Speech Communities and Code Switching

Language and Communication ANTH 2301 Speech Communities and Code Switching A child, ten years old, called one of her stuffed animals "derpy." This is a little excerpt of what she said to her mother: Thisbe: Examine his visage. He is quite naughty. Jennifer: Cocky? That term is unknown to me. What does that signify? Thisbe: It's sort of dumb, you know. Kind of stupid. Jennifer: Alright, I see. similar to our dog Clover when she tumbled over the couch. Was that a joke? Thisbe: That's not naughty at all! It's like, Mom, there are simply no words to describe it. All you need to do is be aware. A hypothetical community made up of all speakers of a certain language has a similar vocabulary and grammar as well as understandings of how language is used in various contexts. There are smaller groups of speakers within this larger group that use the common language in certain ways that are specific to that group. Such a group is referred to by anthropologists as a speech community (Muehlmann 2014). Speech groups frequently have unique grammatical constructions, intonation patterns, and vocabulary. Members of the speech community exhibit their group membership by effectively using these traits. The original purpose of the term "speech community" was to characterise a language's dialect distribution. A dialect is a language that is unique to a certain area. For example, the word "water" is often pronounced as "woohder" by residents of the Philadelphia metropolitan region, as if it almost rhymes with the word "order." The term "yooz" is also frequently used to refer to the second person plural (e.g., "Yooz better drink some woohder!"). These dialectical variations in various US locations were notably charted out by linguists William Labov, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg (2006). A dialect may eventually acquire so many distinctive linguistic traits that it becomes its own language. As it happens, the main political factor separates a well-developed dialect from a language. To preserve linguistic unity, nation-states may minimise regional variations as just dialects, whereas separatist political groups may promote their dialect as a completely distinct language to support their claims for independence. Other scholars have concentrated on immigrant and ethnic minority speaking communities. Scholars refer to dialects that aren't necessarily localised but are connected to particular social groupings, including those based on age, gender, or race, as vernacular. Anthropological studies of Native American English, Chicano English, and African American Vernacular English (AAE) have all demonstrated how various vernaculars influence unique types of argumentation, narrative, and critique (Chun and Lo 2015). Researchers show how ethnic vernaculars, such as AAE, are highly organised language systems with regular grammatical patterns and creative vocabulary, as opposed to seeing them as "incorrect" variants of English (Labov 1972a). These non-formal settings—such as American courts and classrooms—often stigmatise these alternative forms of English usage as sloppy, stupid, or just plain incorrect. Authority figures frequently prohibit the use of other English vernaculars and make little attempt to comprehend them, believing their own English to be the "correct" one. More recent studies on vernaculars have looked at how speakers move between the different language styles they come across in their everyday lives, using a variety of languages, dialects, vernaculars, and other stylistic components. We all speak many languages and employ a range of linguistic idioms. President Barack Obama of the United States employed language techniques to "Whiten," "Blacken," "Americanize," and "Christianize" his public persona while speaking to various audiences. This subverted racial stereotypes and demonstrated his involvement in a variety of communities (Alim and Smitherman 2012). Even though the majority of people speak local languages in their daily contacts with family, neighbours, business associates, and other community members, European languages have been preserved as the official languages of government and education in portions of the world that were previously colonised by Europeans. People switch between the local language and the European one, as well as between different styles of their native tongues, in these postcolonial circumstances. People engage in this kind of tactical language style flipping, or "code-switching," in a variety of situations. Many individuals feel marginalised and disempowered by the language used in affluent environments like government buildings and schools. Linguistic anthropologists study how elitist and professional groups' vernaculars are used to exclude outgroup members and foster in-group cohesion. Elizabeth Mertz, an anthropologist and attorney, studied how law students are taught to "think like a lawyer" in first-year lectures at several American law schools through participant observation in 2007. Law instructors instruct their students to regard cases as texts that are subject to abstract, professional examination, putting aside the moral and emotional aspects of the cases, using a form of the Socratic method. To become a lawyer, one must be able to navigate the language nuances and esoteric jargon of this type of analysis. Thus, those with training in putting aside humanistic considerations in favour of textual authority and manipulation predominate in the American legal system. Mertz's research demonstrates how language socialises people not only throughout childhood but also throughout their life. Furthermore, it makes us aware of the ways in which language may be employed to minimise the moral and emotional viewpoints of others while elevating the educated viewpoints of elites.