Unless a human
being has a physical or mental disability, he or she will be born with the
capacity for language: the innate ability to speak a language, or in the case
of someone who is deaf, to sign a language (i.e. use gestures to communicate). his capacity does not involve any kind
of learning – a young child, for
instance, does not need to be taught to speak or sign – and occurs in
predictable stages, beginning with the babbling cries of an infant and
culminating in the full speaking abilities of an adult. Language is many things; it can be a system of communication, a
medium for thought, vehicle for literary expression, a matter for political
controversy, a catalyst for nation building (O’Grady & Dobrovolsky, 1989: 1
in Imansyah, 2008:1).
The terms of
variety language are emerged due to different systems reflecting different
varieties of the human condition. Variety
is a specific set of ‘linguistic items’ or ‘human speech patterns’ (presumably,
sounds, words, grammatical features, etc.) which we can connect with some
external factor apparently, a geographical area or a social group (Hudson,
1996; Ferguson, 1972 and Wardhaugh, 2006).
Wardhaugh (2006)
distinguish the terms language and dialect as follow:Lower part of variety
language is dialect and as the main part is language, therefore we can say that
Texas English and Swiss German are dialects of English and German. Some
languages have more than one dialect for instance English are spoken in various
dialects.
Questions :
Why sociolect related to social background
rather than geographical background? (Mike)
Answer: social background is the
social language that we used in daily activities in our social group. But,
geographical backgroud is the language that we used in our region. Example:
someone who come from Sumatra Barat, based on his region, he used minang
language( geographical background). But, when he move to Java, by the time his
dialect will be change to java language because his social group used java
language( social backgorund).
Please
show more example of regional dialect and sicial dialect? (Ratna)
Answer: regional dialect: ma lay language(Riau), minang
language(west Sumatra), batak language(North Sumatra). social dialect: teacher-students, parents-children,
manager-staff(social group)
Explain
differentiate between language and dialect! (Asep)
Answer: language
is a way from many region to communication. Whatever language, minangness,
java, and another. Language only one. Dialect have many differend between
regional, include intonation, the way dialect is produces, and other.
How can language have many differences,
example language a country different to another country? (TM)
Answer:
people live in difference regional and social background. Wilayah dan
lingkungan sosial mempengaruhi lahirnya suatu bahasa, karena setiap orang di
setiap wilayah membutuhkan bahasa untuk berkomunikasi dengan orang yang ada di
lingkungan sekitarnya.
At pages 28 in our course book, language
and dialect is ambiguous term. So what is mean?? (Desi)
Answer:
No one really knows what is language real mean. Sometimes language have ambigu
meaning. Example : Iam fine, means someon still in good condition or good
feeling. But in Fact, Iam fine is not always means okay, but also, something
wrong happened with someone’s feeling. By that case, we see that language and
dialect is ambiguous.
Conclusion
Every
language have variation and dialect. Its depend on the region and social background.
