Diglossia

One of the most classical sociolinguistic approaches associated with bilingualism is diglossia, developed by Ferguson (1959). In his landmark paper titled “Diglossia” (Ferguson 1959), he points to the co-existence of two or more varieties of the same language in a speech community11 with a definite role attributed to each of them, which he terms “diglossia”. Ferguson defines “diglossia” as follows:

DIGLOSSIA is a relatively stable language situation in which, in addition to the

primary dialects of the language (which may include a standard or regional standards), there is a very divergent, highly codified (often grammatically more complex) superposed variety, the vehicle of a large and respected body of written literature, either of an earlier period or in another speech community, which is learned largely by formal education and is used for most written and formal spoken purposes but is not used by any section of the community for ordinary conversation

[Ferguson 1959:435].

Within the same language, Ferguson distinguishes between the superposed H(‘high’) variety and the L(‘low’) variety learned by children as first language at home, pointing to their difference in function, prestige, literary heritage, pattern of acquisition and degree of

standardization, among others12 (Ferguson 1959:328-336):

First of all, it is important to bear in mind that Ferguson deals with the two varieties within the same language characterized by different modes of acquisition. The L variety is learned by children at home and the H variety is acquired by means of formal education, and as such it is added later in the life course (1959:331). Ferguson points to the functional differentiation of these two varieties acquired differently, which constitutes the central feature of diglossia (1959:328). Typically, use of the H variety is reserved for formal situations while the L variety

11 _{In his later article, “Diglossia revisited” (Ferguson 1991), he refers to the concept of speech community, which}

was relatively unspecified in his original article. Building upon Gumperz (1962:31) and Labov (1968:251), he defines it as “a social group sharing features of language structure, use and attitudes that functions as a

sociolinguistic unit for the operation of linguistic variation and/or change; it may be monolingual or multilingual” (Ferguson 1991:221).

12 _{Among the features named by Ferguson, the description of diglossia in this section only focuses on the}

sociolinguistic characteristics. Ferguson also points to the distinctions of the H and L varieties with respect to grammar, lexicon and phonology (1959:328-336). However, these are not applicable to contact situations of genetically-unrelated languages, such as those studied in the present research project.

is spoken in informal activities such as conversation with family, friends or colleagues. More often than not, this functional differentiation is normative, with social importance attached to “using the right variety in the right situation” (1959:329). Different functions of the varieties are also manifested in literary heritage and the degree of standardization. The H variety is the code used in literary writing (1959:330f.) and as such it features a high degree of standardization, characterized by a well-established orthography and a tradition of grammatical study (1959:331f.). Finally, owing to their different functions, more prestige is attached to the H variety as it becomes associated with official domains such as formal education, religion and literature. It may even occur that only the H variety is treated as the real language by speakers, with the existence of the L variety being negated (1959:329f.).

Ferguson conceptualizes diglossia as a relatively stable language situation that “can last well over a thousand years” (1959:332). Stability of the constellation is attributed to the aforementioned pattern of acquisition of the two varieties, as he states that any change towards displacement of the L variety by the H variety is unlikely as long as acquisition of the L variety as the first language is ensured (1959:331). The abandonment of one variety in favor of the other is only considered possible under certain circumstances, identified as “more widespread literacy”, “broader communication among different regional and social segments of the community” and the “desire for a full-fledged standard national language” (Ferguson 1959:338).

Despite diglossia’s original focus on the contact situation of the two varieties within the same language, Ferguson’s concept was highly influential in sociolinguistic studies of bilingualism, opening the way to study the societal co-existence of two languages as a social order.

The concept of Ferguson was subsequently extended by Fishman (1967)13 to encompass all kinds of linguistic repertoires that demonstrate the diglossic distribution in a society, ranging

13

from genetically-unrelated languages to certain registers.14 For Fishman, diglossia is a concept describing “the societal allocation of functions to different languages or varieties” (1972[1968]:145),15 while bilingualism (otherwise called bilinguality in the present work)16 is the characterization of an individual’s ability to speak more than one language. For a better differentiation of various kinds of bilingualism, he relates the psychological research tradition on bilinguality with the sociolinguistic notion of diglossia (2007[1967]:52). Based on relationships between bilinguality (called bilingualism by Fishman) and diglossia, Fishman considers four possible constellations of language situations, which can be represented as follows:

Diglossia

Bilingualism + -

+ 1. Both diglossia and bilingualsm 2. Bilingualism without diglossia

- 3. Diglossia without

bilingualism17

4. Neither diglossia nor bilingualism18

Figure 1 The relationships between bilingualism and diglossia (adopted from Fishman 1972[1968]:137)

14 _{Adopting the term of Schiffman (1997:208), Fishman’s concept of diglossia is termed as “extended diglossia” in}

the present work, to differentiate it from Ferguson’s original diglossia (occasionally called “classical diglossia”). For details on the terminological discussion, see Schiffman (1997:209f.).

15 _{In his article, “Diglossia revisited” (1991), Ferguson clarifies again that the term “diglossia” should only be}

applied to contact situations of the closely-related varieties because the focus of his research is on the sources and outcomes of different language contact situations including lexical borrowings as well as phonological and syntactic convergence (Ferguson 1991:223). Fasoli-Wörmann (2002:177) criticizes the extension of the concept by Fishman as some parameters of Ferguson such as the degree of standardization, grammar, lexicon and phonology become meaningless in its application to genetically-unrelated languages.

16 _{Fishman refers to individual bilingualism by the term “bilingualism” (termed “bilinguality” in the present work)}

and societal bilingualism by the term “diglossia”. To introduce the model of Fishman, his original terminologies are maintained, although they deviate from the definitions presented in this chapter.

17 _{In this case, Fishman speaks of two or more socioculturally-separate speech communities that are “united}

politically, religiously and/or economically into a single functioning unit (1972[1968]:141),” such as a nation-state. Due to limited interaction between the speech communities involved, the functional separation of the languages is existent in the society without widespread bilinguality. Fishman cites European elites before the First World War as an example who communicated with each other in the H variety, which was not spoken by the rest of the

population. According to Fishman, the constellation of diglossia without widespread bilinguality becomes problematic as soon as the society faces changes in the direction of democratization (Fishman

1972[1968]:141-145).

18 _{According to Fishman, a community where neither diglossia nor bilingualism exists is hypothetical and difficult}

to find in reality as his concept of diglossia is broad, encompassing the functional differentiation of all kinds of linguistic repertoires in the society. He considers diversification and functional differentiation of linguistic repertoires inherent to all speech communities where social differentiation of any kind is to be found (Fishman 1972[1968]:149f.).

Speech communities feature both diaglossia and bilingualism when the majority of the population is bilingual and each of the languages or varieties has specialized functions in the society. Drawn from Rubin’s research (1962)19

, Fishman takes Paraguay as an example where slightly over half of the population is bilingual in Spanish and Guaraní (Rubin 1962:52), with Spanish serving as H variety in formal situations and Guaraní as L variety for matters of intimacy and primary group solidarity20. From the sociolinguistic situation in Paraguay21 and other examples22, he concludes that in diglossic situations with widespread bilinguality, two varieties can co-exist in a speech community without threatening the stability of L variety even if only the H variety has an official status23 (Fishman 1972[1968]:136-138).

By contrast, bilingualism without diglossia is considered transitional. The situation of individual bilinguality without a clear role definition of the two languages in the society is likely to occur under circumstances of rapid social change or individual immigration24. In this case, the formerly-separate roles of the two languages lose validity with drastic changes in

19 _{Building upon Brown and Gilman’s study on “the pronouns of power and solidarity” (1960), Rubin (1962)}

analyzes the sociolinguistic situation of Paraguay based on the principles of power and solidarity. The results of her fieldwork in the municipality of Luque show that Spanish is used with persons with greater power or those with whom they have little solidarity, while Guaraní is spoken with persons of lesser power or those with whom they have high solidarity. She concludes that “the two dimensions of power and solidarity provide a useful starting point in explaining usage in bilingual situations” (1962:57). For the case of Paraguay, she suggests that in addition to power and solidarity, the other important dimensions of rural-urban and class should be included in the analytical framework, besides other less important factors such as topic, gender and schooling.

20 _{Quoting Paraguay as an example, Fishman (2007[1967]:48, 1972[1968]:136) presents Paraguay as if the entire}

nation could be characterized by both diglossia and bilingualism. However, this presentation proves to be an over-generalization based on the following two reasons: first, only about 52 percent of the population was bilingual according to the 1951 census (Rubin 1962:52); and second, Rubin’s paper (1962) indicates that

bilinguality is not equally distributed in the whole country, but rather competence in the respective languages and patterns of language use depend on factors such as rural-urban and class differences. As the unit of analysis is not clearly defined, it is not possible to verify this case of Paraguay.

21

Since the investigation by Rubin (1962), the sociolinguistic situation of Paraguay has served as an example par excellence for stable bilingualism. However, more current research conducted by Fasoli-Wörmann (2002) in the 1990s demonstrates a rather conflictive contact situation between the two languages, Spanish and Guaraní. She estimates the bilingualism of Paraguay as instable and in transition to a Spanish monolingual society, even if she does not exclude the possibility of the revitalization of Guaraní (2002:289, 294, 297).

22 _{Other examples that he cites for speech communities with both diglossia and bilingualism are High German as}

the H variety and Swiss-German as the L variety in Swiss-German cantons, as well as Hebrew as the H variety and Yiddish as the L variety in communications among traditional Eastern European Jewish males prior to the First World War (Fishman 1972[1968]:137-140).

23 _{In Paraguay, Guaraní was recognized as an official language besides Spanish in the 1967 constitutional}

convention (Fishman 1972[1968]:137, Fasoli-Wörmann 2002:116).

24 _{In the case of community building of immigrants, it is possible that the language of the immigrants can be}

values and norms that previously determined the social functions of the languages. According to Fishman, without a functional separation of the two languages in the society, the language associated with “the predominant drift of social forces” (1972[1968]:149) tends to displace the other (Fishman 1972[1968]:145-149).

Fishman extended the concept of Ferguson’s diglossia to encompass the contact situation of genetically-unrelated languages. In accordance with Ferguson’s conceptualization of diglossia as a stable language situation, Fishman also considers clearly-defined function allocation between the two languages as essential for maintaining bilingualism. Moreover, he demonstrated different ways in which societal bilingualism and individual bilinguality are related with each other, as well as their implications for the stability of the language situation. Accordingly, Fishman opened the way to investigate bilingualism with respect to its susceptibility to change, which represents a crucial aspect for understanding language shift.

However, the notion of stability – the basic principle of Fishman’s diglossia – has been called into question by several researchers (e.g. Rindler Schjerve 1998:16, Fasoli-Wörmann 2002:296f.). Even bilingualism in Paraguay – which is cited as a prototypical example of stable diglossia with bilingluality – is classified as highly conflictive and instable due to the low prestige of Guaraní (Fasoli-Wörmann 2002, see also footnotes 20 and 21). For these researchers, diglossia characterized by different hierarchical positioning of the two languages represents a transitional stage to monolingualism at the expense of the low variety (e.g. Fasoli-Wörmann 2002:289, 294, 297).

Starting from this concern, the following section considers how societal bilingualism can collapse with one language gradually replaced by the other more dominant one, in a process commonly known as language shift.