In sociolinguistics and the sociology of language, the connection between language and social structure has drawn attention. An interdisciplinary approach combining linguistics, sociology, psychology, and anthropology is necessary to examine the intimate relationship between language and society, as the literature review indicates (Roberts & Winters, 2012). Language use and behavior can be influenced by or determined by social systems, and vice versa. There could be no relationship at all between language and society, or they could have an impact on one another. Several factors, including profession, wealth, and educational attainment, are used to measure the social structure itself.
According to Roberts and Winters (2012), Marxist social theory defines class as the possession of the means of production; unequal distribution of these means is the source of social strife. Social structure is a composite variable that is determined using indicators like profession, income, and educational attainment. A society’s address regulations, which are employed to maintain power and unity, are just as sophisticated as the society itself. Addressing norms depends on intents and situational factors. That is, address and civility are essentially separate systems. Power relations can also have an impact on it. The study of language in a social setting provides insight into how members of a community structure their interpersonal connections. Language cannot only express information about social relationships but also transmit referential information. The goal will also influence the form of the talk.
The field of sociolinguistics studies the connections between language and society to gain a better understanding of language structure and communication functions. It is crucial to learn how language utilization can enhance an understanding of social structure. For example, identifying how specific linguistic traits help to define specific social arrangements. This is the corresponding aim of language sociology. Another point made by the literature study is how critical it is to amass a sizable body of data supported by a stable theoretical framework and a range of methodological stances. Evolutionary theory has succeeded with these levels of proof.
The participants or language users choose how the language varies. One crucial consideration is who is speaking to whom. It can be teacher to student, employer to employee, parent to child, among others. The positions of the parties involved in communication influence a communication’s linguistic variety (Roberts & Winters, 2012). Another crucial factor in each relationship is its environment or social context. It has to do with the setting in which the people are communicating through speech. The environment may change depending on whether the discourse is performed in an official or informal setting.
Therefore, this literature review shows that there is a close relationship between language and society, and studying this relationship calls for an interdisciplinary approach. Language has the power to impact social structures, while social structures have the power to influence or decide language structure and behavior. Studying language in connection to society involves an interdisciplinary approach that combines linguistics, sociology, psychology, and anthropology. It takes into account variables like socioeconomic class and educational background.
According to Istomina (2018),bilingualism is contingent upon the uniqueness of the social structures within his community and the norms surrounding interethnic interactions and relationships as a unique and intricate aspect of a person’s neuro-linguistic activity. social structure determines the socio-cultural patterns of behavior, roles, conventions, and regulations governing interethnic relationships are determined by , a historically constructed type of social relations. Social traits are produced by this structure, fusing the awareness of the individual with the consciousness of a particular ethnic group.
Istomina’s review contents that the socio-cultural conditions of interrelations and cooperation of ethnic groups in certain territories are characterized by religious beliefs, age, gender, and socio-professional (Istomina, 2018). Gender substructures include the sex ratio, age substructure, educational substructure, and educational status ratio. Men are more likely to be willing to learn a new language due to their desire for rigorous job activities. On the contrary, women prioritize intra-ethnic, referential communication within the family home, which shapes their speech patterns toward monolingualism based on ethnic language. Nonetheless, in the contemporary world, linguistic proficiency is influenced by the equality of social rights and guarantees. It is predicted that women’s growing social participation will level the linguistic disparities between social genders
The collection of socio-psychological traits that make up linguistic identity, or gender as social sex, has a big impact on language use. The specificities of social roles and the degree of communication proficiency are determined by gender identification. The organization of linguistic identity, which spans verbal, semantic, cognitive, and pragmatic levels from basic speech production to perception and evaluation of speech processes, reflects sex differences (Istomina, 2018). The pragmatic level, which allows for interaction with motive and objective, makes it clear that the communicants’ gender (or social sex) influences the language means they choose to use.
The more traditional language use that is indicative of the femininity of speech hypothesis is particularly evident in emigrants. Multilingualism’s functioning is influenced by many social structure components. The characteristics of discourse, linguistic behavior, and orientations are defined by the combination of the aforementioned components ((Istomina, 2018). Lastly, an individual’s educational background has a significant impact on their language behavior, as evidenced by their degree of language competency, attitude toward language, perception of its social roles, and language preferences in common communication contexts.
In conclusion, Aspects like social networks, community size, and interaction with other language communities. The social pattern stability and cultural complexity are also included in the social structures. Additional elements of a language’s social structure include social sex-influenced language behavior, communicative proficiency, and gender roles. Furthermore, depending on the peculiarities of the social context in which a language is spoken, the social structures of a language can influence linguistic features, language maintenance, language shift, and the complexity or simplification of language development. The significance of a language’s functional potential and social prospects influence speech behavior. These characteristics of the local social and linguo-cultural structures reflect the growing trend of speech behavior unification in controlled official communication as well as the development of functionally constrained incomplete forms of bilingualism.
References
Istomina, O. B. (2018). Language and Social Structure. Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods (MJLTM). https://mjltm.org/article-1-212-en.pdf
Roberts, S., & Winters, J. (2012). Social structure and language structure: The new nomothetic approach. Psychology of Language and Communication, 16(2), 89-112.https://sciendo.com/pdf/10.2478/v10057-012-0008-6
write