Linguists know that language dialects can be territorial and social. And today the topic of our article is precisely the second category. But first, let us briefly touch on the concept of a territorial dialect. What is it?
What is a territorial dialect
This linguistic formation is a reflection of linguistic variants and differences of past periods - from the primitive communal system and the era of feudalism to the present day. Also, local dialects can be the result of the movement of peoples and groups across different territories and countries.
One or another territorial dialect can become the basis of a common language for the whole nation. An example is the Moscow dialect - the basis of the modern literary language in our country.
As the name implies, the appearance of a local (territorial) dialect speaks of the division of the language in a geographical sense (as opposed to a social one). But this linguistic variety also belongs to social categories, since a strictly defined circle of people speaks the local dialect. As a rule, we are talking about the older generation of rural residents. Linguists emphasize that any territorial dialect can be considered social to some extent.
Basic properties of the territorial dialect
Each of them performs a certain social function, limiting the range of their carriers by age and, to some extent, gender. Most often, the local dialect is used by elderly residents of villages. The scope of its use is limited to the range of domestic and family situations.
As a result of the merger and interaction of different dialects, semi-dialects are formed. Peculiar speech is leveled out under the influence of the education system and enriched with elements of the literary language.
Speaking of the Russian national language, there are several groups of territorial dialects. There are three of them: North Russian, Central Russian and South Russian. Each group has a characteristic number of features inherent in vocabulary, grammar and phonetics.
Which ones?
Examples of dialects of each of the three mentioned groups are familiar not only to linguists. So, representatives of one of the northern Russian dialects (living in the Vologda, Novgorod, Arkhangelsk regions) often "clack", "clatter", "pull together" some vowels in personal forms of verbs and do not distinguish between certain forms of cases.
Representatives of South Russian dialects living in the Tambov, Orel, Voronezh regions often "yak", pronounce the sound "u" in a special way, and use soft "t" in verb forms. Central Russian dialectsbecame the basis of the modern literary language in our country. That is why their inherent features ("akanye", etc.) are not perceived by us as outsiders.
Besides, each of them has certain lexical features. Nowadays, local dialects are being steadily destroyed under the influence of literary forms of the language.
Let's talk about social dialects
But back to the topic of our article. Today we would like to touch briefly on the concept of a social dialect (or sociolect). This term refers to the totality of certain linguistic features that are inherent in a particular social group. This group can be class, professional, age, etc. Each of the social dialects is limited to a certain subsystem of its national language.
In practice, few people think about it, but in everyday life we are constantly faced with certain manifestations of the language subculture. As an example, it is worth citing the features inherent in the modern school language, thieves' slang and jargon (professional slang) of computer scientists.
On the features of the concept
The term "social dialects" itself appeared due to its convenience as a concept denoting various language formations that have the main feature that unites them - they all serve to meet the communicative needs of socially limited human groups.
None of the sociolects is integralcommunication system. We are talking only about the features of speech, manifested in the form of phrases, individual words and syntactic constructions. That is, about the so-called slang vocabulary. The vocabulary and grammatical basis on which any sociolect is based practically does not differ from the generally accepted one in the given national language.
Decline and conjugate, combine into sentences, etc. jargon words and all sorts of specific designations according to the general patterns and rules of the language. With the exception of specific vocabulary, even in professional social dialects, mostly general language constructions are used.
Terms of sociolects
To distinguish between social dialects, a number of terms are used. What exactly?
Argo, according to the interpretation of well-known dictionaries (for example, Rosenthal) is classified as a language of individual social groups, created artificially and with the goal of linguistic isolation. Argo is sometimes used as a "secret" language. Its main characteristic is the presence of words incomprehensible to the uninitiated.
Jargon - a more rough, with a "pejorative" shade variety of slang. Slang vocabulary is most often characteristic of a marginal environment.
Slang (a very common term these days) is a set of words and expressions used by representatives of specific professions or social strata.
A group using one or another language education can be separated asprofessionally and socially from the rest of society. An example of a specific professional language education is computer slang or jargon, variations of social specific subcodes are student slang or thieves' Russian jargon.
Sometimes a group of social dialect speakers can separate both socially and professionally. Then the speech of its representatives combines the properties of different types of jargon. An example is the communication of soldiers in their own "language" (military business is an independent profession, its representatives live a separate life, quite socially isolated from the whole society).
What is vernacular?
Colloquialism is a separate subsystem of the national Russian language, which does not have a clear attachment to any territory. This is a kind of language that is spoken by the poorly educated urban population (those who are inaccessible to its literary norms). A vernacular was formed as a result of mixing different dialects in the conditions of the city, where there was a constant influx of villagers.
What is the difference between vernacular and territorial dialects? The main feature is that vernacular is not characterized by localization within a specific geographical framework. This distinguishes it from any of the territorial dialects. At the same time, vernacular cannot be called a part of the literary language, even such a variety of it as colloquial speech, due to its inherent properties of anormativity, non-codification.and the mixed nature of the means of language used.
Where you can eavesdrop
The vernacular has received its realization exclusively in oral form. At the same time, it can be reflected in certain samples of fiction and in private correspondence of persons who are its carriers. The places where vernacular is most often implemented are the family circle (communication of relatives), gatherings in city courtyards, contacts in the courts (often testimonies are vernacular), as well as in doctor's offices (when patients share complaints). The vernacular functions in a rather narrow sphere, limited by communicative situations of a family and everyday nature.
Linguists-researchers distinguish two separate layers of different temporal properties in modern vernacular - a set of traditional old means with a pronounced dialect origin and a layer of relatively new language forms that "flowed" into this type of dialect mainly from some social jargon. Thus, we can conditionally speak of the first and second types of vernacular.
What are these species?
The first type is usually typical for older citizens with a very low cultural and educational level. The carriers of the second are representatives of the young and middle generations, who are also insufficiently educated and do not have a high cultural level. Here we can also talk about the age (as well as gender) differentiation of carriers of each of these two types. The first of them is characterized by the predominance of elderly women.age, for the second - younger men.
As for the linguistic relationship, both these types simply differ from each other by a number of features - from phonetic to syntactic.
A large number of linguistic elements, previously related to socially or professionally limited word usage, are now borrowed into the literary language. This happens precisely because of the second variety of vernacular. Many examples of slang expressions are now considered quite literary and can be found not only in the works of individual authors, but also in the media.
Examples of dialects
There are a lot of stable phraseological units and types of personal address in use (examples - "like that", "I, in short", "sits like this", etc.) terms of kinship or social roles - "father", "friend", "man", "boss", "mother", "master", "commander", etc.
Both varieties of vernacular serve to convey messages in those communicative areas that are narrowly domestic in nature. Most often they are realized in speech acts of accusation, condemnation, etc. character. We are talking about quarrels, squabbles, swearing of elders in relation to younger ones, etc. But even with other types of communications, carriers of this social dialect use precisely the colloquial variety of the Russian language due to the inability to switch to higherforms of communication.
Universal slang
We should also mention the concept of koine, which is typical for megacities. Modern sociolinguistics considers under this term a kind of interdialect, which acts as a means of everyday communication of people using a variety of social or regional variants of their native language. This language form arose in the conditions of life in a big city with the mixing of a huge mass of people with completely different speech skills. For intergroup communication in such conditions, it was necessary to develop a universal means of communication, understandable to everyone.
Summing up briefly, we can conclude that the national language in our country is implemented in practice in the form of a large number of very different subsystems - social dialects of the Russian language, designed to serve the whole variety of spheres of social activity and the needs of specific groups. As a universal subsystem of the national language, linguists recognize the modern literary Russian language, which functions in the field of education and the media. Its tasks are the consolidation of all existing social groups and the preservation of the identity of the language community due to the presence of the main core - the language norm, the social and cultural role of which is difficult to overestimate.
