This claim is based on certain observable phenomena:
- No individual (even highly educated) controls all registers
of a language; each individual's repertoires vary when compared to other
people's, both in domain and proficiency.
- A person's individual repertoires may be diglossic and/or
multilingual: s/he may be able to function in the H and L domains of hsr.
language and
the registers assigned to those domains, but also perhaps in a `foreign' (or
classical, etc.) specialized register (e.g. for medical/technical/scientific
usage, or religious usage.)
- Active vs. Passive:Certain members of the linguistic
community may lack active proficiency
in certain registers but may passively understand them; this passive knowledge
is culturally appropriate and not to be considered in any way
aberrant.
- This would be the case for the Todas, where all adult males are expected to understand trance language but are not expected to speak it,
- or for language situations where men's and women's language differs dramatically,
- or for `bilingual' communities where groups understand each other's language but would never produce specimens of the other's speech, except to mock them, make jokes, or whatever.
- Despite the appearance of multilingualism, even of fluency in the
manipulation of a particular register, particular individuals may not have
communicative competence in other registers of the
same
language. This is particularly true in the case of so-called `bilinguals' who
have learned a particular register in a non-native situation. For
example, a Pakistani doctor trained in her own country may be very
fluent in an English medical/technical register, but may lack
communicative competence in a `bedside-manner'
register for speaking
to patients in English; she might be more likely to possess the latter
in Urdu, but not the former.
Examples of preferred syntactic patterns/rhetorical devices of a particular register:
- Legalese: prefers redundancy, long sentences: ``The party of the
first part did willingly and knowingly will, bequeath, convey, impart, and
transfer said property (described in Exhibit A) to party of the second
part..."
``Plaintiff alleged that the defendent did slash, hold, beat, punch, kick, strike, stomp, pummel and beat (the plaintiff) ..."
- Medicalese: prefers acronyms and abbreviations, Greco-Latin
vocabulary: ``Let's run a CAT-scan and then also check her SGOT's; take a
look at that hematoma near the right-lateral tibia. Oh, and check the
beta-quants in her lipids."
- Psychology: The APA Publication Manual, the style book of the
American Psychological Association, sets policy for sixteen member
journals and over two hundred non-member journals. In over 200
pages, it specifies that psychological writing should be clear and
maximally informative, writers should use short sentences, the active
voice of verbs, and eschew metaphors and figurative writing (Rhodes
and Thompson, 1990).
- Linguistics: specialized jargon, lots of abbreviations (`LP', `GPSG',
`GB'), rhetorical preferences (e.g., certain imperative verbs):
``Consider the following data from Madurese..." ``Observe that
daughter-adjacency is
more common in ..." ``Recall that lenition must precede palatalization..."
but not ``*Think about the fact that...", ``*Remember that there is an
ordering paradox iff..." or ``*Take a gander at these data from
Okeefenokee..."
- Financial/Stock-market: Inanimate objects (commodities) are
anthropomorphized: ``Silver suffered today, gold took a
beating, but oil futures and aerospace are looking hopeful." "The market
did not like Mr. Bush's proposals regarding social security, and took a nose-dive."
- Other registers: may prefer the active voice or the passive voice;
multisyllabic words to monosyllabic (`An ornithological specimen in
digital captivity is more valuable than double that number concealed in the
umbrageous foliage' for `A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.');
rhyming slang (Cockney), alliteration
(`nattering
nabobs of negativism'), etc.
It may be instructive to compare linguistic registers and repertoires in a way that shows both the properties of registers (as characteristics of a particular language) and individual linguistic repertoires that may be diglossic or multilingual (but not fluently multilingual, only controlling a particular set of registers). The chart in Fig. 2.3 attempts to display a wide range of possible registers that might be found in a selection of languages; it also shows that particular inventories of registers of particular languages are a subset of all the possible registers, and that an individual's repertoire may show mastery of some registers in one variety of a language, some in another variety, and some in a totally distinct language.
Examples of complex real situations.
Lest it appear that this is too finely tuned for any natural language situation, this list may be compared with that shown in Rubin (1968:518-20), where she attempts to distinguish in what contexts citizens of Paraguay use their repertoires of Spanish and Guaraní, or the careful distinctions made by triglossic Luxembourg, whose citizens' differential use of Lëtzebuergesch, German, and French is described by Hoffmann (1981).
To make the contrast between repertoire and register clearer, let us examine what a particular speaker's repertoire might be like if a speaker had a repertoire commanding registers that involved two levels of a diglossic language plus socio-professional registers from another (third) variety, in this case an international language. To be specific, this woman is a Tamil-speaker and has a B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science.
|
H domains of a Diglossic Language |
L domains of a Diglossic language |
Registers in General |
Active | Passive |
|
|
L |
Argots, slangs, jargons |
+ |
+ |
|
H |
Belles-lettres | +? |
+ |
|
|
H |
Bureaucratic | +? |
+ |
|
|
n/a |
Clinical | |||
|
n/a |
Computer science | |||
|
L |
Construction trades |
|
||
|
L |
Conversational |
+ |
+ |
|
|
H |
(L) |
Dramatic/stage/media/public speaking |
- |
+ |
|
(L) |
Folk Taxonomies |
- |
+ |
|
|
n/a |
Fashion, design |
- |
- |
|
|
L |
Intimacy, courtship |
+ |
+ |
|
|
L |
Jokes, story-telling |
+ |
+ |
|
|
n/a |
Legal/juridical |
- |
||
|
n/a |
Maths/science | |||
|
L |
Automotive, mechanical |
|
||
|
n/a |
Medical | |||
|
H |
(L) |
Ordinary prose/(letter-writing?) |
+ |
+ |
|
H |
Religious, prayer |
- |
+ |
|
|
H? |
Trance language |
- |
+ |
|
|
n/a |
Technical/scientific | |||
|
L |
Sports |
|
+ |
|
|
L |
Motherese |
+ |
||
| Others... | ||||
Figure 2.4: A diglossic and multilingual linguistic repertoire; the speaker is female, Tamil-speaking, with higher degrees in mathematics.
In the schema in Fig. 2.4, the repertoires of this speaker are divided
up among two varieties of a diglossic language (Tamil), and English (in
fact Indian English, since there are lexical, syntactic,
intonational,
and phonological differences between IE and American or RP varieties.)
The speaker controls some repertoires actively and some only passively;
the technical/mathematical registers are actively controlled in (Indian)
English, and it is safe to say that the speaker would not be able to function
in Tamil in these modes except to do low-level arithmetical calculation.
In some cases the speaker may actively control a Tamil register and passively
control an English register, such as in belles-lettres, meaning that such
a person is capable of doing creative writing in Tamil but would probably
not exhibit high proficiency in the English register, except passively,
i.e. to read and enjoy a novel. For ordinary prose, the speaker would have
an active command of both L-variety Tamil and English, but no prose register
exists for L-variety Tamil, so Tamil writers have to `wing it' when they
write dialogues in Spoken Tamil. (Some people also write letters in ST,
but this is also without standard conventions.). A male speaker of Tamil
with a similar professional background would probably have a similar repertoire,
except that his control of `Motherese' would be passive, rather than active,
his control of `Automotive/mechanical' might be active, his control of
`folk taxonomies' would more likely be passive and his control of `sports'
would perhaps be active.
Useful though these squared-off tables may be, I prefer to propose another type of diagram, one that represents linguistic repertoires as a set of concentric circles rather than of parallel columns. The reason for preferring a diagram such as that shown in Fig. 2.5 is that the nested circles can better demonstrate a number of factors not indicated by the parallel columns.
- Innermost Circle: One is that all speakers of a diglossic language share the
innermost
circle, which also represents early childhood and nuclear-family intimacy.
This is the domain of family life, story-telling, jokes, folk wisdom,
conversation,
food, street life, and intimacy.
- With schooling, speakers begin to acquire domains associated with education in the L-variety language.
- As Tamil speakers approach the end of secondary education, where they have mastered the H-variety of their language, proficiency in English increases, and certain registers are reserved for the domain of English---technical subjects, mathematics, social sciences, etc.
- Higher education expands these repertoires further, but they will only be acquired after the acquisition of H-variety Tamil repertoires.
- The circles can be understood as a progression from the center outward, with thresholds at the H-variety Tamil `boundary' and at the English `boundary'.
- Different speakers will have different repertoires, represented by different sectors or segments within each circle, but the sequence of acquisition will be similar for all speakers. The only exception would be someone who attends an English-medium school from an early age, in which case acquisition of H-variety Tamil may be minimal, and if nothing is done to change this, the control of this domain will be passive at best.
- The concentric-circle model emphasizes that the L-variety language is the basis of and at the center of ones linguistic repertoire---it is the native language, the language one dreams in, the first learned and the last forgotten. All other repertoires are added on, but do not replace the L-variety. This is the repertoire that is taken for granted, and typically is given no protection in language policy---domains and reserves are usually only specified for H-variety languages and/or foreign imports, with exceptions in a few polities such as Luxembourg.
- Gradience and Variability: The concentric-circle model allows us to account for gradience and variability in proficiency, something that few policies seem to want to deal with. The line that begins at the center and moves toward the edge can represent gradient ability, since proficiency usually increases with time.
- The concentricity of the circles also shows that if domains shift (that is if one register is replaced or displaced by another, perhaps as a result of a conscious policy decision) it is usually from one adjacent circle to another, not hopping over one band to penetrate a non-adjacent circle. A passive competence is possible within any circle, of course, but the largest number of passive competencies will most likely be in the language learned last, in this case English. The circle might also contain a small `passive' segment for yet another language, since in India it is quite common for speakers who claim no active command of Hindi to watch and enjoy Hindi movies, or to understand a bazaar language associated with marketing and shopping. In the concentric circle model, a niche for passive Hindi (Cinema) is shared with Tamil and English.
- Invasive Demands: The circles also show what happens when attempts are made (such as have been in India and Sri Lanka) to restructure the repertoire with demands for reserved segments for another language (such as Hindi or Sinhala, respectively). English then functions as the buffer language, the neutral territory that keeps the invasive languages at bay. Under Indian language policy, the attempt to capture domains of languages not reserved for Hindi has so far been restricted to those registers associated with English, whereas in Sri Lanka, the perception (among Tamils) was that Sinhala intended to invade and replace not only English sectors, but sectors that had been the reserve of H-variety Tamil, such as entrance examinations to university. English, under that policy, was to be stripped away, or reduced severely. It is perhaps the disparity between the levels of penetration that explains the intensity of Tamil resistance in Sri Lanka, compared with that seen in India, where Hindi made claims only to the registers in the outer band of sectors.
- The concentric-circle model also depicts language registers and repertoires as an integrated, natural continuum---something akin to a living organism, rather than just a list of disparate proficiencies. As such, the threat of another language is seen as an invasive virus seeking to penetrate the cell, displace certain repertoires, alter its makeup so as to replicate itself, and perhaps even kill the original cell. One could carry this virological analogy too far, but it could help explain something of the emotional reaction to language spread and policies that seek to bring it about.
- Diglossia, Registers, and Repertoires: Finally, the concentric-circle model allows us to depict diglossia as a feature of registers and repertoires. As such it is not a deficit or a disfunctionality, but a natural part of the repertoire of a speaker. Diglossia is, after all, a kind of language policy, since it is the result of decision-making of some sort, cumulatively over time.
Concentric circles represent acquisition of repertoires as a function of age and life experience.
Policy in Conflict with Observable Practice.
We have seen that researchers tend to confuse language policies with multilingualism itself, and have often attempted to map both onto the same symbolic representation, with the result that neither the policy nor the facts of multilingualism emerge clearly. In particular we have seen that what is often missing is the distinction between `linguistic register(s)' (based on language use) and linguistic repertoire (based on the proficiencies of language users). And, as Fasold has pointed out, linguistic continua with variable or gradient functions are too often forced into discrete either-or cells.
While policy and sociolinguistic reality must be kept separate (since they do not represent the same thing) attempts to typologize language policy must reflect some of the same dimensions and factors used to symbolize users' competencies. The closer the representation of policy comes to the representation of users' competencies, and allowing for differing proficiency and gradient ranking of ability, as well as gradience in the expectations the policy makes of the citizenry, the better the `fit' of the policy to the linguistic reality, and the less tension there will be between the two.Singapore's bilingual education policy recognizes that different proficiencies in English and mother tongue are natural, and requires less bilingual proficiency from those who will leave school at an early age than those who take Cambridge A-level exams. That is, if users have diglossic or triglossic repertoires, a policy that takes these into account and legitimizes the status of these varieties will be more congruent with the reality than one that ignores these repertoires. As we have already noted, except for polities such as Luxembourg and Malta, few policies ever explicitly mirror the multiglossic reality; in particular, few policies ever take any cognizance of the existence of L-variety language, let alone establish guarantees of its domains and registers.In Singapore, e.g., there is little or no recognition of the proficiency that Singaporeans have in Chinese dialects (Hokkien, Hakka, Teochew, Cantonese), spoken Tamil, and other languages, despite the official use of exonormic Mandarin, RP English, Literary Tamil, and standard Bahasa Malayu. In fact the educational system sees these mother-tongues as a problem that needs to be eradicated, rather than a resource.
If one were to try to establish a typology of policies, one might begin with a catalogue of the types of `fit' or congruence (or lack of them) between the policy and the sociolinguistic reality. That is, a list might look like the following:
- Policies with a (near) perfect fit: Japan, Portugal, Iceland.
(These turn out to be monolingual speech communities that also have a
monolingual policy.)
- Policies that ignore diglossic repertoires (particularly L-variety) and
concentrate only on the registers of the H-variety: Singapore.
- Policies that establish rights for varieties that few users have
any proficiency in: Finland (for Swedish).
- Policies that divide the H-registers between a `local' language and a
`foreign' language, the latter having long-standing dominion over its
registers by virtue of local consensuality: India.
- Policies that place two (or more) H-variety codes on an equal basis,
but ignore L-variety repertoires: Belgium (for Flemish); Canada
(federally, for French).
- Policies that recognize territorial rights for certain languages, with
gradience in the distribution of registers (and assumed repertoires)
based on the size of the populations: the former Soviet Union (and
other polities using the Soviet policy model); Switzerland (de
facto, but not de jure).
- Policies that establish a monopoly on all registers for one variety,
ignoring the registers and repertoires of L-varieties and their
speakers, and thwarting the development of H-variety registers in
competition with the monopolistic language: France.
In terms of how these policies might be then symbolized, let us continue with the concentric-circle model, keeping policies distinct from realities. To represent language policy in India and how it lines up with the reality of the repertoires of many of its citizens, I propose the model shown in Fig. 2.6.
Figure: Language policy in Pre-1968 India.
The Indian Constitution was revised in the mid-1960's because of the strife over the changeover to Hindi from English, resisted by Tamils and other groups, and what emerged was the so-called 'Three-Language Formula" which looks somewhat different:
Three-Language Policy in India
English is not mentioned overtly in this diagram, but it in fact occupies various segments in the outer ring, some of which are also reserved for Hindi. The formula provided that Indian citizens were expected to learn three languages: their Mother Tongue, Hindi, and English; Hindi speakers were expected to learn another Indian language. De facto, English has tended to dominate the outer ringer in many non-Hindi states in India, and in some of these states, Hindi has only minimal domains, if any.
Another situation, illustrated in Fig. 2.7, shows that lack of fit between Swiss language policy and sociolinguistic reality. In the Swiss Federal Constitution of 1874 (revised to 1953), § 116 specifies what languages are official and national:
German, French, Italian and Romanche are the national languages of Switzerland.German, French and Italian shall be deemed the official languages of the Confederation (Hughes 1954:128).
The German text is as follows:
Das Deutsche, Französische, Italienische und Rätoromanische sind die Nationalsprachen der Schweiz.Als Amtssprachen des Bundes werden das Deutsche, Französische und Italienische erklärt.
This is the text of the constitution that refers to language, in its entirety. From this statement it is in fact difficult to make any kind of symbolization that recognizes either registers or repertoires, except to distinguish between `official' and `national', but I would propose either separate circles or one circle segmented into four, with the outer circle adjacent to Romansch left blank.In actuality, this blank is filled by `German', since that is the reality (though not the policy) in the Romansch-speaking areas.
Neither of these symbolizations reflects the reality of language use or of the repertoires of language users in Switzerland---it fails to recognize the extensive domains of Schwyzertüütsch and the very restricted domains of Schriftdeutsch among `German' Swiss; it overlooks the fact that Italian has few if any domains at the Federal level, and it ignores the extensive extended (Fishman 1967) diglossic relationship between Romansch and German (of various varieties).
One must look to cantonal regulations (Falch 1973:37-40) to see what local conditions (policies) are imposed on language; this is in fact a problem in many federated polities---in India, in Switzerland, and in the former Soviet Union the federal policies are explicit to varying degrees, but what happens at local levels, e.g. in various States of India, Soviet Republics, or Swiss cantons often is (or was) severely at variance with federal stipulations. In India, for example, there are few guarantees of linguistic minority rights at the State level---in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra, the rights of various linguistic minorities (e.g. Telugus in Tamil Nadu, Tamils and Marathis in Karnataka, and Gujaratis in Maharashtra) are rather tenuous, and groups that are quick to protest linguistic chauvinism at the federal level are themselves guilty of it at the state or local level. In Switzerland the territorial principle is guaranteed to the letter, so French-speakers in a German-Swiss canton have in fact no rights except to L-variety use chez soi.
Figure 2.7: Language policy in Switzerland.
Further examples of the disparity between policy and sociolinguistic reality could be adduced, but my point is not to catalogue all the major types, only to show the disparities. My proposal is to use a symbolization scheme that
- Recognizes the difference between register and repertoire (the former being the jurisdiction of policies, the latter representing the reality of use and users);
- Notes the centrality of L-variety domains as at the core of a user's reality, and as the first variety acquired;
- Recognizes the gradual acquisition of other varieties, usually segmented into repertoires appropriate for different registers, and recognizes that control of repertoires is gradient or variable along a continuum.
- Recognizes the reality that policies typically ignore certain facts of linguistic use and users' repertoires; `multilingual' policies are in fact rarely congruent with the linguistic reality of any of its users, except perhaps that of the dominant linguistic community;
- Recognizes that policies that stake out domains for H-varieties and ignore the domains of L-varieties may in fact be doing the least contentious thing, as long as there is a perception of equality.
- Recognizes that language `strife' should perhaps best be characterized, not as `the language of a majority being imposed on a minority' but as the question of WHICH LANGUAGE WILL LEGITIMATELY OCCUPY (DOMINATE) WHICH DOMAIN OR FUNCTION in the society, and how this can be regulated with a perception of fairness.
- Recognizes that policies may have contradictions built into them, or may be deliberately vague and/or ambiguous, often because of stalemated conflict. The choice of a `neutral' (perhaps foreign, ex-colonial) language to dominate certain (usually) H-variety registers may be a compromise that pleases no-one; the lack of an explicit reserve for L-variety language may be a deliberate loophole that allows non-prestigious varieties to be tolerated.
Obviously, no diagram and no description can take into account all the factors that enter into the decision-making that results in the variety of language policies that could possible be enumerated, nor can all the even larger variety of multilinguistic situations known to us be easily catalogued. In the post-colonial era following the end of World War II, when attention first turned to the language policies of many newly-independent nations, the idea of using the taxonomy, a symbolic classificatory system known to anthropologists, seemed appropriate. Policy-planners and language planners wished to know how their country compared with others, and how to develop a policy that fit their own circumstances. But in the ensuing period, priorities have perhaps changed. There is more of a concern with dynamic systems and a recognition of the fluidity of categories. The Soviet Union, long a model for other multilingual polities, has collapsed and its much vaunted language policy seems to have been less successful (and less tolerant) than it once appeared. Concerns with pragmatics have turned our attention to such issues as what language is used for and who uses what in what situation. Ideally, symbolizations of policy and symbolizations of multilingualism should always be paired, so that the `fit' of the policy to the observable sociolinguistic reality can always be seen clearly. And since the boundaries between languages (and their dialects) are often permeable, and because proficiency in them is variable, we will never be able to provide neat pigeon-holes for everything. This may not make language-policy makers happy, but perhaps in the meantime language policy-makers have come to accept that language policy cannot be handed down from above.
Harold Schiffman
last modified 1/27/05