SOCIOLINGUISTICS
UNIT 3
TRƯƠNG VĂN ÁNH
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SÀI GÒN
UNIT 3: LANGUAGE IN SOCIETY
I. INTRODUCTION
Each society is composed of people who are in contact with each other via a dispensable means, language. Language is used to express meanings and perform various functions in different contexts and situations of our daily lives. People of different or the same settings choose one or more languages to pass across messages. Linguists study the determinants for language use in a given context. How





language is used to help society develop and how social factors affect language will be analyzed and studied in this unit.







II. GENERAL OVERVIEW
Users of language have to choose actual structures to realize the meaning in their communications. According to Michael Halliday (1973), there are three functions to correspond to the tasks to be performed in communications: the ideational function, the interpersonal function and the textual function. The ideational function says something about the state of events in the world. The interpersonal function says







something about the state of the social relations between those who are interacting by means of the communicational system. In addition, the textual function says something about the organisation of the structure as a message. Users select simultaneously each of these functions. For example, mentioning ideational function, they choose a clause-type which highlights agency [The secretary typed the document]; mentioning the interpersonal component of the grammar, they choose the role of someone to make it acquire different social relation between the people interacting







within the context; they might emphasize the agents of the action – it was the secretary who typed the document. The information is arranged in a particular order accepted in a language grammar, which is the textual function.
Users may use different choices to express their ideas to make them appropriate to the environment. They may use the sentence in the active form The secretary typed the document, or in the passive form, The document was typed by the secretary, or in the form of emphasizing the agent, it was the secretary who typed the document; instead of a statement we could have







asked the questions: was it the document that was typed?; Did the secretary type the document? The choice of the structures is intended to express different ideas.






III. SOCIETY AND LANGUAGE DETERMINANTS
Language used in every society is determined by many factors. Each society needs one or more particular languages. It is noted that different societies need different languages, even in the same country or in the same region languages in need may be different in different contexts. The determinants of language use in a society are the factors which approves various linguistic forms in a given society. Besides, language use may be decided on careers in society, classes of different







people, races of different religions, people of different political points of view, people of different levels of education, etc. Therefore, in a school environment, teachers should be careful in his language use because the students are from different social settings and teachers’ language should be academic or standard one that the students may imitate.
In a society, norms play a very important role, especially in language use. A language is a system of rules in vocabulary, phonetics, phonology, and grammar. Users do not apply a language improvisatorily, but they must






comply with the compulsory rules in the linguistics. Labov (1972) emphasized the importance of these naturally occurring norms for linguistic description. Besides, he encourages to take the norms of the vernacular as the basis of grammatical description as well as to discuss more thoroughly the nature of language norms. Every norm is fixed by society and it realizes the rules in sociolinguistics. To master a language people have to follow these linguistic norms strictly.







IV. LANGUAGE USE IN VIETNAMESE SOCIETY
Vietnam is a multilingual country which has at least 54 languages spoken. Nowadays the English language is spoken more and more in public places such as banks, airports, stations, especially conferences where people speak only English. Besides Vietnamese, Chinese, Khmer, Ede, M’nong, etc. are used in society. Vietnamese has three major regions: North, Central and South with 64 provinces and cities. People in three main parts speak Vietnamese with different accents.






Over ninety percent of schools use English to teach students from grade one to grade twelve. When students enter universities, they continue to study English as foreign language. University and college graduates have to get appropriate English certificates which are considered mandatory formalities for all officials. Those who are fluent in English can earn very high salaries, especially in foreign companies. Centers and international schools where English is taught come into being everywhere in Vietnam. In general,






Vietnamese government and authorities encourage people to learn and use English in the era of integration and globalization. More and more students try their best to learn English so that they can high scores in the international English tests such as TOEFL, IELTS, TOEIC, Aptis, CEFR, etc. to win scholarships in order to study overseas. In big cities such as Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong, Can Tho, Da Nang, etc. the movements of learning English develop and expand at great speed. Academic or standard English is focused on in these cities.







Ho Chi Minh City has a very complex linguistic structure. English with different dialects are taught here, including mainly American English, British English and Australian English. Besides these main English dialects, people can hear Singaporean, Indian, Philippines and European English. Of course, visitors can contact indigenous people via their pidgins or even creole English. It is not surprising that a street peddler or a bike man can speak their pidgin English to people coming from the world over to Vietnam nowadays. English becomes a second language in Ho Chi Minh City.







Foreign visitors, arriving in Vietnam as a tourism destination, can speak English to many people everywhere in so many Vietnamese cities such as Ca Mau, Bac Lieu, Can Tho, Long Xuyen, My Tho, Tan An, Vung Tau, Phan Thiet, Ninh Chu, Quy Nhon, Vinh, Ninh Binh, Tam Dao, Sa Pa, Mong Cai, etc. At any time, when a foreign visitor is in need, some Vietnamese people who can speak English will be ready to assist him. It is a popular phenomenon everywhere in Vietnam now. Not only educated people but also manual laborers can speak English to contact foreigners.


V. CONCLUSION
Languages used in Vietnam are very abundant to meet the requirements of contacts for business, learning, working and other communications. Besides the languages used by native speakers (about 54 ethnic languages), English, French, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, etc. are being used increasingly. Among them, English becomes the major foreign language and gradually the second language in Vietnam. Formerly, pidgin English was used mainly; nowadays, more and more academic or standard English is spoken







popularly. English switching is in use by teenagers in daily living, especially on the internet. Many scientific and technological English words are borrowed to use in Vietnamese. The linguistic phenomena will enrich Vietnamese; however, Vietnamese people should not abuse English or any other languages to lose the identity of the Vietnamese language. Inheriting our language and expand it is an important role for the current and following generations.







VI. SUMMARY
According to Anthony C. Oha, the nature of norms and language use in sociolinguistics is explicitly in connection to the concept of speech community. William Labov states that the community language is used by a group of people with a set of shared norms. The language follows the norms which are conceptualised and the way where the language is formed in society in order to develop communications. Language comes from society and helps it develop. On the linguistic nature of Vietnam, it is explicit that the mixed and complex nature of the country have developed in mixed or complex linguistic structure. The languages have







made great contribution to the development of the country and have assisted the people living in Vietnam devise codes for ease of communication.







VII. EXERCISES
1. What are Halliday’s views about the relation of language and society?
2. What are the social determinants of language use?
3. How does the society affect individual language use?
4. What is the linguistic nature of the Vietnamese society?
5. What are the effects of mixed language forms on societies?


6. How important is English in Vietnam?
7. What role does English play in Vietnam nowadays?










Good luck!