E-LEARNING (CALTIRA ROSIANA): LANGUAGE, DIALECT AND VARIETY

A. Language and Dialect

Every language shows some differences, it devides by some varieties. Language and dialect often confuse people because of their ambiguous meaning. Language and dialect refers to a dichotomy of a situation that is very complex. This is influenced by the sociohistorical factors that determine the boundaries for these two terms. Language is unity of some linguistitic communication system, e.g., Indonesian Language, Javanese Language, Malaysian Language, etc. Dialect is a variety of the language that influenced by the geographical area or social community, this variation comes from pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary used, e.g., in Javanese Language there are many dialects, such as Surabaya variety, Nganjuk, Pasuruan, Malang, Madiun, etc. Meanwhile, variety is the different using of the dialect among individuals, for example, the pronunciation of a word may be different between two individuals, the name of some certain thing maybe different in some places despite the fact that the speakers use the same language, and many more. These differences among the dialects are happening related to the external factors of linguistic items itself, it usually influenced by the geographical area or even the social group that use that language with their own style which produce some varieties. To clarify the whole explanation, here are the example of language, dialect, and the variety, as follow:

LANGUAGE	DIALECT	VARIETIES
Javanese	Pasuruan	To address ‘Mosquito’ - Some may use the common name ‘Nyamuk’ - Some other may use ‘Lemut’ To address ‘Blanket’ - Some may use ‘Selimut’ - Some other may use ‘Kemul’
Javanese	Nganjuk	To address ‘Mosquito’ - Some may use the common name ‘Nyamuk’ - Some other may use ‘Jengklong’ To say ‘Fortunately’ people in Nganjuk usually say ‘Tujune’ but some people pronounce it with S instead of T so it become ‘Sujune’

The difficulty in defining language as a term may come from the difficulty in classifying many types of communication into one term ‘Language’. Here, there are 7 criteria to distinguish languages, as follow :

1. Standardization, refers to the codifying process of a language which involves the development of the grammars, spelling books, dictionaries, and the literature, e.g., the changed of some word form of old Indonesian language spelling into the newest form (‘OE’ become ‘U’, ‘DJ’ become ‘J’, ‘J’ become ‘Y’, ‘TJ’ become ‘C’, etc), establish some standard words pronunciation (kalau read kalau instead of kalo/kalao, etc), adapting foreign language into the mother tounge of Indonesia (aktor from actor, bisnis from bussiness, ekspor from export, etc), etc.

2. Vitality, this criteria refers to the existence of the speaker community, this criteria aims to determine wether the language still ‘alive’ or it’s already ‘dead’ as the spearker community extinct, e.g., Kejali, Piru, Moksela Plumata, Ternateno, Hukumina, Hoti, Serua, and Nila in Maluku, and Tandia and Mawes from Papua.

3. Historicity, refers to the identity finding of a certain group of people that is gained by using a certain language, e.g., Indonesia was colonized by by countries for many years, it makes Indonesian language adopt and adapt some language to form a new language which fit the character of Indonesian people.

4. Autonomy, refers to the feeling that the speaker felt while speaking the language, but this is only subjective criterion, e.g., people who live and use dialect of Surabaya eill feel that they speak the same language with the people who live in Malang, despite their pronunciation, and/or another linguistic items are different, they still speak the same language, and they believe that Surabayan and Malang are just dialect and part of Javanese language.

5. Reduction, some certain variety may be considered as the sub-variety than a single independent variety, e.g., dialect that is almost similar with the other dialog are usually invisible, it often reecognized as the other similar language that is more famous.

6. Mixture, refers to how the speaker feels about the purity in speaking the variety. A standard language should be pure, so that the speaker may convince themself that they speak a certain language in the right way. This can be portrayed by when a speaker talk using pidgins and creoles they will feel that those languages they used are not pure, it’s not standard, and sometimes even offending.

7. De Facto norms, it’s about the feeling of ‘good’ and ‘poor’ speaker in using the language. If all of the speakers feel that the language they speak is good enough to be spoken, the language will survive, yet if they don’t, if all of the speakers feel that the language is bad to be spoken then the language may face a death, no one will use it then the language will soon extinct. This case may be figured by a pidgin that can’t be creole because there are no more generation use it as a language, for example : “He, kon nuju main di die, tong ngalamun”, “ Aya-aya wae kon iku”, etc.

B. Regional Dialect, Social Dialect, Style and Register

As the previous statement that language is bigger than dialect and dialect is just a variety of the language that influenced by the geographical area or social community, dialect is devided into two types. They are Regional and Social dialect.

1. Regional Dialect

As the name is regional dialect, this variety or dialect is influenced by the geographical area where the language is spoken. The language that has been spoken for a very long time in a certain area may be different with the language in the other area, the differences might be coming from the pronunciation, forms of the words, and even the syntax of a language. This can be portyrayed when we see two person that come from the different cities such as Malang and Trenggalek, they use the same language ‘Javanese Language’ but their dialect might be different, the differences may seen by the use of some specific words, the pronunciation, or even the arrangement of a sentence. However, the different variety is still consider as one single language, so how do we know the sum of the variety exist, and how to classify the varieties?

Dialect Geography is the answer of the previous question, it is the technique used to map the distribution of the variety to show where the variety comes from and where the boundaries of the use of that variety take place. To clarify the actual boundaries of the variety distribution, maps are used and drawn, the boundaries here called as isoglosses. This is aimed to show which area uses a certain variety, and which does not. If there are isoglosses that apparently similar, it’s called as dialect boundary. For example if we want to know the distributions of a dialect, the dialect geographers will ask some question such as is this place using the same form of a certain word like the other place near by or is it not? How the people pronounce some certain words, is it sounds similar or not? When they have the questions, they will draw a map to show the differences and the similarities of the dialect used so that they can distinguish and count the dialect.

2. Social Dialect

In social dialect, the variety comes from the differences among social groups or social classes, e.g. on work, neighborhood, education, race or ethnic, cultural background, caste, religion, etc. In social dialect, the dialect will represent the social status of an individual in a social group. For example, the differences in pronouncing the word ‘Pertalite’ between a university student and a farmer. A university student especially the one from English Department will pronounce it as ‘Pertelait’ and a farmer will pronounce it as ‘Pertalit’.

3. Style and Register

Style in this case means the way a language is spoken; the style of someone in speaking a certain language. Weather it is formal, very formal, or informal/casual, it is depend on the situation in which a language spoken, is it a ceremonial occasion? Is it a lecture? Is it a conversation between mother and daughter? Etc. To whom the speaker talk also affect the style of language that should be applied, e.g., talking to the older person should use polite language and polite manner, while talking to friend, we just need to use casual style, etc.

In another hand, there is register which means a set of language items that are related to a certain job or social group, e.g., pilots, drivers, clerks, doctors, etc. In that kind of social groups, people usually repeat their communication, this repeated communication usually use the same vocabulary, intonation, or even the syntax and phonology over and over. This repeating apparently become habit to the people in such occupation, this also help the people to communicate faster. Besides that, this specific words used repeatedly appear to be the representatives of someones job. For example: the farmer usually talk about their agricultural progress, they use agricultural terms such as ‘Sirat and Ngerit’ that are only understood by those who are farmer.

Both of these terms are related to a certain speak situation, where the style refers to the vocabulary choosing and includes the grammatical variations, meanwhile the register only refers to the vocabulary choosing.