SOCIOLINGUISTICS

1. SOCIOLINGUISTICS MADONNA M. ANDRES MALT II

2. GENERAL FUNCTIONS OF COMMUNICATION

3. According to Michael A. K. Halliday Instrumental Language allows speakers to get things done. It allows them to manipulate the environment. People can ask for things and cause things to be happen through the use of words alone. This is sometimes known as “ I want” function of language. Some of the micro-functions included are naming, pronouncing, betting, suggesting, demanding, persuading, ordering, directing, and commanding.

4. Regulatory Language is used to control events once they happen. Those events may involve the self or others –language regulates encounters among people; it helps to mark roles, provides devices for regulating encounters, and affords a vocabulary for approving and disapproving. It is this function of language which allows people to exercise deliberate control over events that happen. This is sometimes called the “Do as I tell you” function language. Some of the micro-functions included are approving, disapproving, answering the phone, and setting the rules for playing, and addressing the action.

5. Representational Language is used to communicate knowledge about the world, to report events, make statements, give accounts, explain relationships, relay messages to others. An exchange of information occurs. Certain rules exist to regulate language behavior when an exchange of information is involved. This is also known as the “I’ve got something to tell you” of language. Some of the micro-functions included are reporting, giving accounts, explaining, relaying messages, informing/misinforming, telling lies and making statements.

6. Interactional Language is used to ensure social maintenance. In a wider sense this function refers to all uses of language which help define and maintain groups: teenage slangs, family jokes, professional jargon, ritualistic exchanges, social and regional dialects. People must learn wide variety of such different kinds of language usage if they are to interact comfortably with many others. This is sometimes known as the “you and me” function of language. Some of the micro-functions included are greetings, leave-takings, joking, teasing, inviting, parting, and accepting.

7. Personal Language is used to express the individual’s personality. Individuals have a “voice” in what happens to them. They are also free to speak or not to speak, to say as much or as little as they wish, and to choose how to say what they say. This is sometimes called “Here I Come” function of language. Some of the micro- functions included are exclaiming, endorsement, cursing, expressing anger, and apologizing.

8. Heuristic Language is used as an instrument itself in order to acquire knowledge and understanding. Language may be used to learn things about the world. Question can lead to answers; argumentation to conclusions; hypothesis testing to new discoveries. Language allows people to ask question about nature of the world in which they live to construct possible answers. Sometimes it is known as the “Tell Me Why” function of language. Some of the micro-functions included are questioning, probing, answering, arguing, concluding defining, hypothesizing, analyzing, testing, experimenting.

9. Imaginative Sometimes it is known as the “Let’s Pretend” function of language. Language is used to create imagining system whether these are literary works, philosophical systems. Or utopian visions, on the hand, or daydreams and idle musings on the other. The imaginative function is prized when it deals to artistic creation.

10. According to Roman Jakobo • Cognitive or Referential- to convey message • Conative- to persuade and influence others through commands and entreaties. • Emotive- to express attitudes, feelings and emotions • Phatic- to establish communion with others • Metalingual- to clear up difficulties about intentions, words, and meaning • Poetic- to indulge in language for its own sake

11. According to U.P. Robinson • Aesthetic- using language for literary creation • Ludic- rhyming, making up non-sense words; trying out possibilities of language as it is being learned; joking. • Regulation of Encounters and Human Relations- using language to maintain and maintain encounters • Regulation of others- using language to regulate the behavior and emotion of others- use of rules and expressions of obligations- commanding. Requesting, threatening, criticizing, encouraging, persuading, inviting, giving permission, borrowing, and bargaining.

12. Regulation of Self- involving both behavior and emotions; “ talking to oneself” done either silently or alone- letting other people know what one uses- thinking, giving one’s opinion, reasoning and explaining. • Self-expression- expressing one’s identity, personality and feelings- directly using exclamation, using statements about feelings • Marking social roles- using language to mark social role- relationships between people- address terms used when speaking to someone (Mr. and Miss, Sir)

13. Reference to non- linguistic world- Discrimination- recognizing and expressing differences and similarities between things; organization- clarifying and defining • Instruction and teaching- using language to impart new information and skills • Enquiring and speculation- wondering, finding out, asking for information and directions, imagining, and supposing. • Metalanguage- using language to talk about language itself.