Sociolingvistinis dabartinės šnekamosios lietuvių kalbos tyrimo aspektas

XXXVI (1996) LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE: RESEARCHERS AND STUDIES Laima GRUMADIENĖ SOCIOLINGUISTICAL ASPECTS OF THE STUDY OF THE CONTEMPORARY LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE 1. The new "Lithuanian language dialects and their interaction research program". The dialectologists of the Lithuanian Language Institute and Vilnius University have prepared a "Programme for the Study of Lithuanian Dialects and Their Interaction" (hereinafter referred to as the "Program"), the purpose of which is to "research the language of local people throughout Lithuania and the linguistic situation of individual regions from various points of view, to reveal the tendencies of dialect development, interaction, relations with other — neighboring — languages or their dialects" (from the preface of the "Program"). The idea of such or similar program has been discussed for a decade (in the National Seminar of Young Linguists, seminars of dialectologists organized by the Lithuanian Language Institute, international conferences in Vilnius, Warsaw, Minsk and elsewhere; see. 1990. pp. 4. (1990). The project and the program itself, as well as the composition of the working group, the leaders, changed, V. Cekmonas, B. Stundžia left the group. Although a unified concept was not adopted, a questionnaire of 5 parts was prepared: "Sociolinguistics" (V. Cekmonas and L. Grumadienė), "Phonetics" (L. Grumadienė), "Writing" (D. Mikulėnienė and B. Stundžia), "Morphology" (D. Mikulėnienė and K. Morkūnas), "Lexicography" (A. Vidugiris), K. Morkūnas was responsible for the preparation of the press. Two parts of the "Program" have already been published (Lietuvių...: 19954; 19953). The "Program" contains a lot of questions (over 2000), so the answers will not only "supply the already accumulated and accumulated dialectology funds and will be used both for linguistic geography and monographic works" (from the preface of the "Program"), but will also allow to answer other kinds of questions arising in the study of the current Lithuanian language. The principle of the selection of questions in the "Program" is to present as comprehensive a range of possible questions as possible, therefore, in each case of research, it is possible to select questions, because some of the questions are relevant to some language variants, and others — to others. This is especially true of the sections "Phonetics" and "Morphology": the vast majority of questions related to various subsystems of the Lithuanian language (dialects or their variants) are presented here, so it is obvious that some of the questions cannot be relevant to absolutely all dialects. That is why the questions in the "Phonetics" section are divided into basic and supplementary questions: the supplementary questions should be considered only if the answers to the basic questions reflect the specificity of the dialect, show a certain change in the phenomenon or vary. The “Phonetics” section is closely linked to the “Morphology” section, because the questions of the first are also morphological in nature, i.e. the position of sounds is indicated not only by phonetic features (not in pronounced syllable, located at the beginning of the word, inside the end), but also by morphological features. 190 & Mithn FRAT To a A ar ar ir (which part of speech, which tenses ar etc.). ir This is done for the convenience of collecting data (it is not necessary to find the answer, how to pronounce that particular word, it is enough to know how to — pronounce similar words) taking into account the possibility of processing ir data by į computer. Tiek "Phonetics" both The questions in the section “Morphology” are perfectly suited for repeated studies of previously studied dialects, because comparison is possible. "Spell" ir The questions in the sections of the “Lexicon” are chosen on a slightly different principle: an attempt is made to obtain answers to questions that have not yet been sufficiently studied, to those to which previous dialectology programs paid less attention. However, they also contain a lot of questions from previous questionnaires, so they can also be compared, but not as systematically as in terms of phonetic morphology. The "Sociolinguistics" section is completely new, more dedicated to the interaction of Lithuanian dialects and other languages. However, there is a separate sub-section —"Characteristics of the Presenter", which, in the authors' opinion, is relevant to all dialectological studies today. Chinese conditions, when so many changes are taking place in the lives of ar users of traditional dialects, as well as the provision of data processing by computer. In this article I would like to draw attention to the possibility created by the "Program" to be interested not only in the traditional object of Lithuanian dialectology —the language of old rural people, —but also in the unusual, but also very important objects: the adaptation of dialect representatives to the common language or to some interdialect, the emergence of regional interdialects, urban language or other similar language variants, etc. The following words of A. Pupkis (1980: 56) are still relevant: *... dialects into the common language mainly come from those representatives of the semi-dialectal language who have more influence on the common language: writers, editors, authors of various writings, etc. In Lithuanian linguistics, no one has so far tried to determine in what way these dialects come, which representatives of the semi-dialectal language in this respect have a greater influence on the common language. And this question is very important for language culture: since our common language is still an important source of improvement of dialects, the study of the path of dialects to common language would help easier to regulate the dialects themselves, allowing the school to teach common language more successfully. " 2. Structure of contemporary spoken Lithuanian language. For the first time in Lithuanian linguistics, the present spoken Lithuanian language and its sources of replenishment — dialects, slang, jargons, other languages — are discussed in the aforementioned book by A. Pupkis. The spoken language here is divided into: general spoken language, used officially, in public, — in the theatre, on the radio, on television, at school, at meetings, — and informal, private, used, for example, in the family, in colleague groups or when talking to acquaintances (1980: 58). There have been other attempts to discuss semi-dialectal language (Grumadienė 1992; 1993,). When trying to divide language into dialects, semi-dialects or common public language, it is useful to take into account linguistic communities — groups of people united by the use of the same or similar language variant, by the recognition of the same language norms. By the way, language community is the basic concept of sociolinguistics. If we look at it more closely, it becomes clear that only dialect representatives could be associated with a language community living in a certain territory, but then we would have to "ignore" the language of a large group of people living there (commuters or highly educated locals, etc.), because the community has a characteristic feature — the same or very similar language system. In addition, the same person can belong to several language communities. Therefore, linguistic communities are increasingly characterized not only by the commonality of the territory, but also by social or demographic characteristics: age, education, profession, social status or others. The "presenter characteristics" questions help to describe this. If we look at the language of the inhabitants of any small Lithuanian town, we will inevitably find those who speak in a relatively pure dialect, we will also find those who speak almost dialectically, but no longer use (consistently or in front of each other) the primary, most important and therefore prominent features of the dialect, we will find those who speak almost general language only with a peculiar dialect accent, sometimes inserting dialect words or phrases, we will also find those who no longer speak dialectically under any circumstances, although they might have learned it in childhood. All this seemingly disorderly linguistic expression reflects processes whose direction and strength can be determined by sociolinguistic and purely linguistic methods. Such processes take place both through the interaction of components of different linguistic subsystems, as well as through the interchange of elements of one and another linguistic system or subsystem in the course of language. According to Gumperz (1982: 66), people who find themselves in a situation where they are forced to try to use not their own, but a foreign, albeit very similar, language variant, constantly choose and combine the rules of two language systems or subsystems. This is also the case in the Lithuanian language, even in the most remote village, when an elderly speaker tries to adapt to the "in: teligentic" listener's language, to appear more learned, not to mention younger or more educated speakers (cf. Chambers 1992). If we try to look more closely at the language of the so-called "damaged" dialect representatives, who speak semi-dialectically, it turns out that it is an extremely broad spectrum. On the other hand, the language of "non-pure" common speakers is very diverse. Therefore, it would hardly be possible to distinguish more consistently in the present-day spoken Lithuanian language any half-words or other rather vague variants of the language. I think it is worth discussing four linguistic phenomena: traditional dialects, regional interdialects, languages of large Lithuanian cities and normative common language. 191 in So drastically traditional dialects I called a linguistic phenomenon because; that traditional dialects in their pure form almost no longer exist: no matter how dialectically speaking, dialect speakers increasingly incorporate things from other linguistic systems or subsystems, usually from common language. For example, the Eastern Highlanders, using un, in consistently where there is an, en in the common language, say: understands, catches instead of the expected suprunta, kunda, etc. However, there are also opposite processes: in 1995, during the expedition to Vištytis (Vilkaviškis district), we noticed that young people use more specific Western Highlander genders than older people, as if they speak more "dialectically". Similar things have been observed in the Žemaičių dialektas by J. Pabrėža, I. Remenytė. It is becoming clear that d 192 oriented to the į norms of certain regional interdialects, for example, Marijampolė, Mažeikiai, Panevėžys, Utena, Alytus and others. ar Such regional interdialects are the result of the interaction of the ir common language of the surrounding dialects, ir albeit heterogeneous, but having a certain system of their own norms. Major cities in Lithuania — Klaipeda, Šiauliai and, no be doubt, Kaunas and Vilnius has its own linguistic — face, the language norms used in them differ only between themselves, but from the regional interdialects ne of the common language, ir although they are strongly influenced by ar both of the latter. The normative ir common language is a kind of construct, an abstraction, which does not exist in its pure form (Grumadienė 1993b). (How many such speeches are heard on the radio, television?) 3. Processes occurring during language change. Lithuanian dialects are still little studied in a different way than the method of linguistic geography. Without denying the suitability of this method, we would like to consider how the recent world experience of dialectologists and sociolinguists could be used in studying the current situation of the Lithuanian language, since in Lithuania there are processes similar to those taking place in other countries (cf.: Walters 1994). Without considering that traditional dialectology should become sociolinguistics, attention is nevertheless drawn to some advantages of sociolinguistic research in explaining the fate and use of language in the dynamic modern world. P. Trudgill (1986), who studied the interaction of English dialects and the normative common language, believes that the so-called process of coineization or coine creation is worth investigating — that is, the formation of new language variants through the interaction of different variants of the same language, and its reason — internal migration of the country’s population. It is true that koina is understood quite differently (Siegel 1987: 186—187): some associate the origin of koina with the transformation of a dialect or dialects into a common spoken or standard language; Others—with the formation of regional lingua francas, resulting from the interaction of dialects, but without the latter losing their functions; for others, the necessary condition for the development of the koine language seems to be migration —when dialects change their place of residence and environment, their language inevitably changes too —it acquires koine characteristics or simply becomes koine. Thus, the creation of koine is in one way or another connected with the formation of urban language. In these cases, there is interaction between dialects or other variants of one language, which are in principle understandable to each other. Therefore, apparently, in all languages, coine development has common features (Kerswill 1994: 4): the initial stage is characterized by great variation on the individual level in adapting one’s language to the surrounding language, difficult to explain the influence of discourse or social factors — sometimes the impression is given that such people simply confuse the norms of two language varieties. In the language of the later stage of coineization, simplification phenomena are found in phonetic, phonological or morphological terms, "intermediate language forms" are created, which do not exist in any of the interacting language variants (for example, elongation of short pronounced vowels in the end of words in Vilnius city language). Sometimes the co-origin theory is identified with the theory of substrate interference (Thomason, Kaufman 1988: 37; Appel, Muysken 1987: 157): when a community of people speaking a certain language variant is supplemented by a large group of immigrants, the latter only partially adapting their language, and the adapted language in turn sometimes influencing the language of the native people (Harris 1991: 191—212). Processes of this kind could be found in the languages of Kaunas and Šiauliai, which were significantly influenced by migrants from the surrounding dialects. The study of the interaction between the Norwegian dialect and the urban language by P. Kerswillo (1994) confirmed once again that the change of dialects should be seen as a process, the engine and necessary condition of which is the migration of inhabitants. In this case, the sociolinguistic aspect of the study of dialects should be emphasized: language change is conditioned by internal language laws, but it is caused by social factors. Research by scholars from various 193 countries shows that in order to understand the mechanism of dialect change, the language of individuals must be studied, because each individual changes his language individually, although there are commonalities (Bortoni—Ricardo 1985). In particular, it is necessary to have knowledge not only about the age, education, profession, gender, etc. of the speakers, but also about their life stories — where and when, under what circumstances, conditions could have arisen that forced them to change their usual language norms (changed place of residence or work, attitude of the surroundings, etc.). The latter circumstance makes it necessary to study all interacting language variants at the same time, thus the language of an individual is studied in a social context. Such a context is the language community. In the Lithuanian language soil there are various kinds of language | communities, which can turn the language change in one direction or another. In the study of the language of the old rural people, the concept of style is to not important, but this cannot be said about the language of younger, especially educated people, so it would be necessary to take into account the possible change of styles, depending on the conversation jd | interlocutors' relationships, etc. (Dressler, Wodak 1982). In linguistic communities, there are manifestations of code switching (Dorian 1982): when the genders of another system (not necessarily another language) or subsystem are inserted into a sentence or statement. This phenomenon is usually related to the subject of the conversation and the social roles of the interlocutors: when talking about local topics, speakers use more genders typical of the local language, and when talking about distant, non-everyday things, they change or alter the nature of the language — they use more genders of general language or similar to it. For example, even when presenting a folk tale, song or tale, the representatives of the dialect often try to use as many forms of common language as possible, because they feel that they are performing the work in public, as if on stage. Here, during the rest minutes, the genders of the general language are usually much less common, because the language is no longer given so much attention; | not it becomes the most important. In the peripheral and bordering areas of spoken languages, there are also manifestations of pidZinization (Mithlhausler 1986) — the fusion of two languages. This is a phenomenon of a completely different nature, where the conscious influence on language is very small. For example, a certain degree of pidginization can be observed in the language of those peripheral dialects whose i begins to change according to the same pattern in many words of both their native language and other languages that they know well and use frequently — nouns of both languages become the nouns of the family of which they are stronger in the system of interacting languages, etc. All this is possible | shal miss a 194 investigate ne only as scattered facts of language, but to look for the ir causes of jų origin, the laws of use. Not to be forgotten debtors. These are words or idioms of another language, usually adapted from the outside to its own language system, the use of which is largely determined by the conversational situation, the subject, ir the status of the interlocutor, only linguistically ne conditioned circumstances. Although borrowing sometimes iš looks at first glance ir like a į change of codes, it jų should not be identified. Until now, a negative attitude has prevailed in Lithuanian linguistics towards the fixation of borrowings in dialects — this is evidenced by the academic dictionary of Lithuanian language: there are very few borrowings, but therefore it is not shown how some concepts or phenomena, actions are actually named in dialects — Lithuanian language is neither made purer nor more polluted as a result, just less information is provided. Apparently, it would be worth filling this gap at least now, but it is necessary to take into account the real borrowings (the only words used that have no substitutes) and the occasionalisms of other languages or other variants of the same language that have arisen in the process of code change. It would certainly be interesting to answer the question raised by W. Labov, why structural changes occur in that particular language and at that particular time, and not in other structurally similar languages or in the same language, but not at that time (Weinreich, Labov, Herzog 1968). Therefore, J. Milroy'us (1992: 24) emphasizes that it is necessary to investigate the causes and circumstances — of language processes, which cannot be done without taking into account the language users themselves, their life stories. What encourages speakers to reduce or even eliminate their language differences with those around them, i.e. to actualize language change? Mr. Trudgill (1986: 98—102) has observed that those who try to adapt their language to another language variant either avoid some of the sharp differences, simply "bypass the sharp corners", or abandon them gradually — initially more sharp, later less and less striking. This is one of the main characteristics of coineization. Researchers constantly emphasize the importance of subjective evaluation, attitudes, values scale: what is ridiculed or o to even condemned by the surrounding, it is first attempted to get rid of (Giles, Taylor, Bourhis 1973). The prominent characteristics of their language —different phonological contradictions or phonetic contrasts—are tried to be eliminated first (Trudgill 1986: 11—38), therefore the interaction of Lithuanian dialects or dialects and common language should be described primarily in this aspect, using the questions of the sections "Phonetics" and "Kirciavimas". In each individual case, it is worthwhile to identify the distinctive features of the dialect according to the descriptions of traditional dialects and to pay attention to them first. In the "phonetics" questionnaire, there is a distinction between "main" and "non-main, additional" questions: if the "main" question is not relevant in the case of a particular study, there is no need to investigate in more detail the "additional" ones. This would be the study of the gradual change of a dialect or other language variant. The step-by-step process is particularly characteristic of the cony formation. The phenomena of the morphological level (change of stems, generalization of paradigms, disappearance or change of athematic verb forms or some noun verb endings, etc.) are manifestations of language simplification. 195 This is also the case in the case of the phrases "in the name of the Lord" and "in the name of the Holy Spirit". However, the interaction of language variants does not necessarily lead to simplification or even impoverishment — it is possible to find more complex grammatical or semantic forms, especially in word formation, in the lexical level. The interchangeability of some language elements depends on the style of speech, i.e. in some cases they are present in the language, in others they are not. 4. Sociolinguistic method of language research. Minetos "Programas? 1 The questions of the “Sociolinguistics” section are formulated in such a way as to obtain answers about the possible influence of social or demographic factors on language use. Sociolinguistically, language could be studied according to the following parameters: the social status of the speaker’s parents, the speaker’s own profession, age, gender, education, place (or places) where the education was received, which languages were studied, when and where they left or arrived, how many years they spent abroad. All this would be so-called objective social and demographic data. : The "programme" contains questions that would help to extract so-called subjective data —to find out the attitudes, evaluations, guidelines of the speakers themselves and the people around them (Trudgill 1972): for example, by asking which language (or language variant) they find the most beautiful, which of them is most comfortable to pray or sing, sing, etc. This is a list of the most commonly used language standards. As early as 1972, W. Labov has drawn attention to the fact that one language norms people openly declare as prestigious (usually codified or otherwise universally accepted), but in reality somewhat secretly or even themselves sufficiently unaware of it "recognized" another, publicly declared as prestigious by little anyone, but became regulating, because they are "a marker of membership of a certain language community" (Labov 1972: 249). The 4 questions of the "Program" allow to find out the attitude of the people around you to one or another language or language variant (priest, representatives of the wealthy strata, etc.) and thus to find out whether there is a certain pressure from society to change the language, or vice versa, to keep it as little as possible. Kerswillas (1994: 52) points out that those who are more proud of their dialect and who have changed their place of residence remain more loyal to the dialect. Sometimes this behavior depends on the social status of the family: children from wealthy families are more confident and do not try to hide their origins. This observation is also relevant in Lithuania, and the reason for such a phenomenon may be another: after all, the Žemaites are more proud of their language than the Highlanders, especially the eastern ones. Sociolinguistic study of language also requires the study of specific language facts. Therefore, it is worth discussing how to hear answers to questions other than those in the "Program" section of "Sociolinguistics". The traditional method of dialectologists is to distribute dozens or hundreds of questionnaires to several people and to ask local, usually elderly, people in the same area — it is not necessary to collect all the answers from one person. This is a method of lingvis-1 tines geography and it is possible to determine whether the language characteristic under study exists in the language of the subjects, and the variation should then be ignored or almost ignored, unless noted in the notes. "Not so" answers are rejected because the dominant genders are being searched, the dominant phenomenon is being studied. When interested in language diversity, this methodology is no longer suitable. Not to mention the fact that it is necessary to study the individual's language, 196 and thus to answer the questions of the "Sociolinguistics" part, it is necessary to decide which phenomena will be studied more consistently, because the answers to all the questions of the "Program" from one provider would have to be collected for an infinitely long time and this would be a difficult task. Therefore, it is necessary to select several (several, if desired — several dozen) language phenomena, the variation of which in usage is significant or for other reasons they are considered important: for example, to study the pronunciation of pronounced te, uo in the Northern Samogitian environment; the gender of the male noun singular beneficiary in the Southern Highlands environment or similar. The totality of the variation of the usage of such phenomena would constitute sociolinguistic variables, i.e., the representation of a phenomenon would sometimes require representatives of a whole scale, most importantly — associated with sociolinguistic parameters: age, gender, speaking circumstances, etc. The resulting data can be processed by quantitative or other methods, depending on the case. (For more on sociolinguistic variables, see Walters 1994: 65-66). 5. Instead of conclusions. These remarks were intended to draw attention to the new "Lithuanian language dialects and their interaction research program" and its possibilities to study basically any variant of the current spoken Lithuanian language, not only "pure" dialects. It attempts to present some of the latest studies of dialect interaction with other languages, especially the principles of research discussed in them. The main principle of the proposed sociolinguistic study of language is to study the individual’s language in the context of his environment, knowing as much as possible about the possible influence of the environment on the individual to consciously or unconsciously change his language. The essence of the sociolinguistic research method is to grasp the laws of linguistic behaviour of individuals connected in certain ways and to determine the most important factors regulating it, thus determining the features of the language functioning in the language community and the directions of change. AppelR.,Muysken P. 1987: Language Contact and Bilingualism. London, Edward Arnold. Bortoni-RicardoS. - M. 1985: The Urbanization of Rural Dialect Speakers. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. ChambersJ. K. 1992: Dialect Acquisition. —Language. 68/4, 673—705. Dorian N.C. 1982: Defining the Speech Community to Include its Working Margins. - S. Romaine (ed.). Sociolinguistic Variation in Speech Communities. London, Edward Arnold. 25—34. Dressler W.U., Wod ak R. 1982: Sociophonological Methods in the Study of Sociolinguistic Variation in Viennese German. —Language in Society. 11, 339—370. Giles H., Taylor D., Bourhis R. 1973: Towards a Theory of Interpersonal Accomodation Through Speech: Some Canadian Data. —Language in Society. 2, 177—192. : Grumadienėl.1992: Common and semi-dialectal language. —Your native language. 111307 GrumadieneL. 1993,: The Discovery of Halfarms. —Lithuanian language: researchers and research. To remember George Gershwin. Thesis of the Conference (Institute of Lithuanian Language, 1993 10 20—22). Vilnius. 15—16. 197 Grumadien eL. 1993p : Sociolinguistic approach to the į current general Lithuanian pronunciation norms. — Current issues of common understanding. State. seminar organized by the Lithuanian language commission (1993 12 13) thesis. Vilnius. 6. k GrumadienėL., Stundžia B. 1990, : Current Lithuanian Language Research Program. — Lituanistica. 3, 107—110. ; GrumadienėL.,Stundžia B. 1990, : Ar We will continue " Lithuanian Language Atlas" traditions? — Mother tongue. 5, 23—26. GumperzJ.J. 1982 : Discourse Strategies. Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK University Press. HarrisJ. 1991 : Conservatism Versus Substratal Transfer in Irish English. — P. Trudgill, J. Chambers (eds.). Dialects of English: Studies in Grammatical Variation. London, Longman. 191—212. 3 KerswillP. 1994 : Dialects Converging. Rural Speech in Urban Norway. Oxford, Clarendon Press. Labov W. 1972 : Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press. . . English to... 1995, : Lithuanian language dialects ir jų the interaction study programme. Morphology. — Compiled by D. Mikulėnienė ir K. Carrot. Vilnius. | English to... 19954: Lithuanian language dialects ir jų the interaction study programme. i Lexicon. — Sudaré A. Vidugiris. Vilnius. k MilroyJd.1992: Linguistic Variation and Change. Oxford, Basil Blackwell. MiuhlhauslerP. 1986 : Pidgin and Creole Linguistics. Oxford, Basil Blackwell. PupkisA. 1980 : Basics of language culture. Vilnius, ” Mokslas". | SiegelJ.1987: Language Contact in a Plantation Environment. Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK University Press. ThomasonS.,Kaufman T. 1988 : Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley, Calif., University of California of California Press. TrudgillP. 1972 : Sex, Covert Prestige and Linguistic Change in the Urban British English of Norwich. — Language in Society. 1, 179—195. TrudgillP. 1986 : Dialects in Contact. Oxford, Basil Blackwell. WaltersasK. 1994 : Dialectology. — Grumadian L., Marcinkevičienė R. (Sud.) Sociolinguistics ir of language culture. A collection of articles. Vilnius, "Native Language". 62—74. t Weinreich U., Labov W. Herzog M. 1968 : Empirical Foundations for a Theory of Language Change. — W.P. Lehmann, Y. Malkiel (eds.). Directions for Historical Linguistics. "Austin, University of Texas of Texas Press. 95—189. aaa no Ta Dia sa dd Lo si Je SOCIOLINGUISTIC ASPECT IN INVESTIGATING THE CONTEMPORARY SPOKEN LITHUANIAN Summary - The new "Program of the investigation of the Lithuanian dialects and dialect contact” is compiled by the Lithuanian dialectologists (ed. K. (Morris). Aim this of article is to emphasize the usefulness the sociolinguistic of method studying contemporary in dialects. A lot dialect of contact studies other in countries reviewed. is The author’s conception the contemporary of spoken Lithuanian is presented. The processes of koineization, substratum interference, borrowing, code-switching, styleshifting, etc. are discussed. Centering on idividual’s speech its in social context resumed the main is sociolinguistic as principle the dialect contact investigation. of 198 ; 3