What connections do you see between linguistic diversity in society and a society’s system(s) of social stratification?
Question 2: What connections do you see between linguistic diversity in society and a society’s system(s) of social stratification? Explain your answer with at least two or three examples. REMEMBER: Support your answer with evidence from reading, class discussion, and lecture
In most instances, whenever people are giving out speeches, they tend to use different choices of words. In explaining such a scenario, there is a wide range of approach which makes science also applicable. For instance, a five years old girl has an entirely different speech when compared to a twenty-year-old girl. In that case, the difference is not only determined by age factor, since the tone, ideas and structure of the speech is also relevant. Variant occupations also bring out the difference since the word choice of a professor cannot be compared to that of a business person.
According to Saussure, “Course In General Linguistics,”, the linguistic value conceptual part has a connection with differences and relations with other language signs since the phonetic contrast is the most important. With that regard, the author believes that through mastering phonetics, one can distinguish one word from another to attain a given meaning. Therefore, noting the language distinction within social standing acts as social stratification product. For instance, people who get classified with the upper class, usually they are linked with factors like power, and wealth, therefore, developing high self-esteem while giving out their speech compared with the societal construction of low class.
The colonialism effect is also a part of linguistic diversity and social stratification concerning attitude development. For instance, those people from the colonized countries differ with the natives linguistically in terms of accent, dialect and creole. Saussure in ‘Course In General Linguistics’ the principle of differentiation, the language just like other semiological systems differs in characteristics similarly as it does in determining the units and values. As well, through grammatical fact, there is usually determines the final unit definition. Therefore, the main difference that lies in such a case is the issue of communication density. For instance, there are those subgroups in a community who tend to speak more than the others outside their subgroup when articulating oral communication as expressed by geographical distribution. With that regard, the difference mainly occurs due to such marginalized communities not having ample information regarding a particular language.
Saussure’s ‘Course In General Linguistics’ also stipulates that the operative bond in such instances happens between the mental and phonetic elements despite the sign and signification being negative and different, when brought together, they become naturally positive. For example, the French language might have a disputable difference with English on the word chair since, in French, it is pronounced as chaire. The only thing that makes their differences parallel is the distinctive sign through the phonetic change.