12 Key excerpts on "Heteroglossia"
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The Multilingual TurnImplications for SLA, TESOL, and Bilingual Education
Stephen May(Author)
2013(Publication Date)
Routledge(Publisher)
However, the meaning of Heteroglossia is not universally or straightforwardly agreed. Busch (2013) notes that Bakhtin did not use the singular term Heteroglossia to set out his thinking about the stratified diversity of language and points out that a heteroglossic approach “does not only imply acknowledgement of the presence of different languages and codes (raznojazy č ie) as a resource, but also entails a commitment to multidiscursivity (raznogolosie) and multivoicedness (raznore č ie).” Madsen (2013) similarly argues that Heteroglossia is a concept created by the translators of Bakhtin’s work to cover the three concepts of diversity in speechness, diversity in languageness, and diversity in voicedness. Madsen notes that, as a cover term for these aspects of linguistic diversity, Heteroglossia “describes how language use involves various socio-ideological languages, codes, and voices” (Madsen, 2011, p. 4). Pietikäinen and Dufva (2013) also view Heteroglossia as a term chosen for the English translation, rather than a term used by Bakhtin himself. They point out that in the original Russian texts Bakhtin speaks of “intralingual diversity,” the internal stratification present in one national language that also testifies to different ideological positions, a usage that has been rendered in English as Heteroglossia. At the same time, Bakhtin acknowledges the presence of various languages and dialects in the community, that is, “language plurality,” referring to linguistic-level phenomena. Bailey (2012) similarly notes that Bakhtin coined the term “raznore č ie” specifically to refer to intralanguage variation within Russian, “varieties with competing social and political implications, and the term is translated as ‘the social diversity of speech types’ rather than ‘Heteroglossia’” (Bailey, 2012, p. 499). Heteroglossia as a theoretical term, then, is by definition heteroglossic
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Bilingualism: A Social ApproachM. Heller(Author)
2007(Publication Date)
Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
258 identity practices Heller 1988). While Heteroglossia denotes the use of different kinds of forms or signs, the term does not refer, particularly, to the ‘distinct languages’ that are commonly seen as constituting bilingualism. To the contrary, Bakhtin coined the Russian term raznorechie to refer to intra-language varieties within Russian, varieties with competing social and political implications, and the term is sometimes translated as ‘the social diversity of speech types’ rather than ‘Heteroglossia’. The fact that Heteroglossia encompasses both mono- and multilingual forms allows a level of theorizing about the social nature of language that is not possible within the confines of a focus on code- switching. While code-switching research commonly treats the distinctiveness of codes as a given, from a phenomenological perspective, languages or codes can only be understood as distinct objects to the extent to which they are treated as such by social actors. From the socially-infused perspective of Heteroglossia, judgements about what counts as ‘different kinds of forms or signs’ are based on the way social actors appear to distinguish among forms, rather than analysts’ a priori claims. The second part of the definition of Heteroglossia captures the inherent political and sociohistorical associations of any linguistic form, i.e. its indexical meanings (Peirce 1955), or social connotations. These indexical meanings, or historical voices, are not explicit or static, but rather must be interpreted on the basis of constellations of forms in particular interactional and sociohistorical contexts. Such meanings are thus shifting, subjective and negotiated. I approach identity in similarly processual terms. Following Barth’s (1969) seminal work on ethnic groups, I approach identity as constituted through the boundaries that groups construct between themselves, rather than the characteristics of group members.
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Construction of Identity in Anglophone Israeli Literature
Nadezda Rumjanceva, Nadežda Rumjanceva(Authors)
2015(Publication Date)
(Publisher)
Though remaining true to their mother tongue as a basis for their poetic expression of identity, they simultaneously acknowledge and employ their position at an intersection of languages and cultures in positive and productive ways. Rather than feeling a sense of confinement to a rigid system of expression and communication, these authors draw on different spheres, creating the sense of identity that is at least in certain ways trans- formable and multi-facetted. This section is first going to introduce Bakhtin’s notion of Heteroglossia in a monolingual environment and relate it to con- temporary findings about the multivocality of the self for multilinguals and will proceed with a discussion of a translingual view of the self in the poetic works of Rachel Tzvia Back, Lami, Richard Sherwin and Karen Alkalay-Gut. Unlike Derrida’s view of language as a closed system, Bakhtin’s vision em- phasizes the fluid divisions that exist within a language and the dialogic nature of expression, where any given utterance is inevitably in connection to other ut- terances. Rejecting the monadic view of language, Bakhtin focuses on the in- herent Heteroglossia and internal dialogism that every living language (“nation Language and the Self 132 language”) possesses. Bakhtin notes the infinite stratification of the supposed monolithism of natural languages into sociolects (“heteroglot languages”). These sub-units – “languages of social groups, ‘professional’ and ‘generic’ lan- guages, languages of generations and so forth” (Bakhtin 1994: 75) – are asso- ciated with specific ideological aspects, approaches, and worldviews ; their po- sition is being negotiated both on the community level and on the level of the individual. In literature, the novel is an important instance of the surfacing of Heteroglossia.
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Status and Function of Languages and Language VarietiesUlrich Ammon(Author)
2012(Publication Date)
De Gruyter(Publisher)
Diglossia and Functional Heterogeneity by LACHMAN M . KHUBCHANDANI, Shimla (India) 1. Introductory Remark 2. Verbal Repertoire 3. Organic Pluralism 4. Speech Stratification 5. Communication Amalgam in Plurilingual Societies 6. Appendix: Speech as Living Phenomena 7. References 1. Introductory Remark Most of the regions in South Asia are marked by the plurality of cultures and languages in one 'space'. Many speech groups in the region associate diversity of speech (styles, registers, dialects, languages, etc) around it with differential values in social interaction, providing a unique model of plurality in the verbal and non-verbal communications. 2. Verbal Repertoire Ferguson's pioneering study on diglossia (1959) directed the attention towards understanding the 'sociocultural setting' in which the language functions. The focus on characterizing certain aspects of language use and of language users (i. e. speech community) initiated through this study forms a basis for a number of subsequent studies in sociolinguistics. This concept has, no doubt, been of great significance in discovering basic facts of many diverse situations in the midst of linguistic heterogeneity not confined to any geographical region or language family. Since then many instances of linguistic heterogeneity in Asian, African and Latin American countries have been studied under the rubrics of diglossia. According to Ferguson the term diglossia is defined as: (...) a relatively stable language situation in which, in addition to the primary dialects of the language (which may include a standard or regional standards), there is a very divergent, highly codified (often grammatically more complex)
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Multidisciplinary Perspectives on MultilingualismThe Fundamentals
Simona Montanari, Suzanne Quay(Authors)
2019(Publication Date)
De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
John Maher 6 Diglossia in Multilingual Communities 6.1 A day in the life of diglossia A language is not a unitary entity shared evenly among all members of a commu-nity. Its appearance in style and lexico-grammar is not identical in all places and times. Nor is a language separated from “ other ” languages by a sort of linguistic cordon sanitaire . The various languages used in multilingual society are con-nected through an intricate system of linguistic shapes and networks. They com-prise a spectrum of repertoires or “ varieties ” which invoke, in Bakhtin ’ s felicitous terminology, “ heteroglossic utterances ” , “ diverse articulations of speaking sub-jects ” , and “ multivoicedness ” (Bakhtin 1929/1984, 1986). Speakers inhabit many social worlds and spaces. They dwell in some do-mains but not others, reflecting and structuring changing social needs and values. A multilingual society recognizes these language varieties and its multi-lingual people as its own despite the fact that an “ underlying monolingual ho-mogenizing logic ” (Busch 2014: 23) has shaped the way we organize our communicative practices from our bureaucracy to national history to the school classroom and a child ’ s textbook. Diglossia in multilingual society has existed since antiquity. It is an existen-tial condition where the indexical order of language and social reality is spread out unevenly; sometimes the relation seems to fragment. Diglossia encapsulates the reality that, in the totality of multilingualism, the functional allocation of the ways and means through which we communicate is heterogeneous. 6.1.1 Agnieszka ’ s story Agnieszka is a teenager in Galway, Ireland. She “ speaks Polish ” because her parents speak Kashubian (Pomerian), a distinctive dialect of Polish which is sometimes classified as a language in its own right. Agnieszka is a second generation schoolgirl in multilingual Ireland where one in seven persons below the age of 24 is of minority ethnic background.
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Immigrant Dialects and Language Maintenance in AustraliaAnne Pauwels(Author)
2010(Publication Date)
De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Only a few years after Ferguson's article on diglossia, the term had become common property among (socio)linguists and other social scientists, each affixing their own interpretation to the term. The original term diglossia was applied to a speech community in which two varieties of (the same) language existed side by side with each having a definite role to play (after Ferguson 1959:325). The two varieties were refer-red to as H (high) or the superposed variety and the L (low) variety/ies, the so-called regional dialect(s). Ferguson selected varieties of four languages to exemplify diglossia -Arabic, Modern Greek, Swiss German, Haitian Creole -. The description of nine features: function, prestige, literary heritage, acquisition, standardiza-tion, stability, grammar and lexicon as well as phonology, led to the following definition of diglossia: Diglossia is a relatively stable language situation in which, in addition to the primary dialects of the language (which may include a standard or regional standards), there is a very divergent, highly codified (often grammatically more complex) superposed variety, the vehicle of a large and respected body of written literature either of an earlier period or in another speech community, which is learned largely by formal education and is used for most written and formal spoken purposes but is not used by any sector of the community for ordinary conversation. (Ferguson 1959:336) The later descriptions and definitions of diglossia often failed to take into account all nine features listed by Ferguson, so that the term became applica-ble to a wide range of language situations.
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An Introduction to SociolinguisticsRonald Wardhaugh, Janet M. Fuller(Authors)
2021(Publication Date)
Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
Languages, Communities, andContexts Part I An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Eighth Edition. RonaldWardhaugh andJanet M.Fuller. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2021 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Companion website: www.wiley.com/go/wardhaugh8e 2 We stated in the introductory chapter that the concept of language is considered by many sociolinguists to be an ideological construct. Further, we noted that all languages exhibit internal variation, that is, each language exists in a number of varieties and is in one sense the sum of those varieties. We use the term variety as a general term for a way of speaking; this may be something as broad as Standard English, or a variety defined in terms of loca- tion and social class (e.g., ‘working-class New York City speech’), or something defined by its function or where it is used, such as ‘legalese.’ In the following sections, we will explore these different ways of specifying language varieties and how we define the terms ‘lan- guage’ and ‘dialect’ (regional and social). We will also address how the associations between language and social meaning develop and are used in communicating in different speech contexts. What is a Language? What do we mean when we refer to a language or, even more important, the idea of mixing languages? As we will discuss further in chapters 8 and 9, recent research has coined many new terms to describe what has traditionally been called multilingualism–‘(trans)lan- guaging,’ ‘metrolingualism,’ ‘Heteroglossia.’ These terms reflect the idea that languages are ideological constructs; while we (usually) have names for different ways of speaking and can describe their features, in practice linguistic boundaries may be fluid.
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Language, Identity and Symbolic CultureDavid Evans(Author)
2018(Publication Date)
Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
The language we use then is only partly our own, taken from a commonly usedstock. Examples of Heteroglossia (Wertsch 1991; Bakhtin 1981) where identities are constituted by the voices of others can be found among stakeholders within schools in classroom interactions where we see a cross-current of interactional discourses. Teachers are in a dialogic relation with pupils in anticipating responses to classroom pedagogy and at the same time anticipating the monitoring requirements for standards expected by management discourses which in turn are shaped by external bodies such as Ofsted. Parental and local community discourses feed into this Heteroglossia as do expectations for professional development and performance management. Pupils themselves interact at an intersection between the discourses of local community and family, media, peer group, classroom teacher and school managerial discourses. Interacting across these more localized voices are the wider discourses such as socio-economics and gender which derive from wider sociocultural forces but at the same time help to shape interactional discourses. If we focus on wider societal discourses such as gender and socio-economics, we can see how ideologies shape discourses within institutions and localized interactions. We can also see that Bakhtin’s ideas provide a conceptualization of discourse which, unlike structuralism, is based on the agency of participants and, due to the notion of Heteroglossia, contains the voices of others. However not all discourses are equal since some are more powerful than others. Ideological discourse Fairclough (1989; 1992) posits three levels of discourse. At the societal level the largest, most powerful he names the ‘Orders of Discourse’ which relate to the way society has been organized over time with regard to sociocultural history; Discourse Formation 33 in the case of Western society the socio-economics of capitalism.
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When Voices ClashJacob L. Mey(Author)
2010(Publication Date)
De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
In chapter 4, 1 dealt with the linguistic explanation of 'voice'; there, I maintained that it is not conducive to a better understanding of pheno-mena such as FID to limit oneself to describing (not to speak of defin-ing) voice phenomena exclusively in terms of morphology, syntax, and other. As regards formal features, the sociolinguistic orchestration of voice, this is often neglected, even among those who in principle accept the necessity of anchoring voices outside, and beyond, the strictly lin-guistic level of description and explanation. Fludernik, who in other contexts is sympathetic to the idea of calling into doubt the 'linguistics 158 Voice in focus only' tenet, feels clearly uncomfortable with what she calls the ideo-logical character of the Bakhtinian concept of multivocality (or 'poly-vocality', as she prefers to call it; 1993: 324); she cautions us against identifying Bakhtin's 'Heteroglossia' with the concept of'double voice', as it is normally used in studies of free indirect discourse pure and simple (ibid.: 325)—whatever that is supposed to be. It is essential to realize that Bakhtin's Heteroglossia takes its departure in what he calls the essentially dialogic orientation of discourse (1992a: 279). This means that speakers speak in order to be understood, and hearers listen in order to understand; the language that is spoken, thus takes its cues from the potential hearers, just as the language that is heard, orients itself towards the speaking subject for understanding. One could say that our use of language is forward-oriented: our discourse looks towards the future results of our using language. But our language is also oriented towards the past, in that it incorporates the private and social history of the speakers and their historical background. Speakers therefore never speak just one language, but always several.
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Basic concepts, theories and problems: alternative approachesJoshua A. Fishman(Author)
2019(Publication Date)
De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
These observations must lead us to the conclusion that many modern speech communities that are normally thought of as monolingual are, rather, marked by both diglossia and bilingualism, if their several registers are viewed as separate varieties or languages in the same sense as the examples listed above. Wherever speech communities exist whose speakers engage in a considerable range of roles (and this is coming to be the case for all but the extremely upper and lower levels of complex societies), wherever the access to several roles is encouraged or facilitated by powerful social institutions and processes, and finally, wherever the roles are clearly differentiated (in terms of when, where and with whom they are felt to be appropriate), both diglossia and bilingualism may be said to exist. The benefit of this approach to the topic at hand is that it provides a single theoretical framework for viewing bilingual speech communities and speech communities whose linguistic diversity is realized through varieties not (yet) recognized as constituting separate 'languages'. Thus, rather than becoming fewer in modern times, the number of speech communities characterized by diglossia and the widespread command of diversified linguistic reper-toires has increased greatly as a consequence of modernization and growing social complexity (Fishman 1966b). In such communities each generation begins anew on a monolingual or restricted repertoire base of hearth and home and must be rendered bilingual or provided with a fuller repertoire by the formal institutions of education, religion, government or work sphere. In diglossic-bilingual speech communities children do not attain their full repertoires at home or in their neigh-borhood playgroups. Indeed, those who most commonly remain at home or in the home neighborhood (the pre-school young and the post-work old) are most likely to be functionally monolingual, as
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Diversity and OthernessTranscultural Insights into Norms, Practices, Negotiations
Lisa Gaupp, Giulia Pelillo-Hestermeyer(Authors)
2021(Publication Date)
De Gruyter Open Poland(Publisher)
Giulia Pelillo-Hestermeyer 8 Transculturally Speaking: Linguistic Diversity, Otherness and the Transformation of Public Spheres The experience of linguistic difference is among the most common in human life. Every one of us from early childhood throughout all stages of life is confronted with ways of speaking (variously addressed as languages, dialects, jargon, etc.) which sound “different” to a greater or lesser extent. In the course of life, the way in which we speak changes: A word, an accent, a language, which was perceived before as strange, may become more familiar or even well-known to us. On the other hand, we may lose familiarity with languages, just as people lose familiarity with technical or sporting skills which they do not practice regularly. This may sound all very obvious. However, a series of circumstances contribute to a reduced awareness by speakers about the hybridity of both one’s own and others’ “languages”, as well as about the ubiquity of linguistic diversity in everyday life. As a matter of fact, languages are quite commonly considered as monolithic communicative systems which are either com-pletely acquired or not. Sociolinguistic research on linguistic diversity has demonstrated how widespread ideas about languages and multilingualism, such as the mythologization of an ideal-ized “mother tongue” once and forever acquired, or the perception of monolingual-ism as normal and multilingualism as exceptional, can differ from actual linguistic usage. In a work provocatively entitled “Nobody is monolingual”, the sociolinguist Brigitta Busch (2012) has emphasized this gap and focused on the power of language and language-difference in constructing belongings as well as boundaries: Mit dem Satz „Niemand ist einsprachig“ meine ich genau das: eine Erfahrung, die jede_r kennt, jene des Dazu-Gehörens oder eben nicht Dazu-Gehörens aufgrund unterschiedlicher Arten des Sprechens.
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For the Love of LanguageAn Introduction to Linguistics
Kate Burridge, Tonya N. Stebbins(Authors)
2019(Publication Date)
Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
In a diglossic situation, the H and L languages/varieties each have distinct roles to play in the daily life of speakers, and Table 12.2 is an example of how these divisions can work. The Anabaptist horse and buggy communities in Ontario and Pennsylvania are good exam- ples of diglossia at work. Speakers are bilingual in Pennsylvania German and English, and the two languages happily coexist, each with its own separate domains of use. Pennsylvania German (in this schema the L-variety) is the language of home and community, and is not usually used in reading and writing. English (the H-variety) is read and written, and is only spoken when dealing with those outside the community. People also have a knowledge of High German. This is not the same as the Modern High German of today but is (archaic) Luther German, 382 PART 4: Variation and change the language of the Luther Bible, with influence from these speakers’ own dialect. While it is only ever used for religious purposes, and is therefore functionally restricted, High German is held in high esteem as the word of God. People may not be able to converse in it, but they must be able to read it, and children are taught it by their family and at school. Where bilingualism is associated with conventional differences in the domains of use for particular languages (in other words, where it has the support of diglossia), the situation is usu- ally stable. However, where either language can be used for any purpose (in other words, where bilingualism is not associated with diglossia), it is much more likely that one language will ultimately be used in all contexts and the other language will be lost. It seems that this linguis- tic ‘compartmentalisation’ is necessary for the languages to coexist over long periods of time. The more modern groups of Pennsylvania German speakers show how precarious the sur- vival of the language can be.
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