Multiple varieties of languages co-exist in a complex interrelationship where the society assigns them different tasks. In 1959, Charles Ferguson provided a comprehensive diglossicview of bilingualism by building on the various domains which are essential in macro-analysis of the functional distributions within the speech communities (Ferguson, 1959). These communities are characterized two or more languages used in intra-societal communications. Diglossia is generally defined as a situation where two different language varieties are spoken with the same speech community (Fishman et al., 1982). On the other hand, bilingual diglossia is a situation where one language variety is used in writing while another one is used in speech. Today, diglossia is one of the most important elements in the study of societal multilingualism. Based on Ferguson’s argument, diglossia can be described as a special kind of bilingualism where two co-existing linguistic codes that have different status in the society compete. Use of these language varieties relies on the circumstance (Crystal, 2010). Each the language variety must have a clearly defined role. For example, standard language mainly in formal contexts while a specific dialectal form is used in low functions such as family and social gatherings. Studies observed that the concept of diglossia can be observed in the case of language use in China. In support of this observation, the author reviewed the concepts diglossia, language maintenance, language shift and reversing language shift in general and in relation to a specific case of Inner Mongolia, China.
Language variation
Social linguistics such as Ferguson (1959) and Fishman (1972) were the pioneers of the notion of functional differentiation of languages or language varieties (Fishman et al., 1982). This notion helped them to explain various patterns in language use and choices. These scholars recognized that among speakers of any language there was variation in the manner the language was used. The language variation was exhibited in the form of sound (phonetics) and structure (grammar). In some cases, the variations were very minimal for instance slight changes in word pronunciations or grammatical structures. Studying language variations help in guiding language development activities such as desirable and acceptable writing system to majority of the speakers (Crystal, 2010). It is therefore essential to identify the most unifying characteristics of a language. However, a language spoken is a particular country is influenced by several macro and micro factors. These factors can be ethnic, social or geographical. In specific, language spoken in a country is a factor of region, nationality, race, class, age, gender, socioeconomic status and education. These factors are interrelated and reflect a language variety’s pronunciation, grammar, syntax and vocabulary (Harbour, 2009).
Often, there is a misunderstanding regarding the use if either standard or non-standard variety of the language. The people who speak non-standard form of the language are sometimes considered to be inferior speakers of the standard variety. Nevertheless, studies highlighted that it is erroneous to blindly assume that the standard language variety is the ‘correct’ one (Penn et al., 2009). One should acknowledge that every language has dialects and there is no dialect that is substandard to other dialects. Furthermore, all language varieties are systematic in the way they are used and have every right to exist. Sociolinguistics defined dialect as a variety of language thus all dialects are essentially correct, meaningful, logical and systematic (Fishman et al., 1982). These scholars therefore argue that the issue of standard versus non-standard language variety is more of a political issue than a linguistic one. People may be forced to use the standard dialect to conform to the society rules. On the other hand, speakers of the non-standard variety aim to demonstrate their sense of belonging to the community or ethnic group.
Societal attitudes towards bilingualism and educational implications
Bilingualism is a global fact of life. That is, it is common practice for people to use more than one language albeit to different degrees of proficiency. In most societies, a person can use one language at home while another one outside home settings (Creese&Blackledge, 2011). In most societies, several languages co-exist at any given time. Existence of bilingualism could have different implications on both educational settings and the society in general. In an educational setting where there is no provision for people to learn specific heritage languages, language shift can be accelerated in the society (Wei, 2008). This can be seen in the case of Farsi language in Iran. Farsi language is the only official language in the country and is used in all levels of government, state and semi-state departments and as the language of education. As a result, regional languages such as Turkish languages have been relegated to low level contexts at homes, streets and sports (Brown, 2012). This situation has become problematic as most schools advocates for literacy and linguistic norms of the dominant language.Due to this, the use of these local languages is declining at an accelerated rate especially among the younger generations.
Besides, promotion of one dominant language in any society put speakers and learners from minority language backgrounds at a serious disadvantage. Languages of ethnic minorities become at an enhanced risk of dying as speakers tend to shift from their heritage languages to dominant languages within their societies (Brown, 2012). In other words, it is essential to examine individual’s and society’s perspectives on the existence of heritage languages and bilingualism. Multiple studies suggest that bilingual community members play far more important role in language maintenance (Evans & Levinson, 2009). This study critically evaluates the case of diglossia in the contemporary Chinese society and relates the findings to past theories by Ferguson, Fishman, Labov and so on. The rest of the paper is organized into literature review, case study analysis and conclusion. The literature review section critically analyses previous theories and studies on the concepts of diglossia, language maintenance, language shift and reversing language shift. Case study section describes the relevance of the sociolinguistic concepts discussed in the literature review to the contemporary Chinese society. Finally, conclusion section provides a summary of findings and recommendations on how to reduce the risks of language shift.
LITERATURE REVIEW
This section provides a critical review of previous studies and theories on the sociolinguistic concepts of diglossia, language maintenance, language shift and reversing language shift. Multiple sources were examined to provide different perspectives on various findings.
Diglossia
Contrary to popular beliefs, most people in the world today are either bilingual or multilingual. Monolingualism has become a tiny characteristic of small groups of people around the world. According to a past study, there are approximately eight thousand ethnic groups living in 160 nation states (Merker, 2009). It is estimated that these people are capable of communicating in at least 5000 distinct languages. From these findings it is evident that many nations were either monolingual or mono-ethnic. However, most nations had people within their bodies who spoke the national language in addition to other languages in their everyday lives. Though multilingualism can exist in separate enclaves, speakers of a particular language may not be able to communicate in the language of one another in situations where individuals use more than one language in their lives (Wei, 2008). This can lead to language contact. Language contact refers to a situation where groups or individuals are using different languages but are modified to be able to communicate with one another (Blommaert and Maly, 2014). For example, French, Latin and French vocabularies are very common in the English language. Book learning leads to passing of these new vocabularies to other speakers through literature, religious texts or dictionaries. In some cases, new contact languages may be created.
In 1959, Ferguson introduced the notion of diglossia to assist in description of functional distribution of two related language varieties in different settings. Ferguson developed and employed the concept of diglossia in explaining the patterns of language use and choices in bi/multilingual communities in different environments around the world (Ferguson, 1959). According to Ferguson (1959), diglossia refers to a relatively stable language situation where there exist primary language dialects (standard or regional standard) as well as divergent and highly codified superposed variety of language. Ferguson described diglossia as a multidimensional characterization where attitudes and usage of language depends on its function, prestige, acquisition, stability, grammar, lexicon, phonology and standardization among other factors (Ferguson, 1959).In 1967, Joshua Fishman presented an expanded version of Ferguson’s original concept. Fishman proposed that the definition of diglossia to be modified to include two crucial elements (Fishman, 1967). First, diglossic speech community should not be characterized by the use of two languages only. He argued that there were many language varieties which were being used within the diglossic community. Second, diglossia refers to all types of language varieties which show functional distribution within a speech community (Evans & Levinson, 2009). In this case, diglossia consequently describes multiple sociolinguistic situations based on stylistic differences within a language and separate dialects as well as the use of related and unrelated separate languages.
The concept of diglossia is used in both narrow and a much broader sense. In the narrow and original sense as outlined by Ferguson, there are three fundamental features of diglossia. These features include two distinct varieties of the same language used within the community (Fishman, 1967). These varieties are high (H) variety and the other low (L) variety. Each variety should also have distinct functions which complement one another. The last feature is that L variety is the preferred variety for day to day functions. H variety is considered a standard variety which is largely used by people for formal and official activities including religious services, education, government, conference events, broadcasts and formal letters among others. H variety is also used for literary and literacy purposes (Evans, 2014). On the other hand, L variety is considered a non-standard variety that is used by people largely in informal situations including family, local markets and social functions (McMurray & Wasserman, 2009). L variety is also considered to be less prestigious. However, not all members of the society can effectively use H variety. This phenomenon arises from the fact that the speakers of the language have clear different levels of linguistic knowledge. Within the diglossic community, H variety is linguistically related to but considerably different from the L vernacular varieties of the native speakers.
Significantly, Fishman expanded characteristics of diglossia language from three to nine to include those associated with function, prestige, literary heritage, morphology, syntax, phonology, acquisition and standardization (Fishman, 1967). Fishman explained that diglossia happens when people use more than one language which could be native language and the national or official language. In diglossia, Ferguson highlighted that people use a particular language in one situation and another language in a different situation. Fishman observed that prestige speakers consider H variety to be more powerful and positive while L variety is considered to be less worthy, broken and ‘corrupt’ (Blommaert and Maly, 2014). H variety is more expressive, logical and beautiful than the L variety. L variety is mainly acquired through spoken word between parents and children and among children while the H variety is taught in schools. In most diglossic languages, literature is written and presented in H variety except for the folk literature. Fishman indicated that grammar is usually standardized in H variety (Merker, 2009). The use of phonological and lexicon rules are more important in the case of H variety in a manner that has no equivalents in low variety.
Several countries around the world experience diglossia situations. In medieval Europe, Latin was used as the H variety while daughter languages such as Italian, Spanish and French were used in less formal situations. In the Swish German country, students are taught standard German in school but they switch to local Swiss German language when they get home for their daily conversations (Blommaert, 2013). In pre-modern times, diglossia became relatively common in East Asian societies where there was one language used for high social purposes such as writing and a different language for low social purposes including daily conversations. Specifically, Snow (2010) indicated that the case of diglossia in Hong Kong is unique for two different reasons. First, diglossia in modern Hong Kong is relatively different to the form of diglossia that once spread through East Asia. This distinction arises from the social setting that is different to the rest of East Asia and the mass education of the people. Second, features of H variety is significant different in that the dominant Standard Chinese is the standard language and majority of the population are also its native speakers instead of being an ancient classical language no one speaks natively. It is important to note that diglossia is a relatively rare phenomenon in modern world and it is only conspicuous in societies that have undergone major social changes especially those associated with modernization like in the case of German-speaking Switzerland (Catania, 2009). In this regard, Hong Kong is an outlier in relation to the survival of the diglossic patterns in contemporary societies.
Hong Kong is a multilingual society characterized by multiple languages playing distinct roles. Some of the common language varieties present in Hong Kong includes Hindi, Hakka, Teochiu (Chaozhou) and so on (Snow, 2010). Despite the existence of these many language varieties, Standard Chinese, Cantonese and English are considered the most important. Cantonese is a Chinese variety that is common with people of southeastern China. In Hong Kong, Cantonese is mainly used in spoken interactions and to some extent formal functions such as court sessions. Standard Chinese is a language variety that also acts as the standard national language for the mainland China and Taiwan (Gregory et al., 2013). In Hong Kong, Standard Chinese is mostly used as a written language. It is viewed as the main language for serious writing. English is linked to the governing class of Hong Kong when the island was a British colony (Snow, 2010). During that time, it was used for international interactions and trade. Today, Cantonese and Standard Chinese are the main languages of instruction in Hong Kong schools (Snow, 2010). Based on Ferguson’s diglossic perspectives, it is clear that Cantonese is the L variety as it is mainly learned at home as a native language of most people in the society. In contrast, Standard Chinese and English fit the description of Ferguson’s description of H language variety as they mainly dominate the prestigious domains of language.
Language maintenance
Basically, language maintenance refers to continuing the use of a particular language in the face of competition from more powerful languages locally or internationally (McMurray & Wasserman, 2009). According to Fishman, language maintenance must involve intergenerational transmission. Several studies were conducted in attempt to determine the factors which are either affective or conducive to language maintenance.Blackledge and Creese (2010) found that these factors were very diverse ranging from political, demographic, linguistic, cultural, psychological, and institutional to economic factors. Usually, community languages are maintained through various domains linked to speaker’s choices and preferences. Fishman suggested that these language domains may encompass friends, neighbors, education, media, community and religion. Elsewhere, cognitive scientists believe that languages are all built to a common pattern (Blommaert, 2013). From this perspective, every level of linguistic organization exhibits some form of uniqueness. Despite the presence of considerable recurrent patterns of language organization, language maintenance is better explained using stable engineering solutions that satisfy multiple design factors, reflects cultural-historical factors as well as human cognition constraints. It is important to understand that the place of language in human cognition is its diversity (Gregory et al., 2013). For instance, a language may sometimes have less than a dozen distinctive words or several dozen while sign languages do not have any sounds at all. In some cases, languages may or may not have derivational morphology or inflectional morphology (Blackledge&Creese, 2010). A language may also have or not have a constituent structure or building words that form phrases.
In 1966, William Labov established a new perspective to language maintenance and variations focusing on the earlier theories such as Ferguson’s diglossicview (Labov, 1973). In his dissertation, Labov made the following observations. That is, synchronic language systems should be studied separately, it is difficult to observe sound changes, feelings about languages are inaccessible and the use of non-linguistic data to explain language changes werelimited (Catania, 2009). Based on these observations, later researchers privileged the synchronic systems over diachronic systems is attempts to explore the direction of language changes. In 1969, Labov officially introduced variable rule to assist in understanding language variations. In this study, Labov reiterated that the notion of ‘verbal deprivation was a part of the modern mythology of educational psychology which were founded on unrealistic notions intended to rapidly expand the educational systems (Labov, 1973). This can lead to problems of verbality, verbosity and grammatically associated with many language variants.
Verbality basically encompasses wordiness or verbal diffuseness of a particular language. Verbality is one of the factors for the poor performance in languages of children with low socioeconomic status. In a study conducted in New York City, the researchers found that students from minority ethnic groups performed poorly within the speech community than others (Labov, 1973).Labov (1973) suggested that children from ethnic minorities or low socio-economic states were bathed in verbal stimulation throughout the day. They are taught to sound, sing or speak in a particular way to gain status which may be inconsistent to nature of their ‘local’ languages. Verbosity refers to the problem of numerous verbal skills that children are expected to learn if they are to do well in a school situation. Some of these skills include precision in spelling, frequent practice of handling symbols and learning new vocabulary (Pesetsky, 2009). This problem reiterates the notion that whatever is being learned is a superior linguistic form or system. In general, learners are trained to achieve structural variety and take the knowledge of the other person to account. All these factors helps to entrench one language against any other that may emerge thus ensuring language maintenance and reducing the chance of language shifts or death.
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