terms ofthe earlier,lr',, rrssion would be inter-organism. Language is being regarded as the, rr,,rrling of a 'behaviour potential'into a 'meaning potential'; that is,,.. ,r rr(rns of expressing what the human organism 'can do', in interaction

rr lr ( !rhcr human organisms, by turning it into what he 'can mean'. Whatlr, (,rr nrean (the semantic system) is, in tum, encoded into what he'can,\ lllrc lexicogrammatical system, or grammar and vocabulary); to use

,,rrr ,,rvn lblk-linguistic terminology, meanings are expressed in wordings,\\,,rrlgq are, finally, recoded into sounds (it would be nice if we could,r ,,,rrrrrrlings') or spellings (the phonological and orthographic systems).

l, rrrrr likc meaning, wording and spelling are so familiar in everydayt( , , lr I hat we are hardly aware of them as ways of talking about language.

ll,ri , \{ ry time we say, to a pupil, or to a committee chairman perhaps,I tlrrrrl. l ou'll have to altet the wording', we afe mking systematic assump-

r,,ll . .rl),)ut language, bringing into play what Peter Doughty calls 'a "folk1r,,,',r'.rr.

. u "common sense" about the language we live by' (Doughty,,,/ t,)/1. lt).

I lrr', rr, r spcctive is valuable to the linguist because it affords an insight intorr /r 1 f,1,q 1c is as it is. There is no a priori reason why human language'lr, , r lr I lr;ve tr kcn just the evolutionary path that it has taken and no other;,, rl l,r,rrrrs could have produced a symbolic system ofquite a different kind.llrr rl \\, r'r)[sidcr what language is required to do for us, there are certainlr,',, r r, , n\ \\ lrich it m ust fulfil in all human cultures, regardless ol differencesr tlr, rlrr,ricrrl ilnd matcrial cnvironment. These are functions of a very, rr, r,rl l.trttl.

I I ,rrt'ulll( hirs to intcrprct the whole of our experience. reducing therrr,l, lrrr, lv vruictl phc nonrcnu of the wold around us, and also of the woldrr ,1, r,,. llr( l)r()(rsscsol ()ur own consciousness! to a managcable numbcr',1

,1,r.,,r'.. t)l rlretlorrrcrrr: tyl)es ()l proccsses, cvents and actions, classes of,,1,,, t . rr.rrrlr' ln(l ilsliluti()ns. utrl thc likc.

' Lrrrt,;l lrir\ lo ( )il)re\s cr'rlilir clcnrenlary logical rclations, like'and'.rl ,'r .llr(l'rl '.rrrrrtll irs lhose ( r(.irle(l by lirngtrrgc itscll such as'namcly'.n,r t ,rtrl ltr'rttr'

t Lrtrt,ttirll| lrrs lrr crrr'rs ()rr l)ttlril)rlior. r\ sl)(ilk('rs. itt lhr'stcclt

22 1'hc sociolinguistic perspectivesituation; thc roles we take on ourselves and impose on others; our wishes,lclirgs, attitudes and judgements.

4. Language has to do all these things simultaneously, in a way whichrelatcs what is being said to the context in which it is being said, both to whathas been said before and to the 'context ol situation'; in other words, it has tobe capable of being organized as elevant discourse, not just as words andsentences in a grammar-book or dictionary.

It is the demands posed by the service of these functions which havemoulded the shape of language and fixed the course of its evolution. Thesefunctions are built into the scmantic system of language, and they form thebasis of the grammatical organization, since the task of grammar is to encodethe meanings deriving tiom these various functions into articulated struc-tures. Not only are these functions served by all languages, at least in theiradult form; they have also determined the way human language has evolved.

So when we study the language development of young children, we arereally investigating two questions at once. The first concerns the languagethey invcnt for themselves, on the basis of the set of elementary uses orfunctions of languagc which retlect the dcvelopmental needs, potentialitiesand achievements of the infant

- instrumental, regulatory and so on. The

second concerns their transition tc the adult language, a language which isstill functional in its origins but where the concept of'function'has under-gone a significant change: it is no longer simply synonymous with 'use', buthas become much more abstract, a kind of 'me tafunction' through which allthe innumerable concrete uses of language in which the adult engages aregivcn symbolic expression in a systematic and finite form. To what extent theindividual child traces the evolutionary pth in moving from one to the otheris immaterial; it appears that at a certain point he abandons it, and takes alcap directly into the adult system. Be that as it may, he has to make thetransition, and in doing so he caves out for himself a route that reflects theparticular circumstances of his own individual history and experience.Geoffrey Thornton expresscs this yery well when he says tha the languagewhich eacb child learns

is a unique inhcritancc. It is an inheritancc because he is endowed. as a humanbeing, with the capacity to Iearn language mercly by growing up in an cnvtron-mcnt in which language is beiig uscd around him. lt is unitue, bccause .. . notwo peoplc occupy identical placcs i an environmcnt where language lcarningis taking placc, and this must mean that the language Iearnt is unique to theindividual. (Doughty e, a/. 1972, 18).

This takes us back to the perspective outlined in section 2. Biologically weare all alike. in so far as the language-learning capacity is concerned; we havethis ability, as a specics, just as we have the ability ro stand upright and walk,and it is quite independcnt oI the usual mcasures of intelligcncc' in what-cvcr lirrm. Ecologically, on thc othcr hand, cach onc ol us is urritrrr. sincclhc cnvironmcntl pilttern is ncvcr cxtctly rcl\.iltc(1, irrrrl orrt irrlivitlrrirl'scrltricrtcc is rlevcr l)r siro( ls ilr)()llt(.r's.

Language and social man (Part 1) 23However, the uniqueness of the individual, in terms of his personal

L xperience, must be qualified by reference to the culture. Our environmentrs shaped by the culture, and the conditions under which we learn language:rrc largely culturally determined. This point is significant at two levels, one,,1 rvhich is very obvious, the othe less so. It is obviously true in the senseI lrirt a child learns the language he hears around him; if he is growing up in anlrrglish-speakingsociety,helearnsEnglish.Thisisamatterofthe/ingrlic, llvitonment, which is itself part of the culture, but in a special sense.l\lorcover he learns that dialectal variety of English which belongs to hisl,irlicular socioregional subculture: working-class London, urban middle-, lrrss Northern, rural Dorset and so on. (He may of course learn more than,rrrl tlialect, or more than one language, if the culture is one in which'rr(hlinguisticdiversityisthenorm.)Itisequallytrue,butmuchlessobvious,in.rrroIls 5s5s namely that the culture shapes our behaviour patterns, and a'rL :r I dcal of our behaviour is mediated through language. The child learnsl,r! llother tongue in the context of behavioural settings whee the norms ofrlr( ( ulture are acted out and enunciated for him, settings of parental control,r r',tr rction, personal interaction and the like;and, reciprocally, he is'social-i., ,l into the value systems and behaviour patterns of the culture throughrlr, rrsc rf Ianguage at the same time as he is learning it.

\!lr cln now see th(] relevance of this to linguistic theories of educational,rlrrr'. which were referred to briefly in the last section. Thefe has been

',rr, lr rliscussion of educability lately, and various theories have been put, r u ;r r tl. C)ne school of thought has concentrated on the effect of the child's

//,,,///\1( cnvironment -

namely, the particular form of language he has,', ,

'rr rr rlr to speak. In practice, since educational failure is usually associated' rrlr llrc Lrrban lower working class, this means the particular socioregional'l,Ll((t; irnd we find two versions of the'language failure' theory here,,,,,r, linrcs known as thc'deficit thcory' and the 'diflerence theory'. Accord-,,,. r() lhc deficit theory, the whole dialect is simply delective; it Iacks,,rr, ( \sential elements-it is deficient, perhaps, in sounds, or words, orrllr, rr|cs. Now this is not mcrcly nonsense; it is dangerous nonsense.

ll,l',rtrnirtelyithasrarelybeenexplicitlydenied; probably because, as the\,,r, r rrirr cducator Joan Baratz put it, 'linguists. . . consider such a view of

L rrl, rrrrl'r' so absurd as to make them feel that nobody could possibly believe,i ,,r l tl)crc li)re to re fute it would be a great waste of time ' (Williams 1970a,I Lt I lrr'c is nr such thing as a dcficient social dialect. But, on the othert,, ,,1 rl ir lcrchcr bclicvcs that there is, and that some or all of his pupils| , .rl' orr'. lhcrr. irs Flcdcrick Williams has very convincingly shown in his',\, ,trt,'rtir)( ir Anrcricirr scl\xrls. hc thcrcby predisposes the children to

r,, ,.rr.,lir l:rilrlc. l'ltis is krrrwr as tlre'stcrcotypc hypothcsis': childen, notlrru rrlrrlls. will core l() l)chilvc likc thc stcrcotype to which they are

' ,,,, r1'rrcrl (Willirrrrrs I ()7Orr. r. lt. I i"i).

llrr', tlrlrr lcrrrls rs irrto llrt rlilli r'rcr" vclsion ol lhc lhcory. ilccordingtol, lr lll( l)rol)l( rr r\ tl()l llrirl llrt clrilrl's sPcr'th is tlelicicrt hu( lhlrt il is

I ll, rr ||l rlill( rr'rl. |ll rrrr|)Ir(;rIrorr, lrrrr sorrt 'r'r'r'ivtrl sll||lrlirrtl 0t ltrtr.

24 The sociolinguistic perspectiveThis would obviously be important if it meant that the child did not under-stand the language in which he was being taught (as happens with manyimmigrant children). But for the native English-speaking child, this is not theproblem. Wherever he comes from, and whatever section of society hecomes from, the speech differences are relatively slight and superficial, andin any case he has heard the teacher's language frequently on television andelsewhere, so that he never has more than very temporary difficrrlty inunderstanding it, and in fact is usually rather competent at imitating it - anactivity, however, which he tends to consider more appropriate to theptayground than to the classroom. So the difference theory resolves itselfinto a question of prejudice: if the child fails as a result of differencesbetween his language and that of the school, it is not because there aredifficulties of understanding but because the child's variety of Englishcarries a social stigma: it is regarded by society as inferior. If'society' hereincludes the teacher, the child is, effectively, condemned to failure from thestart.

To that extent, then, the difference theory, unlike the deficit theory, is atleast partially true'. tbere are prejudices against certain varieties of English,and they are shared by some teachers. But they are by no means shared by allteachers: and it is difficult to believe that this factor by itself could besufficient explanation of the full extent of educational failure, especiallysince children have a great capacity for adaptation

-

ifone form of behaviourdoes not pay off they will usually switch to another, and they are quitecapable of doing so where language is concerned. Moreover the prejudicesare gctting less, whereas the general view is that educational failure isincrcasing.

we return to this discussion in chapter 5 below, with reference to thework of Basil Bernstein. Educational failure is really a social problem,not a linguistic one; but it has a linguistic aspect, which we can begin tounderstand if we consider the cultural environment in the second of the twosenses mentioned above. It is not the linguistic environment, in the sense ofwhich language or dialect the child learns to speak, that matters so much asthe cultural or subcultural environment as this is embodied in and trans-mitted through the language. In other words, the 'language difference'maybe significant, but if so it is a difference of function rather than of form.

It is this fundamental insight which lies behind Professor Bernstein'stheoretical and empirical work in the field oflanguage and society; togetherwith a further insight, namely that what determines the actual cultural-linguistic configuration is, essentially, the social structure, the system ofsocial relations, in the family and other key social groups, which is charac-teristic of the particular subculture. Bernstein (1971, 122) writes:

A nrmber of fashions of speaking, famcs of consistcncy, arc possiblc in anygiven languagc and . . . these fashi()ns oI spcakirlS. Iingtr\li( lirrtnsr crrcles, arcthcmsclvcs lirncti()n(ri 1hc li)rrn s()ciitl r(litlirtts lirl r'

^((,)lrlirllt l() lhisvicw.lhcli)rrrrol llle stxiitl rclillit)l) ()1. nrr)1.,1( rr( rirllY, lllr'rr,r,'l ,lrrrrlrrr('li('rl!.lill(\

Language and social man (Part 1) 25distinct linguistic forms or codes and re.re cod.es essentally trunsmt the culturen d so constran behavour. [His italics.]

ll wc accept that, as the American sociological linguist William Stewart, r I[cssed it, 'so much of human behaviour is socially conditioned rather than1,r'rrctically determined', it is not difficult to suppose an intimate connectionl,, r\\cc Ianguage on the one hand and modes of thought and behaviour onilr( olher.

lris view is associated first and foremost with the work of the great\ rrr'r'ican linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf, who wrote 'An accepted pattern of

rr'.rrrq words is often prior to certain lines of thinking and modes of1,, lrrviour.' Whorf emphasized that it is not so much in 'special uses ofl.rrrllrrrge'(technical terms, political discourse etc.) as'in its constant ways ofrr rrrrr[ing data and its most ordinary everyday analysis of phenomena that,r, recd to recognize the influence [language] has on other activities, cul-r ',r ir I irnd personal' ( 1956, 134-5). Bernstein (1971, 123) points out that, in\\ lr,,r I 's thinking, 'the link between language, culture and habitual thought, ,,,t nrediated through the social structure', whereas his own theory

l,lirccs the emphasis on changes in the social structure as major factors in shaping, , r r hanging a given culture through their effect on the consequences of fashions,,1 spcaking. It shares with Whorf the controlling influence on experiencer\( r ihcd to 'frames of consistency' involved in fashions of speaking. It differs

I tr, r rrr l Whorf by asserting that, in the context of a commori language in the sense,,1 ;r gcneral code, there will aise distinct linguistic forms, fashions of speaking,s lri.h induce in their speakers different ways ofrelating to objects and persons.

Ir,Iir,,r(i hasinvestigatedowthisconnectionismade,andsuggeststhatit, rlrr,rrrgh linguistic codes, or fashions of speaking, which arise as a con-

'1,r, n(c of the social structure and the types of social relation associated'rlrrr As Mary Douglas put it, 'The control [ofthought] is not in the speechi llr', lr l in the set of human relations which generate thought and speech'

,r,,' ll2).\\ lr, r I i I [c these linguistic codes, or fashions of speaking? They relate, cssen-

L, ,ll\ r() l lunctional interpretation of language. It is not the words and the,,r, Ir'( s t [cture s

- still le ss the pro nunciation or 'accent'

- which make the

,1, r, n(el)ctwcenonetypeofcodeandanother; it is the relative emphasisI L, , rl orr thc diffcrent functions of language, or, to put it more accurately,r, lLr(l\ol'rrcaningthatarctypicallyassociatedwiththem.The'fashionsofI rl.rIllt rrc socioscmrntic in naturc; they are patterns of meaning that,,1, r,( nrol'c()t'lcssstrrl gly.inparticularcontexts,cspeciallythoserelating

, lr, ,*,r'irrlizrrliorr ol thc chiltl in thc lamily. Hcncc, although each child'sr,., r.rll( l(iltri,llt elrvirortell is uniruc, he also sharcs certain commonr ,trrr,,,IIIroIII(r r.lriltlrt.rrrll lt silttilirrsocil blrckgrounr-l; not merely in the,, , rlr, r;rl s( rl\(. llrlll lll(, liltr.riitl (.r]vit()nllcnls rtriry wcll bc illike

- in fact

'r, \ nr.r\ rrr)l l)ul in tlt( rltr'rtr strrsc lhtrt tlre Ii rrrs ol'sociirl lcllrliolland'lt r,,l( ,\',1( lt\\uloln(lr)i lrirrr lr:rvr. llrt.i (lli.t ()n tlt(.kirrtl ol clloiL.tsilr

26 The sociolinguistic perspectrvemeaning which will be highlighted and given prominence in different typesof situation. Peter Doughty comments: 'the lerms elaborated arld restrictedrefer to characteristic ways of using language to interact with other humanbeings; they do not suggest that there are two kinds of "meaning potential"'(Doughty et al. 1972, 104 5).

This dependence on social structure is not merely unavoidable, it isessential to the child's development; he can develop only as soclal man, andtherefore his experience must be shaped in ways which make him a memberof society and his particular section of it. It becomes restrictive only wherethe social structure orients the child's thinking away ftom the modes ofexperience that the school requires. To quote Bernstein again, 'the differentfocusing of experience . . . creates a major problem of educability only wherethe school produccs discontinuity b(:tween its symbolic orders and those ofthe child' (1971, 183-4). In other words, the processes of becoming edu-cated require that the child's meaning potential should have developedalong certain lines in certain types of context, especially in relation to theexploration of thc environment and of his own part in it. To what extent thisrequirement is inherent in the very concept of education, and to what extentit is merely a feature of education as it is at present organized in Britain andother highly urbanized societies, we do not know; but as things are, certainways of organizing cxperience through language, and of participating andintcracting with people and things, are necessary to success in school. Thechiltl who is not predisposed to this type of verbal exploration in this type ofcxpcricntial ancl intcrpcrsonal context is not at home in the educationalwrr'lrl'. as llcrnstcin puts it. Whether a child is so predisposed or not turns()u( l()t to bc any innatc property of the child as an individual, an inhcrentlinr itation on his mi:ntal powers. as used to be generally assumed; it is merelythe rcsult rf a mismatch between his own symbolic orders of meaning andthosc of the school, a mismatch that results from the different patterns ofsocialization that characterize different sections of society, or subcultures,and which are in turn a function of the underlying social relations in thefamily and elsewhere. Mary Douglas says of Bernstein that he asks 'whatstructuring in society itself calls fbr its own appropriate structures of speech'(1972, 5); and she goes on to add 'A common speech form transmits muchmore than words; it transmits a hidden baggage of shared assumptions', a'collective consciousness that constitutes the social bond'.

It is all too easy to be aware of subcultural differences in speeci forms,because we are all sensitive to differences of dialect and accent. Unfor-tunately this is precisely where we go wrong, because differences of dialectand accent are in themselves irrelevant; in Bernstein's words, 'There isnothing, but nothing, in the dialect as such, which prevents a child fronrinternalizing and learning to use universalistic meanings' ( 1971 , 199), antldialect is a problcm only il it ismade a problem artificially by thc prejudiccand ignorance of othcrs. It is nruch hardcr to bcconrc rwrrr. r ) I l llr !1(//i( /rldiffcrcnccs. which arc rnaskcd by rliirlcclr v:rrirlion (irl(ls lrir lr lrv n(J nrciulslwrtys cottcsrortrl lo rliirlccl rIisIitrtliotts), rtttrl u lt, lt rlo t,rt rr|rr'rr i Ilt

Language and social man (Part 1) 27, rbvious form of differences in vocabulary or grammatical structure. We arertill far from being able to give a comprehensive or systematic account ofthelrrrguistic realizations of Bernstein's codes or of the ways in which language,)l)crates in the transmission of culture. But the perspective is that of lan-lrrrgc and social man, and the functional investigation of language andlrrrrguage development provides the basis for understanding.

Irr cssence, what seems to happen is this. The child first constructs al,rr ruage in the form of a range of meanings that relate directly to certain oflrs lrrsic needs. As time goes on, the meanings become more complex, antllr, rcplaces this by a symbolic system

- a semantic system with structural

r, ;rliations-basedonthe language he hearsaroundhim; thisiswhatwe callrln\'nother tongue'. Since this is learnt, and has in fact evolved, in the., r v icc of the same basic functions, it is, essentially, a functional system; butr, llrnctionality is now built in at a very abstract level. This is what was,,lt u'ctl to at the beginning of this scction, when I said that the adultlrri,ristic system has, in effect, the four generalized functional components,,r 'r r r'tafunctions', experiential, logical, interpersonal and textual. These

l, ,r rr r I hc basis for thc organization of meaning when the child moves fromlrr. ,rIiginal protolanguage into language proper.

I t r rr hc does not abandon the original concrete functional elements of thel rl nr ns he invented it. These still define the purposes for which language is

,r , rl: rrnd out of them evolve the social contexts and situation types that,r.,l,, rp the patterns of use of language in daily life including those

, ,,,rr1 \rs tlrat Bernstein has shown to be critical in the socialization process.ll, r.rrr lies the basis of the significant subcultural variation that we haver,, , lr lr)oking ai- fr whkh particular contexts of use will the child bring tot" .tt tlich portions of the functional resources of the system? Seen tiom a1,,,r'rr\tie point of view, the different 'codes', as Bernstein calls them, arel llr !( nl strategies of language use. All human beings put language to, rl.un typcs of use, and all oI them learn a linguistic system which has,,,lrrrl irr that context; but what aspects of the system are typicallyl, t,l,r\'((l irrrd cmphasized in one type of use or another is to a significant

r, It (l( ternlincd by the culture-by thesystemsof social relationsinwhichrl,,,lrlrlAr()wstrp,includingtheroleshehimselflearnstorecognizeandto, 1,,,1 :\llchildren ltavc access to the meaning potential ofthe system; but,1,, \ rr\ (lillc, lrccause social groups differ, in their interpretation ofwhat,lLL rf itti()n ilcntntls.-, Lrrgu:tgr irrd situation l,,l,lr('r)irow trr, rrrl I ltc ir l rrgrurgc grows up with them. By the age of two,,,,1 r lr.rllor evr.t crrlic. tlte chiltl lr s nr aste rcd the adult langu age system;,l' lr.rrlwo[isrrllllrt.'t.. llt.willsrcrrrlllrclcstol hischildhood-therestof,, lrll' r.rt.rr rrrtrstr.titrl llrr. lrtlrrll /arrgrirr,qr'.

lrrl,u,tll',il\$altitvc\ltcssc(l,islt|ol(nliirl:il is wltirl I ltc sltcitkcr can tlo.\\ l, rr ,r ln t.,)ll r'trrr ,lr, lrr tlrt ltnlrrrslit scIl\r, lllltl is wlIl lre clrrt rio rs

28 The sociolinguistic perspective

speaker/hearer, is equivalent to what he 'can mean'; hence the description oflanguage as a 'meaning potential'.

To dscribe language as a potential does not mean we are not interested inthe actual, in what the speaker does. But in order to make sense of what hedoes, we have to know what he can do. This is true whatever our particularangle on language, whether we are looking at it as behaviour, or as know-led--ge (Ctromity;s 'competence'), or as art: what iJ, the actual sentences andwoids that constitute ur direct experience of language, derives irs sig-nificance from whal could be. But it is in the social perspective that we arebest able to explain what s, because we can pay attention to situations oflanguage use, tking account of the nonlinguistic factors which serve as theconlrolling environment. lt is at least theoretically possible to look at the'actual' in isolation from the social context (so-called 'theories of per-formance'), but it has not yet been shown to be very fruitful.

When we come to examine the adult language in its contexts of use, we atonce run up against the difficulty that the one thing we cannot specify is the'use' ol any given utterance. Nor can we enumerate the total set of Possibleuses for language as a whole. We cannot draw up a general list setting out theadult's uses of language, in the way that we were able to do for the develop-mental functions in the language of the very small child. Or ather - whichamounts to the same thing

-

we could draw up a hundred and one such lists,anrl there would be no means of preferring one list over another. Then whenwe came to consider actual instances we should have to recognize that in anyparticular utterance the speaker was in fact using language in a number ofifTerent ways, for a variety of different purposes, all at the same time Theuse of language is not a simple concept.

Neverth;less it is a very helpful one, without which we cannot explaineither the variation we find within a language - the different styles, levels offbrmality and so on

-

or the nature of language itself. The latter is outside ourscope here, although we referred in the preceding section to the inherentlyfunttional organization of the linguistic system. But the former is fun-damental to any consideration of language in an educational context Theability to control the varieties of one's language that are appropriate todifferent uses is one ofthe cornerstones oflinguistic success, not leastfortheschool pupil. (For an excellent discussion of'differences according to use',see Doughty et al. 1972. ch. 11,'Diversity in written English'by JohnPearce.)

The basic concept here is that of'context of situation', originally suggestedby Malinowski (1r23) and subsequently elaborated by Firth in his 1950paper'Personality and language in society'(see Firth 1957, ch. 14). Essen-iially what this implies is that language comes to life only when functioning insome environment. We do not experience language in isolation if we didwe would not recognize it as language

- but always in relation to a scenario,

some background f persons and actions and everts lirrt wllich thc thingswhiclr itrc snicl dcrivc thcir lneaning. This is rclcrt'ctl lo ls lllr'sillllti()ll', solrrgrItgc is siritl to lirrction il'c()nlctls ol silrIrtiot rttrl rtrt! rtttortll ol

Language and social man (Part 1) 29l.,tltuage which lails to build in the situation as an essential ingedient isl,l.( ly to be artificial and unrewarding.ll is important to qualify the notion of'situation'by adding the word,, l(. vrnt.' The 'context ol situation' does not refer to all the bits and pieces

,,1 tlrc ruaterial environment such as might appear if we had an audio and'

r, l, o Iccording of a speech event with all the sights and sounds surroundingI r( ultcrances. It refers to those 1'eatures which are relevant to the speechrl,.rl is taking place. Such features may be very concrete and immediate, asrlr \ lcnd to be with young children whose emarks often bear a directI r .Itrrirtic relation to the environmen t, e.g.some more! ,l want some more of'\ lr,rt I'vc just been eating.' But they may be quite abstract and remote, as inr rr r lrrrical discussion among experts, whee the 'situation, would include,,, l l lr ings as the particular problem they were trying to solve and their own

r, rnrrg and experience, while the immediate surroundings of objects and, \ , r rt\ would probably contain nothing of relevance at all. Even where the,,,r'lr tloes elate to the immediate environment, it is likely that only, , r,ll leatures of it will be relevant; tbr example, is it the presence of a

t,,r lr('ular individual that matters, or is it a certain role relationship, no,,,rr( r who is occupying the roles in question? IfJohn saysl love you,itl,r,,'l nrbly does matter that it was said to Mary and not Jane; but if he says| 'tt \t,u l) u t up a prescription Jbr me?, what is relevan t in that situation is the

,,, ()l (lispensing chemist, and not the identity of the individual whol, rl't,( r\ to be occupying it at that particular time and place.

lrr r,1 ,",-,,, the ability to use language in abstract and indirect contexts ofru.rtr()r is what distinguishes the speech of adults from that of children.

I , .r n irA language consists in part in learning to free it from the corstraints',1 rlrl irrnrediate environment. This process gi?s veryearly in lite, when1', , lril(l lirst learns to ask for things that ae not visible and to recall objects

, rr, I r'r < rts which he has observed earlier. But it is a gradual process, which| ,l , . l)lircc in different ways with different children; this is one of the,rr.rlrlts which Bernstein has found to be significant

- which rypes of

!ru,rt()r scrve as thc gateway to more abstract and generalized contextual,,,.rrrrr,.s.Ashesays,'certaingroupsofchildren,throughthefbrmsoftheir,,, r.rlr,,irlion, lre oriented towards receiving and offering universalistic

,,1, .rrJt\ it\ (crt oitr contexts' ( 1 971, 196). This in itself is not important; but,r I','(()les inrportrnt if there are certain rype.r of situation which play a',,rlrirl|rlinthccltild'stotal development, since these are theoneswhere]l:,,i

,,, ,,"",, lo usc lirrguagc in ways that are least dependent on the here and

ll., ltrtls us l() lhc notion ol r situation type. Looking at how people,, ru,rllY rrsr.. l rrgrrirge in ililily Iilc. wc fird that the apparently infinite,,rrl!( r ()l tlillelcrrl rrssihlc slultlions rcprcscnts in reality a very muchrrr,rllr'r llrllrlrer ol ,]r.rrelirl/f/r..r.tl silrrtior. which we can dcscribe in such

r, rr.,:t\'l)lity(ts il\ll(lilfl lrovicc il it Ailnc',,r)l()thcr rcading bcdtimel,,rt lo r'lrilrl . '(ltsl()ll(.1 orrlcrirri rxrrl: ovcr the lclel)h()rc', '(clchcr,,rr,lrrrl' IUIils' rlisr'rs..iol (]l it l)()(,nr' rrrrrl tlrt. likc. N()l illl tllcsc situirti()ll

30 The sociolinguistic perspective

types are equally interesting, and some are obviously very trivial; but in theilt ,..or, the iiportance f any abstract category of this kin

32 The sociolinguistic perspective

the fact that the language we speak or write varies according to the type ofsituation. This in its;tf ia no more than stating the obvious What the theoryof register does is to attempt to uncover the general principles which governthis riation, so that we can begin to understand waf situational lactorsdetermine rvat linguistic features. It is a fundamental Propey of all lan-guages that they display variation according to use; but surprisinglv little is!et fno*n nbout th nature of the variation involved, largely because of thedifficulty of identifying the controlling factors

An excellent exampie of register variation (and ol how to investigate anddescribe it) is providd by Jean Ure in a paper entitled 'Lexical density andregister.liifur;ntiation' (1971). Here.fean Ure shows that, at least in Eng-lisi, the Iexical density ol a text, which means the proportion of lexical items(content worcls) to words as a whole, is a function first of the medium (that is,ivhether it is spken or written - written language has a higher lexical densitythan speech) ncl, within that, of the social function (pragmatic Ianguage, or'language ti action', has the lowest lexical density of alt) This is probablytrue'of ll languages; but whether it is or not, it is a basic fact about Englishand a very god-illustration ol the relation between the actual and thepotential thal we referred to at the treginning of this section W could say'iollowing Dell Hymes, that it is part of the speaker's 'communicative com-pctence' that he knows how to distribute lexical items in a text according todilLre nt kinds of language use; but there is really no need to introdrrce herelhc artiliciat concept;f to-peten."', or'what the speaker knows', whichnrcrcly udrls an cxira lcvel of psychological interpretation to what can beexrlirincrl rtrorc sitnply irr direct sociolinguistic or functional terms

it is casy to bc mislecl hcre by posing tlle question the wrong way, as a,r,,urlrcr. ,,i writcrs on thc subject have clone. They have asked, in effect,'whxt lcaturcs ol languagc are determined by register?', and then come upwith instances of neat'-synonymy whete one word diffes from another inlevel of forrnality, rhetric or technicality, like 'chips' and 'French-friedpotatoes', or 'deciduous dentition' ancl 'milk teeth'. But these are com-monplaces which lie at the fringe of register variation, and which in them-selves would hardly need any linguistic or other kind of'theory'to explainthem. Asked in this way, the question can lead only to trivial answers; but itis the wrong question to ask. All language functions in contexts of-situation'and is relatable to those contexts The question is not what peculiarities ol'vocabulary, or grammar or pronunciation, can be directly accounted for byrefeence to thi situation. lt is whch kinds of situational factor deterrninewlcl kinds of selection in the linguistic systcm. The notion of register is thusa lorm of prediction: givcn that we know the situation, the social context olIanguage use, we can predict a great deal about the lanluage that will occur'wit-h re-asonatle probability of being right. The important theoretical qtrcs-tion then is: wht exactly do wc neeil to know about thc s('cial contcrt irtocler to make such Predictions?

I-ct r.s lnilkc th is lrl()re c()llcl-clcll I itrtr titlliitt'' itlrolll 1 I : r t t I t r r r I r t ' I tltlty lrr'ttttlt.c likcty ltl ttse tvtrtt|s lllill ill't lltc llilllt('\ ()t r l l l r r l ' . , r r l . l rllllt.lr rvrlrll:

Language and social man (Part 1) 33re lrring to processes of cultivation; and this is one aspect of the relation oflillrguage to situation the subject matter of gardening is part of the social( ontext. But, in fact, the probability of such tems occurring in the discourscr\ itlso dependent on what I and my interlocutor are doing at the time. If wer re actually engaged in gardening while we are talking, there may be verylcw words of this kind. Jean Ure quotes an amusing example from someItrrssian research on register: 'The recording was of people frying potatoes,,rrrLl lrying potatoes was what they were talking about; but since, it seems,rr, it her frying nor potatoes we e represented lexically in the text, the record-Lnr was a mystification to all who had not been in the kitchen at the time.'I lrc image of language as merely the direct reflection of subject matter is',rrrrlistic and unsound, as Malinowski pointed out fifty years rgo; thcre isll r r rch more to it than that, and this is what the notion of register is all about.

Wlrat we need to know about a context of situation in order to predict thelI[Lristic features fhat are likely to be associated with it has been sum-nr;r'izcd unde thee headings: we need to know the 'field of discourse', ther( ror of discourse' and the 'mode of discourse'. (See Halliday 1 a/. 1964,

rr lrr'rc the term 'style of discourse' was used instead of'tenor'. Here I shall,rr'li'r the term'tenor', introduced by Spencer and Gregory (Enkviste//.lr)r)t). A numbe of other, more or less related, schemata have been,,,,xrsed; see especially Ellis 1965, 1966; Gregory 1967.) John Pearce.rrrrririzes these as follows (Doughty et al. 1912. lE5-6)l

I icld refers to the institutional setting in which a piece of language occurs, and.[]brces not only the subject-matter in hand but the whole activity of the.l)crker or participant in a setting fwc might add: 'and of the other partici-t)rrnrs'1....li r)or . . . refers to the relationship between participants . . . not merely var iarionIr lonality . . . but . such questions as the permanence or otherwise of theri lirtionship and the degrcc of emotional charge in it. . . .\l(xlc relers to the channel of communicatio adopted: not only the choice,( trvccn spoken and written medium, but much more detailed choices lwe might:r,lrl: 'nrl othcr choices elating to the role of language in the situation']. . . .

I lrcsc rrtc thc general concepts needed for describing what is linguisticallyri llrli(ir]t in the context oI situation. They include the subject-matter, as an, t,, ( tolthe'liclclofdiscourse' of t he whole setting of re levant actio ns and

, ,, rrs wilhin which thc languagc is functioning tbr this is where subject- ,.Lrr( r l)cl()rgs. Wc do not, in [act, Iirst decide wl]at we want to say,,rr,l,r'rrrlcrrtlyollhcscttng,andfhcndressitupinagarbthatisappropratel,rl ll r llrc c()rlc xl, ls sonrc writcrs cln language and language cvents seem to,. ,llrr'. llrc'c()ntcnf is l)irrl ol thc total planning that takes placc. There is",,

,lr-:rr lrrre l)clw('er llrc 'wlrrl'irnd 1hc 'how'; all language is language-,,r r,( , llr ir c() lL \l {)l silurli() , rrrtl rrll ol it rclatcs to the situation. in the,l,.tr.rr't \(ns( rr rvlri,.lr l:llr rrsirrr llre lcl1l l]crc.

| .,lrrrulrl lrr'( rrtirkr' rr rrssirr, r'lr'rt rrr't lo tlilrlecls, whiclr iuc parl ()l tl]ctLr tlllf ol lrrrr'rrrrl,L rlltrlror'irrl rrrt. irlllr(llrlllr rrol rrirttrrrilv telcvrtttl itt lltc

34 The sociolinguistic perspectiveeducational context except as the tbcus of linguistic attitudes Our languageis also determined by who we are; that is the basis of dialect, and in principlea dialect is with us all our lives - it is not subject to choice. [n practice,however, this is Iess and less true, and the phenomenon of'dialect switching'is widespread. Many speakers learn two or more dialects, either in suc-cession, dropping the first when they learn the second, or in coordination,switching them according to the context of situation. Hence the dialectcomes to be an aspect of the register. If for example the standard dialect isused in formal contexts and the neighbourhood one in intbrmal contexts,then one part of the contextual determination of linguistic teatures is thedetermination of choice of dialect. When dialects come to have differentmeanings for us, the chice of dialect becomes a choice of meaning, or achoice between different areas of our meaning potential.

Like the language of the child, the language of the adult is a set ofsocially-contextualized resources of behaviour, a 'meaning potential' that isrelated to situations of use. Being 'appropriate to the situation' is not someoptional extra in language; it is an essential element in the ability to mean.Of course, we are all aware of occasions when we feel about something saidor written that it might have been expressed in a way that was moreappropriate to the task in hand; we want to'keep the meaning but changethe wording.'But these are the special cases, in which we are reacting torurcly conventional features of register variation. ln the Iast resort, it isirnpossiblc to draw a line between'what he said'and'how he said it', sinceth is is bascd on a conception of language in isolation from any context. The(listirclion between onc rcgister and another is a distinction ofwh is said asnruch ils ollr.w it is said, without any enforced separation between the two.ll a scvcr ycar-old insists on using slang when you think he should be usingmorc lirrr)irl language, this is a dispute about registers; but if he insists ontalking about his football hero when you want him to talk about a picture hehas been painting, then this is cqually a dispute over registers, and one whichis probably much more interesting and far-reaching for both teacher andpupil concerned.

Thus our functional picture of the adult linguistic systern is of a culturallyspecific and situationally sensitive range of meaning potential. Language isthe ability to 'mean' in the situation types, or social contexts, that aregenerated by the culture. When we talk about'uses of language', we areconcerned with the meaDing potential that is associated with particularsituation types; and we ae Iikely to be especially interested in those whichare of some social and cultural significance, in the light of a sociologicaltheory of Ianguage such as Bernstein's. This last point is Perhaps worthstressing. The way that we have envisaged the study of language and socialman, through the concept of 'meaning potential', might be referred to as akind of 'sociose mantics', in the sense that it is the study of meaning in a socialor sociological framewok. But there is a diffcrcnce lrctwce tr 'social' antl'sociological' here. lf wc tlescrilc thc contcxl ol si(llllli()!l it lr.'r lts ol r1ltx'obscrvrrliorts rtbortt thc sellirlSs itt wlticlt litttgrr:tlt ir ttscrl. lltr lorrlrlle sltitl

Language and social man (Part 1) 35l() l)e a 'social' account of language but hardly a 'sociological' one, since the{1)ncepts on which we are drawing are not refered to any kind of general'(}cial theory. Such an account can be very illuminating, as demonstrated in al,rilliant paper published twenty years ago by T. F. Mitchell, called 'Thelrrnguage of buying and selling in Cyrenaica'

- though since the language

',lr(led was Cyrenaican Arabic and the paper was published in a learnedt,,ru nal in Morocco. it was not at first widely known (MitcheU 195 7). But forr, sclrch of this kind to be relevant to a teacher who is professionally,,rrccrned with his pupils' success in language, it has to relate to social( ,)rtcxts that are themselves ol significance, in the sort of way that Bern-

. t( ir's 'critical contexts' are sign i|cant fbr the socialization of the child. The, r rtcria would then be sociological rather than simply social

- based on some

tlrco ry ol social structure and social change. In this respect, the earlier termslrl,e llirth's'sociological Iinguistics', or'sociology of language' as used byIt( rnsteir, are perhaps more pointed than the currently fshionable label

., rr'iolinguistics'.

l'hle 1 Vareties in languageI)lrlect ( dilectal variety')

variely 'according to the usea

^ l,rloct islwlri you speak (habitually)l,,lormined by who you are (socio-region

t)l origin and/or adoption), and,,rt,rL,ssing dversity of socia structure(t)irlterns of social hierarchy)

.,, ir trrinciple dalects arelr',r,{,,nl wavs of Saying lhe same lhing

,,ilrr,Ild to differ in:Iilr,x)tics, phonology, lexicogrammar (but

rr)l in semantics)

,r rlrlirrrquages, molher-in-law languages

vt,rL ,rl rlslanceS:.,rlr ullllral varielies (standard/nonslan-,l, (l)

| ,,,,, rt),rl oonkolling variables:,,,rirl (il;rss, caste; provenance (rural/

rl)iUr). qcneration; aqe; sex

I !r,ri l,i ,,{nl by:lr rrllV lxrkl rlrlll(lo:r l(,witr(ls (liitkx)ls s'.yllrlx )l ol rxx:Ill rlivrlllitly

Regsler ('diatypic variety'): variety 'according to the 0se'

A register is:what you are speakng (at the time)determned by what you are doing (nature

of social activty being engaged in), andexpressing diversity oI social process

(socal division of labour)So in principle registers are:

ways of sayg different lhngsand tend to differ ini

semantics (and hence in lexcogrammar,and somelmes phonology. asrealizationof ths)

Exkeme cases:restricted IangUages, languages for

specia! purposes

Typical instances:occupatioa varieles (lechnical. semi-

technical)Principal controlling variables:

field (type of socal action); tenor (role rela-tioships); mode (symbolic organza-tion)

Characlerized by:major dislinclions ol spoken/writlen; lang-

uaq(! in aclion/lanquage in reflection