Introduction

What is Language? Language is the biological accommodation to communicate information. Why is our use of language not the same as others use of language? Language variation occurs due to social, temporal, and geographical changes and differences. Due to these factors my great grandmother Sue Shronce, my grandmother Sherry Moore, and my mother Koni Dotson use of language deviate from one another.

All women were born in North Carolina ; however, they were raised in different areas. There is a twenty-year generation gap between each woman. My great grandmother is 78 years old, my grandmother is 58 years old, and my mother is 38 years old.

All women were raised with the same values yet, over the generations they have formed different ways of speaking there language, part of this is due to social changes and inventions. In Sue's generation, car radios, the first nuclear bomb, and the NBA were invented. In Sherry's generation, cable TV, microwave ovens, and credit cards were invented. In Koni's generation, handheld calculators, VCRs, cell phones, and Microsoft Windows were invented.

Each woman's use of language is encoded differently despite the similarities they share. I will prove that social, temporal, and geographical differences lead to language variation. Below are samples of recordings of Sue Shronce, Sherry Moore, and Koni Dotson.

Transcription

Great Grandmother: "Mama Sue " Laura: Where were you Born? Where were you Born? Mama Sue: Rhodhiss North Carolina Laura: OK.... What environment did you learn to uh…. Use language? ... location? Mama Sue: In Rhodhiss, in uh where I was born Laura: Over generations umm…. there are differences in the use of language. In your generation, how would you say it differed from another generation? Mama Sue: I'd say that uh… our's came about you know from our you know grandparents you know all and then from my father and mother… My father cause my mother died when I, right after I was born. Laura: OK I heard a funny story from uh Tootie, saying that that someone made fun of your accent when you lived in Ohio . Can you explain about that? Mama Sue: Oh yes uh huh! It was a slow drawl they say, they said you know and uh they thought we were uh southern you know from the south... Yup. Laura: What did they call you? Mama Sue: Hillbillies. Laura: All right.

Grandmother: "Tootie" Laura: Where were you born? Tootie: Uh, North Carolina, Hickory. Laura: OK. Where did you learn your language ? Tootie: Started speaking in North Carolina. Laura: Umm… Over generations, language is differed over each generation. How would you say your generation differs from grandma's or mama's? Tootie: Well grandma's way totally just about from here North Carolina . My was a mixture of two different uh ... from north and south. Laura: What umm ... Would you say your accent or language has evolved over time? Tootie: Oh yes, yes, yes … and how! Well like I say when I was in high school when we moved from Akron Ohio back here the English teacher had me pronounce my words. Because she said I pronounced them correctly, from what they did here. Here they had the drawl to it and I didn't. Laura: I guess that is a good advantage... What were some cool sayings, like when you were my age? Tootie: One of them was "Bite me!" (laughter) If you were mad at somebady you would just turn around and holler "Bite me!" (laughter) That was true. In high school we did. Believe me or not! Laura: What do you think about email, radio, newspapers, and TV with the use of language? Tootie: I remember when we first got our television, we lived in Ohio and uh we had uh the television on a swivel base. We were one of the first people in our area to have one.... So we learned a lot from TV... before then it was radio. But I can't hardly remember without television so (laughter) …. There was a tele... There was a program on television and uh they were talking about writ'n (writing) uh child story. This man wrote it and he used the word… oh what was that?… "morose". Most people don't know what "morose" means, and at the time neither did I - but I found out. "Morose" means "sad" … But in a child story you wouldn't use the word "morose" you would use "sad" or like so. But I learned different words like that... Laura: Through TV. Tootie: Yeah through television and newspapers, radio - see that helps stimulate your, what your mind picks up in words that you wouldn't ordinarily use any other time. Laura: Uh Linguist say that uh you learn language in the environment, what words or languages did you pick up from grandma or from… Tootie: (laughter) You want to know one? "Ya'll" (laughter) "Ya'll come." (laughter) That's the truth.

Mother: "Mama" Laura: Where were you born? Mama: I was born in Lenore North Carolina at a hospital that no longer um is standing. Laura: Generations differ in the use of language. How would you say your generation differed from others? Mama: My generation I think was one of the, I would say one of the generations that started using a lot of slang… Uh started using uh more or less we were the original users of the word "like." Um the whole valley girl talk and stuff was from my generation, during the 80s. Umm with all the umm the, I would consider different totally different language, umm but we did start using a lot more slang I think with my generation. And like I said we were the original user of the word "like" (laughter). Laura: OK. Would you say your accent or uses of language as evolved over time? Mama: I would say my language has gotten a lot more formal as I have gotten older. Uh after leaving college and going into uh the work force I think its had to get uh little more formal than what it was in my younger years. Laura: What were some cool sayings, when you were my age. Mama: "Oh my gosh," uh like you know…lets see what were some of the other sayings… gosh its been such a long time….um "way cool" everything was "way cool" and "that's pretty hip" um the biggest thing was the whole valley girl "like oh my gosh!" Laura: OK. Umm what do you think about radio, email, newspapers, and TV? Mama: Well radio was what when I was growing up was the big thing to get you know all of your music on. Umm you would buy albums or you would buy 45's um or would buy... We later got into cassette tape, um I wasn't....the whole eight track tape thing was happening umm when I first was uh I guess when I was around 12 or 13, then went into cassette tapes, and of course we still had our 45's and LP's. I didn't see a compact disk until I in college you know around 85/86 so. That's what I feel I mean radio. Laura: Email… Mama: Email is one of the greatest things that the world could have invented. It is a very good tool to keep in touch with people you normally would not keep in touch with. Because I think the art of writing letters has died and um I wrote a lot of letters in college because I did not have email. Email wasn't around um when I started college the com... computer was just kicking off big and heavy. So I think email is a great tool.

Analysis

We don't pay very much attention to the words that come out of our mouths. Instead, we concentrate on the meaning we intend to express, it is very rare that we consciously think of how we express that meaning. We don't know where the words we express came from or how they came to have that meaning, we just acquire them as we get older. Words we acquire are very important in our lives. They can make our life easy or difficult depending on which words we use for varies occasions.

Our native language, English, comes form many different sources, and it develops naturally over time. During this time different peoples use of language starts to deviate from one another, causing variations. Variations occur due to social, geographical, and temporal changes. For example, people from England and North Carolina speak differently. They pronounce the words that sound differently but have the same meaning. Take for instant the in North Carolina a hood means the hood of a car, in England the hood of a car is a bonnet, were in North Carolina a bonnet is cap for women. These differences make up dialects, which vary with different people. Once the dialects continue over time the differences increase until people from another area can't understand them, and the new dialect forms a new language, which leads me to dialect variation. Many different variables cause variation. For instance: gender, profession, national origin, education, class, age, or religion. We acquire this dialect during our critical period. Pinker stated, “The real engine of verbal communication is the spoken language we acquired as children,” which is during our critical period. We learn to talk to society in which we are born, which is the concept of epigenesis.

My great grandmother Sue stated that she learned how to speak from her surroundings, which was mostly form her father. All women grew up in North Carolina , however due to the era they were born they speak differently; since we learn to talk to society in which we were born did Mama Sue learn how to talk only from her father? No, due to her era she acquired a different type of language than her father. Her father gave her guidance but she did not speak exactly like him, she spoken similar to her society in which she grew up. Due to the lost of her mother at birth and her father at age ten, she grew up with her grandmother, who had 11 children of her own to take care of. Causing Mama Sue to mature much faster than other children her age because she also had to help take care of her brothers and sisters, which caused social variation in her language. Another factor causing social variation is the radio. During Mama Sue's time, the car radio was invented, which was another medium to learn language (message).

Also in her era she did not have to work, mostly she was a housewife. It wasn't until she was in her 50's that she started to work. She was a supervisor at a small nursing home; which consisted of housewife duties. Geographically, Sue has lived in North Carolina for over 70 years. The other years, she lived in Ohio , with her Southern Accent. During the interview, she told me that her neighbor in Ohio called her a Hillbilly due to her accent. Mama Sue's accent or use of language never really changed after her critical period until she had a stroke in the summer of 2004. During this time, I quit my summer job to help Mama Sue get through the difficulties. The Stroke affected the Right Side of the Brain, which caused her to have left hemiplegia, lose of short-term memory, lose of spatial and perceptional abilities, and judgment difficulties. It took her the whole summer to regain her strength in walking and controlling her left body movements. Also, it took her awhile to regain the concept that there are objects or people on her left side. The biggest problem was her Short-term memory; she could not remember what she ate for breakfast or what we had done together about an hour ago. In the interview, it was hard for her to concentrate and remember the question. The stroke and time factors caused temporal variations.

My grandmother Tootie, stated she learned language in North Carolina , yet during part of her critical period she lived up north in Ohio . Due to the critical period in two different locations she had a mixture of spoken language, which also caused social variation. She told me that due to her northern accent she was at an advantage to the children in the south because her teacher told her she pronounced her words correctly. However, due to living in the south so many years she did pick up some common slang such as the word ya'll, which is temporal variation. Unlike Mama Sue, Tootie had to work; it was not uncommon for women to enter the work force during her era. This caused Tootie's language to become more formal than Mama Sue's. Another factor causing social variation is the television. Tootie stated that the television, which was a new medium to learn messages, allowed her to learn different words. The television brought a new era of thought. People now could learn new things from across the world by viewing a screen, which made things seem more real than hearing them on the radio.

My mother Koni also learned language in North Carolina . During her era, she acquired the valley girl talk and began using a lot of slang such as the word like . However, due to the work force the language she learned during her critical period evolved into a more formal language. Her accent also evolved due to the number of location she lived at because of her job. She adapted to the environment, which caused her language to deviate from Tootie and Mama Sue. Another social variation is email. This tool caused another medium to get a message across. However, this medium is more personal than television or radio, because it take the place of the “art of writing letters”. Overall, Mama use of language evolved into a more formal language due to technology and geographical changes.

“Although many organisms communicate with others of the same species, humans are unique in extensiveness and complexity of word language. With each passing day, linguistic enterprise-hundreds of separate languages, thousands of dialects, wireless and fiber-optic networks, computers and high-speed presses, print and broadcast media, libraries of books, microfilm, and CD's-is becoming more central to human existence.” Because of this, each generation's use of language has evolved, because the medium of learning has evolved through technology. In addition, variations occur due to society changes such as working, or having more education or having more knowledge of different languages. Lastly, variation occurs due to old age, humans become wiser as they grow older; they learn better technique from experience. Therefore, Mama Sue can tell proverbs from her era that applies today, yet my generation doesn't have that experience and to gain her knowledge we must adapt to her era in which she “the wise” was born.

Sources

Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct . New York : HarperCollins,1994.

Shronce, Sue. Personal interview. Fall 2004.
Moore, Sherry. Personal interview. Fall 2004.  
Dotson, Koni. Personal interview. Fall 2004.

http://www.strokeassociation.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=1052

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/messeas/handouts/dialect/node4.html

http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/ling008.html

About the Author

My name is Laura Elizabeth Carroll and I am a freshman at the University of North Carolina at Chapel-Hill. I plan to major in Pediatric Nutrition, and dream of one day reaching my goal to become a Pediatrician.

Constance and Jeff Dotson raised me in the small town called Cherryville; home of the Ironmen and New-years Shooters. Cherryville is a wonderful place to raise children because it is a small community where everybody knows everybody, and if one is in need someone will be there to help. Also, the town has so much history. It is an honor to be apart of such a great country town. One of the things I loved to do is help mentally handicapped children in the community. Doing this I realized I wanted to a Pediatrician. I love the quote, “The real magic wand is the child's mind,” by Jose Ortega y Gasset because the mentally handicapped children minds were incredible. If we could all have the same innocent minds there would be no more fighting in this world.

I also enjoy playing sports such as Basketball and Tennis, and I love to hear, play and sing music. I would love to travel, especially to Italy and Spain to see their cultures and beautiful lands. At the end of the summer, I will be attending New Zealand and Australia with my grandparents. Hopefully, I will be able to see how their culture and language works.

This class has been really enjoyable. I have learned so many different accepts of different cultures and their language. The reason I chose my project was to learn different accepts of my family's language and how it was encoded into their minds.