Language Policy, Diglossia, and Linguistic Register: What happens when L-variety languages try to modernize?

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Language Policy, Diglossia, and Linguistic
RegisterWhat happens when L-variety
languagestry to modernize?

• Keynote Speech for Workshop on
• Language Planning as a Political Process
• Views on South and Central Asia

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• Harold F. Schiffman
• University of Pennsylvania
• Stockholm, September 2006

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Abstract

• When certain languages lack registers for
  scientific and technical domains, and therefore
  attempt to create them, problems arise. Users
  educated in an H-variety such as English, French,
  German, Russian (or another language) are loath
  to give these up and adopt vocabulary from
  another source, even if it is their mother
  tongue, since the vocabulary created for this in
  the mother tongue may be as strange as that of a
  foreign language.1 These speakers may be said
  to have a vested interest in maintaining the
  status quo, and may engage in various sorts of
  resistance to the implementation of change,
  especially for the purposes of modernization.
  They have this vested interest because the
  language they already know represents for them
  cultural capital (Bourdieu 1982 ) whereas the
  one that the planners wish to replace it with
  does not.

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Some definitions

• What do we mean by diglossia?
• What do we mean by linguistic register?
• What is meant by linguistic modernization?
• What is meant by a LOWC?

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Diglossia Ferguson 1959

• Diglossic Languages have one variety that is used
  for high (formal, literacy) purposes the
  H-variety, has the most prestige
• This constrasts with the L-variety which is
  different phonologically, grammatically,
  lexically, and syntactically
• L-variety is used for informal, mostly spoken
  purposes lacks prestige, may be seen as vulgar
  or ungrammatical spoken only by children,
  lesser beings, uneducated people

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Examples

• Arabic, with its Koranic form established in the
  7th Century, vs. modern spoken dialects
• German as spoken in Switzerland Schrift-deutsch
  (Hochdeutsch) vs. dialects
• Creole languages of various sorts
• Tamil and many other South Asian languages

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Notion of domain

• H-variety dominates certain domains literacy,
  religion, public speaking, high usages
• L-variety dominates in lower domains jokes,
  intimacy, street use, is the first language
  learned
• Domains may shift, get taken over by a non-
  traditional variety, but only slowly
• Domain shift may be an index of change of
  register, or change of formality

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Fishmans extension

• Fergusons diglossia applied to languages where H
  and L are related L is usually a linguistic
  descendent of H (or thought to be)
• Fishman (1967) extended diglossia to apply to
  situations where historically unrelated languages
  were used together, a prestige language for H, a
  colloquial one for L

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Examples

• Hebrew and Yiddish in eastern Europe
• English and Spanish in the US
• English and South Asian languages in South Asia
• Russian and other languages in the USSR
• German and other languages in the Austro-
• Hungarian Empire
• French and other languages in Francophone Africa
• Swedish and other languages in Sweden

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Mutual intelligibility

• May be lacking mutual intelligibility between the
  H-variety and the L-variety or varieties,
  especially with the Fishman kind of diglossia!
• People who know only H cant understand L people
  who know one L-variety cant understand others,
  e.g. Arabic dialects from the Maghreb to Yemen or
  Dubai
• H-variety and L-varieties are said to control
  domains

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Domain shift a kind of code-switching

• Public speaking in Tamil begins in H-variety,
  with formal greetings and exhortations
• Shifts to L-variety for solidarity, connection
  with the people (shows that the politician is
  one of the people)
• Shifts back at the end, with a formal wrap-up

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Keeping things straight

• Usually H dominates the high registers
  (education, religion) or domains of the
  language, while L is relegated to informal,
  familial, uneducated, humor, trades
• But people switch from one to another, depending
  on the formality of the occasion
• People who dont control H, remain silent, or
  risk looking/sounding foolish

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Brown and Gilmans Pronouns of Power and
Solidarity

• T/V distinction in pronouns
• V (vous, Sie, ni, you) expresses Power
• T (tu, du, thou) represents inferiority
• Non-reciprocal use of V pronoun makes for a power
  domination
• Reciprocal use of V social distance
• Reciprocal use of T solidarity

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Parallel with Diglossia

• H-variety used for representing power
• L-variety expresses lower status
• Code-switching to L from H indicates solidarity
  shift
• Example When we switched to Du from Sie, my
  German cousin began to speak dialect only. When I
  protested, he said Ich muss mit Dir dialekt
  sprechen Du bist von uns!

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Switch to English, e.g. in South Asia

• Represents even more power!
• Those who dont control English, dont have power
• Many small groups now demanding English medium,
  in order to get more power!
• State educational systems that try to impose use
  of state language are trying to deny power to
  minority groups

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What does this mean in Central Asia?

• Russian previously dominated the H domains of
  science and technology
• Uzbek etc. will have trouble replacing the
  terminology and developing new registers
• Russian will continue to represent power and
  freedom, even as it did during Soviet period
• Change will be very slow

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To compete, Central Asian languages will have to

• Be willing to borrow and loan-translate
  terminology
• Be willing to use acronyms, blends, and
  abbreviations
• Let the scientists and users develop the
  registers, rather than have an Academy provide it
• Be flexible

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Russian may yield to English

• If Russian is to be displaced, it may be English
  or another LOWC that will take its place, not an
  indigenous Central Asian language
• If various CA languages take different paths,
  they will diverge and divide-and-conquer may
  occur.
• In the past, Persian occupied the H-domains is
  there a chance it could return?
• What about Turkish of Turkey?

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Lets define Register.

• Trudgill 1983 Linguistic varieties that are
  linked ... to occupations, professions or topics
  have been termed registers. The register of law,
  for example, is different from the register of
  medicine, which in turn is different from the
  language of engineering--and so on. Registers are
  usually characterized solely by vocabulary
  differences either by the use of particular
  words, or by the use of words in a particular
  sense.
• Registers are simply a rather special case of a
  particular kind of language being produced by the
  social situation.

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Need to expand this

• Improve on Trudgill's definition by expanding the
  definition of register to include, in many cases,
  a preference (or even a dispreference) for
  particular syntactic patterns or rhetorical
  devices.
• A close examination of many different kinds of
  registers shows that they tend to prefer, or
  eschew

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(dis)preferences

• The passive voice the American Psychological
  Association recommends using active voice
• As a general rule, use the active voice rather
  than the passive voice. For example, use We
  predicted that ... rather than It was predicted
  that ...
• Metaphors ( APA warns against them!)
• Imperative verbs
• Sexist or racist language
• Short sentences

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Other preferences

• Word-formation
• There may also be a preference for certain
  lexical devices such as acronyms or blends
• Greco-Latin vocabulary (western European
  languages)
• Other classical languages, e.g. Sanskrit,
  Chinese, Persian
• Pragmatic devices A register therefore may have
  its own pragmatic devices, i.e. how the
  vocabulary is used is important.
• Passive voice may convey objectivity for some
  disciplines, but not for others.
• In some languages, the passive may convey
  something else, e.g. in Indonesian, the passive
  voice is used for politeness

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You think I overemphasize this acronym stuff?

• Go to http//www.pharma-lexicon.com/
• A dictionary of over 200,000 medical,
  pharmaceutical, biomedical healthcare acronyms
  and abbreviations.
• DNA can stand for
• Deoxyribonucleic Acids, Deoxyribose Nucleic
  Acid, or
• Desoxynucleic Acid
• SNP can stand for
• Single nucleotide polymorphisms, Sodium
  Nitroprusside or Système Nerveux Périphérique

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And just for fun, the title of an article

• Possible role for avPGC-1alpha in the control of
  expression of fiber type, along with avUCP and
  avANT mRNAs in the skeletal muscles of
  cold-exposed chickens.
• Iublished in FEBS Lett. 2005 Jan 3579
• (1)11-7

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Another problem scientific registers have
derivational systems, to form adjectives from
nouns, etc.

• sulphur the chemical element of atomic number
  16, a combustible non-metal which typically
  occurs as yellow crystals
• sulphide a binary compound of sulphur
  
• sulphate a salt or ester of sulphuric acid
  
• anhydrite a white mineral consisting of
  anhydrous calcium sulphate
• anhydrous adj. (Chem.) containing no water

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So who decides on the register?

• Users must decidepeople who develop the science
  also develop the register
• If language academies are allowed to develop the
  register, we get chaos.
• Scherer and Giles (197951-3) devote two pages to
  a description of both differences in lexicon and
  the complex, unusual semantic relations amongst
  perfectly commonplace words' found in certain
  registers

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Example of quench, a commonplace English verb

• High-energy physics quench means
• rapidly decrease the temperature of a hot gas
• In older uses in English, quench simply means
  put out a fire, or alleviate thirst.
• An old, quaint, and almost archaic term has taken
  on a new life

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Modify the definition of Register

• A set of specialized vocabulary and preferred (or
  dispreferred) syntactic and rhetorical devices
  and structures, used by particular
  socio-professional groups for special purposes.
• A register may have a set of derivational
  devices!
• A register is a property or characteristic of a
  language, and not of an individual or a class of
  speakers.
• Speakers may or may not actively (or passively)
  control a register if they do, it can be thought
  of as part of their linguistic repertoire.

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Some languages lack certain registers

• Western industrial societies they may lack
• Ethno-scientific registers (folk taxonomies for
  classifying plants, animals or natural
  phenomena),
• Specialized poetic registers,
• Specialized politeness systems (Javanese),
• Registers for speaking in a trance. (Toda)

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Trance Language?

• Todas (Nilgiri Hills, S. India) Shaman went
  into a trance and began speaking in a special
  way, which even to me sounded different. When I
  asked him to repeat some of the words, he said
  that he couldn't say those words unless he was in
  a trance.
• Toda also has a register for songs that is so
  different phonologically from spoken Toda as to
  be unrecognizable to someone who only knows
  spoken Toda

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Pre-industrial societies

• Languages lack legal, technical, scientific, and
  medical registers and subvarieties of these
• the register that airline pilots use to
  communicate with air traffic controllers).
• Such languages function without such registers
• This relegates them to a marginal status within a
  larger multilingual society,
• Or the members of such linguistic cultures
  acquire proficiency in these registers in other
  languages.
• The registers they acquire proficiency in are
  registers of English or another ex-colonial
  language.

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Registers may be diglossic or triglossic

• H-variety domains Certain registers such as
  religion, literature, ethno-history
• L-variety domains conversation, jokes/stories,
  intimacy, courtship, auto-mechanical, building,
  construction trades, folk taxonomies, etc.
• Certain registers (high-tech, higher-education)
  may be in the domain of a totally different
  language, e.g. English or another LOWC

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Registers for scientific terminology may be
mixed

• Greco-Roman vocabulary for written and formal
  oral presentation
• Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy
• Abbreviations, blends, acronyms for informal oral
  use, and lay use (journalism etc.)
• TSE
• Prion (from proteinaceous infectious particle)
• Mad Cow disease
• CJD named after the discoverer(s)?
  Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a.k.a. kuru.

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Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease(vCJD)

• The leading scientific theory at this time
  maintains that CJD is caused by a type of protein
  called a prion. ... Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
  (CJD) is the best-known of the human TSEs.
• Other human TSEs include kuru, fatal familial
  insomnia (FFI), and Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker
  disease (GSS).
• Research suggests that vCJD may have resulted
  from human consumption of beef from cattle with a
  TSE disease called bovine spongiform
  encephalopathy (BSE), also known as "mad cow
  disease."
• More at http//www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/tse/ts
  e.htm

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Developing new registersWhy so difficult?

• Users of old registers have a vested interest in
  keeping iteasier to use
• Could also be viewed as a monopoly
• New indigenous vocabulary may be strange and
  folksy sounding (non-scientific)
• Global discourse LOWC registers allow scientists
  to all be in the same loop.
• People outside this language/register are
  ignored, kept in the dark

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Problem of the Institut Pasteur

• In 1989, editors of the journals of the Institut
  Pasteur decided to publish only in English!
• French government was incensed!
• But the IP pointed out that by then only 5 of
  articles submitted to them were in French
• If they continued using French, nobody would read
  those articles.
• They therefore joined the global discourse

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Problem of self-respect

• Pre-modern languages wanting to modernize feel
  that their language is just as good as any other
• Developing scientific/technological vocabulary
  allows their language to stand tall and be
  equal to others
• But the amount of effort required may be
  overwhelming and impossible to accomplish

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Late modernizers

• Have to develop huge vocabularies
• Will need to allow wide range of word-formation
  devices
• Borrowing (from LOWCs or classical languages)
• Loan-Translation (based on above sources)
• Acronyms, Abbreviations, Blends
• Need to allow the users to do the development

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But will they allow this freedom?

• Example of Tamil Purists take over and insist
  on
• Pure Tamil roots and loan translation only
• No abbreviations!
• No acronyms or blends!
• No borrowings!
• Result stultification, no buy-in by users, no
  progress.
• English remains language of science.

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Example from Mad Cow disease

• Medical researchers who studied the disease
  developed the register, using
• Greco-Roman vocabulary for high formal use
• (Bovine) Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy
• Abbreviation TSE
• Acronym prion based on
• pro in ltproteinaceous infectious particle
• Lay terminology mad cow for informal, oral use,
  lay use (journalism etc.)

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What do other languages do?Translate the
Greco-Roman vocabulary into

• French, German, Spanish
• French l'encéphalopathie spongiforme bovine
• German Bovine Spongiforme Encephalopathie
• Spanish Encefalopiatia Espongiforme Bovina
• But then they all borrow the terms
• TSE and Prion from English!
• But all retain a folk version of mad cow
• Vaca loca, vache folle, Rinderwahnsinn

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What would the Tamil for this be?

• maaTTu paittiyam (similar to German
  Rinder-Wahnsinn) is easy to come up with
• As for the rest?...
• Would have to loan-translate transmissible
  spongiform encephalopathy into pure Tamil
• Would not allow abbreviations or blends
• Would get nowhere with this
• English therefore remains the language of
  science, medicine, technology in India

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In other words

• Having excessively strict conditions on
  word-formation is counter-productive
• It leads to failure of the users to accept the
  terminology
• Failure then leads to a blame-game
• Blame colonialism! Blame English!
• Blame inadequate language loyalty of scientists!
• Blame everybody but the purists

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Indias IT development

• Would not have happened if there werent
  education in English in the Indian IITs
• Diglossia of the Fishman extended kind is the
  net result
• L-variety Tamil (etc.) for home, informal domains
• H-variety Tamil for religion, belles-lettres,
  music
• Triglossia, with H-variety English for technical
  domains

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How to represent multilingualism and its domains
in India
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Multilingualism as a set of nested domains

• At the center the home language, L-variety
• Learned by all does not easily get displaced
• H-variety of mother tongue acquired in school
• English acquired later, but now not much later
  some states offering it in 1st standard!
• Domains tend to segment in the outer circles
  some domains may be only PASSIVE, e.g. for
  knowledge of Hindi in Tamilnadu

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Higher education in India continues to be almost
exclusively conducted in English.

• Indian doctors and technologists prefer to be in
  the loop of international work in all these
  fields
• This also means that Indian doctors and engineers
  can obtain jobs in other countries, and
• Send home remittances which help sustain the
  economy of the subcontinent.
• They have a vested interest in maintaining the
  status quo ante.
• And other countries depend on there being a
  supply of Indias educated people!

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Bangalore and the languages spoken there

• Kannada is the state language
• English is the language of the IT industry
• Tamil remains as a residue of British colonialism
  (British brought Tamils from Madras into the
  Princely State of Mysore)
• Tamils settled in the cantonment next to
  Bangalore now highly resented!
• Cantonment is now the locus of the IT industry

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Diglossia and shifting domains

• Diglossias tend to remain stable in places like
  India
• But minor changes occur domains may get taken
  over by another language
• In new domains, L-variety may take over TV
• Language shift may occur, domain by domain (but
  only very slowly)
• Tamil is not about to take over domains of
  English,
• But English may take over some domains of
  Tamilespecially domain of literacy in Tamil!

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More and more demand for English may mean less
and less literacy in indigenous languages!

• IT industry and the lure of foreign job market
  results in more and more parents demanding
  English medium education, all over India
• Local languages retain only spoken domains
• Some states (e.g. Karnataka) are trying to fight
  back
• Other cities fight to attract IT spill-over from
  Karnataka Madras, Hyderabad, others

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Conclusion

• Register development for late modernizers is very
  difficult
• LOWCs dominate the sci-tech fields, are not easy
  to displace
• Scientists have a vested interest in keeping the
  previous H-varieties
• H-varieties represent more cultural capital and
  can provide better jobs and better lives

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Epilogue

• Am I being too cynical and pessimistic?
• Am I dismissing efforts in some places to
  modernize, with some success?
• Is it easier to displace Russian than English?
• (Dutch was replaced by Indonesian under Japanese
  occupation)
• Is there no hope?
• See the French example