LANGUAGE CHOICE IN MULTILINGUAL COMMUNITIES

A. LANGUAGE CHOICE IN MULTILINGUAL COMMUNITIES

The first step in understanding what choices are available to speakers is to gain some idea of what languages and varieties are available to them in a particular social context. Context here is the varieties made available either officially or not within boundaries of a nation-state.
There are two ways that most studies of societal bilingualism use to determine the linguistic composition in a nation-state, large-scale survey and census statistic. A census statistic operates under limitations of time and money, and thus of many facets such as extent of interference between languages, switching, etc. cannot be investigated in any detail. On the other hand, large-scale survey can yield data on bilingualism for a population of much greater size than any individual linguist or team could hope to survey in a lifetime.
As a result, there are two kinds of bilingualism, de facto bilingualism and de jure bilingualism. There are often fewer bilingual individuals in de jure bilingual states than in those where de facto bilingualism occurs. In case of de jure bilingualism, knowledge about the demographic concentration of particular ethnic minorities is necessary for the implementation of language legislation Monolingualism : the ability to use a single language code è very common in many parts of the Western world.




B. VARIETY OR CODE

Kalala speaks an informal style of Shi, his tribal language, at home with his family, and he is familiar with the formal Shi used for wedding and funeral. He uses informal Shi in the market-place when he deals with vendors from his own ethnic group. When he wants it communicate with people from a different tribal group, he uses the lingua franca of the area, Swahili. He learned standard Zairean Swahili at school but the local market-place variety is a title different. It has its own distich linguistic features and even its own name – Kingwana. He used Kingawa to younger children and to adults he meets in the streets, as well as to people in the market-place.
Standar zairean Swahili, one of the national languages, is the languages used of Bukavu for most official transactions, despite the fact that French is the officials language of Zaire. Kalala used standar zairen swahii with officials in government offices when he has to fill in a form or pay a bill. He uses it even he tries for a job in a shop or an office, but there are very few jobs around. He spends most of his time with his friends, and with them he uses a special variety one code called indoubil. This is a variety which is used among the young people in bukavu, regardless of their ethnic backgrounds or tribal affiliations. It is used like in-group slang between young people in monolingual communities. Indoubil is based on Swahili but it has developed into a distinct variety or code in Zaire by drawing on languages like French, English, and Italian – all languages which can be read or heard in the multilingual city of bukavu.
If we list the varieties or codes he uses regularly, we find kalala’s linguistic repertoire includes three varieties of Swahili (standard zairean, local Swahili or kingwana, and indoubil) and two varieties of his tribal language, shi (a formal and an informal or casual style). The factors that lead kalala to choose one code rather than another are the kinds of social factors identified in the previous chapter as relevant to languages choice in speech communities throughout the word. Characteristics of the user or participants are relevant. Kalala’s own linguistic repertoire and the repertoire of the person he is talking to are basic limiting factors, for instance.
Table 2.1 illustrates the possibilities for communication when kalala wanted to talk to a soldier who had recently arrived in bukavu with his unit. Since he and his addressee share only code or variety, standard Swahili, there is not much choosier he wants to communicate referential content (as opposed to, say, insult, abuse or admiration, where any variety could carry the effective message)


C. DOMAINS OF LANGUAGE USE
A certain social factors – who you are talking to, the social context of the talk, the function and topic of the discussion – turn out be important an accounting for language choice in many different kinds of speech community. It has proved very useful, particularly when describing code choice in large speech communities, to look at ‘typical’ family interactions which involve these factors. We can imagine, for instance, ‘typical’ family interactions. It would be located in the setting of the home; the typical participans will obviously be family’s meal-time conversations, described in example 2, illustrate this pattern well. A number of such typical interactions have been identified as relevant in describing patterns of code choice in many speech communities. There are known as domains of language use, a term popularized by an American sociolinguist, Joshua fish man a domain involves typical interactions between typical participants in typical setting.

Domain is clearly a very general concept which draws on three important social factors in code choice – participants, setting and topic. It is useful for capturing broad generalizations about any speech community. Using information about the domains of use in a community it is possible to draw a very simple model summarizing the norms of language use for the community. This is often particularly useful for bilingual and multilingual speech communities
The information provided in example 4, for instance, identifies for domains and describes the variety or code appropriate to each.
Domain Variety/Code
Home/family Portuguese
Church/religion Portuguese
Work/employment English
School/education English

This information can also be summarized in a diagram or model, as figure 2.1 (overleaf) illustrates.
While it obviously oversimplifies the complexity of bilingual interaction, nevertheless a model like this is useful a number of ways. first it forces us to be very clear about which domains and varieties are relevant to language choice. A second reason why an explicit model is useful is that it provides a clear basis for comparing pattern of code choice in different speech communities. Models make it easy to compare the varieties appropriate in similar domains in different speech communities.

The status relationship between people may be relevant in the selecting the appropriate code. Another relevant factor is the function or goal of the interactions. What is the language being used for? Is the speaker asking a favour or giving orders to someone?
So in describing the patterns of code use of particular communities, the relevant social factors may not fit neatly into institutionalized domain. As we have seen, more specific social factors often need to be included, and a range of social dimensions may need to be considered too. The aim of any description is to represent the language patterns of the community accurately. If the model does not do that, it needs to be modified. Te only limitation is one usefulness. If a model gets too complicated and includes too many specific points, it loses its value as a method of capturing generalizations.

CHAPTER III
CLOSING

A. CONCLUSION
Base on data in chapter II, the writer can take the conclusion that In multilingual communities, more than one language is used. It means that people living. In this situation may speak more than one language. In multilingual communities, speakers switch among languages or varieties as monolinguals switch among styles. Language choice is not arbitrary and not all speech communities are organized in the same way. Through the selection of one language over another or one variety of the same language over another speakers display what may be called ‘acts of identity’, choosing the groups with whom they wish to identity.

B. SUGGESTION
First of all, the writer suggest to the reader especially reader and learners of English, know where she or he live with multilingual communities. They have to know what the variety or code should they use in a community. So that, they can make a good communication. The writer also suggests that the others students or learners are interested to analyze this topic from different point of view in order to get a good description and a clearer explanation of the language choice in multilingual communities.
The writer is aware that she is not a perfect person on account of her limited knowledge and experience in writing thesis. So that, writer suggest to the reader to give her a good criticism that can improve this writing.


BIBLIOGRAPHY


Holmes, Janet. 2000. An introduction to sociolinguistics. Second edition Wellington: Pearson
,http://tefltere.blogspot.com/2009/05/language-choice-inmultilingual.html
,http://imoed-forum.blogspot.com/2009/11/in-multilingual-communities-speakers.html
,http://nyontekyuuk.blogspot.com/2011/05/language-choice-in-multilingual.html