Language & Social Dynamics

EUCUE - LST6211.2

Master 1

General Linguistics

Language & Social Dynamics

Oct 2020

This is just a working document

SILUE S Jacques

Course objective:

➢

_{Describe and discuss variation in language}

by identifying some social factors causing

this variation.

Course expectations:

➢

For evaluations and home assignments,

students are able to account for, comment

and analyze basic types of linguistic

variation;

&

➢

_{Students are able to design a descriptive or}

Course Content

❖

Introduction: Macro-sociolinguistics &

Micro-sociolinguistics

❖

Linguistic Variation: Social stratification/ Hierarchy

❖

The theory of Power & Solidarity

0. I

The topic of linguistic variation comes in complete and total opposition with syntagmatic theories (structural linguistic transformational grammar). While in syntagmatic theories, the assumption is that language is static and must be described as it stands, as early as de Saussure, there has a been a hint of awareness of language being non-static (dynamic) as manifested in the descriptive concepts in the form of the dichotomy “Langue/parole”. Even though Saussure is of the view that Parole cannot be described (but language), the simple fact of recognizing the two complementary dimensions of language is an implicit recognition that that it is not static as methodologically claimed.

The reasons1 _{why structural theories adopt this theoretical stand lies in the fact that these}

theories are interested in the nature of language. As for sociolinguistic and Discourse analysis theories, they are interested in the use of language and being interested in the use of language automatically leads to being interested in the (social) role or (psychological) dispositions of language users.

In its attempt to study the relationships between language and society sociolinguistic as a discipline branches out into two main trends: macro-sociolinguistics and micro-sociolinguistics. Macro-sociolinguistics can be perceived as the “gross” aspect of sociolinguistics: it is a more panoramic view of language and society. This trend is concerned with the relationships between a community and its attempt to do something with it language(s) such as:

✓ Acting on language(s) of the community (language planning or reform)

✓ Giving a new status to a language (turning a language into the official language),

Macro-sociolinguistics also deals with how people perceive a language (their or other people’s): are people proud or feel uneasy with using their language? The macro-sociolinguistic trend stretches out to issues relating to language change (pidginization, creolization, language death, etc. linguistic eco-system).

As for Micro-sociolinguistics, this trend is concerned with the daily use of languages and more importantly, focuses on issues like “to what extent language varies in its use depending on some social factors fairly predictable”. This trend particularly focuses on the verbal behavior of individuals within a speech community as a way of establishing a co-variance between the verbal behavior of individuals and their social characteristics.

Definitely, as we observe language in connection with the time factor, while macro-sociolinguistic concentrates on language change and language, micro-macro-sociolinguistics feels

1_{There are other historical reasons why syntagmatic theories have hooked on the static dimension of language. When}

concerned with language variation, hence the topic of linguistic variation. Language or linguistic variation is echoed in language change, the difference between the two phenomena being that:

In a way, language change comes as the result of the accumulation and long-standing reduplication of features of synchronic language variations. It should be noted that variation is an inherent property of language deriving from the discreteness, recombination, creativity and flexibility of human languages (as opposed to their arbitrariness). Put in a nutshell, Macro sociolinguistics as well as language change is concerned with the system as a whole while with Micro-sociolinguistics, language along with variation is oriented toward the individuals, as indicated in the figure to follow…

Linguistic/language variation is a relatively new research paradigm with William Labov as one of the historical leading figure through famous publications (The Study of Nonstandard English (1969), Language in the Inner City; Studies in Black English Vernacular (1972). Just as we refer to creolists (specialists for the study of creole languages) there are now “variationists”

Macro-Sociolinguistics

Diachronic modification of the

system as a whole

Language Change

Micro-Sociolinguistics

Synchronic modification of the

system as a whole

who have now developed as new a research field on its own rights and some of its leading figures are (Sandkoff). Variationists some pf, whose leading figures are D. Sankoff, S. Tagliamonte & E Smith 2005; D Sankoff & D Rand 1990) resort to statistical procedures to determine the general pattern of the variation in language use (i.e. the Varbrul software). e.g.

➢ If a member of the English speaking community (Nigeria) pronounces the “th” sound alternatively [d] or [ð], among the many possible factors, which factor is the most determining one?

Is it any of the linguistic factors such as the position of the interdental sound in the word (initial, mid or end position)? Or is it a more social factor such as the ethnic origin or the level of instruction of the speaker?

How to study in actual practice the correlation between

language variation and the society?

In order to study the correlation between language and the society, we must abandon the beliefs that on the one hand, the society is an unformed mass of people (like water or air) and that, on the other hand, language is something homogenous as shown in the figure below:

Figure 1: Static view of the relation Language-Society

Rather, we must think of society as something structured and since the works of Levy Strauss and other anthropologists, it is admitted that the society we live in is not an aggregate mass of individuals (like water or air). Similarly, the idea that language is homogenous even in synchrony must also be abandoned. This way, the correlation between language and society would be more logically investigated and would correspond to the reality of language practice:

Figure 2: Dynamic view of the correlation Language-Society

Society _Language

Social

Components

Even concretely, the study of the correlation must consist in finding ways to identify the components of society and next finding way of identifying those “ways of speaking”. F. Coulmas (2013:28) suggests that “if we want to explain how language and social stratification interact, we need a model that shows how society is stratified” that is, made up with interrelated components.

❖

Language variation: the two intersecting variables

1. T

S

F

T

L

V

1.1

T

L

V

Synchronic language change or language variation is determined by two main factors: the social profile (“social details” of the language speaker user(s) and the social and psychological position of the language user relatively to her/his co-speakers.

1.1.1 The social profile of language users

Very often, the way we speak is very often determined by the social sub-class we belong to or our social profile. By way of example, the market woman speaks differently from the way the Higher education researcher does and while you would address the bread seller in Adjamé with:

(a) “Je veux du pain ”… (b) Pourrais-je avoir du pain?

While utterance (a) would sound rude in Cocody utterance (b) might be misunderstood in Adjamé so resulting into a communication failure: the addressee might wonder: “why are asking whether you can have beard when you know that I am here to sell it? At least, I suppose you do not want the bread for free…”

Note that (a) sounds like a sharp and almost rude instruction while in its structure, (b) sounds like a question and you would agree that are more positive to question rather than instructions (see section 2.3 on Politeness). The social profile or characteristics of the speakers or her/his social profile can correspond to “which social sub-class does s/he belong” according to the current culture or ideology.

When society is perceived in terms of sub-classes this mean that, based on Levy-Strauss’ findings in anthropology, society is not a uniformed mass but it is rather structured according to varied criteria. Human societies are generally stratified or structured along purely natural criteria or cultural ones.

a) The natural criteria or factors

e.g.

❖ Sex

From reading or hearing the following utterance, one can guess what the sex of the speaker is:

(a) C’est chic! (b) C’est bon! (c) C’est super!

The influence pf the gender upon language was verified through an implicit text at the Department of English following an exam in translation (version). The title of text read: “A wonderful house”. The hypothesis was that:

➢ “Due to difference between males and females over lexical choice, boy students and girl students will resort to different adjectives” out of the many adjectives of the paradigms.

Girls were expected to give preference to the sort of adjective that “look like them” and boys would do the same. The hypothesis was confirmed at least for the difference between boys and girls over the lexical choice with the figures to follow:

Preference of students over the translation of “

” based on their gender

Lexical Choice

Gender “Une belle maison” “Une maison adorable”

Boy students 63% 39%

Girls students 37% 61%

❖ Age

Age, too, appears to affect linguistic choices: Youth: « En foum là ? » (late 1990s)

« C’est comment? » Elders : Comment ça va ?

❖ Race

There are hypotheses that language use and variation can be determined by race (e.g. Labov’ works in New-York) but in fact such hypotheses have always remained dubious. The fact is that some uncontrolled variables actually parasitize this hypothesis. In effect, while race is a genuine natural factor to explain the stratification of society as it appears in multiracial societies (South Africa, America, or some European nations like France and Great Britain into Blacks, Whites, Coloureds, or Asians, etc.), social stratification based on race and with reference to language use is more than problematic. There is no evidence that Blacks or Colored people speak differently, compared to Whites just because of the skin color. One does not easily guess the race of a speaker by simply listening to his voice or the way he speaks. Apart from the pitch of their voices there is no way to distinguish Barrack Obama from George W. Bush.

The socio-economic status of individuals is interfering with race: because of his racial origin, an individual will leave in an economically disfavored environment. White people living in Harlem are bound to speak like all the people (Blacks) in the Ghettos…

b) Non-natural or cultural factors

Cultural criteria are less objective than natural ones; some traditional societies display some sorts of divisions that are cultural. Historically in human societies, social stratification has always grounded on the dynamics of power (exercise of domination) or/and on the dynamics of the production of wealth. More specifically in traditional societies other factors family bounds with underlying birth conditions will determine social stratification.

One of the most traditionally stratified society in the world is presumably the Indian society. The social fabric there subdivides into the Brahmins (priests), the Kashatras (warriors), the Vaisya (workers) and the Harijan (untouchables who are the cleaners, the beggars). As from African societies, they display a lot variation from one area to the other.

In egalitarian types of society a distinction can be made the titled men and the people without titles (Chinua Achebe), between the initiated people and those who are not. In more hierarchical societies (Anyi of CI), the division goes along such divisions as people of royal descent, ordinary (free) people and slaves (captives). All these social characteristics might operate to cause language to vary: to cause individuals to use the language according to their social status.

e.g.

➢ In the Senufo traditional community there are some interjections and swearing reserved to those who have completed the Poro initiation… (e.g. “yaekaha”, when yawning!)

c) The socio-economic factors

In Europe, the notion of social class or stratification started as an ideological concept that was put forward by Karl Marx in the context of economic production. Karl Marx suggested a stratification of society based on the philosophy of production as a characterisation of modern industrialised societies. Based on the dynamics of economic production (production of wealth) and along the Marxist lines, the society is divided into two major classes: those who are well-off and own the capital (money) and those who could make a living but by relying on their hand work: the capitalists or bourgeoisie and the proletarians.

Marxism is no longer in order but as modern societies are essentially determined by economic production that is now intermingled (though in varying degrees) with (political) power, the Marx’s theory of social stratification is still valid todays.

In societies like the British one especially, the culture and social consciousness (i.e. awareness of social stratification) is still relatively vivid and severely codified in language use. The European version of social stratification acknowledges two major social classes to start with: the Upper class and the Lower class. In the course of history (with the sophistication of social dynamics), the two major social classes subdivide into more refined sub-classes as indicated by JC Chamber (1995)…

In the mid-1970s, an Ivorian sociologist Late Prof. Niangoran Boa worked out corresponding divisions in the Ivorian society that are also based on socio-economic criteria:

Figure 4: Niangoran’s Model of the Ivoirian Social stratification

Social stratification grounds on other non-natural factors such as education, occupation and place of residence and even the belonging to some social networks are also active criteria to divide the society.

❖ S

M

Social mobility is the possibility in most modern societies to move from one class to the other, to move from your initial lower class to a higher class and the other way round. The general movement is, in principle from bottom to top, the other sense of mobility is rarer and psychologically more distressing.

Social mobility if achieved through several factors among which,

- Education/instruction;

- Occupation

- Place of resident:

- Etc.

As will be seen a speaker will modify he speaking style to adjust to that pf his co-speaker(s) and education, occupation, place of residence are precisely social referents that will lead people to adjust to the social environment.

Regarding English, if we take a register like the RP as the standard norm, it appears that features of the RP are more frequent among speakers of the higher classes and less frequent among lower class speakers:

He is going -> /going/ -> among UC speakers He is going -> /goin/ -> among LC speakers

1.1.2. Linguistic variation & the linguistic variable

The notion of linguistic variable originates from several academic disciplines (sociology, psychology and mathematics) and echoes and refines the old linguistic concepts of free variation from structural. The idea of free variation assumes in structural grammar, (in the American trend especially (Distributional Grammar) that two linguistic elements can be used one for the other, since they are they are strictly interchangeable.

In Discourse Analysis (DA), Sociolinguistics and Psycholinguistic however, such a stand does not hold: the notion of system, paradoxically takes a more fundamental sense. In such linguistic trends (DA and Sociolinguistics.), the notion of free variation is simply fictitious on the grounds that in a system no two elements will ever have the same value (MOG) or the same meaning (Semantic theory):

e.g. small/little large/big pretty/beautiful regal/royal lorry/truck decès/mort homicide/assassinat

In sociolinguistics, it assumed that if an individual decides to say:

➢ He ought to do it or He should do it

a) Different types of linguistic variable

Now, the linguistic variable is a form that has several realisations and each realisation has a sociolinguistic signification or is constrained or determined by a wide range of social factors. Research methodology has led researchers to take variables in the mathematic sense… A variable is an absolute value noted /X/ or /Y/ that can take several exclusive values note [x] or [y’] (see the conventional notation of phonological elements (/X/) vs phonetic realisations noted [x]. The values deriving from the linguistic variable are called the variants, just like in phonology where “dark l” noted [l]and clear [l] are possible sounds values/realisations of the phoneme /l/.

If the article if considered as a variable in Ivoirian French its variants would be .

b) The linguistic variable

The notion of linguistic variable originates from several academic disciplines (sociology, psychology and mathematics) and echoes and refines the old linguistic concepts of free variation from structural linguistics.

Free variation is the assumption that that two linguistic elements can be used one for the other, since they are thought to be identical. In Discourse Analysis (DA), Sociolinguistics and Psycholinguistic however, such a stand is untenable: the notion of free variation is simply fictitious on the grounds that in a system no two elements will ever have the same value (MOG) or the same meaning (Semantic theory).

In sociolinguistics, it assumed that if an individual decides to say:

➢ (a) He ought to do it or (b) He should do it

The utterances may have the same literal meaning (the structural grammar sense) but not the same sociolinguistic signification in the sense that the intents of the speaker (the communication impact/effect) he is aiming at are simply different.

The notion of free variation is completely ruled out when we compare:

➢ Donne-moi bic-là / Donne-moi le bic

➢ Rebelle / Mutin

The values deriving from the linguistic variable are called the variants, just like in phonology where “dark l” noted [l]and clear [l] are possible realizations of the phoneme /l/.

[occurrence of the article] : la femme est venue /article/

[deletion of article] :  femme est venue

In actual language use, a variable does have variants and one is the favored variant while the second one is the disfavored one: here the disfavored variant would be when the speaker deletes or swallows the article; this variant is also called the “deviant variant”. The favored variant corresponds to the normal use of the article, that is, when the speakers uses the article as expected.

❖ Some examples of variables

“maintenant” (in French) realized either [mintenan] or [ minan ] “Sing” (In English) realized either [siŋ] or [sin]

• Grammatical variables :

- The negation in French:

➢ Realized either [ ne … pas ] (je ne travaille pas) or [ O pas/ ] (je travaille pas)

- The double negation in English:

➢ Realized either [I did not see anyone] or [I did not see nobody]

Linguistic variables can be found at any level of language; an example of a lexical variable in the Ivoirian urban context is the name of the taxies: they are called either “taxi” or “woro-woro”.

c) Special type of linguistic variables

Beside ordinary variables, there specific forms of variables that can be used in the study, not of language variation, but also in dialectology:

• The Social indicator

The social marker is a variable to which no real attention is given and it can be noticed only by trained specialists

e.g.

➢ In American English the difference in the vocalic lengthening in a word like “caught”: while American Northerners use a short vowel [ɔ] other American are seen to the long variant [ɔ:]

• Social marker

This one is a variable associated to a certain social class for the speaker to intentionally tell indirectly “who he is”.

e.g.

➢ In British English “sister” will just use the central vowel / / as the favoured variant (without and ending / r / sound, while Americans value the opposite by adding the / r/ !

In CI, the flapping of the /r/ like in Paris is perceived as a social marker. • The stereotype

The stereotype is, precisely because it is a stereotype, will hardly be accepted as a scientifically attested as a variable. This kind of variable appears in the popular consciousness and is attributed to a social group with a hint of exaggeration!

e.g.

➢ Ivoirian thing that native speakers of Monre native speakers fail to pronounce the consonant cluster ‘pl” properly and will insert a bridging consonant. To pronounce the French word “place” instead of saying /plas/ they would say /palas/.

[plV] /pl/

[palV]

1.1.3. The measurement of linguistic variation

Analyzing linguistic variation amounts to assess the correlation between social variation (social stratification actually) and language variation (which form is used by a particular group of speakers), as revealed by a particular linguistic variable (a form). In order to do that, we need to dissect the social continua and the linguistic continua as well.

By way of example, to investigate stylistic variation it is not always realistic to contend oneself or rely on the “easy” indications such as “formal style“ and “casual style”. This would not be realistic simply because formal and casual style represent the extreme points of variation and there many other degrees in-between.

In European or literate societies, stylistic variations is often investigated indirectly through pronunciation where the stylistic continuum is broken into four discrete points:

✓ The reading of a word list (RLS),

✓ The reading of a passage (RPS),

✓ The formal oral style (FS)

✓ The casual or conversation style (CS)

Concretely, if our research initial working hypothesis was that “Social class has an impact on verbal behavior”, the assumption being that the social group/class we belong to impacts on our way of speaking.

One operational hypothesis can be “which aspect of English language form represents verbal behavior?”

ACCORDING TO YOU, WHICH ASPECT OF LANGUAGE CAN REPRESENTS

SPEECH BEHAVIOUR?

2.

T

D

I

R

L

In its most natural use, language is essentially interactive: a verbal production is always oriented toward a co-speaker or (a group of) co-speakers; instances where language is used as a monologue or a soliloquy (i.e. an internal monologue) are rare, say, marginal. This will not be a cause of surprise since the prime function of language is communication and communication necessarily subsumes an interaction between at least two social actors.

R. M. Kraus (1987) goes as far as considering that the addressee is central in the conception

While (as was seen in section 1.), language variation was seen to be dependent on the social or socio-psychological profile of the speaker (age, gender, level of instruction, place of residence, etc., language variation is also dependent on the varied adjustments the speaker feels obliged to make as s/he addresses someone verbally in a face to face interaction. To a large extent, what the speaker says and the way s/he says what s/he has to say is highly dependent on number of social or psychological factors such as:

✓ How s/he perceives her/himself,

✓ the way s/he perceives the co-speaker

✓ the way s/he expects her/his co-speaker to perceive her/him:

Consider the utterances…

1) Take this book to the library

2) Would you mind taking this book to the library?

The core information of utterances (a) and (b) are identical: taking a book to a library;

How would describe the difference between (a) and (b)?

The decision to use either utterance grounds on psychological motives as the speaker takes into account, though unconsciously, things such as:

✓ My message must reflect the fact that my co-speaker and I are close friends (no formality among

us);

✓ My message must reflect the fact we hardly know each other (strangers to each other);

✓ I want to sound sympathetic to my audience to get them accept the proposals I am selling;

✓ The mourning circumstances commend that I choose the words and expressions with care (Never

speak of rope in the house of a hanged man)

All these considerations structure language variation and it can be seen that variation is determined by the dynamics of the inter-subjective relationships among speakers. The beam of all these considerations and concerns are governed by a social and psychologically marked phenomenon known as POWER and its opposite component, SOLIDARITY.

2.1THE THEORY OF POWER AND SOLIDARITY

What is known now as the “Theory of Power and Solidarity “or the “Theory of Power and Solidarity Hypothesis” was suggested by R. Brown & A. Gilman’s in an article entitled

The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity

The thing is that in the evolution of some languages these pronouns have become social markers of the sociolinguistic and enunciative statuses of speakers when involved in face to face interactions. Though the theory has been built around the pronominal system of European languages (English, French, I Italian, Spanish and German), it can be extended fairly well to practically all human languages, even though with varied precisions as for the linguistic expression of the two phenomena.

In those languages, the system of pronouns happens to highlight “two dimensions fundamental to social organization & equilibrium, the power and solidarity dimension” (Brown & Gilman 1960, p. 252). The concept of Power is so ubiquitous in social sciences that it will not be defined within one academic discipline; this concept is of a psychological, sociological and linguistic nature, so giving way to varied and yet converging definitions:

✓ ”Power may be defined as the capacity of an individual, or group of individuals, to modify the

conduct of other individuals” (Tawney quoted by Mohita, www.yourarticlelibrary.com/power-meaning...theory-of-power. Accessed on10/02/2016));

✓ “Power is the capacity of some persons to produce intended and foreseen effects on others” (D.

H. Wrong 1995: 2);

✓ “A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise

do” (R.A. DAHL 1957: 9)

✓ Power refers to …”a relationship between at least two persons […] in which one person may be

In other words, power is the social, material and psychological resources under the control an individual which give him the right/the capacity to behave, act, or make decisions that affect other people. Defined as such, Power relies on varied social sources. It refers to the “- physical strength, wealth, age, sex, institutionalized roles (in the church, the state, the army or rank or role within the family), etc.

Some common instances where power is exercised: ❖ Master → Slave ❖ Parents→ Children ❖ Teacher-→ Student ❖ Director-→ Secretary ❖ King-→ subject ❖ Employer-→ Employers

As for Solidarity it refers to the social characteristics, the feelings that some people have much in common or are prepared to recognize feelings as shared features. In a group of individuals, solidarity is the feeling of being equal because, based on the implicit sentiment that there is a common shared fate:

Solidarity always goes along the feeling of comradeship; members of Trade Unions are bound by solidarity and understandably, they address one another as “comrade”. A few years back during the flourishing period of the FESCI in Cote d’Ivoire, students address one another with the solidarity-oriented term “parents”. People of the same religion, profession, age group, same region, political comradeship are solidary in principle.

Solidarity is not a shared prerogative or set of privileges; it is rather the characteristic (a property) of those who perceived themselves and are perceived as inferior.

2.1.1 The Anthropological foundation of Power

It can be hypothesized that Power/Solidarity have an anthropological foundations. Power might have emerged as a consequence of the progressive sophistication of human communities. One practical necessity for the survival of societies involved in socialization is a minimum internal organization and one such organization necessarily translates into rules that structure and regulate interrelations in the form of a hierarchy so that some few individuals take the lead (i.e. leaders) and the larger proportion simply follow and accept being the “dominated” ones…

✓ Ministers ✓ Children ✓ Students

✓ Brothers and sisters

In short, socialization and Power appear to be the response to the increasing complexity and sophistication of human societies where the primary social reality is power and solidarity might have subsequently emerged as has a social response to power.

❖

The psychological dimension of power and solidarity

In many respects, Power appears to be the negation of Solidarity; Power is a prerogative, a privilege characterizing socially high-status individuals, those perceived as superior to others or perceived as such on the ground of the conventional social attributes of Power.

Power relationships are intrinsically asymmetric, non-reciprocal: “Power is a relationship between at least two persons, and it is nonreciprocal in the sense that both cannot have power in the same area of behavior” (Brown & Gilman 1960, p.255)“. The most outstanding psychological dimension of Power-oriented relations is the social or psychological distance:

For example the relation between the boss and her/his secretary is generally a power-oriented which translates into a social distance (administrative hierarchy) between them, just like a psychological distance (whatever the age of the boss, the secretary admits his/her inferiority. As for solidarity-dominated relations, they are symmetric or reciprocal: the relations between two close and casual friend is of an egalitarian kind. Understandably, solidarity oriented relations are characterized by social of psychological proximity.

e.g.

➢ The students of the campus sharing the same fate are solidary: socially they are close to each

other, psychologically they admit proximity among themselves.

Put in a nutshell,

➢

Power → Asymmetric relation → Distance

➢

Solidarity → Symmetric relations → Proximity

❖

The linguistic encoding of Power and Solidarity

In the sociolinguistic literature the conventional notation is ‘T’ for “TU” and ‘V’ for VOUS, whatever the language under study:

➢

VOUS (V): Power → Asymmetric relation → Distance

➢

TU (T): Solidarity → Symmetric relations → Proximity

Most other European languages display the same opposition though with varying precision and there is a fairly large variety of theories that try to account for how the marking of the Power and Solidarity opposition has come about (Byrne, 1936; Châtelain, 1880).

Most theories converge more or less to hypothesize that VOUS, being the plural form was used since the 4th _{century to address the 2 twin political authorities of the Roman Empire (the}

one in Roma and the other in Constantinople). Progressively though the VOUS was used to address the Imperial political authorities, it was subsequently used to address all the higher status people hanging over in the Imperial Court… Concomitantly, the TU was maintained for the people other than those close to the Imperial Court…

But not all Languages in the world display dedicated forms to refer to encode Power and Solidarity, as is the case of English. In English there used to be the opposition between “thou” and “ye”: “Thou” was in emerging Modern English (14th to mid-16th Century) the second person singular corresponding to ‘TU’ (singular Informal) while ‘Ye’ was used for the VOUS (singular and plural formal address). Today this opposition is in disuse and YOU is used indiscriminately to express both Power and Solidarity-oriented relations.

The Power/Solidarity phenomenon being a universal anthropological feature, the English, as well as many other languages are bound to find other linguistic resources to encode the phenomenon.

Do you have the V/T opposition in your language?

Are the VOUS/TU attested in (some) African languages?

While addressing an old person with respect, how would you say in

your mother tongue “…as you say so, the village agrees…”?

2.1.2 The encoding of Power/Solidarity in English

In the absence of dedicated forms such VOUS and TU, most language resort to other social relationship marking features which are of two kinds: summonses and address forms.

Summonses are used to catch the attention of an addressee whose name the speaker does not know and who he has to talk to.

✓ “Eh , Sir, how do we get to Adjamé ?”

Address forms are the most recurring features and the most investigated in the sociolinguistic literature too. An address form or Term of Address “denotes a speaker’s linguistic reference to his/her collocutor(s) (Braun 1988, p.7).

In many other languages where the opposition Power/solidarity is not morphologically attested, another recurring linguistic resource the use of the title and the naming components. The title can be any kind of title institutionally recognized and the naming components is the alternation game of the Last Name (LN) for power-marked reference and the first name (fn) for solidarity-marked address:

ethnic groups acknowledge a fairly systematic use to the LN system of referencing with deference and respect…

The Theory of Power and Solidarity, that is, distance and proximity can be extended to other social phenomena and practices like the Joking Ties (Tukpae). It can be observed that communities without any contact will never get into Tukpae relationships; it can also be seen that those geographically adjacent speech communities who are bound by joking ties have got in conflicting touch in the past and the resolution of the frictions generally result into joking ties. All in all, the joking game and tie is a social strategy to entertain and promote tolerance between adjacent communities that would be in a conflicting relationship otherwise…

➢

The 3rd Person Singular

The linguistic status of the 3rd person pronoun is an illustration how grammar interfere with the sociolinguistics of language. Linguistically, especially in Enunciation Theories (DA) the 1rst person (I) and the 2nd Person pronouns are called the “pronouns of participation” to mean “those referring to the persons involved in the (face-to-face) interaction. The sociolinguistic interpretation of this notion of pronouns of participation” is a clear allusion to “psychological distance”.

As those involved in interaction are theoretically close to each other as illustrated by the alternation of “I →YOU and “YOU→I” (they are co-speakers to each other). In the same DA theories, the 3rd person pronoun is called “the referent”, or “the person being talked about” (E Benvenist - Problèmes de linguistique générale). In the theory of Power and Solidarity ”the person absent” would amount to saying the person who is “(psychologically) distant”…

Linguistically, by using this third person, it is as if the speaker was not addressing his co-speaker but was referring to something else, namely the function, actually:

➢ His Majesty the Queen of X his

The third person singular has been transposed in the discourse of modern institutions to mark distance:

➢ His Excellency,

➢ His Honor

➢ His Holiness

➢ Honorable X.

➢

Communication Layout to express Power and Solidarity

In most African societies and in some strictly formal social contexts or ritual practices, the “the spoke person strategy” (the Akoto among the Akan) is used to materialize social distance among different status interlocutors (Sovereign and the subjects). This kind of “Go-between person” function can be extended to any formal situation where the floor is negotiated through a chairman…

Distance/solidarity marking can come through an unexpected form:

2.1.3 The expression of Power/Solidarity in Ivoirian French

It was indicated earlier that Power in society derives from a variety of sources: “physical strength, wealth, age, sex, institutionalized role in the church, the state, the army or rank or role within the family, etc. The Ivoirian society is not immune from interferences of the complex cultural landscape into the emerging Ivoirian French.

The address forms in Ivoirian French or the way Ivoirian use these deictic is a reverberation of the Ivoirian sociological fabric: local communities with their African culture and the invading cultures such as the European (i.e. French) ones. Address forms organize and develop around local social values and as a result, the address in Ivoirian French develop around paradoxically conflicting parameters: Power and Solidarity.

By relying on social values like the age (very praised in African societies) but also family bond (cardinal value in African societies), address forms in Ivoirian French systematically combine the two opposite parameters:

➢ mon gars/pote → Very high solidarity (same age); ➢ Mon frère → non-formal: solidarity (proximity);

➢ Grand frère/ Petit frère → Age-driven Power relationships + negotiating solidarity ➢ Tonton/tantie → Age-driven power relationships + negotiating solidarity

➢ Doyen/ Jeune homme → Higher Age driven power + negotiating solidarity taken for granted. Some grammatical peculiarities can also be recorded in Ivoirian French: poorly educated individuals are seen to mix up address form as for the correct corresponding verb form. Not only Last names are used with verbs calling for the solidarity marking pronouns (TU), but the confusion extends to the form of verbs:

e.g.

✓ “M. Amadou” instead of “Amadou”

or

✓ M. Amadou, VOUS avez dit….

Instead of

✓ “Amadou, TU as dit….”

2.1.4 The Dynamics of Power/Solidarity relations

of Power, hence psychological distance (use of VOUS) while inferiors are in the sphere of solidarity, hence psychological proximity (use of TU). Likewise, Solidarity will also slip into the sphere of Power as shown in the diagram below:

The diagram indicates that the solidarity can invade the power sphere, so causing Superiors to address each other as TU or fn. Similarly, when solidarity disappears from its original sphere, inferiors will address themselves as VOUS/TLN.

Solidarity seems to be the key value in the Power/solidarity game (maintenance or shift) from one type of address form (V/T) to the other.

2.1.5 Universals in power-solidarity relations

There seem to be some invariants features related to power-solidarity relationships:

o When two strangers of a certain educational status freshly meet, the power relationships terms

are first used, to observe mutual respect that corresponds to psychological distance;

o In European societies, and progressively in the modern African social context in Africa, when

there is a conflict between age and occupational, the occupational status will override age;

o Concerning gender in western societies, female and male adults are treated different ways: female

o When a shift occurs from power-marked term to solidarity-marked one it is generally always on the initiative of the higher rank speaker;

o Once the solidarity relationship from is used, there is usually no return to the use of power marked

relationships forms unless there is a specific reason to do so or when social relations are “damaged”, (COB’s written message to FK in a dispute over lecture organization).

In more general terms, it would seem that in the normal course of things, the shifting is always from Power to solidarity and the ultimate outcome of inter-subjective relations is to take speakers to solidarity.

➢

Language mirrors Social Change: the Modals of English

Indeed, contemporary societies seem to be involved in a global change marked by a significant tendency from power relationships to solidarity relationships. For example, in old European aristocratic families power-marked terms were used even among members of the same family (between husband and wife and between parents and children); today these practices are in disuse.

Recently, a research on English modal verbs (Silué 2017, np) has given evidence that social distance in on the decrease while social proximity in increasing significantly. As part of the working hypothesis, the research has consisted in converting the invariant values of Modals as portrayed by MOG into sociolinguistic variables: modals SHALL and May which bear the [-inherence] feature are indicative of non-congruence, non- compatibility and from the sociolinguistic stand, this is the social distance feature. By contrast, WILL and CAN which bear the [+inherence] feature, imply compatibility, congruence, closeness, complicity and from the sociolinguistic point of view, they are the social markers for proximity.

2.2

S

A

T

(SAT)

As disciplines, linguistics and communication are separate academic fields; however, they seem to have some intersecting areas among which linguistic variation. Indeed, apart from the social status of speakers and how the speaker positions himself in the speaking circumstances, there is another variable: how the speaker decides to adjust or to show difference with reference to the co-speaker(s).

This concern of adjusting to the co-speakers is taken charge of by the Speech Accommodation Theory (SAT). The objectives of SAT are to elucidate “the cognitive and affective processes underlying speech convergence and divergence” (Leslie Beebe & H. Giles 1984, p. 7).

SAT was developed in the 1970s by Howard Giles and Nikolas Coupland (1973) before being extended subsequently to pure communication in the form of CAT (Communication Accommodation Theory). The accommodation theory grounds on the hypothesis that during interactions, speakers are motivated either to adjust their speaking style to what the speaking circumstances commend or to voluntarily remain different by maintaining their speaking identity and the two opposite strategies are convergence and divergence.

Convergence is when the speaker changes some of his speech features (e.g. her/his accent) to tune it to that of the co-speaker(s) as a way of securing the latter’s sympathy.

Often times, the convergence strategy can extend far beyond language itself: the external appearance of the speaker can have a positive strong rhetorical effect on the audience (the colors of the clothes of US presidential candidates). A speaker can decide on divergence as a way of stating how different he is from the co-speakers(s)/audience when necessary. In some instances, code-switching can be exploited either as a convergence strategy or the divergence one. For example, a speaker can switch code to create proximity with one (group of) speaker(s) or create distance and even discomfort to another group.

e.g.

➢ During an oral exam a candidate wanting to speak the dialect of the

Consolidated Bibliography

Braun, Friederike (1988). Terms of Address. Problems of patterns and usage in various languages and cultures. Berlin et al.: Mouton de Gruyter.

BROWN, Ronald & Albert Gilman. 1960.The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity in T.A. Sebeok (ed), Style in Language, MIT Press, 1960, pp.253-76

GILES, H. 1971. A study of speech patterns in social interaction: Accent evalua-tion and accent change. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. University of Bristol.

GILES, H. 1980. Accommodation theory: Some new directions. York Papers in Lin-guistics, 9:105-36.

GILES, H. (ed.). 1984. The dynamics of speech accommodation (Special issue). International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 46.

GILES, H., Scherer, K. R., and Taylor, D. M. 1979. Speech markers in social in-teraction. In K. R. Scherer and H. GILES (eds.), Social Markers in Speech, pp. 343-81. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

GILES, H., and Smith, P. M. 1979. Accommodation theory: Optimal levels of convergence. In H. GILES and R. St. Clair (eds.). Language and Social Psychology, pp. 45-65. Oxford: Blackwell.

HUDSON, R. A. 1984. Sociolinguistics. London: Cambridge University Press.

HATTIGER Jean-Louis (1984). « La série verbale en français populaire d’Abidjan », Annales de l’Université d’Abidjan, Série H, Linguistique, Tome XIII-Fascicule 2, Abidjan, ILA

Kraus, R. M. 1987. The role of the listener: Addressee influences on message formulation. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 6: 81-97.

SAPRU, R K. 2004. Public Policy. Formulation, Implementation and Evaluation. Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd

STERLING, Polly. Identity in Language: An Exploration into the Social Implications of Language variation. Texas: A&M University